THE LAST PAGE
The Last Page in Product Design Manuals
by Bill McClain. HUMAN
What is missing in every new product’s engineering design manual that’s ever been written, whether it’s for a new cell phone or a paper clip?
After the engineer is finished describing the dimensions, the electrical properties, the safety considerations, and all the operational details, what is left?
What should be on the last page of every engineering design manual?
How did we learn to leave out this missing element? We were taught to regurgitate what the teacher told us. Instead of learning being a dialogue, learning is often a monologue. We have been taught to follow, maybe because that’s what businesses wanted from the graduates they hired, maybe other reasons, but it’s been a top-down, leader — follower model. We have been taught to conform, not to think. And then when we go to work for a company, the boss or process sheets tell us what to do.
Thinking can take many forms. My grandson asked “why” a maddening number of times, but after he was in school a few years, the number of “whys” from him was noticeably less. Some leaders encourage members of the team to “think outside the box”, to come up with unconventional solutions, and then a good leader celebrates the novel idea with the team. Some “thinkers” have learned to think by “looking under the rug” which means to recognize assumptions and then to re-think those assumptions. Humans are faced with a mind-numbing stream of data in everyday life, so assuming is a defense mechanism to put most of the data into pigeon-holes, or to sweep it under the rug where it’s not in our sight. But when we look under the rug, and begin to question assumptions, we start to think.
So, what needs to be on that last page of the design manual? Alternate uses for the just-designed item when the primary use is no longer valued? Nothing ever has just one use. We just stop thinking and accept our unrecognized assumptions. Single-use items simply do not exist.
Amazon started down this path in a brilliant marketing campaign recently. Every big box they delivered had written on the outside several alternate uses for the box when its primary purpose (shipping) was complete. Alternatives like for the parents to cut a drawbridge in the side so the children would have a castle to play with, and 4–5 alternates, printed right on the outside of the box. How many parents then started looking at other “disposables” a bit differently?
The lack of value to the user is what causes items to be thrown away, but “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. Getting to a “Wasteless World” means a mindset change to something closer to 100 years ago, before a “disposable economy” with plastics and packaging filled the landfill dumps.
Here are some examples of alternatives to the intended use:
· Unused Food — As fertilizer for the garden, a restaurant’s left over food is a godsend for the local homeless shelter, for the restaurant’s leaders to offer different amounts of food and maybe increase profits.
· Outdated smart phone — there are apps that transcribe a phone conversation and print it out realtime in large fonts, giving an older person with failing hearing the ability to see/read the caller’s message (see Rogervoice).
· Time is often wasted, often because the person is not engaged. It’s to everyone’s benefit to find ways to fully engage.
· Empty parking garages in 10–20 years can be turned into urban farms with vertical farming and artificial lights that bring fresh fruits and vegetables to the inner city. College dormitories with too few students because students are entering the workforce with on-line certifications and vocational-technical school training are being converted to luxurious senior housing condominiums.
McClain’s Rule: No product/service/building/person is single-purpose, and the last page of every description of something new will contain the items of value that it can become next.
I hope you like it.
Bill McClain
Author of:
“The 4 Horsemen (Envisioning 2030)”
& “Strategic Planning In This Age Of Disruption”
203–257–3884
Milford CT USA
