An excellent post by Wil Schroter here that relates to what Jim and I have been talking about with regards design of software and services.

Wil astutely suggests that rather than redesigning the product to fit the norms and paradigms of “those who don’t understand”, we should be encouraging those same non-understanders to devolve a  little and embrace that which they don’t inherently understand.

Wil uses the example of facebook – seemingly a purposeless and time wasting offering from the point of view of the older generation (ie anyone over about 25). But maybe as Wil suggests, we’re the ones who don’t get it, and in not getting it we’re missing out on many opportunities.

I suspect we need to find some kind of third way, not jumping head first into every new offering (the oldie approach) but at the same time stepping outside of our comfort zone and trying to embrace and understand new offerings (the young approach) – in this way perhaps we’ll synergise the value of both ways of looking at the world.

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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