Hannah Donovan and Matthew Ogle are the product and design powerhouse behind Last.fm and have continued their passion for building music products online with their hit startup This Is My Jam.

In their talk at our product management conference Mind the Product 2012 Matt and Hannah argue that MacGuffins can be incredibly useful tools when designing a product. A MacGuffin is a story telling object which serves as a trigger for the plot, most famously the Maltese Falcon in the eponymous book and films or the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. A product MacGuffin would build on this and could serve as a trope in an online product which serves merely as a trigger for the user experience, often evoking a real-world experience we’re already familiar with.