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In the great 1980s movie
"The Blues Brothers,"
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there's a scene where John Belushi
goes to visit Dan Aykroyd in his apartment
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in Chicago for the very first time.
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It's a cramped, tiny space
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and it's just three feet away
from the train tracks.
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As John sits on Dan's bed,
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a train goes rushing by,
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rattling everything in the room.
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John asks, "How often does
that train go by?"
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Dan replies, "So often, you won't
even notice it."
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And then, something falls off the wall.
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We all know what he's talking about.
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As human beings, we get used
to everyday things
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really fast.
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As a product designer,
it's my job to see those everyday things,
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to feel them, and try
to improve upon them.
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For example, see this piece of fruit?
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See this little sticker?
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That sticker wasn't there
when I was a kid.
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But somewhere as the years passed,
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someone had the bright idea
to put that sticker on the fruit.
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Why?
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So it could be easier for us
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to check out
at the grocery counter.
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Well that's great,
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we can get in and out of
the store quickly.
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But now, there's a new problem.
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When we get home and we're hungry
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and we see this ripe, juicy piece
of fruit on the counter,
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we just want to pick it up
and eat it.
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Except now, we have to look
for this little sticker.
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And dig at it with our nails,
damaging the flesh.
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Then rolling up that sticker --
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you know what I mean.
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And then trying to flick
it off your fingers.
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(Applause)
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It's not fun,
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not at all.
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But something interesting happened.
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See the first time you did it,
you probably felt those feelings.
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You just wanted to eat the piece of fruit.
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You felt upset.
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You just wanted to dive in.
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By the 10th time,
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you started to become less upset
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and you just started peeling
the label off.
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By the 100th time,
at least for me,
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I became numb to it.
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I simply picked up the piece of fruit,
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dug at it with my nails,
tried to flick it off,
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and then wondered,
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"Was there another sticker?"
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So why is that?
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Why do we get used to everyday things?
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Well as human beings,
we have limited brain power.
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And so our brains encode the
everyday things we do into habits
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so we can free up space
to learn new things.
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It's a process called habituation
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and it's one of the most basic ways,
as humans, we learn.
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Now, habituation isn't always bad.
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Remember learning to drive?
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I sure do.
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Your hands clenched at 10 and 2
on the wheel,
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looking at every single
object out there --
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the cars, the lights, the pedestrians.
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It's a nerve-wracking experience.
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So much so, that I couldn't even
talk to anyone else in the car
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and I couldn't even listen to music.
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But then something interesting happened.
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As the weeks went by,
driving became easier and easier.
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You habituated it.
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It started to become
fun and second nature.
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And then, you could talk
to your friends again
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and listen to music.
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So there's a good reason why
our brains habituate things.
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If we didn't, we'd notice
every little detail,
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all the time.
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It would be exhausting,
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and we'd have no time
to learn about new things.
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But sometimes,
habituation isn't good.
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If it stops us from noticing
the problems that are around us,
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well, that's bad.
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And if it stops us from noticing
and fixing those problems,
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well, then that's really bad.
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Comedians know all about this.
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Jerry Seinfeld's entire career was built
on noticing those little details,
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those idiotic things we do every day
that we don't even remember.
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He tells us about the time
he visited his friends
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and he just wanted to take
a comfortable shower.
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He'd reach out and grab the handle
and turn it slightly one way,
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and it was 100 degrees too hot.
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And then he'd turn it the other way,
and it was 100 degrees too cold.
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He just wanted a comfortable shower.
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Now, we've all been there,
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we just don't remember it.
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But Jerry did,
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and that's a comedian's job.
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But designers, innovators
and entrepreneurs,
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it's our job to not just notice
those things,
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but to go one step further
and try to fix them.
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See this, this person,
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this is Mary Anderson.
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In 1902 in New York City,
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she was visiting.
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It was a cold, wet, snowy day
and she was warm inside a streetcar.
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As she was going to her destination,
she noticed the driver opening the window
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to clean off the excess snow
so he could drive safely.
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When he opened the window, though,
he let all this cold, wet air inside,
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making all the passengers miserable.
