What’s a Yottatweak?

The short answer: An odd word that I just made it up (and may or may not be useful…let me know in the poll at the end of this post).

The slightly longer answer:

A minor adjustment to something that delivers a disproportionately large and positive effect.

Yotta is a SI prefix, i.e. what you put in front of a unit of measure to form a multiple; ‘kilo’ is the SI prefix in ‘kilometre’, ‘mega’ in megawatt etc.

Yotta is the daddy of the SI prefixes though, representing a multiple with 25 decimal places. To put that into context, the total power output of the Sun is only 383 Yottawatts.

But this isn’t really about exact numbers. I used Yotta because it’s an exaggerated way of saying ‘really big’ and so is the perfect counterbalance to the kind of fine-tuning that the word ‘tweak’ conjures up.

Here are some examples of what I’m going on about (it might just be me – let me know):

1. The Surf Leash

If you were surfing before 1971 then chances are that you were spending a lot of your time in the water swimming after your board (particularly if you were a novice). Not only was this a huge annoyance, it was also pretty dangerous. A stray board in the back of the head can be lethal.

Thankfully, in 1971 Pat O’Neill (son of surf legend Jack O’Neill) made a yottatweak to his surfboard by linking his ankle and his board with surgical cord, thereby inventing the surf leash.

Whilst the original design wasn’t perfect (Pat’s aforementioned dad, Jack, lost his left eye because the surgical cord on his board overstretched and sent the board flying back at him), the tweak cost next to nothing and has had a hugely positive effect on the surfing experience, making it safer and far more enjoyable.

2. Diamond Shreddies

How do you revitalise your cereal brand and get people to talk about it again?

You could spend loads on research and development trying to identify the elusive blockbuster SKU.

Or you could just turn the square of wholegrain wheat 45 degrees and call it the ‘Diamond’ variety.

That was the yottatweak that Hunter Somerville made to a Shreddie and it helped to increase sales by 20% in Alberta, Canada.

3. Nordstrom Fashion Feed

It’s a bit of a cheat because I don’t know how successful it’s been (Adrian?) but this really feels like it could be a yottatweak; the re-packaging as a “Fashion Feed” of what is essentially just advanced search & RSS.