Forgive the slow posting. Our summer vacation turned into an exercise in illness, and we’ve both been sick since late June. With any luck, health will return, and with it innovation.

While scanning through the blogs today I saw the results of a survey. The survey asked what people would like robots to do for them. People wanted robots which:

• Clean the floors
• Clean the windows
• Clean blah blah blah

In other words, people wanted a maid.

What didn’t they want from a robot?

• Driving
• Helping children
• Keeping one company

If you were designing robots you’d take this and say “well, I guess I better make a robot maid” to which I would say “you’re out of your fucking mind”.

In other words: Ignore the results.

Why? Because a survey tells you what people are thinking about now, and the “now” is just about as useless as you can get. Honestly, how many people do you know — yourself included — who are visionary? Almost nobody.

Ask someone 10 years ago if they needed / wanted a web based video streaming service. Ask them about storing thousands of songs and applications on a phone. Ask then about a way to connect with old friends and play inane games hours on end. Would they want / need this stuff? Probably not.

That’s the point with innovation. If you follow the survey, you’ll develop a bunch of fucking robot vacuums. Instead, you should be developing for markets that don’t yet exist.

It’s not rocket science. Just look around you. What is more important to people — having a clean floor, or having someone to talk to? I’ll wager that most people would like a companion, human or robot, before they want a maid.