Fixing mobility problems or forcing mobility solutions
Thousands of researchers, professors, consultants, and government agency employees are in DC for a meeting of the minds and products.
Marc Randolph is the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix. He wrote a memoir a few years called That Will Never Work. Business origin stories are fun when they include incredible odds and a David vs. Goliath type of confrontation—the Netflix story doesn’t disappoint!
Randolph describes one secret to the Netflix success that has had a major influence on my professional work, and I think it might as well be the theme of the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting:
Fall in love with a problem, not a solution.
This concept made Netflix possible. If they had started with a solution first, the business may not have last more than a few months. Here’s why.
Remember how Blockbuster had multiple types of video rentals, and sometimes when you tried checking out a new tape they’d say “your account shows a $6 fee, would you like to pay that now?” You thought it was a 5-day rental, but nope, a new release with a 2-day limit. And was it 48 hours, or just counting business hours?
If Netflix began with a solution in mind, they would have built a business where they mailed VHS tapes to your house without due dates and rental fees. That way, no more financial surprises on Friday night while the pizza’s getting cold at home and you’re arguing about 2-day vs. 5-day and “you have a thousand copies of this thing on your wall!”
The problem: video rental due dates and late fees.
The solution? Well, they had options. Lots of options as long as they kept their eyes on the problem. Good for us, because while they were doing a benefit/cost analysis of mailing VHS tapes, the DVD revolution came along. And then of course, streaming. Netflix had put themselves in a tremendous position to be a household name that continues to solve entertainment problems for customers.
Henry Ford’s customers were in love with a solution—a faster horse. Henry Ford was in love with a problem—clunky manufacturing processes. These examples are all around us.
In North America we need a viable alternative to each household being essentially forced to own a fleet of personal cars and trucks.
Most people don’t realize it costs them $50 a day for a 2-car-in-the-garage habit.
And you know most people don’t realize car traffic is the highest cause of death for children.
Most people don’t realize just how harmful car culture is on their mental and physical health. (I look out for this stuff, and even I had no clue the magnitude until researching for the documentary!)
So for example, an auto-minded person might see a problem of high ownership costs and try to develop a widget or manufacturing process that streamlines the assembly line. But an urbanist might see the same problem and develop an insurance program as an alternative to AAA that rewards non-vehicular trips.
So while I’m listening, watching, and speaking at TRB this week, I’m making note of problems to fall in love with.
Eye-detection software, warning lights that communicate with each other, cheap pavement materials, and real-time data illustrating origins and destinations… there are a ton of solutions being pitched by researchers and practitioners this week. The better they are at describing the problem they’re in love with, the more likely the traveling public will benefit.
I always manage to find like-minded friends at conferences. Here’s a shot of Todd Litman and I before we philosophically storm the gates of TRB. Todd has a ton of incredible research that you’ll be interested in. Lisa Nisenson took this photo, and you need to follow her work, too. And both of them fall in love with problems!