First, start with the four stages of personal experience, and talk about why we should use the five-element theory of Shidao magical tools to build product thinking?
Products generally need to go through at least four stages, which are the tool stage, routine stage, process stage, and methodology stage.
Corresponding to the instrument, technique, method, and Tao in the five-element theory, the discussion of potential will be detailed in the subsequent examples.
Tool man stage:
When I first started making products, I was obsessed with tools, including: PS, AutoCAD, PROE, Rhino, Axure, Keyshot, Altium...
About 2 months of time and energy were spent on learning to use tools.
Through the use of tools, work efficiency has been improved. Under the premise of only idea, it has successfully applied for multiple utility model patents and designed high-fidelity prototypes of multiple products.
Routine stage:
In the process of making products, you will consciously use some product routines (features: easy to quantify, strong operability), routines can let you show yourself in a more organized manner.
If you are looking for a job, it is easier to get an interviewer, and you can become a middle-level company in the system to act according to instructions.
A large company has a mature talent training system that can systematically train a certain type of people, which also shows that this company has a unique routine in this field.
For example: Lenovo produces sales, Tencent produces product managers, Ali produces operations, and Baidu produces technology.
At the same time, large companies will deeply characterize people, so that you can only act as a role in the system and get used to survival within the system, such as Huawei's screw culture.
Product routines include:
- User portraits, pain points and itch points, overall flow chart, user experience map, service blueprint;
- User requirements, product strategy, function definition, flow chart production, product prototype production;
- Project management, data analysis, product operation...
Process stage:
After the baptism of multiple projects, I am proficient in the whole process from product definition to production and form a system.
Methodological stage:
It is hoped that by transforming historical experience into its own unique product methodology, it can be used to guide future product design so that it will remain unchanged and respond to changes.
This is also the origin of this article. The concept of Shidao magical equipment can just meet the needs of methodology construction.
The explanation of Dao magic tools on Baidu Baike is as follows:
- "Tao" is the eternal law in the cycle of all things change. At the personal level, it is the state of life and values. The criterion for judging the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, and the joy is a natural talent that is not easy to change and can only be understood by long-term cultivation;
- "Law" is a set of rules and principles, guidelines and ideas for the realization of values, which can be changed due to the internal change rules of things, and can be derived from long-term practice thinking and induction.
- "Shu" is a specific method of operation under the guidance of the rule system. As long as the guiding principles (methods) remain unchanged, the specific methods can be ever-changing, and the skills can be obtained through practice or produced by reasoning about the law.
- "Apparatus" is a product, a tool, and an output result of Tao's legal principles. For example, what we often say "carry the Tao with instruments" is to use the ultimate physical manifestation.
For example, if we want to make a comfortable chair, it must conform to "ergonomics" (Dao), and then the chair must be "stable and safe" (Fa). Now we start to make a chair (Surgery), and finally become a A comfortable chair (device).
For another example, the Tao magic tools for competitive product analysis are:
- Tao: Know yourself and the enemy, never end in a hundred battles;
- Method: Process, six steps of competitive product analysis process (clear goals, select competitive products, analyze dimensions, collect information, sort and analyze, and summarize reports);
- Techniques: methods, PEST, SWOT, matrix analysis, etc.;
- Tools: Tools, Lean Canvas, Competitive Canvas, Strategic Canvas, Product Canvas, Business Model Canvas, etc.
The following discusses the application and value of pentagram from three perspectives: building a knowledge system, career development and products:
01 Build a knowledge system
This article starts from the perspective of the first principle and talks about the principles and purpose of building a knowledge system.
Construction principles: systematization, process and visualization.
Construction method: deduce the process of knowledge construction from the perspective of momentum, Tao, magic, magic, and equipment.
1. Systematization (potential + way)
Building a knowledge system is the same as making a product. You need to clarify your own strengths and weaknesses, find areas that you are interested in and willing to dig deeper, and formulate strategies for building your knowledge system through a systematic life plan.
