In a recent meeting, we outlined our strategy for a local search feature we wanted to deploy.
"But... That's just like what Google Local does!" came the startled response.
"Yes."
"..."
"So, they think it's worth investing huge amounts of money in. They're going to popularize the concept and create the space. They will even train people how to use the technology! That's fantastic!"
Then came the saddest words I ever heard: "But, we'll be competing with Google. Why even bother?"
I used to feel the same way, actually. I'd come up with an idea I thought was interesting, and start playing with it. I'd churn it over and over, refining it and imagining how I'd implement it. Then I'd go look and find that someone had already done something like it. Disappointed, I'd move on.
Looking back on it, I think I was mostly looking for an excuse not to actually try the idea. But more prominently, I think people generally believe that an idea must be 'disruptive' and totally novel to be worth pursuing.
I don't buy it. In that same meeting, someone else joked, "Might as well compete with Microsoft!"
Bring it on! Look what Apple has done. Look what Novell is! Sure, these companies are not nearly as large as Microsoft. But they're bigger than your company! I would be very happy to be company #4 in a list that included companies like that.
(Now jumping to a related, but different issue...)
Bigger companies have significant advantages in marketing muscle and development resources. But a single, skilled programmer and a clever marketer can respond much more quickly to market forces and bring products to life in weeks and months, not years and (think Longhorn) decades.
I read a report recently that talked about Wal-Mart's drop in efficiency, as it has grown. "Play in your own backyard" was the general idea of the article -- it suggested that most companies lose most of their efficiency as they grown beyond a certain point. Their only competetive advantage at that point is their size.
So why does every company keep pushing for the billion-dollar score? Or trillian, or whatever. Why can't a company simply pick a size it wants to be, then work on being the most efficient, effective company of that size that it can be?
We don't have to be Microsoft. We can live quite happily in the shadow of Google. We can provide productive jobs for employees and a positive, happy working environment. We can create quality products that improve the lives of the people who use them. We can stay efficient and profitable, without pushing everything so hard that individual people start to lose meaning.
Where can a business provide the most real benefit to society and the economy? 'Grabbing a bigger slice of the market' is a zero-sum goal. You can only succeed by hurting others. 'Growing the market' -- sometimes. If you lie, play on negative emotions, or promote bad products, then you're not exactly helping society move along. Sure, it can be profitable. But it's not good. 'Making a better, good product' is what I feel most good about.
So, I ask myself, is the I-Pod good?
Hm. I'll have to think about it.
And what sort of bigot am I? Thinking I know what's GOOD for society. Geesh.