Post-Hype Season
The second half of this year feels different than the previous two. AI hype is losing steam. Not the technology, the hype. And that is the best news our industry has had in a while.
The Experiment We Ran
For the past couple of years, a lot of organizations ran a (sometime quiet, other times loud) experiment. Money was tight (as always), headcount was frozen or falling, and the promise was everywhere: let AI handle the strategy, the design, and more. Why fund human-led research when a model will crank out personas, a journey map, and forty screens before lunch? AI CAN DO IT!
The need for speed is reasonable. And while we are all driven for execution, proper product strategy and design can feel slow and expensive, a bottleneck of process, an impediment to progress. And for real, it can be.
And for many of us, the AI-can-design-for-us results are in. The screens shipped, and though they may technically work, they are not moving the business. It is a painful place to be. When execution gets prioritized over clarity of direction and code becomes quick to generate, an unproven hypothesis is both easy to implement and expensive to unwind.
But, I'm no luddite. I am leveraging Claude & Claude Code, all day, every day. They function as my strategic collaborator, pixel pusher, and code writer. These tools have elevated and accelerated my workflow in ways I never could’ve imagined. I'm teaching others to do the same.
Weathering The Hype, Again
In the late nineties, every company had to have a website. Then every company had to have a mobile app. Not so long ago the hype was Web3 and VR. It seems every hype-train arrives with the same claim: this changes everything, and the old ways no longer apply!
In truth, while technology shifts, the simplest business principles will forever remain true.
As the train slows down, we're arriving at a place where most traffic appears to be bots and agents feeding off of each other. The customer has been forgotten. Who are they, what do they need, and how do we provide it? This is what matters most, and very rarely is the answer a more clever chatbot.
Seven Acre Strategy
Regardless of your industry, your budget, or the technology you leverage, understanding your customer is most critical. Indeed, my wife and I are navigating these exact same questions for our own new business.
We are closing on 7.5 acres just south of Atlanta, moving into a 1920s farmhouse. We have grand visions: endless rows of flowers and a robust garden apothecary, customers visiting to gather their own bundles, and students learning to craft a bouquet, blend teas and tinctures, and me teaching folks how to paint a figure dancing through the blooms.
We're soon to be empty nesters, and have been talking about this for years. As the closing date approaches, it's suddenly getting really real. It's tempting to continue dreaming about flowers, chickens, and the sunshiney days ahead, but now is the time to focus on discovering our customer.
Who are they? Where are they? What do they need? What would inspire someone to drive thirty minutes or more and spend $50-$100 in a single visit? Who else is doing this work, what experiences do they offer? How might we learn from them, their successes and challenges? How might we contribute to the community?
My wife is volunteering at farms 3-5 days a week. Listening, learning, doing the research, gathering intelligence. We're both reading a lot. I built a custom Claude project, helping us vet and plan everything along the way. Soon, we'll be onsite, exploring the land and the community we're joining. It is the same work I do with digital product teams, in different soil.
Farming is deep in its own post-hype season, by the way. 150 years ago, about half of Americans farmed. Today it is closer to one percent. The hype left agriculture generations ago, and the people managing to succeed in the business of it today are focused on those same questions, better understanding their customer.
The UX of Farming
One of the books I am reading is called The Lean Micro Farm by Ben Hartman. It maps Toyota's lean manufacturing principles onto small-scale market gardening, echoing the lean UX practices I have brought to digital product work throughout my entire career.
It is wild to see the techniques I am actively using with clients applied to planning and growing robust gardens. It is also obvious. Every business benefits from asking how we can better serve our customer, reduce waste, refine our systems, and move deliberately toward a clearer vision of success. The environment, vocabulary, and technology changes. The discipline does not.
FAIR WARNING: expect a lot of farming analogies over the next few years, when you and I are cultivating your digital products and services, and bringing them to market.