Determine the concept and direction: master the law, grasp the direction of life
Find your strengths and weaknesses:
Everyone has their own answers to why they build a knowledge system, and what kind of knowledge system is different.
But you must start from your own interests, needs, and expertise so that you will have the self-motivated power to do this, or pressure to continue to build.
For example, if you want to be a self-media, continuing to post is a chore. If you can't start from the point of interest, it will be difficult to continue, let alone development.
Grasp the trend:
There are two levels of potential:
- Passive level: don't get tangled up in case of trouble, take advantage of the trend;
- Active level: Research trends and establish a macro perspective.
Choose direction:
Should we take the breadth route or the depth route? Which field does the deep route go? The choice also requires the individual to have the ability to grasp the situation, and the direction of life determines who we are.
If you don't know your life direction, it is recommended to choose a direction bravely on the basis of learning.
Choice is the cost. This is also the contradiction in life. It is better to do everything to your fate without regrets.
2. Establish process and guidelines -process (law + technique)
Through clear steps and processes, the construction process can be traced to achieve the effect of step by step.
A clear process can solve the problem of unsystematic knowledge itself, the process can be continuously optimized and adjusted according to practice, and various methods and strategies (technologies) can be used flexibly in the process to gradually form its own systemization.
1) Divergence
Steps to absorb external information into internal. The information obtained is a lot of complicated, it may be active search, query, or passive recommendation.
Entropy is being increased at this stage, and the knowledge absorbed is disorderly and chaotic. Entropy represents the degree of disorder.
In an isolated system, the system always spontaneously changes in the direction of increasing chaos, which increases the entropy of the entire system, which is called "entropy increase".
You can use the cause and effect, apply the boundary method, and expand the knowledge of each point into a body of knowledge.
2) Convergence
It is necessary to determine the dimensions of knowledge absorption based on interests, needs, and expertise, and disassemble them into topics.
Then classify them according to topics, clarify which information and knowledge belong to the same kind, and then put them together.
Entropy reduction is a process of transformation from disorder to order. The self-organization process of all life is the process of entropy reduction, and the convergence of knowledge points is also the result of entropy reduction.
We are in an entropy-reduced life world. Learning itself is an entropy-reducing factor, which integrates and internalizes the information and knowledge outside the individual’s cognitive system into a structured cognition of the individual’s system.
It is a process of gradual transformation and promotion from unstructured information to knowledge and even wisdom. The basic condition to promote the occurrence of entropy reduction is to maintain the openness of the system and the input of energy.
The process of learning and integrating materials is to further read less materials, and continuously eliminate rubbish and worthless materials in the process of reading and learning.
The classification management of data is the first step, but it is far from enough. The second filtering requires extensive reading of each data.
Sort the value and priority of the materials through extensive reading to determine the plan and focus of later learning.
3) Storage
We need to find tools to record and store the filtered knowledge and information. The author likes to reprocess the knowledge to form the output of the article.
4) Organize
In the storage process, it is necessary to clarify which information is useful, which knowledge is elementary or advanced, which knowledge is out of date, and which should be updated in time.
Carefully sort it out, and if you find something good, you will study it and take notes. Continuously optimize the existing knowledge system, and try to summarize and consolidate the existing knowledge.
5) Share
At this time, it has formed its own thinking mode and knowledge system, but is it useful to practice and reality? You can avoid problems in advance through sharing, and verify your knowledge at a small cost and low threshold before acting.
That is, the internalized knowledge is connected with the external, exchanged, discovered and perfected in time.
️6) Application
The practical application of the knowledge verified by the theory can truly bring changes to our existence, life, and life.
Often many practices will either verify the correctness of knowledge or verify the incompleteness of knowledge. This is also an excellent opportunity for us to repair the knowledge system or to innovate the existing knowledge system.
️7) Creation
When we have the theoretical foundation and practical support, our thoughts gradually mature and form our own unique thinking mode. The knowledge system we master will grow spontaneously, and weird chemical reactions will appear.
