Give the people what they want

No, not the The Kinks

Tom Friedman wrote this today:

Over the years, Detroit bosses kept repeating: “We have to make the cars people want.” That’s why they’re in trouble. Their job is to make the cars people don’t know they want but will buy like crazy when they see them. I would have been happy with my Sony Walkman had Apple not invented the iPod. Now I can’t live without my iPod. I didn’t know I wanted it, but Apple did. Same with my Toyota hybrid.

This theme is talked about in this Malcolm Gladwell talk about the invention of chunky tomato sauce. The key is that nobody would have told you that they wanted chunky tomato sauce, but they did. This is more interesting than Friedman's ipod analogy -- because technological innovation is always happening, and is expected.