"Never play to the gallery" - what Bowie knew about product development

It's easy to innovate to the mean - to look over our shoulder at what competitors are doing, what worked last year or to renovate an existing product with a minor tweak. There’s a role for incrementalism in product development for sure - but if we cast our minds back or even look around at some of the innovation from some of the smaller brands in Australia or further afield - true progress comes from a deep understanding of what consumers (even ourselves) need, often before they can articulate that need for themselves.

This idea of “never playing to the gallery” or of making art - in our case products, first and foremost to meet what we know to be true is actually what, as natural product people, we are paid to do - by the consumer or practitioner, not by our respective companies. Yes, definitely we have to make products that sell and that work but in developing a deep understanding of ourselves and of the audience we serve, we can start to bring truly innovative products to market in a way that creates remarkable value for our consumers.

Love or hate his music, no one can deny that Bowie had an essence - of reinvention and remarkableness (think Ziggy Stardust period in the 70’s) from music, to stagecraft, to movies, acting and art (Bowie was a prolific painter).

Not all of it worked commercially and not all of us can transition from glam rock to punk to pop but as U2’s Bono commented “I like Bowie when he’s evenly pulled in the direction of being a pop star and Picasso, where he’s right down the middle. That’s usually my favourite, when the songwriting is disciplined, but the recording is not. I love when he’s pulled equally in the directions of art and populism”.

If we can take a little from Bowie’s living example, it would be to aim as high as we can, to be provocative and of course, to take risks, supported by the graft of consistently perfecting our craft.