Inability quotes
From Motley Bytes Wiki
Contents
Patrick_Vlaskovits
Faster Horse
“However, even if Ford didn’t verbalize his thoughts on customers’ ostensible inability to communicate their unmet needs for innovative products — history indicates that Henry Ford most certainly did think along those lines... Henry Ford froze the design of the Model T... Ford had no compelling reason to innovate in any other sphere other than cost and price reduction... But everything changed with the onset of the innovations introduced by General Motors in the 1920s, which took the direct opposite of Henry Ford’s tack of “Any color … so long as it is black” and is best summed up by Alfred Sloan’s consumer-research driven “A Car for Every Purse and Purpose”... In 1921, the Ford Motor Company sold about 2/3 of all the cars built in the U.S. By 1926, this share had fallen to approximately 1/3. And in 1927, when Ford belatedly responded (at tremendous financial cost and internal strife) to changes in the market’s tastes and competitive innovation by shutting down production temporarily to re-tool his factories and bring the Model A to the market, that percentage fell to about 15%... Yes, some customers in certain types of businesses are quite capable of verbalizing precisely what sort of innovative product one could build and sell them. And of course, customers in other types of businesses are wholly incapable of verbalizing, with any sort of fidelity whatsoever, what they need and why they need it. An innovator should have understanding of one’s customers and their problems via empirical, observational, anecdotal methods or even intuition. They should also feel free to ignore customers’ inputs. Because by now it should be clear that Ford’s adherence to his vision of the mass-market car and how to materialize that vision was instrumental in both his early success in growing Ford Motor Company as well as his later failure to respond in a timely and effective manner to rapid innovation in the marketplace.”'
- Source: Patrick Vlaskovits in the article “Henry Ford, Innovation, and That Faster Horse Quote”, published by Harvard Business Review, 2011-08-29. Online at https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast retrieved 2024-05-28.
- See Also:
- Keywords: Ford(topic)_quotes Sloan(topic)_quotes Verbalize_quotes Thinking_quotes Customer_quotes Requirements_quotes Ostensible_quotes Inability_quotes Communication_quotes Unmet_quotes Need_quotes Innovation_quotes Product_quotes History_quotes Freeze_quotes Design_quotes Model_T_quotes Automobile_quotes Compel_quotes Sphere_quotes Cost_quotes Price_quotes Reduction_quotes Change_quotes General_Motors_quotes Consumer_quotes Research_quotes Opposite_quotes Color_quotes Black_quotes Car_quotes Purse_quotes Ford_Motor_quotes Build_quotes United_States_quotes Share_quotes Market_quotes Belated_quotes Respond_quotes Tremendous_quotes Financial_quotes Internal_quotes Strife_quotes Taste_quotes Competition_quotes Shut_quotes Production_quotes Tool_quotes Factory_quotes Model_A_quotes Percentage_quotes Type_quotes Business_quotes Capable_quotes Precise_quotes Sort_quotes Sell_quotes Incapable_quotes Fidelity_quotes What_quotes Why_quotes Understand_quotes Problem_quotes Empirical_quotes Observation_quotes Anecdotal_quotes Method_quotes Intuition_quotes Feel_quotes Free_quotes Ignore_quotes Input_quotes Clear_quotes Adherence_quotes Vision_quotes Mass_quotes Innovator_quotes Materialize_quotes Instrumental_quotes Success_quotes Early_quotes Grow_quotes Later_quotes Failure_quotes Timely_quotes Effective_quotes Manner_quotes Rapid_quotes Marketplace_quotes Horse_quotes Faster_quotes
Gerald_Weinberg
Egoless Programming and John von Neumann
“Programming groups who have conquered the ego problem do exist and have existed from the earliest days of computing. John von Neumann himself was perhaps the first programmer to recognize his inadequacies with respect to examination of his own work. Those who knew him have said that he was constantly asserting what a lousy programmer he was, and that he incessantly pushed his programs on other people to read for errors and clumsiness. Yet the common image today of von Neumann is of the unparalleled computing genius — flawless in his every action. And indeed, there can be no doubt of von Neumann's genius. His very ability to realize his human limitations put him head and shoulders above the average programmer today. Average people can be trained to accept their humanity — their inability to function like a machine — and to value it and work with others so as to keep it under the kind of control needed if programming is to be successful.”
- Source: Chapter 4. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
- See Also:
- Keywords: Egoless_quotes Programming_quotes Group_quotes Conquer_quotes Ego_quotes Computing_quotes Neumann_quotes Programmer_quotes Recognition_quotes Inadequacy_quotes Examination_quotes Peer_Review_quotes Error_quotes Clumsy_quotes Genius_quotes Flawless_quotes Action_quotes Doubt_quotes Ability_quotes Human_Limitations_quotes Training_quotes Humanity_quotes Functional_quotes Machine_quotes Control_quotes Success_quotes Problem_quotes Exist_quotes Earliest_quotes Respect_quotes Work_quotes Constant_quotes Assert_quotes Lousy_quotes Incessant_quotes Push_quotes People_quotes Read_quotes Image_quotes Unparallel_quotes Realize_quotes Human_quotes Limitation_quotes Head_quotes Shoulder_quotes Above_quotes Average_quotes Inability_quotes Value_quotes
