A Metaphor
by Tom Riley
[Editors note: This paper is part of a larger series of papers. Read this article for an overview and list of papers.]
Purpose
Suppose you have an idea for a consumer product or a software package, and this idea is so far out of the box that the potential customers simply cannot fathom what you are talking about. How can you do a top-down design if there is no clear top? How can you develop a specification directly from customer needs, if the customer has never even seen your product?
Developing a new human/computer interface is just such a problem and The Cave of the Future metaphor suggests a way out of this conundrum.
The Cave of the Future
In a distant land there is a cave. It is dark within this cave, so dark in fact, that you know the only light you are likely to have must come from your own heart and mind.
From the roof of the cave grow stalactites and from the floor stalagmites. Where they meet, they have formed great columns of power and beauty. Such formations can grow quickly in the Cave of the Future.
You are one of the cave’s denizens and you crawl around on the floor in among the bat droppings and washed in debris. But, other cave dwellers, no smarter than you, get to live on the great mineral columns. The ones who get to live in these castles of power, prestige, and wealth got there as much by historic accident as anything else. They now employ many minions around the base to guard their privileges.
What you want to do is assemble a pile of rocks and start your own stalagmite. To do that, you must control a position under one of the cave’s fast-growing, but almost indiscernible, stalactites. The bad news is that no one can actually see into the future and see the stalactites on the roof of the cave and so find the choice locations below them. The good news is that some people have amazing flashes of insight and can discern, even if only for an instant, a great stalactite above them. You are one of these people.
Here is the magic part. If you can convince enough of your fellow floor dwellers to desire the products of your particular vision, they will support you in your efforts, and your vision will become real. Your stalactite will magically be there just for you.
To do this you must spin a wondrous tail. Every potential customer must be left with a clear vision of themselves using the idea and succeeding with it. This is not easy. Everyone will have a slightly different idea of what their success will look like. The visions need last but a few seconds but they must be very clear.
Your stalactite will then be there dripping mineral water directly on your head. You can start building your stalagmite right under it and get all the help you need to make things happen.
Of course, this sometimes attracts the attention of powerful forces that want to dislodge you from your hard won spot.
The Lesson of The Cave of the Future
If we can build a clear vision of a major breakthrough product in the minds of many potential customers, and if they can see themselves succeeding with the new product, then a large number of them will buy into the idea. You must give them this image of success and you must do it primarily with language. You then can design your product directly to the customer’s needs from the top down.
This process will establish an unfulfilled demand with the power to launch your product. You can make hard reality out of dreams and possibilities.
This process is infinitely faster than waiting for such things to happen unaided or wrestling for a spot in an established fight ring. But it also attracts the attention of potential competitors, so you have to be ready to act and seize the moment.
The magic is in the power of Buy-In. 
Links
Detailed discussion of Buy-In
http://www.charm.net/~jriley/gagarin/project.html
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