Alarm Clocks -- from Seth's Blog

Augustine: something as simple as this, yet because manufacturers don't have business processes whereby such obvious customer feedback gets directly to product development people who need it, they have not built this in. Web 2.0 services have the luxury of immediate (and intense) user feedback and the good ones turn these into bug fixes or new features rapidly. Obviously it is a lot harder for traditional product companies to incorporate "rapid user feedback" but simple changes to business processes and organizational structure can bring them closer to this "customer-driven innovation" nirvana -- and save them a lot of time and resources on wrong product "guesses" - a la Palm's Folio.

from Seth's Blog by Seth Godin

For twenty cents or so, alarm clock manufacturers can add a chip that not only knows the time (via a radio signal) but knows what day it is too. Which means that they can add a switch that says "weekends." Which means that the 98% of the population that doesn't want to wake up on the same time on weekends as they do on weekdays will be happier (and better rested.)

This isn't as complicated or expensive as my idea four years ago.

So why doesn't every alarm clock have this feature? Because most people in that business are busy doing their jobs (distribution, promotion, pricing, etc.), not busy making products that people actually want to buy--and talk about.

There are very few products and services that wouldn't get a lot better if people just tried to make them better.