Take a Jobcation
Inspired by Bob Moesta episode
Bob Moesta's 'jobcation'—shadow your users for a day—works for parenting. Spend one Saturday just observing your kid.
Bob Moesta calls it a "jobcation" - shadow your users for a day. Just follow them around, see what they actually do, not what they tell you in Zoom interviews.
Try this with your kid. Full shadow mode for one Saturday.
Turns out their day is 40% negotiations about snacks, 30% explaining why the cat doesn't want to wear a hat, and 30% deeply committed physical comedy that ends with someone crying. They're running seven parallel storylines involving stuffed animals that have more complex relationships than your stakeholder map.
You think you know what your kid needs? You're building features for a user whose main priority is "the round kind of grapes, not the weird long ones." The stuff you think matters—nutrition, development, learning—ranks below "making sure this specific toy touches every piece of furniture before bedtime."
The jobcation is humbling. Turns out you're not the CEO of this household. You're an intern who keeps getting the lunch order wrong.