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Now probably, most of those
passengers just thought,
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"It's a fact of life, he's got
to open the window to clean it.
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That's just how it is."
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But Mary didn't.
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Mary thought,
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"What if the diver could actually clean
the windshield from the inside
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so that he could stay safe and drive
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and the passengers could
actually stay warm?"
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So she picked up her sketchbook
right then and there,
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and began drawing what would become
the world's first windshield wiper.
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Now as a product designer,
I try to learn from people like Mary
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to try to see the world
the way it really is,
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not the way we think it is.
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Why?
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Because it's easy to solve a problem
that almost everyone sees.
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But it's hard to solve a problem
that almost no one sees.
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Now some people think
you're born with this ability
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or you're not,
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as if Mary Anderson was hardwired at birth
to see the world more clearly.
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That wasn't the case for me.
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I had to work at it.
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During my years at Apple,
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Steve Jobs challenged us
to come into work every day,
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to see our products through
the eyes of the customer,
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the new customer,
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the one that has fears
and possible frustrations
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and hopeful exhilaration that their
new technology product
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could work straightaway for them.
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He called it staying beginners,
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and wanted to make sure that we
focused on those tiny little details
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to make them faster, easier and seamless
for the new customers.
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So I remember this clearly
in the very earliest days of the iPod.
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See, back in the '90s,
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being a gadget freak like I am,
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I would rush out to the store
for the very, very latest gadget.
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I'd take all the time to get to the store,
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I'd check out, I'd come back home,
I'd start to unbox it.
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And then, there was
another little sticker:
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the one that said, "Charge before use."
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What!
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I can't believe it!
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I just spent all this time
buying this product
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and now I have to charge before use.
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I have to wait what felt like an eternity
to use that coveted new toy.
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It was crazy.
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But you know what?
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Almost every product back then did that.
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When it had batteries in it,
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and you had to charge it
before you used it.
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Well, Steve noticed that
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and he said,
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"We're not going to let that
happen to our product."
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So what did we do?
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Typically, when you have a product
that has a hard drive in it,
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you run it for about
30 minutes in the factory
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to make sure that hard drive's going
to be working years later
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for the customer after they
pull it out of the box.
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What did we do instead?
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We ran that product for over two hours.
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Why?
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Well, first off, we could make
a higher quality product,
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be easy to test,
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and make sure it was great
for the customer.
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But most importantly,
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the battery came fully charged
right out of the box,
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ready to use.
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So that customer,
with all that exhilaration,
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could just start using the product.
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It was great, and it worked.
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People liked it.
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Today, almost every product
that you get that's battery powered
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comes out of the box fully charged,
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even if it doesn't have a hard drive.
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But back then, we noticed
that detail and we fixed it,
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and now everyone else does that as well.
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No more, "Charge before use."
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So why am I telling you this?
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Well, it's seeing the invisible problem,
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not just the obvious problem,
that's important,
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not just for product design,
but for everything we do.
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You see, there are invisible problems
all around us,
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ones we can solve.
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But first we need
to see them, to feel them.
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So, I'm hesitant to give you any tips
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about neuroscience or psychology.
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There's far too many experienced people
in the TED community
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who would know much more
about that than I ever will.
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But let me leave you with
a few tips that I do,
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that we all can do,
to fight habituation.
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My first tip is to look broader.
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You see, when you're tackling a problem,
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sometimes, there are a lot of steps
that lead up to that problem.
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And sometimes, a lot
of steps after it.
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If you can take a step back
and look broader,
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maybe you can change some of those boxes
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before the problem.
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Maybe you can combine them.
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Maybe you can remove them altogether
to make that better.
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Take thermostats, for instance.
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In the 1900s when they first came out,
they were really simple to use.
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You could turn them up or turn them down.
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People understood them.
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But in the 1970s,
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the energy crisis struck,
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and customers started thinking about
how to save energy.
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So what happened?
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Thermostat designers decided
to add a new step.
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Instead of just turning up and down,
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you now had to program it.
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So you could tell it the temperature
you wanted at a certain time.
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Now that seemed great.
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Every thermostat had
started adding that feature.
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But it turned out that no one
saved any energy.
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Now, why is that?
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Well, people couldn't predict the future.
