Software Development: No Silver Bullets, But Plenty Of Gunslinging

Hank, one of my favorite dev reads, hits the nail on the head on manpower issues. The problem is that folks still think they can scale and grind. Get enough developers and, though less efficient, the scale moves operations forward. This strategy doesn’t work when individuals and small teams can dance circles around you and have access to the same type of messaging channel that was once reserved for those with deep enough pockets to make media buys.

Whether its actually harder to raise awareness is an intriguing question. Sure there are more startups than ever and therefore a lot more noise, but the audience is also much bigger–a lot more people are online and engaged. Better development and communication tooling in conjunction with self-broadcasting at scale contribute to the noise, but also make it easier to find and collaborate with people of like mind and distribute your message.

I’d argue that consumers are increasingly sophisticated and impatient which means you have to be very skilled at building both your products and your message. It’s not enough to just make a great product–you need web style WOM business / marketing savvy and a bit of old school polish to boot. Get one side of the equation wrong and people will blow right by–they’ve got too many choices and too little time otherwise (maybe that’s all Hank was really saying).

It feels like some aspects of the industry are simply maturing. I believe Danah Boyd and others have pointed out that the tech industry has a long way to go before its branding / marketing reaches the level of sophistication found in the brick and mortar world. Pure utility isn’t enough, you have to start selling lifestyle which we sometimes call “experience” in the software world. As the lifestyle + utility play matures consumers will inevitably become ever more bored until eventually businesses will spend more time entertaining their audience in an effort to overcome consumer skepticism (Super Bowl commercials come to mind).

Of course while the tech world is in some ways an infant it also represents an evolution. This translates to the often surreal experience of advergaming (interactive, entertaining advertising), funded, for the most part, by slick sophisticated old world brands (old world being brick and mortar in this context) and delivered side-by-side with the redneck desktop shareware and terrible 2.0 web markets. Sort of makes you smile when you think about it. It’s still the Wild West and that makes it the place to be if you’ve got a round or two in the chamber and the taste for adventure.