Hmm, hold on a minute. Is that REALLY an idea?
by Antonio on 28/01/09 at 12:35 am
From Ed Mitchell’s excellent post The Five Golden Rules for multi-platform development
Just do one thing for me. Please. If you ever write down an idea – ask yourself one thing:
“Is this really an idea or is it a technology in a false moustache?”
I’ve recently seen all of these ideas written down (by very smart people) as serious contenders for significant funding.
- “Facegroup group”
- “Second Life island”
And my all-time favourite bugbear:
- “Social networking platform”
They’re not ideas, they’re technologies.
Would you build a building without first deciding what it was for or who was going to use it?
Are you making this because it sounds sexy or because it has a purpose?
It should be obvious. If you build stuff for no reason it’ll cost a lot of money and it won’t work.
Anyway, rant over. Here’s how to do it right. I love this.
The TDA are responsible for getting people into the teaching profession. They’ve created a Facebook area in which real teachers talk about their jobs, tell stories of their experiences and answer questions from users.
It uses Facebook, but the idea centres around a real purpose. Allow people to find out what it’s really like to be a teacher.
Apparently it’s one of the most successful areas of Facebook – easy to see why.
Ed
Jan 28th, 2009
Well said. I find that one generally finds people think of web stuff in terms of functions and features rather than processes and protocols; this draws everyone into a discussion around the tools before debating the processes that need to be supported.