The best things in my life don’t feature technology...and that has a lot to do with my product philosophy.
Let’s make technology the Best Supporting Actor, but save the limelight for the really human stuff
On a recent Sunday morning at 10:30 I went to ‘Music Church’, a weekly classical music performance here in Albuquerque put on by an organization called Chatter. We listened to a quartet perform baroque music that was composed in the 1600s. It’s a standing event with an open coffee bar, a spoken word interlude, silence for reflection, and astonishingly good musicians on an intimate stage. Baroque music isn’t something I typically seek out, but with two young kids, getting to a daytime performance with my wife was a rare treat. The group included two violins, a sackbut and a harpsichord. Because you are wondering, a sackbut is similar to a simplified trombone. Strange pairing admittedly, but apparently it was an authentic combo in the 17th century.
We were sitting in the second row, just feet away from the players, so facial expressions and body movement were integral to the experience. Phones were stowed. I was struck by how analog it felt: a person moving their arm to drag a stick with taut horsehair and dried tree sap across an opposing set of taut strings held by an intricate tree carving. All this to play songs that were imagined hundreds of years ago. It was visceral, and primitive albeit in a refined way—a juxtaposition to my professional day-to-day working intimately with technology like IoT sensors, software code, geospatial analytics, location engines, and virtual meetings.
The experience got me thinking about other memories I cherish and the extent to which technology is featured (or not). Playing with my kids, mountain biking with old friends, riding the ski lift on a bluebird day, crisp fall air on my face, laughing with family, feeling proud of a loved one. What struck me was how profoundly absent technology was from these memories. When I tried to find a memory in which technology featured prominently, I could not.
As a person who works in technology, this encapsulates my stance as a product manager (and in fact my work across careers). I’ve always enjoyed working in the background to support worthy goals. Put another way, I’ve never intended for my work to explicitly be the feature of someone who is interacting with it. To me that’s simply not all that interesting compared to other possibilities— and feels a bit narcissistic if I’m being honest. What I’ve always wanted is for my work to be the Best Supporting Actor in the lives of folks who interact with it. I’ve always seen my work as a means to an end, where the end state supports and empowers people to be the best they can be in their professional, family, personal, and civic lives.
In product, I think this can only be accomplished when solutions are utterly intuitive, terribly valuable, inclusive, and at least somewhat invisible.
As I talked about in New Cool Tools, there is a stage in the maturation of a tool in which it can effectively be taken for granted. This is mostly a blessing, because when something can be taken for granted this means it has reached a certain level of reliability and ubiquity. Using these tools as a solid foundation, people can move up the hierarchy of needs and focus on more sophisticated and complex topics, such as self-actualization, belonging, relationships.
To me, meeting these higher order needs should be the promise of all technology. If a technology is designed to be the center of our attention (like social media), to me it cannot be inherently designed with the users best interests in mind. It is an energy sink rather than a source. Social media companies are advanced intelligence platforms designed to gather and monetize our interests while masquerading as modern ways to achieve belonging and connectedness. The curtain is starting to be pulled back, and it will take many years for the full extent of the damage to be revealed.
Professionally, I strive to make IoT systems and software Best Supporting Actors. Hardware and software should work in the background to provide information that enables users to spend time on higher order, more valuable things. In healthcare, that can take the shape of nurses spending more time with patients and less time looking for medical equipment. In agriculture, it can look like farmers growing more crops while reducing pesticide use. In manufacturing, it can mean greater productivity with fewer accidents.
So while we continue to leverage powers of technology, let’s remember:
Not that matters can or should be measured in metrics
Technology should serve us, not us it. A good litmus test is how self-important the technology feels
The real end goals are self-actualization, relationships, and many forms of balance and peace
