Perspectives Blog

They get all the ingredients together and spent an hour or more in the kitchen mixing and baking cakes. There were few 'cake mixes' and so the work was involved and messy. There's a technology angle to cake making, just like there's technology in almost everything people do.

So let's zoom in and look at the tech for cake baking: 

In the 1950's the U.S. Military figured out how to powder everything from milk, oil, butter and even eggs. This technology was new and companies wanted to find ways to use to improve people's daily lives.  At the same time consumers wanted to do things in a more convenient and fast way. Convenience was very important.  So, when product developers put getting things done fast  and making it easy into the Venn diagram, the scientists decided, "What are we going to do with this technology?" "We're going to make just-add-water cake."

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At the time, the technology behind cake mixes was in flux while the needs and wants of people were changing. There was a post-war optimism combined with some awesome post-war technologies that created opportunities for new products and services.

When those two things come together, companies can often discover new businesses, new products and services. We ask, "How might I take advantage of them?"  People are changing their attitudes, their behaviors, their needs, what they want from the world and how they act, and how they live their lives, so what I want to do is just zoom in to the cake-baking technology of the day.

They asked, "Hey, let's just make cakes easier," so they removed friction. They made it simple, they made it easy, but that took away something essential.   That's a great example of a dangerous assumption, 

That's what they wanted to invent, and they couldn't lose, right? That's a can't-lose idea. You've got people who want a convenient thing.  They just want to add water and not mess up the kitchen.  They thought they had a sure thing that would be an immediate success. However, the product didn't sell. No one wanted it.  Why?

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When they examined this just-add-water to make cakes recipe, they missed the human side of that equation.  They didn’t talk to moms.  They didn't spend time watching a mom or dad in the kitchen while they were making a cake. When they went back to the drawing board with their just-add-water cakes and experimented with human beings, they found that if they got people to crack eggs on the counter, they could change that product from a failure into an incredible success. 

When you're in your favorite grocery store, Harris Teeter or Publix and you buy that cake and it says on the package, "Hey, you're going to have to break two eggs." They don't have to be that way, but people like to add the eggs. When you are like me baking a cake and I don't have vegetable oil and I have to run back to the store to buy that vegetable oil, this extra step is provided by the Duncan Hines company. Why? Because the cakes are more meaningful if you do the work.  And that little bit of work, the one minute of work breaking eggs changed how that product was received in the marketplace.  What a cake means was not asked by these food scientists or the product developers. 

They asked, "Hey, let's just make cakes easier," so they removed friction. They made it simple, they made it easy, but that took away something essential.   That's a great example of a dangerous assumption, 

In the 1950's era, everyone said, "Convenience will be the way forward." Whatever is convenient is what people will do. They will go to fast food, they will eat at Denny's, all brands invented in the '50s. They will change their lives around convenience.  But it’s important to remember that one approach doesn’t fit everyone.  

Remember assumptions need to be vetted on the people using your product or service. It's essential not to miss the egg-cracking stuff that could and should be happening when you're  looking at your business

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