Novels, works of art, new products, new technologies, and other inventions and creations are often born out of this background.
The macro process of the knowledge system is as above, in actual application, it is cyclically, continuously constructed, changed and even collapsed, and then constructed or even reconstructed.
3. Visualization (device)
Through text and tool record combing-visualization to achieve the purpose of clarifying, strengthening and optimizing the knowledge system, it also solves the problem of discontinuity in knowledge acquisition.
Since everyone is in a different field and the process of application and creation is different, the process targeted by the visualization tool is mainly in the five steps of obtaining, filtering, storing, organizing, and sharing.
Mainstream network tools:
️1) Divergence tool
Almost all network tools such as WeChat, Zhihu, Douban, Guohu, Toutiao, Weibo, WeChat, etc.;
️2) Convergence tool
Baidu search, Google search, Sogou search, etc.;
Douban tags, Baidu entry categories, Amazon intelligent recommendation system;
️3) Storage tools
Know the favorites, Douban collections, book notes, Evernote notes, Youdaoyun notes, etc.;
️4) Organizing tools
Evernote and Daoyun Note can save text and pictures, and continue to organize and update;
️5) Sharing tools
WeChat Moments, Jianshu, Toutiao, Weibo Toutiao, etc.;
️6) Creation tools
WeChat Official Account, Evernote, Youdaoyun Note, Toutiao, Weibo Toutiao, Jianshu, etc.
02 Personal career development
1. Skill level stage (tool)
Anyone is basically at the skill stage when entering the workplace. This skill is broad and does not only refer to a professional skill. For example, sales, personnel, and finance are also skills.
People at this stage are themselves tool people and skilled people, using their skills in exchange for rewards.
As their skills continue to improve and mature, they will also experience horizontal and vertical expansion of skills.
Horizontal expansion is the enrichment of core skills. For example, when editors learn to design, they become beautiful editors.
Vertical development is the expansion of the pre- and post-process tasks of a job, such as new media work, which not only writes but also promotes.
In the skill stage, you must be agile and studious, keep making progress, and constantly enrich your skills. Your core professional skills must be outstanding.
Moreover, you must continuously learn management knowledge, improve your management ability and accomplishment, have strong skills, and have management thinking before you can be promoted to the next stage, the management stage.
2. Management stage (field)
With strong skills and management thinking, it is inevitable to enter the management team. What the management tests is not their own execution ability, but the organization ability to execute the team.
At this stage, pay more attention to contact with the outside world, such as industry conferences and the management of cooperative companies.
Contact with the outside world is an important means of resource accumulation. The more people you know, the richer your initial resources will be. After a long period of precipitation and accumulation, you will enter the stage of the resource layer.
3. Resource layer stage (transport)
The difference between relationships and resources is that relationships need to be maintained, and resources need to be replaced. The most important thing is whether the value of oneself is large enough and whether it can become the resource of the target resource.
One's own value is an important way of resource replacement and resource maintenance. The purpose of accumulation of resources is to continuously increase one's own financing capabilities. Once they have financing capabilities, they will enter the capital stage.
4. Capital layer stage (potential)
Capital is the top level of business and the top level of the economy. Capital determines the success or failure of a commercial company. Continuous capital injection can help the project go through a dangerous development period and enter a mature period.
The knowledge and experience of investment and financing needs to grow continuously at this stage. After using capital to develop itself, it will also make a series of investments for continuous capital expansion.
The most important thing in investment is people. What is controllable is investment, and what is uncontrollable is gambling.
Uncontrollable depends on the judgment of the financier, and the investigation involves the three stages of skills, management, and resources.
03 Five Elements in Product Field
1. Trend: Trend direction
Potential represents the trend and direction of industry development, represents the soil and environment in which products survive, and gives products the power and depth to grow.
The characteristic of today's era is change, that is, the "potential" has undergone rapid changes. Following the trend, it will rise, while the trend will decline.
From a macro perspective, what are the changing trends in this era?
