My life through a Jobs to be done lens: why I hire music
As a UX researcher who has been practicing over the past ten years I am always looking for innovative ways to conduct studies. Whether I’m using a stimulus like a prototype or a deck of cards, or a series of photographs to get feedback from customers on an idea or product, it all comes down to how you frame your questions.
How you frame the questions and the methods used to get insights from customers will ultimately impact the quality of the information you can deliver to your product stakeholders.
In this article I am going to describing the jobs for which I have hired music in my life. In describing these jobs, there are some interesting insights and reflections on how JTBD can benefit your research efforts and get product stakeholders aligned on the problems for which they are trying to solve for their customers.
Below I have outlined the anecdotal circumstances in which I have hired music to get the job done, along with the insights gleaned using JTBD.
Music JTBD #1
Help me bond with loved ones by sharing the experience of listening to music they grew up listening to, so that I can have memories about them for the rest of my life.
Far from being music to my ears, my fathers doo-wop music felt more like a slow, deliberate torture. At least at the time. Other than torturing my ears, the doo-wop on his car radio was surreptitiously doing something else. It was creating a bond between my father and I.
This was my time with my dad. A rare commodity in retrospect.
My mother was the one who primarily raised myself and my brother and sister. My dad was usually working all of the time. The precious time I spent with him on the weekends, running odd errands is unforgettable to me. Doo-wop music was the surrounding sound in my life, whenever I was with my dad. Whether I liked it or not (admittedly, I started to like it!), this music was now a part of my permanent memory and life.
Insight
Jobs for which customers hire products are rooted in an emotional motivation. When I first started applying JTBD to my research, I was utilizing the multiple job dimensions as defined in some JTBD literature — functional, social and emotional aspects.
I really wasn’t sure what the net benefit of applying this categorization to my projects was. If anything, it was just another thing to keep track of during the analysis phase. If I had discovered a bunch of functional jobs, some emotional ones and then no social ones, I started to feel like I wasn’t doing my job as a JTBD practitioner. Then I would start chasing jobs down “rabbit holes”, where there were none!
What is really more important is the content of the jobs. What ultimate purpose are these jobs serving? How is it making the customer’s life better? Alan Klement, a Customer Jobs Theory practitioner posits that every job that a customer wants to accomplish ties back to an emotional motivation. Motivations might be to gain more control, self-expression or belonging. He writes in his book, When Coffee and Kale Compete, customers ultimately hire a product to improve their lives. When I reflect upon how music has affected me throughout my life, this idea makes perfect sense. Music, when experiencing it in all its varying contexts is really doing an emotional job.
Questions to Ask
During research sessions, listen for product-related stories and circumstances from participants where emotion comes into play:
- How do they feel about the product or service both when they first purchased it and in use? (This is what Clayton Christensen calls the big and little hires, respectively.)
- What sense of control (or lack thereof) do they exhibit with the product or service?
- What gap in their life does the product or service fill?
- What does progress look like when experiencing the service or product?
Music JTBD #2
Help me gain control of my weight so that I can improve my self-confidence and permanently change my lifestyle.
After dropping out of medical school I went through some difficult emotional struggles. I was going to medical school to become a doctor for the wrong reasons. It was for my parents and for how I wanted others to perceive me. It wasn’t for me, or my own self-improvement. After realizing that a career in medicine was not for me, I went through an epiphany, extended soul-searching.
I ended up taking antidepressants which caused me to gain a lot of weight. The extra weight made me feel self-conscious around others. To combat the weight gain I started running outside in order to shed some pounds. I hired music as a way to get through the pain and monotony of running. The ferocious and primal beats of indie electronic and disco music allowed me to get through the pain. Not only did I lose twenty pounds, I also permanently changed my lifestyle as well as how others perceived me.
Insight
Products may be hired to improve your life and social situation. As Alan Klement states in his book, it’s about self-betterment — the way in which a product improves your life. People hire products to change their life situation for the better. They are trying to resolve something that is not quite working in their lives. The product addresses the problem by making the customer feel like they are in a better place. (The key word here is feel. It is about perception. Not reality.)
Questions to Ask
- Look for epiphanies in your interview data.
- Establish relative timelines from before a product or service’s use to when it was being used.
- How did the participant’s life change as a result of the product or service’s adoption?
- Was life better, worse, or the same?
- How did the outcomes change the way the participant was perceived by others or how they perceived themselves?
Music JTBD #3
Allow loved ones to broaden their musical perspectives so that they can express themselves and share a common experience.
Another job that music has imparted on myself and my child is the sense of self-expression and discovery. After becoming a parent I realized how much I wanted to impart my varying musical tastes on my daughter. I believe it’s important for her to be exposed to all genres of music. It makes her more well-rounded and informed as to the breadth of the music world. It’s not all about Taylor Swift or Meghan Trainor.
Insight
People hire products to express themselves and to shape and share the experiences of those around them. Sharing experiences with those we care about has no price tag and provides people with a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves- a family, a community and a sense of identity.
