Rotary Phone

In 1844 people started working on inventing the telephone. By 1876, Alexander Graham Bell finished the invention and 1915 brought the first coast-to-coast long-distance telephone call. From this invention, we progressively ended up with more and more telephones. From one in every town until there was one in every household and finally, one in every pocket.

Once upon a time, these things were important. When they rang, they were answered. There was almost never a reason to not answer one. If someone was calling, then it was for a reason and a purpose. There was no spam in a phone call for quite some time. The phone ringing has previously meant so much to our culture. People would answer every phone call coming into their homes. People would never make frivolous calls and telemarketers did not exist. It was an importance ingrained into their minds.

Today, phone calls are not so important. The phone is as much for talking as it is watching videos, sending emails, and checking sports scores. Today, when my phone rings, I am about almost more likely to ignore it than answer it. Most everyone who knows me will text or Facebook message me long before they would ever call. Almost no-one will call me anymore. And I am totally content with not being called.

However, what if I did treat my phone the same way people treated phones in 1915. What if everything happening on my phone was as important as it was in 1915. What if, every time my phone beeped, chimed, or lit up, I had to react immediately? What sort of craziness would I be subjecting myself to!? What sort of craziness would I be subjecting the people around me to!?
The brilliance of the phone evolving is actually lost when I treat it the same way it was treated 101 years ago. 101 years ago no-one would even consider calling you for no reason at all.

Do you give your phone a 2016 job to be done or a 1915 job to be done? Do you treat it as if it was developed today or more than 100 years ago? What are you making more important than you should?

Phoned,

–JT

Job To Be Done

One of the podcasts I listen to is hosted by Horace Dediu. He is an analyst and all around a really interesting person full of great discussions and observations revolving around “[Apple and the]…success and failure in the evolving story of mobile computing and related industries….” A frequent theme of the show is the discussion of what the job-to-be-done is of a specific item, tool, company, or corporation. The jobs-to-be-done comes from the Clay Christensen Institute and they have a great definition for what it means to discuss the “jobs-to-be-done framework.”

My favorite part about the jobs-to-be-done definition is in reference to how you hire a product when you purchase it. The transactional nature of hiring paints, in me, a beautiful picture. I can see myself walking into a grocery store looking to hire some eggs and take them home with me or looking to hire some new headphones because my old ones broke. As I look for new headphones, I go to my favorite review site and see who they suggest to hire. I read the user reviews on Amazon, the reviews and comparisons on my favorite site, and of course price compare across a few different e-retailers as well as a brick-and-mortar or two, if I can. When I make the ultimate decision on my headphones, I hire them. (This process is so different from a 21st century employer going to LinkedIn and vetting their applicants or googling their applicants.) 

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I on the other have a job to be done as well. Not the job to be done because I am hired to do it, but the job to be done as I am intrinsically inspired to do. I must do the job I am inspired to do and do it well. I have a job to do because of the talents I have, skills I have, and the way I am designed. I am fortunate to have been hired to do this job not only in life but also for a career. I am so thankful my job-to-be-done is what I get to do every day. 

I have found the intersection of what I like to do and what the world needs from someone like me. The jobs-to-be-done framework inspires me to look at the world as a marketplace. The interactions between people, businesses, cars, technology, and nature. Looking at all of these parts I have watched them and observationally studied them. I have watched for the things that did not make sense. The things that did not quite fit together. The parts and pieces that did not quite belong and I began pushing at these pieces. Poking them. Questioning them. Analyzing how they work and trying to relate to them. The more I watched, analyzed, and related the more I began to see what in me has sprang up and became more excited about my observations. My observations began to show me who I am. My ability to relate to my observations cued me into what I breathes life into me. I noticed the things that mattered to me and helped me see how I fit into the world. 

What is your job-to-be-done? What parts of the world around you strike you as odd? How do you relate to these parts of the world?

Observing the odd,

–JT

Features

Have you ever experienced a broken product? It just does not do the job you paid for it to do. You try, you finagle. You adjust. It does not do the job you have put money out to have done. No matter what you do or how you rearrange it, it does not work. It actually even brings the other products around it down too. They are not as functional as they could be because of this one product. It is not as if this product is not doing anything. The product is simply functioning in a useless way. It will not do what you need it to do and it will keep doing things you do not need it to do. And what’s worse, sometimes it even does things counterproductive to the environment it is in.

I feel like the broken product sometimes. Other times I look back at life and see points in my life where I was a broken product. I am never proud of those moments. Broken product moments are when I am not being an enhancement to the people around me. I am trying to do the right thing. I am trying to help. However, I am limited by my perspective or my understanding of the situation. Other times I am limited by my maturity, selfishness, or personal grievances. I am not idle am doing something. The question is, am I doing something productive or counterproductive. Am I operating as a feature or as a hindrance? Another way to ask this questions is, Am I doing the job I have been hired to do? I do not only mean in the professional sense but also the personal sense. For instance, my wife has hired me to be her husband, my friends have hired me to be a good friend, my landlord has hired me to rent their apartment. Hiring someone does not mean they are being paid for the job to be done. Hiring someone means they are given the tools and believed to be capable of the job to be done. (I will have to discuss my thoughts and the thoughts I have gleaned from others on this topic later.) When I do the job I have been hired for, I enhance my environment; but, when I do not do the job I have been hired for, I impede my environment from achieving it’s full potential.

I strive to be a feature to the people around me, to my friends, spouse, coworkers, and family. I try to be a feature. However, how can a feature know if it is a hindrance? 

They are both trying to do what they are designed to do. They are both operational. They both are trying to move their agenda forward. However, how does their environment react? Is their environment a better place because they are operating in the way they are designed? Are the people around me better for knowing me?

Are you a feature or a hindrance? Are the people around you better for knowing you? Are you doing the job you’ve been hired to do?

Featuring,

–JT