Steve Jobs Lesson to learn for Data Centers, Start with customer experience

The data center has some phenomenally smart mechanical and electrical engineers designing more efficient power and cooling systems.  DCIM is a hot topic for software to run data centers.  ZDNet has a blog post on the 100-year legacy of Steve Jobs.  One point made that is a quote from Steve Jobs is a lesson that is hard to learn.

“One of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try to sell it. I’ve made this mistake probably more than anybody in this room and I’ve got the scar tissue to prove it, and I know that it’s the case. As we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with ‘What incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the customer?’ [It's] not starting with ‘Let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and how are we going to market that?’”

Almost everyone does what Steve says not to do.

‘Let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and how are we going to market that?’”

The nice thing is some of my entrepreneur friends are ex-Apple including myself we embrace this approach.

One of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.

We've been sharing some of our product ideas with innovative data center operators, and we are pleasantly surprised on how much they like our approach to solving the customer problem.  We actually don't even really talk about the technology.  One of the guys who I shared the solution said you guys are using the "Challenger Sale" technique.

In The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson show how this critical finding has turned conventional wisdom on its head. While most companies focus on building customer relationships, the best focus on pushing customers’ thinking, introducing new solutions to their problems and illuminating problems customers overlook. That is, they challenge their customers.

Here is data that shows the challenger approach wins.

It's kind of logical to buy solutions from those who push your performance.  How many fanatical loyal Apple fans feel like they have products that push their experience of life.  Steve Jobs was a genius who learned some hard lessons that made him better in his 40s and 50s than in his 30s.