In the hallowed halls of businesses (and business schools) around the world, B. F. Skinner is the hidden king. Skinner was one of the major intellect… - Josh Kaufman

Fitbit is a company that knows the value of Shadow Testing. Founded by Eric Friedman and James Park in September 2008, Fitbit makes a small clip-on exercise and sleep data-gathering device. The Fitbit device tracks your activity levels throughout the day and night, then automatically uploads your data to the Web, where it analyzes your health, fitness, and sleep patterns. It’s a neat concept, but creating new hardware is time-consuming, expensive, and fraught with risk, so here’s what Friedman and Park did. The same day they announced the Fitbit idea to the world, they started allowing customers to preorder a Fitbit on their Web site, based on little more than a description of what the device would do and a few renderings of what the product would look like. The billing system collected names, addresses, and verified credit card numbers, but no charges were actually processed until the product was ready to ship, which gave the company an out in case their plans fell through. Orders started rolling in, and one month later, investors had the confidence to pony up $2 million dollars to make the Fitbit a reality. A year later, the first real Fitbit was shipped to customers. That’s the power of Shadow Testing.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. — BILL GATES,

Status seeking is a part of human nature and can be harnessed for good or ill. Learning to recognize status-motivated behavior — in yourself and in other people — will help you understand why people tend to act in certain predictable ways, help you avoid common pitfalls, and improve your ability make wise decisions.