Warning!! This is a partly-baked idea, so go easy on me….Dan
I worked for Northern Telecom (NT) from 1985 to 1991. They had purchased a company here in Ann Arbor, MI and formed a division that was developing an integrated voice and data system, called the DV-1. It used quite sophisticated technology, and we had some talented hardware and software engineers, but ultimately the product was a failure because it wasn’t really what customers wanted.
Customers didn’t really want an integrated voice and data terminal on their desks. They wanted a PC. A couple of our engineers developed a PC interface card to allow PCs to be used with the system, but that never really caught on. They tried to use the hardware as a database server for NT phone switching systems, but since the hardware wasn’t designed to be a database server, per se, that didn’t work out all that well, either.
The problem, of course, was that there was no marketing. Some engineers somewhere said, “Hey, we have this neat technology. Let’s make a product and sell it.” What they should have said is, “Hey, we have this neat technology. How can we design a product incorporating that technology that people will want to buy?”
I think that ham radio suffers from a similar lack of marketing. There are lots of ham radio projects and products that suffer from ills that make them either unusable or annoying. It could be that the setup is too complex for the benefit to gained, or that a product is lacking a key specification. A transceiver, for example, may have an output power of only 500 mW, making it useful only in certain, limited applications. That same product might be a lot more successful, however, if it had an output power of 5 W or 10 W.
Many will say that hams should be savvy enough to deal with these limitations and still make things work. That’s true, but sometimes even the most savvy don’t want to be bothered, or they don’t see the benefit from taking the time to complete a complex setup. Many hams are tinkerers, but they don’t have an unlimited amount of time. If the obstacles to success are too great, they’ll abandon a project or sell off a piece of equipment that’s too hard to use.
I’m not really sure what the answer is. I’m not a marketing genius, either. It’s easy to say that hams working on projects need to start thinking like marketers, but it’s a lot harder to do it. If you want your product or project to be successful, though, that what you need to do.
Good thoughts, but maybe say ‘what the customer wants/needs’, BEFORE ‘I have a cool technology – let’s find a market for it.’
For an engineer-type, that’s gotta’ be hard, though.
73,
— Dave, N8SBE
I am currently working on a project to make a DTMF-based selective calling device for HTs, but I don’t have the time or money to design custom PCBs, cases, etc. I think it would have fairly widespread appeal among hams if it was possible to order a kit and do some basic soldering, or, better yet, just order a prebuilt device.
Like Dave said, I think it is important to design technologies around needs, not to come up with interesting technologies and try to come up with needs. I think the best process is something along the lines of (1) find a problem, (2) try to find an available solution (don’t reinvent the wheel), (3) if there is no existing solution, look for relevant technologies to use as building blocks, (4) plan and build an initial prototype, (5) finished product
In this case, the design did start with a need: how can we monitor our local repeater for emergency traffic, without hearing non-emergency chatter when we don’t want to? I couldn’t find any existing solutions; some digital protocols have calling features, but it isn’t practical to expect everyone to get digital radios. Then, thinking of similar concepts, I considered the marine DSC and airband SELCAL protocols and DTMF dialing, because they are all used for similar purposes in different fields. I decided to use DTMF, because it can be sent directly using buttons on many ham transmitters. I’m currently in step 4, trying to figure out the software.
Dan, I’ve consulted for several amateur radio businesses under NDA. Yes, they need such help. No all take the advice because–as you know–a decent marketing plan costs money. And, like other business startups, they under-capitalize these costs. Yet, some are successful as small garage-style businesses.
Good article!
Someone once told me he could tell me all I needed to know for a degree in marketing in three sentences:
1) Find out what people want.
2) Give them what they want.
3) Tell them you are giving them what they want.
Amazing how so many ignore the first two steps and assume step #3 is all you need.
73,
Don N4KC
http://www.donkeith.com
http://www.n4kc.com