Creating Addictive Products and Pearls from the Road
It's now the start of fall when the leaves turn brown as the skies go dark. At least on this side of the planet. Down under, spring is springing of course.
I'm back from my Midwest Highway 20 photo tour. A side hustle with an indeterminate economic future. But a certain soul-filling one. It's fascinating to drive across this big country. And big it is. I realized mid-way through a week was a bit too short to bite off Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois. But managed anyway. Kept me focused and yielded a solid collection of images I'm now in the process of editing.
We don't always know where a side hustle will take us. But that's why it's important to take the long view. For you, the career reinventionists, you've no doubt pursued projects that seemingly had no economic viability. Dots connect in mysterious ways.
Spending time in rural America exposed me to a very different pace of life. And bad coffee. What's remarkable is how we adjust our lives to fit where we live. One standout is Elsie, who's owned the Monowi Tavern for 50 years. She's a legend and it was a privilege to meet her, the sole resident of this town. While I appreciate the charm of small towns and slower pace of life, I do love the city.
Aside from having too many images I want to see printed large on my walls, this trip crystalized a few thoughts:
Clarity of thought and purpose.
If you don't have an inkling of where you're going, pick something to focus on. On my drive, I didn't know exactly what I'd photograph, but I knew what I was drawn to and looking for. That's evolved since I began the project in 2018. And I will go back and redo the Oregon leg as a result. Not that it's completely different. But I see the road differently now and that's changed my approach.
Knowing who you're for and not for.
If you don't know who's interested in what you're doing, you won't know how to reach them. Nor will you know how to create what for whom. I'm creating this photo collection to satisfy my penchant for exploring the diversity of this country. The road gives it focus. If no one else sees these images, I am forever changed and it infuses the work I do everyday.
Multi tasking is really hard.
The intensity of photographing for this project, where I drove and photographed 11 hours per day for 7 straight days meant that I wasn't working much on thoughts for this letter. It's darn impossible to switch between seeing and creating images and connecting dots on where work is going in the moment. Even though there were long stretches of driving, my mind was focused on making images. I was 'in the zone'. By the end of the week I was exhausted and didn't realize how much until I landed back in Portland.
Multitasking is hard. Especially for men. I read recently where women's brains have many more connections in the pre-frontal cortex than men which allows them to actually multitask. You know how men are accused of being able to only think about one thing at a time? It's true. Sure, there are exceptions, but extensive studies have proven otherwise. Read about it in Robin Dunbar's book on Friendship.
Creating addictive products
I did absorb "Hooked" by Nir Eyal about how to build habit- forming products. Nir analyzed what the big tech companies do to get us addicted to their products and distilled it into a framework you can adopt for the products you build. Not all products are intended to be habit forming. You could say this is the secret to manipulating people, and it is. But it's what companies like Facebook have mastered. He wrote the book so that people could understand what's going on underneath the hood.
Nir also encourages us to use this framework for good. As do I.
The framework consists of a trigger - internal and external, action, variable reward and investment. People and companies that care about making a positive difference generally fare better in the long run.
Before we engage - or want to engage with a product - we need a trigger.
External triggers are those that put information in our path that make us take notice. Internal triggers are those tied to memories and experiences.
External triggers include paid advertising, invitations to join or participate, media coverage or email lists and alerts.
Internal triggers are those tied to our emotions. Boredom and irritation are common ones that companies tap into.
The next step is action taken based on these triggers.
B.J. Fogg, a Stanford University Professor known for his book, Tiny Habits, developed a behavior model Nir references in Hooked:
"B=MAP: Behavior (B) happens when Motivation (M), Ability (A), and a Prompt (P) come together at the same moment."
Ability is key to whether action is taken on a trigger or task: How long it takes (time), cost (hard dollars), effort required, both mental and physical, how much it disrupts one's routines and whether or not the action is socially acceptable.
When you're developing a product, you want to understand how hard it is for people to act. Then look for ways to make it simpler. Removing barriers speeds adoption.
Variable rewards create excitement
If your product is too predictable then people will grow tired of it in time. We are hard wired to gravitate to what's new. What's unexpected. We like surprises (as long as they're pleasant of course).
Ever get excited when your phone beeps? You want to know who or what's on the other side of that beep don't you? That's why social streams and text messages keep us coming back over and over. We don't want to miss out. And when we don't know what's there, we look.
Pinterest is designed so that you scroll endlessly and when at the bottom of the screen you see partial images - just enough to pique your interest keep you scrolling. That's the power of a product built on this framework.
Your rewards have to match the product and the action. If they're mismatched, you'll be out of luck. Engagement will evaporate.
Finally, investment by users increases product use
The more someone invests time in a product, the more they'll keep using it rather than switching to another. Consider a platform like Substack which hosts this newsletter. I've invested over a year into creating content here and the cost of switching goes up with each issue I publish.
On social platforms, the value is in the audience you build. If you've invested a lot of time creating content on Instagram and building a following, it's darn hard to move away and get your audience to come with you. After all, that's where they spend time and interact with you.
In the business world, companies invest in financial and business management software, training their employees on using it and centralizing all of their data within. Not only is it hard to move your data, typically, but you also have to retrain your employees. They need to learn new habits. That causes pain, lost productivity and grief.
Master the art of mixing triggers, actions, variable rewards and user investment and you have the makings of a successful product. Knowing this, you also know how other companies manipulate you. His book, Indistractable, teaches you how to thwart these habit-forming products among other things.
As a creator competing for attention, this model can help you design the right product for the right audience and gain traction. Just know what your intentions are. Use these tools for good. Make sure your product makes your people better off.
To know if you're on the right track, ask these two questions:
1. Would you use your own product?
2. Will it improve your customer's lives or not?
To go deeper, grab a copy of Hooked. It's a short 5-hour listen. Once you learn this framework, it changes how you see technology in action.