It simply boils down to the following three categories:
Changes in the industry environment:
Such as: consumption upgrades, industrial policies, social changes, demographic changes, etc.;
The development of new technologies:
Such as: mobile Internet, big data cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc.;
Integration of technology and application:
Typical examples are early Apple mobile phones, various O2O platforms, and various IoT products.
When mobile phones switched from feature phones to smart phones, Nokia gave up the opportunity of smart phones in order to protect the original feature phone market. In the end, Apple took the lead. Such cases abound.
2. Tao: law, natural law
To understand the entire industry context in your industry, you also need to understand the entire industry development history, to be able to grasp the development laws of this industry, discover industry development trends, and discover current opportunities in the industry.
"Tao" is the underlying law of the occurrence and development of things, something that does not change easily, and represents the soul of the product, that is, the essence and value of the product.
The specific problems that enterprises need to solve, the goals and effects they want to achieve, and the solutions they provide must revolve around the most essential problem of "Tao".
Here the "Tao" is divided into three categories:
1) "Tao" of the product
The way of ToC products is the bottom-level needs of human nature, establish micro-somatosensory, and become a product master.
Product is a kind of passive art. A product can only be passive, grasping every tiny active opportunity silently, allowing users to smoothly deepen at every moment of contact and every interaction.
The user is not motivated, and there is nothing you can do to give up this product. The most picky person is actually the most defensive person.
If the product suddenly touches a certain nerve of the user's consciousness and makes the user defensive, the chance of loss will increase.
The way of ToB products is to improve the efficiency or service of each link of the industrial chain.
Products in each vertical field must also consider the underlying logic and development laws of their respective industry fields, that is, the "road" of the product environment. For example, education industry enterprises must follow the logic and development laws of the education industry.
The mapping of product Tao in the emotional level of people , that is, the beliefs, ideas and values that people or companies uphold.
For example, Huawei's Ren Zhengfei's insistence on customer-centric and technology-first has made Huawei's life prosperous.
The product principle (dao) defined in the book of Revelation is as follows:
Product principles are a summary of the team’s beliefs and values, and are used to guide the product team to make correct decisions and choices.
It embodies the goals and vision of the product team and is an important part of the product strategy.
What does it mean to make decisions about product principles? What is not important? Which principles are fundamental and strategic? Which ones are temporary and tactical? The product principle here actually belongs to the Tao level.
3. Law: System capacity is a program, a rule, a system, and a concept
After grasping the industry context, in the face of gaps and opportunities, you need your own set of logic to seize the opportunities, establish your own system, enhance your own industry competitiveness, and enable you to make a difference in the industry.
With the above insight into the trend and the analysis of the value direction to be cut, then how to plan the product next?
Here, the most fundamental strategies, methods, guidelines and ideas that guide the product landing and commercialization will be called "laws."
That is, the way of providing value, the way of resource integration, and the way of achieving profit are integrated and designed into a set of general rules and systems that guide operations, that is, a business model.
If “power” and “dao” belong to the objective world of cognition, then “fa” belongs to subjective change of the world.
Based on the insight of macro trends and the search for value, with the goal of realizing the ultimate business goal, the integration of various resource elements to develop a clear method, path and mode.
In the past few years, the rapid development of Internet technology has led to the birth of a large number of new business models. Just like the explosion of species, traditional business competition with tactics as the main body has been upgraded to business model competition.
For example, the sharing economy model of Didi and shared bicycles, the ecological model of Xiaomi ecological chain, and the ecological model of BAT, based on the ecological model, have also derived dimensionality reduction attacks.
And the S2B model proposed by Ali Zengming, the new retail model proposed by Ali and Xiaomi at the same time, and so on.
If you don't have a clear business model positioning for your products, you may be eliminated from the fierce competition at any time, and you don't even know how you died.
Many people think that having a good business model is half the battle. But what is a good business model?
A good business model must be to create maximum value for customers, effectively integrate various elements inside and outside the enterprise to form an operating system with core competitiveness, and obtain continuous benefits. Such an overall solution is a good business model .
