Technology Companies.

I recently had a very cool experience. I was put in contact with a major tech company whose products I've used for many years. I happen to have a specific and intimate knowledge of how their product worked. So they asked me to come in and speak with their engineers. It's kinda like one of those things that you always joke about "wow, wouldn't it be cool if Company A asked me to like, come in and tell them what I think of their products?!"

Needless to say, I really enjoyed the experience and I walked away very happy with being able to help them improve their product – which I'll undoubtedly end up using.

This got me thinking though, about other big tech companies and their products. I can’t say there's a week that goes by where I don't read about some piece of technology – whether it’s hardware or software or even "webware" – that has a flaw or minor problem. It's funny how these things are so apparent to customers, but not to the companies that make them. A disconnect exists there.

When I was speaking to the engineers at this company, it really hit my why these flaws and problems exist – at least in part – with these major products. The people working on them clearly have an intimate knowledge of the item. They know exactly how it works and how to use it to do whatever it needs to do. So they're at an advantage when it comes to knowing the “capabilities” of the product.

The end user doesn't have this advantage. I found myself telling them over and over that "it needs to do this" and the reply was "It DOES do that!" and they'd go off and show me. However, I didn't even know that feature or function existed. I don't care about whether they know it can do it or not. I'll never use that if I don't know it exists!

Offhand, I can think of 4 products that if, right now, there were minor changes made to, would become ENORMOUSLY more valuable and useful. It pains me to see that big companies have this issue, but at least I got a chance to help them make some improvements.

If the product I saw does what they wanted it to, and if they implement the changes that I suggested, it would be absolutely successful. I can only hope they don’t get wrapped up in their own view on it that they forget to “think outside the box”.