It’s incredible how freeing the exercise is.  Kill your sacred cows.  Think about the project you work on with a colleague and say “What would the world be like if we didn’t have __________?”  Some of the greatest companies killed sacred cows and then had wild success.

• Salesforce.com said, “What if we didn’t have on-premise software?”
• Apple said, “What if you couldn’t make playlists from the iPod itself?”
• Atlassian said, “What if we didn’t have a sales department?”
• Ikea said, “What if the furniture didn’t come assembled?”
• I said, “What if UX did part of the product management job?”

Whenever you have a chance to kill a sacred cow, you should absolutely try.  At least think about the world if you did.  It is so hard to do.  There is a reason the sacred cow exists in the first place.  People love the cow.  It’s scary!  Failure might happen!  What will we do?  People HATE killing sacred cows.

Leaders are special people.  They can get past these fears.  You can be a leader.  Suspend disbelief.  Get your mind into it and kill the cow.  Then see what is left and figure out how the world could be better.

Some advice I give is immediately actionable.  Other advice (like this) is more of a mental exercise that once in a while lead to something special.  Exercise your mind and once in a while, you will surprise yourself and make a great decision.

Every time we release a big upgrade to our SaaS software, I always get this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I feel rotten about all of the features that didn’t make the cut and all of the potential bugs that may still be lingering like little roadside bombs.  I imagine users getting confused and try to imagine their pain.

The reality is that we are not the center of our customers universe.  They care alot less about the new features than we do.  In fact, new features often results in depression and annoyance by customers.  It comes in several flavors:

1. Thanks for the new feature, I wanted something like this.  However, I am busy and really don’t want to take advantage of it until spring…of next year.
2. Why did you build this?  I didn’t want this.  I wanted something else!
3. Where the hell did my cheese go?  It used to be right here!  What did you do?
4. I get it, I think.  Umm, maybe I don’t get it.  What does it do?

We tend to think (especially in Silicon Valley) that if we don’t release more features, more more more, than the competition will surpass us! Although innovation is an important factor, it really impacts customers less than you think.

Soon enough, the release “newness” will die down and it will back to normal, getting ready for the next release.  It’s a little like surfing, I imagine.  One big wave and then paddling, then another big wave and more paddling.  A never-ending ocean of features.

My wife needed dish-washing detergent and I found myself in a Walgreen pharmacy.  I spotted the following product on the shelf.

I thought for a second and smiled.  Then I said the word you just said in your head when you saw the picture.  I said it in exactly the same way while bobbing my head.  ”Nice!”  Needless to say, I bought it.

Then my wife used the product in the dish washer.  She took a dish out, frowned and looked back at the product.  She was unhappy, tilted her head in annoyance and said, “Nice.”

Is this a good product name or an awful one?  At Marketo, we have a feature called a “Smart List”.  If it wasn’t smart, people would have been pissed.  You can’t set the bar high and then fail to meet expectations.  You can’t call the product Nice if it’s actually lame.  I’d prefer they called it Walgreen’s Detergent.  I wouldn’t be fooled then.  Or (god forbid), they make the product better.  Then it actually would be Nice.  I would buy it and enjoy it.

Think of the names you encounter in products.  How do they manage your expectations?  Is it “Nice!” or “Nice.”?