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As if revolutionaries really followed rules, Guy Kawasaki puts forth a top 10 list for aspiring entrepreneurs in his book Rules for Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services. Still, the result is a fun combination of counter-intuitive advice (Rule #2: Don’t Worry, Be Crappy) and rather obvious advice (Rule #9: Don’t Ask People To Do Something That You Wouldn’t).
Kawasaki writes with humor and irreverence, drawing on his own experiences and the experiences of other companies and individuals. Elaborating on Rule #2, he describes how he helped ship what he now calls a crappy product in 1984, the first Macintosh Personal Computer. He writes that the Mac had a host of shortcomings, notably only 128K of RAM, no hard disk, and no color display. But Kawasaki’s point was don’t stay crappy. He writes that "revolutionary products don’t fail because they are shipped too early. They fail because they aren’t revised fast enough."
In a later chapter, Kawasaki holds up Microsoft as a company that has mastered the art of revision.
Regarding Rule #9, although obvious, revolutionaries still need to be reminded of it. Kawasaki relates how a California bank took telemarketing beyond rudeness; it would automatically dial people at home, but when they picked up, they would be put on hold until a sales representative was available.
Kawasaki’s thesis is based on the acronym "DICEE." It describes great products and services as "Deep, Indulging, Complete, Elegant, and Evocative." The Breitling Aerospace watch is an example of a DICEE product (pages 24-25):
"Great products are deep. Their features and functions satisfy desires that you didn’t know you had at the time of purchase. The mark of a deep product is wishing it had a feature after you’ve used it for a while and then discovering that it already does."Deep products grow with you, so you don’t have to buy another product soon thereafter. Indeed, a savvy consumer will buy a product or service that, though too deep initially, will allow for the future growth as the user becomes more sophisticated.
"My favorite example of a deep product is a watch called the Breitling Aerospace. On one level, it’s merely a watch with hands and numerals, but over time you come to learn of its depth: the ability to let you tell time with analog hands or digits, see what time it is in at least two other time zones, determine how much longer an airplane flight should last, and figure out long you’ve been jogging."
Kawasaki adds in a humorous footnote that the watch may be too deep:
"The Breitling Aerospace has one feature, however, that I cannot figure out when to use. If you press the crown, it uses four different tones to tell you what time it is. I guess you could be trapped while spelunking, unable to turn your wrist to look at the luminescent dial, but able to press down the crown with your other hand. This feature will then enable you to hear what time it is before you die."
To complete but oversimplify the explanation of DICEE, indulging products pamper, complete products have well-rounded post-sales support, elegant products are aesthetically pleasing and easy to use despite their depth, and evocative products elicit a strong emotional response. One thing that detracted from the book was the poor quality paper. It was thin enough so that I could make out text and images on the other side. In this regard, the book was not a DICEE product because it failed to be indulging.
Because Kawasaki also relies on the experiences of others, the book is heavily footnoted to the point of distraction. For example, every company mentioned had a footnote indicating its web site. While useful for lesser known firms, seeing a reference to Disney footnoted with "<http://www.disney.com/>" felt redundant. The reader would be better served if these annotations were placed in an appendix. Mercifully, the information from individual contributors appeared in a "Notes" chapter at the end of the book.
Despite the copious footnotes, Kawasaki failed to annotate his mention of the Hawthorne Effect. It was a topic I wanted to learn more about, but he simply glossed over it as a study conducted in the 1920s where researchers believed the mere act of watching workers made them increase output. As applied to marketing, Kawasaki’s point was that although it is important to watch consumer behavior, if consumers knew they were being watched, that awareness would alter their choices.
Nevertheless, a little research of my own revealed the Hawthorne Effect to be a flawed study. In the New York Times (12/6/98), "Scientific Myths That Are Too Good To Die," Gina Kolata writes that only five workers took part in the study and two were replaced part way for gross insubordination and low output.
Kawasaki may have misapplied the Hawthorne Effect, but his words about watching consumers still ring true.
Kawasaki infuses the book with accounts of personal successes and failures, but he also draws on an equal amount of knowledge from secondary sources. Thus, this book should appeal to relatively new revolutionaries like myself, whereas battle-scarred revolutionaries might see some of the material as rehashed. Still, I give the book high marks for its perceptiveness, humor, and inspiration.
-- Michael Yam
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Create Like A God
1. Cogita Differenter (Think Different)
2. Don’t Worry, Be Crappy
3. Churn, Baby, Churn
Command Like A King
4. Break Down The Barriers
5. Make Evangelists, Not Sales
6. Avoid Death Magnets
Work Like A Slave
7. Eat Like A Bird, Poop Like An Elephant
8. Think Digital, Act Analog
9. Don’t Ask People To Do Something That You Wouldn’t
Conclusion
10. Don’t Let Bozosity Grind You Down (Ne Te Terant Molarii)
List Of Works Used
Notes
Index
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Explanation of ERCB rating scale: No stars = unacceptable, 1 Star = marginal, 2 Stars = average, 3 Stars = above average, 4 Stars = exceptional.