Questions to Ask
During research interviews look for ways in which a product helps establish and shape a participant’s sense of their own identity. They choose to hire the products they use because they are able to identify something in the product that betters themselves and makes them who they are today. How are they sharing their experience in using the product with others? Look for those moments where a product provides this feeling of belonging. That is where the job is lurking.
Music JTBD #4
Allow me to immerse myself in the experience of music providing satisfaction, comfort and nostalgia.
A new job has emerged for music! My wife recently bought me a Victrola record player. Now I have good reason to buy vinyl again! Even though I can listen to the same records that I love on my smartphone by simply downloading them through Spotify, I opt to buy vinyl to feed my musical appetite. This has enabled me to revisit old albums that I had once back in grade school.
The emotional job that playing music on vinyl does for me is different than those experienced in other mediums. A key aspect missing from the others is the tactile experience that a vinyl album affords.
- The feel of the creased up and peeled off corners of an album cover.
- The wrinkled creases of the vinyl sleeve from excessive removal and insertion of the vinyl back into its album cover.
- The way the sleeve and vinyl slide out of the album jacket is incessantly satisfying.
- The weight of the vinyl in your hand as you gently lie it down on the metal plate to be played for the first time (or even the eleventh time!)
This experience is unique and vastly different than tapping on a big green digital play button on your Spotify app on your smartphone. It lacks the immersive touch and smells that come with playing a vinyl record. It also is a way for me to connect with my past, when I bought my very first vinyl records and played my fathers’ 45s.
Insight
Don’t just focus on “the pushes,” but also look for “the pulls.” Look for what motivates people to adopt a product and bring it into their lives. It could be filling a void or doing something better than the existing solution. Dig deep. Quickly get past the obvious and look at the underlying motivations. Motivation psychologist, Daniel Pink, talks about Type I (intrinsic) and Type X (extrinsic) behaviors possessed by all of us in his book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Both behavior types require feedback, but in different forms. The required feedback for Type I’ers feeds our egos and fulfill our desires to be recognized by others for things like, expertise in a particular skill. The solution that you pull into your life might be satisfying these intrinsic needs, providing the necessary feedback to be better at your job, or, being recognized as an expert in a particular field. Type X’ers require feedback from outside of their own egos and include feedback like monetary rewards that keep them going. The product you are pulling into your life provides feedback that appeals to both our intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.
Questions to Ask
Listen for ways in which participants are using products outside of their intended purposes. There might be some surprising ways in which participants are hiring products that you didn’t initially think about.
- Compare how participants have used the product over periods of time.
- How has their use of the product changed?
- Are new jobs being satisfied? Or are they the same?
- Have them show you how they use the product.
- Ask them what they are trying to achieve and what success looks like.
Music TBD #5
Allow me to feel organized and free from the clutter of my music collection to make more space for other items.
Allow me the freedom to carry my entire music collection in my pocket.
There was a time when the clutter of compact discs was too much for a music lover to handle. The plastic cases easily cracked. CDs would get misfiled into the wrong CD cases never to be found. Or, if I was in a hurry I might put the disc into one in which a disc already existed.
As digital music moved to a pay per download model, I started viewing the CDs as more of a nuisance, especially since I could now fit thousands of ripped songs onto my iPod. In the process of music getting its core jobs done, the job of organizing my music and freeing me from having to invest in more space and CD tower purchases arose. Now my music collection can be carried around with me on a card deck-sized iPod. What a sense of freedom I felt when I sold off all of my ripped CDs to second hand online CD exchanges!
Insight
When a job has been satisfied, look for those other jobs that they are trying to get done. Products do not exist in a vacuum (unless it’s a filter or a dust bag). They are typically part of an entire ecosystem, involving other products, services and touch points. Look for touch points that the customer has with your product. There might be an undiscovered service solution to the customer experience for your product.
Questions to Ask
As solutions have evolved for your product or service, satisfying jobs along the way, look at the other jobs that participants are trying to get done that may have resulted from the existing product.
- Now that the product or service is making progress for the customer, what kinds of new progress is around the corner?
- What does that look like in the future?
- What new struggles have emerged as a result of your existing progress?
- Understand the touch points in buying and using the product.
- Identify where the potential for value exists along the customer journey.
Conclusion
Understanding why I have incorporated music into my life allows me to see how much creative potential exists for the multitude of solutions that support my progress. I’d encourage anyone using jobs to be done in their research practice to self-reflect on a product that they have hired in their lives. Understand the circumstances, uncover the jobs and see how it has made your life better. What would life be like without that solution? What are some of the less obvious competing solutions in other categories? Introspection and self-reflection leads to new ideas and ways of viewing not just your own experiences but those of others.
References
Christensen, C. M., Hall, T., Dillon, K., & Duncan, D. S. (2016). Competing against luck: the story of innovation and customer choice. New York, NY: HarperBusiness, an imprint of HarperCollins .
Klement, A. (2017). When Coffee & Kale Compete (2nd ed.).
Pink, D. H. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