4. Technique: method, practice
In our own system, methods and practices must pursue high efficiency and low cost, and constantly improve their own methods and practices, and focus on how to continuously improve while pursuing results.
"Skill" is tactics, it is the tactics, technology, and specific means to realize strategy ("law"), and it is the operation method at the execution level.
It is a key link in how a product business model turns from an idea into a reality. It is a series of guarantee systems, including product operations and specific marketing and promotion methods.
The "techniques" of products can be described as varied. The specific form depends on the field of the product and the characteristics of the product itself, but the core must serve the strategic goals of each stage of the product.
For example, the four major stages of Internet product innovation, promotion, retention, and conversion, and the brand influence, market share, and commercial revenue that traditional commercial advertising must achieve.
In the Internet era, with the changes in the market and communication channels, the level of "technologies" has gradually changed and updated, forming the characteristics of enterprise as media, product as service, and service as marketing.
5. Device: tool, auxiliary
Use the power of tools to make your career more effective.
"Apparatus" generally refers to tools or products in a narrow sense. Here, products or services that can contact the market and consumers are called "apparatus".
"Apparatus" is the entrance, the entrance to the market and consumers, and the channel for information feedback. That is, the product connects, exchanges, and iteratively develops with the external market environment.
04 Summary: Five-element relationship
Tao magic comes from Laozi's "Tao De Jing", Tao is a rule, natural law, and superior. Dharma is method, legal principle, and middle multiplication. Skills are behaviors, methods, and inferiority.
If the product is compared to a living body, and the development of the product is regarded as the growth of the living body, then:
- "Positiveness" represents the energy contained in the growth of life forms, namely vitality, and indicates the strength and depth of the growth of life forms;
- "Tao" represents the soul of the product and indicates the essential problem of the growth of life and body;
- "Dharma" represents the growth path of a living body and indicates how to grow;
- "Skill" represents the growth skills of the living body, and indicates how to grow better;
- "Apparatus" represents the limbs of the living body, and the connection and exchange of information between the living body and the outside world.
The vitality of the product is firstly derived from a deep insight into the "potential" and "dao", followed by the rational planning of the business model and the rationalized operation of the product system, and finally the contact and exchange with the outside world through the product "device".
The relatively mature market emphasizes the competition between "techniques" and "tools". With market upgrades and value return, some companies have rebuilt their industrial chains, improved product value and their own efficiency, and have risen to the "legal" level of competition.
In the new field, for example, the major changes in the market environment have burst out many new outlets and opportunities, relying on potential energy to give birth to new business models, and control these outlets and opportunities to enter the game first.
1. Case: Xiaomi Technology
1) Trend (direction trend): Smart phone replacement + consumption upgrade + traffic bonus from Internet celebrity e-commerce
When the tide of smartphone replacement hits, the first impact is the relatively mature market in first- and second-tier cities, and the user group is relatively rational and mature. A typical example is the male user group of Xiaomi Polytechnic, focusing on high value and high cost performance.
Xiaomi mobile phones have stepped on three major bonuses at the same time. The new demand for products, user changes, and traffic changes. These three era-level bonuses have supported Xiaomi mobile phones.
2) Tao (the origin of value): the ultimate experience of high cost performance
3) Law (business model): hardware + internet + new retail
Xiaomi’s three-stage rocket mode:
- First-level rocket: Xiaomi mobile phone, also head traffic.
- The first-level rocket does not make money, mainly to obtain traffic, so the profit of Xiaomi mobile phones is extremely low.
- Level 2 Rocket: A three-dimensional retail channel driven by Xiaomi mobile phones.
- Three-level rocket: MIUI, Xiaomi Cloud and other Internet services will truly support Xiaomi's profits and its intelligent future.
4) Technique (marketing communication): fan community marketing + network marketing + word-of-mouth communication
5) Device (product form): cost-effective mobile phone + fast iteration + community service
With the discontinuity of the market environment, each company is carrying out a continuous circular evolution of the product cycle.