As I contemplate what I want to do with my life and how I want to spend it producing (read: what I spend my time working on...) I think a lot about something that Scoble makes a point of here:
Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger » The coming G/Y/M/A/e developer wars
I have a bit of a history thinking about early stage opportunities, brainstorming with friends and then not acting in order to chase those ideas down. This has become a bit of a joke among some of my friends (a bit of gallows humor, if you will, except really, it's only money) but I've reached a point where I'm tired of just thinking of good ideas. Let's face it, lots of us have great ideas. Not many of us follow through on them. I've been working on just how I build that kind of process into my own life over the past several years and let me tell you, it's not easy. Not when you have myriad other obligations and short-term concerns that pull you away from the things that are more ambiguous and risky.
The thing is, those of you who know me know that this doesn't fit particularly well with my personality.
"Risk averse" tends to not be a very commonly used phrase when describing me and my approach to life or business. To put a more fine point on it: I seek to eliminate fear and insecurity from my decision-making process. It's not easy, but it's a big focus for me.
Short-term also is a phrase that I loathe. I struggle to focus on the short-term, for the most part, because I view my entire life through the prism of the long term. My actions and the actions of others have ramifications and I seek to be aware of those ramifications and act accordingly. This is actually something I will be writing about soon in a separate post.
Back to the subject at hand however. Scoble's post focuses on developers. He talks about the war for developers in the future and how that's important to building Web Services. He's right. This is a community that any Web company needs to be luring to its side in order to push their web influence forward.
But there's a point that he doesn't make and maybe it's on purpose, because he's focused on Web Services here. The broader point, though, should be that any company, anywhere, should seek to enable those who CREATE complementary components.
Let's apply that logic a bit and see what we come up with:
Web Services: The most obvious community is that of the developers. But who else creates relevant, complementary components? How about UI designers? Do they fall in the category of developers? Hmm, sort of. I don't get the feeling that Scoble's referring to them here, honestly, but if he is, kudos. How about advertisers though? If advertising is one of the key monetization models of the web, then advertisers and agencies are creators who are incredibly important aren't they? Let's try another one. How about.. the hardware manufacturers? Specifically, the h/w manufacturers focused on creating interfaces that allow us to interact with the web in new and differen t ways. So, whether it's working on something like touch screens, bringing the web to your living room or enabling voice recognition technology, aren't all of these creators fairly relevant to the conversation of how Web Services evolve?
Music devices: Ok, let's move away from Web Services, maybe there's a lot of baggage there and we could devolve into a "they're all developer-related" argument. (Not accepting the argument, but just moving on..) How about mp3 players. We all know about the iPod. Now, let's question why the iPod is successful in the context of enabling (or not enabling) complementary creators.... Now, if you're not with me already, you should be getting my point here. Let's look at iPod accessories. Go to a Best Buy and take a look at the sheer number of cases, adapters, speakers and chargers available for the iPod. Then look for this stuff for other players. Hmm that's interesting isn't it? Now, before you all go saying "that's only b/c the iPod is winning" let me stop you right now. That's part of the truth.. but if you look back, even to the first generation iPods, you'll see that several companies had the specs to build accessories for the iPod and were doing so early on. Why is that? Well, to some extent, it's b/c Steve Jobs has grown up a bit :) He's realized the value of enabling creators of complementary value. Ironically, the company that should have owned this market, Sony, never once contemplated helping others out and so... yeah, I haven't seen a Sony MP3 player anywhere in public either. But before we go patting Mr. Jobs on the back for being brilliant, let's also realize that Apple remains tentative about enabling creators. Witness Fairplay. Apple could be doing a far better job here, to be honest.
I could go on and on, and am willing to, if you think that I haven't made my point effectively. But if you're with me, this is why Scoble's point is so very important right now. We're finally in an age that promotes the sharing of ideas and creativity, enables it (distribution of ideas is constantly cheaper and faster) and that can reward it. So, the real winners are those companies, not just web companies, that always look out for those who CREATE complementary offerings. The companies that do this will find themselves successful in sustainable ways.
So, when I finally get off my ass and create my own company, you can be sure as hell that I'm going to be driven like a madman to embrace this philosophy, perhaps further than you've seen before, without fear, because it's important in the long run :)
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