Scoopinion has a lot to thank to the Uutisraivaaja award, and as the competition is starting again, it’s time to share some thoughts on - buzzword warning - disruptive innovation, design thinking and user research.

Especially IDEO and a number of other design consultancies are heavily promoting user research, needfinding and so on. A design ethnography-masters degree was launched in Australia. DSchool promotes the design thinking methodology with focus on human values. So obviously if you want to make it big, you have to be armed with ethnographers when doing research and creating concept, and test with focus groups and surveys.

Wrong.

You want to lead the users, not the other way around. You know the technology, they don’t. It is you who can envision where the world is going.

By this I don’t mean that you should be arrogant, but brave: have a vision, test vigorously and pivot when necessary. When you are changing the world, you can’t predict the world by looking at how people are behaving today.

Nokia had a touch screen device with one button seven years before Apple did, but because of the user tests, they buried the project. No focus group came up with an idea of Sony Walkman. It was Masaru Ibuka, Sony's co-founder, who traveled often for business and would find himself lugging Sony's bulky TC-D5 cassette recorder around to listen to music. He asked Norio Ohga, then Executive Deputy President, to design a playback-only stereo version, and over the course of 30 years, Walkman sold 200 Million pieces. Still it was Apple (again) who came up with iPod and iTunes because they had the vision and bravery.

When you are not your own user, you should learn from them, with whatever method suitable, but never lose your own vision.

Henry ford reportedly said: "If I would have asked what people want, they would have asked for faster horses."

Don’t go with the faster horses.