Productivity tools and the loss

I always hear people complain about receiving too much email or addiction to the Blackberry what surprises me is that these are some of the same system/tools/devices that are supposed to improve productivity and performance. Is the power of these brands and the value being lost because of the user’s lack of expertise in taming these productivity improvement tools? If productivity improvement is the value proposition should training stretch beyond just the manual and a quick reference guide be part of the product?

It is amazing how few of the capabilities of the systems and tools users know and leverage. It often amazes me that the manufacturers of these brands invest more into research and development while adoption of some of the advanced features and capabilities that are at the core of the value proposition (in existing models/versions) fade away by the wayside for the dominant cross section of the user community.

When does it makes sense for the brand stewards to focus on training the user community and reprioritize the messaging, visuals and launches?

This is one classic challenge with most software companies where the brand marketers are focused on new versions, new tools, new launches when there is a community of users are frustrated because the product does not deliver to expectations and forces them to make compromises and trade-offs especially when there are minor settings that can help alleviate the root cause of the issue.

Is it time to get back to the drawing board in trying to figure out what is the scope of Marketing and how it aligns with the Value proposition?