Just wondering….

What happens when something looks too easy? Or the context is wrong?

This Labor Day weekend ( For the non-US people The “official” end of the summer in the U.S. first Monday in September – not May 1 ) me and my family went to the California State Fair.

There we saw Frank Oliver, a magician and his sidekick doing a bunch of tricks, fire swallowing, etc. My kids absolutely loved the show. One of the “tricks” was sword swallowing. Frank announces that his personal best was 19 inches and now he is going to attempt to do 22 inches for the “first time”. ( Having seen the show earlier in the day I knew that he had done it before — of course! ). Frank sits on the chair and his assistant makes a show of hammering the sword down.

Frank made it look so easy. Too easy.

Like everyone else in the audience, I was certain that there was a “trick” – the sword was rigged and it collapsed, or something. I discovered that there is no “trick” with sword swallowing. Frank was actually swallowing the sword and sword shallowing is quite dangerous:

Learning to ignore an involuntary process takes a tremendous amount of practice. In the case of sword swallowing, it generally involves deliberately activating the gag reflex over and over. The process can cause vomiting and considerable discomfort. It also dulls or removes a process intended to protect the person from harm. This is one of the many reasons why sword swallowing is dangerous.

The study involved the voluntary survey of 110 English-speaking sword swallowers. Forty-six of the 48 performers who responded consented to having their data used in the study. Thirty-three of the respondents included information about their medical histories. From most to least common, the side-effects they experienced from sword swallowing included:

* Throat pain, or sword throat
* Persistent lower chest pain, likely from injury to the esophagus or the diaphragm
* Internal bleeding
* Esophageal perforations, three of which required surgery
* Pleurisy, an inflammation of the lungs
* Pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac that covers and protects the heart

Furthermore,

The Sword Swallowers Association International (SSAI) defines a sword swallower as a person who can swallow a 15-inch (38-centimeter) sword, which wouldn’t necessarily enter the stomach. The SSAI’s maximum recommended length for a swallowed sword is 24 inches (61 centimeters), which would put the tip of the sword well into the performer’s stomach [Source: swordswallow.com]

So 22 inches was near the extreme end of what was possible.

Something this dangerous and this involved deserves a better build up than being in the middle of an act and casually done. Frank should have explain how dangerous sword swallowing is, built up the suspense and drama. Instead sword swallowing was devalued simply because the lead-in was casual and it was treated like a joke.

Some times hard things should be made to look hard.

What about your company’s product? Is your company doing something hard and devaluing it because the difficulty of the problem is not being bragged about? Should the customers be aware of how hard the problem was — so they appreciate and value your solution more?

Interesting post from Lisa Rutherford about reaching for a universal currency and some discussion about some problems with that dream.

While the glories of a “universal” currency are appealing, I think this might be a “feature” that is in fact a negative.

First some questions:

1. Don’t we already have a “universal” virtual currency called the US dollar (and the Euro)?
2. Europe has been working very hard at the euro. Struggling with dissimilar economies that are only beginning to work together. Some countries had this tendency to spend to solve problems (Italy, Greece, Spain). Others were more conservative in their money printing philosophy (Germany). Working through these issues has been a constant source of tension. How will this be any easier between two different companies with different philosophies about how virtual currencies should be used?

Virtual currency companies should look at casinos and the collectible market instead.

Casinos issue casino chips for very good reasons. If gamblers use bank notes to place their bets then every bet becomes a purchasing decision: “I could place this $20 bill on Red 7, or I could buy a steak dinner”. Chips makes the purchasing decision happen only once. Redeeming chips has a “cost” — the gambler has to find the cashier. The cashier is not near an exit. The gambler then still has to escape the casino with the cash resisting temptation all the way.

Casinos also issue special chips that cannot be redeemed. These chips are billed as “Your first bet is free” chips.

Lastly, some casinos use chips as a branding, souvenir opportunity. A percentage of chips are never exchanged representing free money to the casinos.

Because casinos allow exchange out of their “virtual currency”, they have to spend a lot of time and effort on complying with money laundering regulations. By striving for universality, virtual currency companies will subject themselves to the same regulations.

Virtual currency companies should instead serve the same purpose as casino “first-bet” chips. Non-redeemable, can only be used to have fun, and to not make it obvious to the consumer that they are spending money.

A universal “Linden dollar” or “Lisa dollar” looks and feels too much like a “real” dollar to pay the real rent. The “currency” should stick to “toy/game-like” characteristics: “magic dust”, “gold”.

Virtual currency companies should steer away from “purchasing” words to “barter” words: “trade”, “exchange”, “collect”.

Additionally look at trading card companies like Topps, Upper Deck, and Magic: The Gathering. Very arguably these companies have been profitably exchanging unwanted dollars for valued cardboard for years. Trading cards were a virtual currency long before “virtual currency” was a buzz word. I do know that goplaynetwork.com is working on such a system.

Collectability is the direction that virtual currency companies should head toward — not universality.

Greg Berry also commented on Lisa’s Venture Beat virtual currency post. He touches some of the same themes as this post but he focuses more on the social aspects of virtual currency. He refers to : tuggl , twollars , openmoney and cyclos.

Greg Berry is correct. The social aspects of virtual currency need to be enhanced not the universalness

Boy when Seth Godin gets it wrong he really gets it wrong. Seth postulates that people should be willing to ignore n00b (new) customers or decide that some people are not a good customer fit for a product because they don’t “get it right”.

Seth is saying this because he wants to make sure that people don’t “bake the magic” of the product out in attempt to dumb down the product for the noobies.

Seth makes a key, common, fatal error. He assumes the product has to be the same for everyone.

Seth offers a few strawman arguments like “should symphonies have applause signs” or “not obvious what to do when you walk into a church for the first time”. Completely ridiculous statements that miss how society has evolved to handle n00bies in precisely these situations. A n00bie at the symphony or church looks around and sees what others are doing and they follow the lead of the crowd around them. If others are clapping after a masterful solo performance, the musically clueless claps as well – and learns to pay closer attention to the soloist. In the Roman Catholic church, a Protestant will learn to make the sign of the cross and kneel in the right places.

What great products need are what society uses in real world situations. Someone who spots the new people and offers to introduce to help them out. Microsoft’s bob was a lame version of this concept, but the principle remains a good one.

Think about the mental rewards of having pieces of the product reveal themselves to expert users. Rather than show everything all at once, hid the advanced features. Make it hard to find the advanced features. Keep the advanced features, even the link to the advanced features hidden. Make a little icon over in the corner unobtrusive for the new user. But as the new user becomes experienced, have that icon brighten and become more obvious.

The user gets curious and clicks on it. The service or program then reveals cool new features or expert settings options. All of a sudden, the user is in the in-crowd. They know something about the product that their friends don’t. They now feel special. They get to call up their friends and say “hey go to the second step and click on that little square.” or “move the mouse to the lower right”.. Whatever it is it doesn’t matter. Your users will now go on a easter egg hunt using your product. They will be actively incentivized to really become fans. They will go on message boards spreading the word about how to get to cool new features.

Think Easter Eggs not RTFM.

Remember most people are comfortably mediocre (intermediate uses) with your product. They start off as n00bies and they can easily transition to mediocre. But they have no iterest or desire to become experts. Their bonus is not determined by being an expert in the program or service.

The hard part isn’t getting n00bies to intermediate. The hard part is making them want to be experts.

Make your customers want to become experts — don’t turn them away when they are n00bies.

I used to work at LinkedIn. At the time I was there, one of the hardest problems they had was they did not know how to spot when a user would go from a few connections to thousands — or would always stay at a few connections.

Similarly you do not know who is going to be your future power users.