Life is a Beta: Try more stuff

[Saul Kaplan]

I really like when Jeff Jarvis proclaims that, Life is a Beta. I couldn't agree more. As he points out in What Would Google Do?, experimentation is key to thriving in this new networked world. I often say that we need to try more stuff.

The old model of building moats around our organizations and defending the way we deliver value to our customers to the death no longer works. We know there are better ways to deliver value and we should embrace them. We should do experiments, lots of them, always testing better ways to deliver value. Especially important are experiments that have the potential to disrupt the way value is delivered today. If you don't get out in front someone else will and with the half life of a business model declining R&D for new business models becomes a strategic imperative.

Jarvis is right when he suggests that it is OK to fail, in fact we should fail often and fast. Be genuine and honest with your customers. Learn from your experiments and improve every day. Experiment with your customers, they will help you get better, and appreciate being included.

Our BIF community is fanatic about experimentation. We believe that the only way to make progress is to try more stuff in the real world. See what works and do more of it. See what doesn't work and do less of it. Pretty simple, don't you think?

[Aaron Phaneuf]

Yes - I love this thought. I'm able to do some of this, but operating within a larg(ish) org. doesn't allow for as much as I'd like. Tough to convince those with vested interest in maintaining the success to try new ideas that may rock the boat a bit (in the short term) but create long term value. That is where this becomes very real for me - practicing this philosophy with the things I control and modeling for others who shy away from failure.

[Andrea Meyer]

You're absolutely right, Aaron, about the dilemma in large organizations where there's more of a fear to try something new because the current idea is succeeding well enough. That's why one of the quotes I've jotted down for myself from the What Would Google Do? book is from Google vice president Marissa Mayer when she was talking about the launch of Google News. Google engineers had time to implement only one more feature before the launch (to sort by date or to sort by location) and they weren't sure which feature to chose. "Just get the product out there and then have the users tell us where it is more important to spend the time," Mayer advised. On the day of the launch, 300 of 305 emails asked for a sort by date. "We make mistakes all the time, Mayer said. "But if you launch things and iterate really quickly, people forget about those mistakes and have a lot of respect for how quickly you build the product up and make it better." I love that point of view -- the value of being responsive & fast, making "failure" an advantage in that regard!

Good for you, Aaron, in modeling this philosophy. I wonder if you or others have any other tips on how to handle this issue.

[Saul Kaplan]

I had no idea what kind of hornet's nest I was opening up by reinforcing Jeff Jarvis' claim that Life is a Beta. The day after I posted here at our BIF Book Group I read that Google, after five years, announced that Gmail was no longer in beta. Given our book group discussion I couldn't help but wonder why products can't remain perpetually in beta. I posted the following on Twitter: "What's wrong with always being in beta. Google should have left Gmail in beta for ever. Strong signal of constant improvement."

The responses to my tweet were interesting. Almost immediate my friend Jason Fried, from 37 Signals, replied: Beta is bullshit. It puts an unfair burden on customers by saying "If it doesn't work properly yet, well, hey, oh well!"

I am not a software guy like Jason and I know that beta has a very specific meaning and connotation in that context but that was quite a visceral reaction to my assertion. Someone pointed me to a recent post of Jason's on this specific topic which provides a little more of his point of view.

Better, Not Beta

Don't use "beta" as a scapegoat
These days it feels like everything is in beta stage forever. That's a cop out. An interminable beta stage tells customers you're not really committed to rolling out a finished product. It says, "Use this, but if it's not perfect, it's not our fault."

Beta passes the buck to your customers. If you're not confident enough about your release then how can you expect the public to be? Private betas are fine, public betas are bullshit. If it's not good enough for public consumption don't give it to the public to consume.

Don't wait for your product to reach perfection. It's not gonna happen. Take responsibility for what you're releasing. Put it out and call it a release. Otherwise, you're just making excuses.

I have a ton of respect for Jason and always value his perspective. I still think that we are in a new world where experimentation is an ongoing process and if we are genuine and honest with our customers that they will help us make our products, services, and business models more relevant and more successful every day.

What do you think?

[Mitchell Surface]

Saul Kaplan said:

I had no idea what kind of hornet's nest I was opening up by reinforcing Jeff Jarvis' claim that Life is a Beta. The day after I posted here at our BIF Book Group I read that Google, after five years, announced that Gmail was no longer in beta. Given our book group discussion I couldn't help but wonder why products can't remain perpetually in beta. I posted the following on Twitter: "What's wrong with always being in beta. Google should have left Gmail in beta for ever. Strong signal of constant improvement."
The responses to my tweet were interesting. Almost immediate my friend Jason Fried, from 37 Signals, replied: Beta is bullshit. It puts an unfair burden on customers by saying "If it doesn't work properly yet, well, hey, oh well!"

Saul - I think you did get bit by a cultural difference. Folks used to working in software are also used to being told, "Well, it's beta! What did you expect?"

What I hear you and Jeff saying is a rather different thing. More along the lines of, "It's broke? How can we fix it." That's a message I can get behind.