Scoble scored one hell of a Channel 9 interview the other day when he got the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss of my boss to spend a few minutes in front of the camera. While not all that informative (in my opinion), the Steve Ballmer Channel 9 interview is nevertheless interesting. If it were only ideas we were interested in, then there are plenty of press reports, articles, blog posts, and interviews out there from which to choose. Watching Ballmer on video is another matter entirely. You get to see his enthusiasm and his less serious side - the things that don’t come across in press releases.
Rather than watching this and having a good time, though, droves of frothing nerds have gone nuts. If you read the slashdot comments, the Channel 9 comments, and the comments on Scoble’s blog [Scoble’s post] [the comments], you’ll quickly find that people were anxious to pick the interview apart.
What’s worse is that there is a lot of focus on one topic: Innovation. Ballmer talked about it, but it was just one part of the ten minute interview, and geeks still chose to focus on it, blowing things totally out of proportion. It’s ridiculous. It’s pathetic. It’s bad enough that the marketing departments of various tech companies have run amok with the term, abusing it like an unwanted stepchild, but things have gotten even worse with the Innovation Meme. It’s taken swarms of geeks who may have at some point in time had some kind of perspective on what’s really important in the tech world, and it’s turned them into M – O – R – O – N – S.
I’m sounding harsh, I know, but the Innovation Meme represents herd thinking at its worst (and I use the term “thinking” loosely here). The tech world is paying more and more attention to this important concept, but it’s attributing much too much importance to it.
Geeks all over the universe have forgotten that what makes a product great is not just innovation. Is innovation important? Yes! Is it all that matters? Should I even have to ask that question?
Apparently I do.
What about the following:
- Quality – Does the user get a nice, consistent experience? Does it look and feel like the app was created by a team rather than a loose band of code jockeys? Does the damn thing work?
- Support – Is there someone who will answer questions I have about the product? Is there documentation? Will it all end in tears? Crying? Naked? In the corner?
- Stability – Does the app crash every few minutes? Are there features I’m going to avoid because I’m afraid to use them?
- Relevance – Does the program even matter? Sure, your dog translator is “innovative,” but is anyone actually going to use it?
- Value – Was it worth my time to get this app? Was it worth my money?
These are just a few qualities that matter more to the end-user than innovation. Something that’s innovative will seem so for about three weeks. After the newness has worn off, you’re still going to spend the next few weeks/months/years/? with the application. When you’re using a program to get something done on a daily basis, and once you’ve acclimated to its unique environment, you’re going to forget about how exciting the innovations were. This is a fact. People adjust - they adapt. Something does not remain new for very long, and yet we’re all screaming now about the importance of innovation.
It’s like thinking that the wedding is what’s important. I wonder how many couples plan and plan for their wedding day, forgetting that they’re supposed to spend the rest of their lives together beginning the day after the wedding. The newness is going to wear off quickly – how many of them are prepared for reality?
It’s nuts.
Somehow, though, “innovation” has become a metric by which we judge the value of applications, and this is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Innovation is important, but innovation is not even close to being the whole picture.
So stop this crap, lest you should become…
…an Innovidiot.
Like this guy:
