Negative Focus
July 3, 2014
A common theme in many of the talks I went to, was how bad we are as an industry.
This is from an article by Erlend Wiig about a conference he went to where the talks go from negativity to “maybe here’s a way we can fix it.”
My father always gave the advice of:
When there’s no good solution to a problem, just throw out an idea. Any idea. People are good at telling you why you’re wrong, not finding solutions. At least when people tell you you’re wrong, there’s a starting point for a bigger discussion. That leads to a possibility to work towards a better idea.
I always liked that method of problem solving. I’ve also heard that a great way to solve a problem is come up with the worst idea you can think of. Then figure out why it’s so bad to come up with the real crux of the problem. Then you can find a good solution.
It hinges on the idea that people are good at telling you what’s bad, why you’re wrong, and what sucks about one thing or another.
People talk about how Google+ is dead, what’s wrong with Facebook, or how Apple sucks.
Mistakes are often obvious. It’s hard to explain why something is doing well or why something went right. Especially as an outsider to any given situation or organization.
Technology is about solving problems. When that’s your focus always is, you start to see problems everywhere. Then you start forgetting what real problems are. That gets us to the point where people start solving first-world-problems or non-problems. Like ordering quarters for laundry. But here I am finding a problem with people who were trying to solve a problem, regardless of how small it may have been.
We’ve begun to expect so much from products and companies. We expect so much that there are fewer and fewer fans of a product and more jumpy customers looking for something new and cool.
In reality, as Louis CK says, everything is amazing right now and nobody’s happy.
We are where we are because people are never satisfied. Because there are problems to solve. Can we, instead of focusing on the current issues with solutions that exist, focus on solving more problems? Instead of criticizing what exists, can we create something new?
My trip across the country made me want to focus more on the good things and not get so wrapped up with small mundanities of the world. I’m still working on it.
