How Beauty Feels?

I was awestruck after watching this video. In few minutes, I got a clear understanding of what the beauty is? It will find a way into the products I design.

Futility of Value Addition

Few days back, I used to talk great deal about value addition, without realising what does it mean? In every meeting, I would use this phrase at least few times, to make sure that other person understands about value addition. From last few weeks, I am pondering on “Quality” as mentioned in The American who Taught Japanese about Quality by Dr Deming and Net Promoter Score. I was able to relate the beauty of these concepts to those I have learnt during Vipassana.

All of these concepts share a common attribute: They measure a single attribute. Dr Deming measures Quality in its inherent sense, Net Promoter Score measures customer loyalty and Vipassana measures Impermanence in your awareness. Gradually, the wisdom seeped in and I came to question the validity of value addition, which in itself tells nothing about what value is being added and applying common sense would say value would vary for each business, Wrong! A business exists to service the customer. There has to be the fundamental value of business commonly shared by each business. What is that fundamental value? Through business services, a customer benefits. So, can value be replaced with benefit. “Benefit Addition” doesn’t sound right. Applying Net promoter score verbiage would make sense here, so here it is: “How much benefit am I adding to client’s business?” Does it look perfect? I am not sure how benefit would be measured but definitely it looks better than value. As such, “benefit” may imply different meaning to different people. To sales minded people, it may mean revenue, to product minded people, it may mean more customers for the product and so forth. So, the search for “a single attribute” continues.

So how does benefit happen? It happens when right problem is solved. Iphone solved the right problem of touch interface, Gmail solved the right problem of fast email with huge space. Google solved the problem of searching the internet. To things come to my mind at this point: One, identifying the right problem to solve an Second, solving the problem to utmost customer satisfaction. The common bridge which, binds them together is still elusive. The single attribute may be translated loosely as – right problem solved to utmost customer satisfaction.

However, my search for single attribute continues. In the mean while, I will stick to the current attribute “right problem solved to utmost customer satisfaction”. And, I will refrain myself from using value addition terminology again.