”Frust” 10.01.2007

What is a ”frust” (”pain”) Product / technology that seeks a market or a market that seeks a product / technology? To explain pain we can start with innovations and how innovations come about. To put it simply, innovations come about either through that somebody invents a new product or technology and then seeks a market where the solution can solve problems. The laser is an example. No one really knew what to do with when they invented it, then it find its way into telecommunication and a number of other applications. Secondly, somebody may think of a problem, find out that more people suffers from the same problem and starts to look for an old or a new product or technology to solve that problem. Traditionally, some say, that the first has been more prevalent. This is also consistent with many traditional models on innovation that views is as first basic research, then development, then the market in a technology push kind of way. For sure, there are still many such products or technologies that seeks a market. However, at least Lars Monrad-Koen believes that more and more of innovation takes the market as the departure – concepts such as user-driven innovation, and attending to leading customers to really find out about their problems may be examples of this. SCA – hygien products – master students to third world countries to see how poor woman develop solves the problem of female hygiene products in order to get ideas. Looking at in this second way also leads us into Frust or Pain because Frust is a way to find or think of common problems that may be solved by a product or technology and that may be enough of a problem to create a market.

Frust Typically a ”frust” is something that people are frustrated with, and where a technology or other can be applied to solve the problem. Typical areas are: Sheer frustrations (e.g. Why does this cost this much?, Why does not this and that exist?) Bottlenecks (e.g. process problems) Improvements (e.g. efficiency problems) Future ”frusts” (e.g. demographic changes) Sheer frustrations: For example, when you go one the subway here you can see the screens but they close to always only show the time table – not how long it will actually take before the train comes! Why? I want to know where my train is, not when it is supposed to come according to the time table. My parents annoyed with murder snails. Bottlenecks: Drucker Around 1909, a statistician at the American Telephone and Telegraph company projected two curves 15 years out: The telephone traffic and American population. Viewed together they showed that by 1920 or so every single female in the United States would have to work as a switchboard operator. The process need was obvious, and withing tow years, AT&T had developed and installed the automatic switchboard. Improvements: Think, for example, about IT and how much IT has improved efficiency in many instances. I believe that there is still a lot to do actually. Future frusts: Demographic changes: Take for example robotics. In Japan they are way ahead in robotics, and one reason is that they think in demographic terms. Population statistics change, and change faster than managers usually believe, i.e. In terms of age distribution, education, occupations, and geographic location.

Frust Note: Focus first on the problem and the different aspects of it – then the solution! Problem Solution Example: A classic example is the owner of skyscrapes in New York. At a point he received plenty of complaints that the elevators were going to slowly. What to do? Well, if one had not analyzed the problem much further one might have called upon an elevator company to install even faster elevators. However, what he did was to penetrate the problem a bit further. Upon doing that he found that the real problem was that people were bored in the elevators. The solution does not always need to be a new technology, it can be a new kind of distribution etc., a new kind of pricing model (google and ads). Murder snails for example: It was not about finding any new miraclulous substance that would kill these little monsters. Such substances were already available on the market, the problem was just that it cost too much.

Homework Step 1) Find a ”FRUST”! Interview for example people to find out more of problems/frustrations – those closest to the problem often have the best knowledge of it. Step 2) Propose a solution to the ”FRUST” That is, try to find out an idea for a business plan. Naturally, the solution should also be able to generate money.

FRUST Also, for our gathering 01.19 prepare a presentation of the FRUST that you have found. The presentations should be made on transparency films be maximum 3 minutes Remember that these ideas could be the basis for all other work til exams, so try hard to find something out.