The Wisdom of Crowds Unhinged?
BIF Research Advisor Bill Taylor wrote a provocative piece on Xconomy asking a very simple question: How hard (bordering on impossible) it is for companies to keep new products simple and to focus their innovations on simplifying existing products?
His question stems from Jason Fried's story at the BIF-3 summit a couple of weeks ago. Jason's business advice: do less than your competition, spend less money, hire fewer people, work fewer hours and, offer fewer features.
Here's what Bill said:
One of the stars of the gathering was Jason Fried, founder of a red-hot Web outfit called 37signals. Fried’s company, based in Chicago, has distinguished itself by making products that are shockingly easy to use, and that have avoided the “bloatware” and “feature creep” that infects so much of the software industry. When my cohost, Wall Street Journal tech pundit Walt Mossberg, asked Jason how his company resists the seemingly irresistible lure of complexity, the young CEO had a simple answer: “We are enemies of mediocrity. And if you try to make everyone happy with your products, you end up with mediocrity. Our company has opinions, and we build products based on those opinions. We need more opinionated companies.”
I'm reminded of something another BIF Research Advisor, Clay Christensen, said during an interview a few years back about the critical role of the CEO during times of disruption: "In looking back on companies that have successfully launched independent disruptive business units, the CEO always had a foot in both camps. Because it runs so counter to the logic of the current business model to do this stuff, it takes a lot of personal confidence. A lot of professional managers aren’t that secure.”
This ongoing debate about the wisdom of crowds misses the point. What we need are leaders who can think critically and act decisively. My fear for 37Signals though is based on something Mark Cuban said during the summit: “everyday I wake up knowing that some 12-year old is out there trying to kick my ass.” Jason’s model will be disrupted, probably sooner than later, when someone like Google starts to offer the same service and it will be free. Hopefully, he’ll be able to develop those new opinions that people will care about which will carry his company forward. I think that will be the defining moment of his leadership and determine whether his strategy of purposeful constraint is right. (I sure hope it is.)
innovation/Posted October 24, 2007 01:06 PM by Chris Flanagan | Permalink
