I find it ironic that so many of us in the product world come from science and business oriented backgrounds, yet such a large part of what we do every day is really all about emotion and human psychology. Most of us may not think of our job this way, but we should.

People buy and use products largely for emotional reasons. The best marketing people understand this, and the best product people ensure that their products speak to these emotions.
In the enterprise space, the dominant emotion is generally fear or greed. If I don’t buy this product, my competitors will beat me to market, hackers will penetrate my firewalls, or my customers will desert me. Or, if I do buy this product, I will make more money, save more money, or stop spending so much money.

In the consumer space, the dominant emotions get more personal. If I buy this product or use this web site, I will make friends (loneliness), find a date (love or lust), win money (greed), or show off my pictures or my taste in music (pride).

You may not have thought about your product or service in these terms before, but if you apply this emotional lens, you can start to view things much more in line with how your users and customers view your service, and potential competitors. Where else can they go to get these needs met? What could be done to the visual design to speak more directly to these emotions? What features can we provide that speak more directly to these emotions? What features get in the way of clearly speaking to these emotions?

Keep in mind also that different types of users may bring different emotional needs to the table. An eBay power seller is not the same as a buyer looking for a great bargain, or a buyer looking for the thrill of competing with others to “win” an item.

I continue to be impressed by how well Apple understands the role of emotion in product. Users don’t fall in love with personal computers and digital music players unless they have an emotional connection with the product. Further, Apple understands the key role that design plays in ensuring their products meet these emotional needs.

When you do usability testing with your target market, after you determine whether or not the test subject can actually figure out how to use the product or service, you should take the opportunity to essentially do a one-on-one focus group to learn what emotion is driving this user, and how well your product meets that emotional need. I have written elsewhere about this sort of product testing, so I won’t repeat it here, but you can hopefully see why product design (interaction and visual design) and usability testing play such a key role in coming up with a winning product.

Once you have clearly identified and prioritized the dominant buying emotions your customers bring to your product, focus on that emotion and ask yourself where else they might be able to get that need met? That’s your real competition. In many cases you’ll find that the competition you should be worrying about is not the startup or big portal that’s after the same thing you are, but rather the off-line alternative.

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The New Year always gets me thinking bigger picture. For some that means reviewing the company mission statement. For others, it means coming up with your annual or quarterly objectives. For me, I’m partial to the Manifesto.

A Manifesto is a public declaration of principles, beliefs and intentions. I like them because if they’re done well, they can serve as a concise form of a product strategy as well as fulfill much of the purpose of mission and vision statements.

For a long time the term “Manifesto” was a tough sell thanks to Karl Marx and the Unabomber. But starting with the GNU Manifesto (www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html), and more recently the Agile Manifesto (www.agilemanifesto.org/principles.html), I think people have come to appreciate the clarity and power of a clear and compelling manifesto for product teams and companies. Many companies have the rough equivalent of a Manifesto but call it something different. Google calls it their “Corporate Philosophy” www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/tenthings.html. eBay calls it “Community Values” www.ebay.com/community/people/values.html.

I’ve been working with a sports entertainment consumer internet startup over the past months, and one of the very first things we did was come up with a Manifesto. You can see it at www.protrade.com/AboutManifesto.html. The document ended up with eight core principles, but it didn’t start out that way. Coming up with a Manifesto means deciding what is important to you, and what is incidental. What is strategic and fundamental, and what is simply tactical and temporary.

There were other benefits to coming up with this Manifesto. The process served as a way for me to get to the DNA of this company, and what the founders hoped to achieve. It also serves as a framework for evaluating the many alternatives in front of every product and company.

A Manifesto is not a list of features, and in fact not tied to any one product incarnation. In this sense, it is most aligned with a product strategy for an entire product line, or with a company mission statement for a startup. A good Manifesto serves as the basis or foundation for inspiring product features, as well as the end consumer.

Whether you choose to go public with your Manifesto depends on your purpose. Often the Manifesto is simply a tool for the product team, much like a product strategy document. But in other cases the Manifesto serves as a clear statement of what you believe, intended for your users, customers, partners, suppliers, investors and employees.

Another benefit I have found is that more than any other document, a Manifesto can bring together the product team – especially product management, product design, engineering, and marketing – and get the team on the same page.

So if you don’t yet have a clear statement of the beliefs and principles that guide your product team, consider getting the team together for a couple hours to discuss, identify and prioritize what you think is important. And if you’d like, send them to me as I’d love to see them.

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