September 1: Resisting Proxies

Proxies are anything that stand in or represent something else.

Source: Vox
Published: April 2017

Resisting Proxies

“A remarkable customer experience starts with heart, intuition, curiosity, play, guts, taste. You won’t find any of it in a survey.” –Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos believes companies need to resist proxies. Proxies are anything that stand in or represent something else. Companies have the tendency to use processes as a proxy for results.

For example, market research and customer surveys become proxies for customers. Beta testing and surveys can be hard to interpret and misleading, straying inventors and designers away from deeply understanding their customer.