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They just didn't know how their weeks
would change season to season,
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year to year.
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So no one was saving energy,
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and what happened?
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Thermostat designers went back
to the drawing board
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and they focused on that programming step.
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They made better U.I.s,
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they made better documentation.
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But still, years later,
people were not saving any energy
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because they just couldn't
predict the future.
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So what did we do?
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We put a machine-learning algorithm in
instead of the programming
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that would simply watch
when you turned it up and down,
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when you liked a certain temperature
when you got up,
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or when you went away.
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And you know what?
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It worked.
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People are saving energy
without any programming.
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So, it doesn't matter what you're doing.
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If you take a step back
and look at all the boxes,
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maybe there's a way
to remove one or combine them
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so that you can make
that process much simpler.
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So that's my first tip: look broader.
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For my second tip, it's to look closer.
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One of my greatest teachers
was my grandfather.
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He taught me all about the world.
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He taught me how things were built
and how they were repaired,
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the tools and techniques necessary
to make a successful project.
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I remember one story
he told me about screws,
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and about how you need to have
the right screw for the right job.
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There are many different screws:
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wood screws, metal screws,
anchors, concrete screws,
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the list went on and on.
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Our job is to make products
that are easy to install
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for all of our customs themselves
without professionals.
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So what did we do?
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I remembered that story
that my grandfather told me,
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and so we thought,
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"How many different screws
can we put in the box?
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Was it going to be two, three,
four, five?
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Because there's so many
different wall types."
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So we thought about it, we optimized it,
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and we came up with three different
screws to put in the box.
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We thought that was going
to solve the problem.
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But it turned out, it didn't.
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So we shipped the product,
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and people weren't having
a great experience.
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So what did we do?
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We went back to the drawing board
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just instantly after we figured out
we didn't get it right.
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And we designed a special screw,
a custom screw,
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much to the chagrin of our investors.
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They were like, "Why are you spending
so much time on a little screw?
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Get out there and sell more!"
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And we said, "We will sell more
if we get this right."
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And it turned out, we did.
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With that custom little screw,
there was just one screw in the box,
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that was easy to mount
and put on the wall.
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So if we focus on those tiny details,
the ones we may not see
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and we look at them as we say,
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"Are those important
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or is that the way we've always done it?
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Maybe there's a way to get rid of those."
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So my last piece of advice
is to think younger.
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Every day, I'm confronted with interesting
questions from my three young kids.
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They come up with questions like,
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"Why can't cars fly around traffic?"
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Or, "Why don't my shoelaces
have Velcro instead?"
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Sometimes, those questions are smart.
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My son came to me the other day
and I asked him,
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"Go run out to the mailbox
and check it."
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He looked at me, puzzled, and said,
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"Why doesn't the mailbox just check itself
and tell us when it has mail?" (Laughter)
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I was like, "That's a pretty
good question."
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So, they can ask tons of questions
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and sometimes we find out
we just don't have the right answers.
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We say, "Son, that's just the way
the world works."
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So the more we're exposed to something,
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the more we get used to it.
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But kids haven't been around
long enough
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to get used to those things.
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And so when they run into problems,
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they immediately try to solve them,
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and sometimes they find a better way,
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and that way really is better.
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So my advice that we take to heart
is to have young people on your team,
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or people with young minds.
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Because if you have those young minds,
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they cause everyone in the room
to think younger.
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Picasso once said,
"Every child is an artist.
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The problem is when he or she grows up,
is how to remain an artist."
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We all saw the world more clearly
when we saw it for the first time,
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before a lifetime of habits
got in the way.
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Our challenge is to get back there,
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to feel that frustration,
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to see those little details,
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to look broader,
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look closer,
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and to think younger
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so we can stay beginners.
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It's not easy.
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It requires us pushing back
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against one of the most basic ways
we make sense of the world.
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But if we do,
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we could do some pretty amazing things.
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For me, hopefully, that's better
product design.
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For you, that could mean something else,
something powerful.
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Our challenge is to wake up
each day and say,
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"How can I experience the world better?"
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And if we do, maybe, just maybe,
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we can get rid of these
dumb little stickers.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)