The Good Work
If I don't have the money to afford the food, shelter, clothing that I need, then any work is good work. Once I have enough to survive, though, be it through savings, investments, a lottery, or by any other means, good work takes on an entirely new meaning. Earning money becomes more important than just getting it. The purpose of what I do takes on more relevance. In this state of mind, what work used to be satisfying, pleasurable even, seems stifling. I begin to question the value of what I am doing to the customer, and whether I deserve the money I am getting in my job.
If I get the sense that I am building products that are sold largely by marketing, branding, or any such means other than the intrinsic value of the offering, I feel less motivated to produce the best. After all, whether or not someone buys my product is almost independent of what I create, and in many cases, the success of my company bears no correlation to the effort I put in, so why should I break my back on it? In software in particular, people buy stuff with either the zombied faith in pre-sales messages of what it'll do for them, or with the resigned acceptance that the product will be well short of what they need, that bugs will pop up at anytime, and they have to deal with it anyway. It may even give many IT department experts and consultants/system integrators a sense of job security that they have so much more work to patch the issues in new technology.
As a producer of technology, I wonder what difference my software has made in the lives of my customer. And anything that comes to mind is debatable. The main things I have gained from computer technology after spending thousands of dollars every year for the last decade or two, are ability to talk better(email), find better(web search) and broadcast better(web publishing). And I see very little work today that is even trying to make any of these experiences better, though many may claim to do so, which is the selling part. The value of process automation in my life is debatable, since in many cases, automation cuts down the flexibility that was available through human interaction (how many times have you found the options presented on an online commerce site or automated support responses on phone inadequate?). You may disagree on this one, but I am sure everyone has had the question "Why the !@#$%^ don't they __________?" while trying to do something on a website or on a phone system.
And even these experiences are still in their infancy when it comes to the user's experience.
For instance, all popular email clients provide a default view that has 20-50 messages listed on the screen when you log in. No one can really act on all of these messages in any meaningful way, except maybe to delete them. Then why are all these emails in my face?
And we all know about search. How many redundant sites, ads, search query variations do we have to go through to find anything new, even in the best of search tools?
In terms of publishing myself, how much do I need to spend in time, money and effort, to get people to see my site today? How many bells and whistles do I need to add over my main message (which is often as simple as "I sell great ice cream. Everyone come and buy from me!") to keep people on my site long enough?
And above all this, how useful has technology been to improve the productivity of users? My ideal experience in being productive would be to have a simple tool that I feed in everything relevant - my tasks, my email, links from the web, my appointments, my rules/preferences, etc. and the tool in turn, at any time tells me what I need to do next. In spite of a gazillion tools I have invested in, I don't still have that ideal experience. Is anyone doing anything about that?
I am not claiming that these are easy problems to solve. However, these things are what I would consider valuable to me. Most of my tech spending, usually in hindsight, is a huge waste and a victim of very creative marketing, branding and selling.
So, what then, is good work? The farmer, who lovingly ploughs his land, sows, nourishes and harvests his grain, with pride on the fruit of his effort and the assurance that the crop will feed someone is good work. An artist who creates his work passionately is doing good work.
What would be the equivalent of the proud farmer's work in the software industry? It would be to attempt to solve real customer problems, and to enhance the value of technology to the customers, as verified by the customer after using the product, and not the media or the salesmen of the product company.
So good work, in summary, is creating something that customers value after using it, and creative work, which gives pleasure irrespective of how well it is received.
Even if I do good work and put it up, it is possible that people don't accept it enough to try it. This is due to the sad skepticism with which we view everything today. The solution lies in the buying experience and the revenue model, coming up next.
If I get the sense that I am building products that are sold largely by marketing, branding, or any such means other than the intrinsic value of the offering, I feel less motivated to produce the best. After all, whether or not someone buys my product is almost independent of what I create, and in many cases, the success of my company bears no correlation to the effort I put in, so why should I break my back on it? In software in particular, people buy stuff with either the zombied faith in pre-sales messages of what it'll do for them, or with the resigned acceptance that the product will be well short of what they need, that bugs will pop up at anytime, and they have to deal with it anyway. It may even give many IT department experts and consultants/system integrators a sense of job security that they have so much more work to patch the issues in new technology.
As a producer of technology, I wonder what difference my software has made in the lives of my customer. And anything that comes to mind is debatable. The main things I have gained from computer technology after spending thousands of dollars every year for the last decade or two, are ability to talk better(email), find better(web search) and broadcast better(web publishing). And I see very little work today that is even trying to make any of these experiences better, though many may claim to do so, which is the selling part. The value of process automation in my life is debatable, since in many cases, automation cuts down the flexibility that was available through human interaction (how many times have you found the options presented on an online commerce site or automated support responses on phone inadequate?). You may disagree on this one, but I am sure everyone has had the question "Why the !@#$%^ don't they __________?" while trying to do something on a website or on a phone system.
And even these experiences are still in their infancy when it comes to the user's experience.
For instance, all popular email clients provide a default view that has 20-50 messages listed on the screen when you log in. No one can really act on all of these messages in any meaningful way, except maybe to delete them. Then why are all these emails in my face?
And we all know about search. How many redundant sites, ads, search query variations do we have to go through to find anything new, even in the best of search tools?
In terms of publishing myself, how much do I need to spend in time, money and effort, to get people to see my site today? How many bells and whistles do I need to add over my main message (which is often as simple as "I sell great ice cream. Everyone come and buy from me!") to keep people on my site long enough?
And above all this, how useful has technology been to improve the productivity of users? My ideal experience in being productive would be to have a simple tool that I feed in everything relevant - my tasks, my email, links from the web, my appointments, my rules/preferences, etc. and the tool in turn, at any time tells me what I need to do next. In spite of a gazillion tools I have invested in, I don't still have that ideal experience. Is anyone doing anything about that?
I am not claiming that these are easy problems to solve. However, these things are what I would consider valuable to me. Most of my tech spending, usually in hindsight, is a huge waste and a victim of very creative marketing, branding and selling.
So, what then, is good work? The farmer, who lovingly ploughs his land, sows, nourishes and harvests his grain, with pride on the fruit of his effort and the assurance that the crop will feed someone is good work. An artist who creates his work passionately is doing good work.
What would be the equivalent of the proud farmer's work in the software industry? It would be to attempt to solve real customer problems, and to enhance the value of technology to the customers, as verified by the customer after using the product, and not the media or the salesmen of the product company.
So good work, in summary, is creating something that customers value after using it, and creative work, which gives pleasure irrespective of how well it is received.
Even if I do good work and put it up, it is possible that people don't accept it enough to try it. This is due to the sad skepticism with which we view everything today. The solution lies in the buying experience and the revenue model, coming up next.
posted by An at 9:04 AM
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