king talk

»Making life easy« – anders als es das Motto des diesjährigen World Usability Day in München vermuten ließ, stand das Usability-Event dieses Jahr ganz im Zeichen einer Methode  aus der Programmierung. Scrum, die derzeit wohl populärste Agile-Entwicklungsmethode, ist ohne Frage schwer im Trend. Und es scheint momentan für jede Agentur Pflicht zu sein, sie sich in Großbuchstaben auf die Fahnen zu schreiben.

Dass Gestalter dabei scharenweise auf den Zug mit aufspringen (oder von Entwicklern mitgezogen werden) ist da nicht überraschend – ob es auch gut ist, bleibt allerdings die Frage.

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A prostitute won’t give you free sex just so that she can then charge you for the pillow talk. She won’t give the good stuff away for free.

For some reasons, designers are happy to do so. They create elaborate concepts and plans – sometimes even multiple proposals – pack it all into a high gloss presentation and then hope for the client to be gracious enough to pay them afterwards, when the whole thing needs to be put into practice.

This might work if you are a big agency and you have a lot of time to kill. But it can be lethal for smaller companies or freelancers. If you don’t have a lot of money and resources, you simply can’t afford to do unpaid pitches. Working for free is not going to change your financial situation for the better.

Why do people want pitches, and why is it bad?

1. They don’t know you and they want to make sure that you are worth your money. This means that there is no confidence (and probably limited interest) in your work – which is a bad basis for working together. A good portfolio and some recommendations can turn this ship sometimes.
2. They don’t know what they want and would like to collect ideas upfront. In this case, you’re giving away what you do best upfront. It is pretty common that the winning agency will be told to use some of the ideas of its competitors.
3. They don’t know IF they actually want to do something and they want you to figure out if it is worth it. This is probably the worst form, because more than often it doesn’t even lead to a job for anyone.

In our three years of existence, we never participated in an unpaid pitch. We did two paid pitches in two years – still too many for my taste. We like to charge for our sexy time.

I started a little experiment lately. Whenever I wanted to say things like »I have to«, I tried to exchange it with »I will«.

Wait, what?

Saying that you »have to« do something is mostly an excuse – and a pretty lame one. By doing so, you avoid committing yourself to anything. You say that some external force (your boss, your wife, your dog) is making you do something – and if you don’t, there will be consequences.

Here’s the main problem I have with this approach: If you »have to« do something, it doesn’t say anything about wether or when you are actually going to do it. All you are doing is attributing some importance to the thing you »have to« do.

Also, the consequences of not doing something remain unstated. On every level, you are avoiding to get specific about the thing you allegedly »have to« do. And trying to substitute it with »I will« every time this comes up has made me aware of that.

Ultimately, switching from »must« to »will« forces you to make decisions. You either commit yourself to something or you don’t. It eliminates the weird middle way anymore. No more importance without action.

Do you think you »have to« do something? Will you actually do it?

Every new business niche goes through specific stages. Launch, proof, competition, consolidation. The business of your genetic code has now entered stage two, proof. Also known as, show me the money. Of all today’s start-ups it’s the best known, 23andme, which seems to be facing the stiffest headwinds. It has slashed prices, brought in new leadership, and faced no small amount of media ridicule, as reporters start asking the hard question — what’s it for? While 23andme has headed directly toward the mass market, Knome has headed to the class market. It puts its genome sequences on a stick, puts the stick in a box (above), then gives the box a fancy lid.

Compared to Moore´s Law the improvements in genetic engineering are more frequently. In 2001 a test costed about 3 million EUR. Knome said that they will store you genetic data as a backup. One of the investors for Knome is Google and the founder of Knome Anna Wojcicki is the wife of Google founder Sergei Brin. As Google is aimed to restore all data, this becomes all little bit scary. To Google:»I like your search engine, using maps everyday and I enjoy youtube, but don´t scan my DNA, please!«

via Sueddeutsche Zeitung (13th August 2009) and ZDNet