Henry Ford said – “If I’d asked them what they wanted, they’d have asked for a faster horse!” – Fake News – Find out why.

Do you have an office boor who has one of those motivational posters above their desk with a soaring eagle and the word ‘Innovation’ in a large font?

Does this office boor hunt out pithy quotes on Linked In from Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson and then repost them?

Have you heard them use that ‘ faster horse ‘ speech from Henry Ford?

Over my coming posts I’m going to debunk a few of these innovation myths, because what these self styled ‘Linked in Innovation warriors’ say is often not quite what they mean.

Lets start with that Ford quote shall we?

What they mean when they use the faster horse myth:
“The customer doesn’t understand or can’t predict what is going to happen in technology so market research on insights is useless, I don’t need to bother, I can carry on pushing my untested solutions”

How to debunk the myth:
Henry Ford never said that, there is no record of that quote until 2006.
It is not the customers job to tell you ‘how to solve’ the problem but to define the problem that needs solving. Tell the office boor that if they are asking the target to specify the technology, they are doing innovation wrong!

Find out more at MatShore.com

Now booking training for September 2021
#innovation#marketresearch#strategy

Leave a Comment