Social Cause Marketing - The Regis Group Inc

stream of prototypes to customers to
ask what they would change if they
could, until they ultimately receive
what is called a ëhot yesí from customers.
Surprising Prototype Fact #3
A ëfailedí prototype is highly useful to
the innovation process. In essence,
there is no such thing as a ìfailedî
prototype, as long as you learn something
from it. Prototypes rapidly
clarify what should and should not
be pursued, and numerous ëfailedí
ideas are typically abandoned or reconstituted
as customers provide
feedback in the process of finding the
best alternative. What some might
consider to be ëfailedí prototypes still
provide powerful clues to the direction
of the next steps in innovation.
As an example, a small East Coast
Bank had worked unsuccessfully for
months to develop a new product for
their small business customers. They
seemed to get nowhere in developing
this product until they decided to
employ a prototype. Using his
childrenís colored pencils, a bank officer
drew out the proposed product
on brown butcher paper and hung it
in the bank lobby. As small business
customers entered they were given a
cup of coffee and a crayon, and asked
to alter the drawing of the proposed
product. In four days the customers
vigorously marked off two-thirds of
the product as being unnecessary,
and added a number of new features
they really desired. The bank initiated
the revised product with great
success. Was their marked-up prototype
a failure? Their improved earnings
would say that it was not!
Surprising Prototype Fact #4
Prototypes are very inexpensive to
make. You may have seen the very
expensive machines that can push
out a solid, three-dimensional plastic
prototype in a matter of minutes. Iím
not sure I would call those a prototype.
Perhaps a better word would be
a ëmodelí. True prototypes may be
constructed using a wide variety of
inexpensive media, including
sketches on paper, newsprint, cardboard,
foamcore, videos, digital pictures,
storyboards, bubble-charts,
mindmaps, construction paper, duct
tape, ëexplodedí diagrams, computer
renderings, clay carving, spreadsheets,
process maps, simulations,
PowerPoint presentations, rubber
bands, Post-It Æ notes, virtually any
simple visual representation that
helps people to better understand
where lack of clarity yet exists. Prototypes
range in size from an item that
can easily be held in your hand to a
model the size of a building. Useable
rough paper prototypes may be rapidly
produced and subsequently
modified by employees who possess
neither artistic nor ethnographic
abilities.
Quick, inexpensive prototypes
played an important role in the discovery
of DNA, an important building
block of life forms. In 1952, molecular
biologists James Watson and
Francis Crick ordered precise metal
A small East coast bank had worked unsuccessfully for months to
develop a new product for their small business customers. They
seemed to get nowhere in developing this product until they decided
to employ a prototype
prototypes to be completed by the
college machine shop at Cambridge.
Not being the patient type, Dr.
Watson made crude cardboard cutouts
of the four DNA bases, called
adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine.
Casually playing with the
cardboard prototype, Watson continually
attempted to fit the model together,
with no success. After a brief
interruption by a colleague, Watson
looked at the cardboard prototype on
his desk and suddenly noticed that
an adenine-thymine pair lined up on
his desk was identical in shape to a
guanine-cytosine pair. Immediately
he saw how these could be the equal
steps of DNAís spiral staircase. Because
the sequence of bases on one
chain perfectly matched its opposite
on the other, when the chains separate,
each is the precise template for a
new chain of exactly matching sequence.
The ideas imparted from the
Surprising Facts About Prototypes
crude cardboard prototype led to the
Nobel Prize for Watson and Crick,
and a revolution in the biosciences.
Surprising Prototype Fact #5
Quick, ugly prototypes are more useful
than elegant prototypes. Thatís
right: as long as they are legible,
simple, rough, somewhat messy prototypes
are more useful than refined,
elegant prototypes. Why? Usersóespecially
non-technical onesóare often
more comfortable and honest
when viewing a rough or unpolished
prototype. By conveying the message
that it was developed in a matter of
minutes, if not seconds, rough prototypes
signal that they were designed
with the clear intention of inviting informal
suggestions, criticisms, and
changes. Rough ëapproximateí prototypes
encourage people to revise their
thinking about a particular subject
and to ëtry oní a multitude of possibilities.
The ëroughnessí of prototypes
transforms them from a medium that
answers questions into one that encourages
new questions. Quick, inexpensive,
rough prototypes allow designers
to continually incorporate
ideas from customers and make new
prototypes. For example, an industrial
electronics firm cobbled together
a rough cardboard model of a proposed
ëfuture productí. Carrying the
hand-held prototype around the floor
of an industry trade show, corporate
employees showed it to customers
and asked for their suggestions. The
company received literally hundreds
of specific suggestions on functionality
and packaging, which ultimately
resulted in the development and production
of a number of new and
highly profitable products.
The term ëfidelityí refers to how
closely a prototype resembles and
functions as the proposed final prod-
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EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVE