Do we care about innovation?

opensource

Ugo's thoughts on innovation are starting to make some waves in our microcosm.

Do I care about innovation? Obviously, in the long term innovation is needed.

But today, do my customers want innovation? Nah, not as a main goal for sure. What I see all around is people looking for Software Which Works. People are getting fed up with Software Which Half Works, and rightfully demanding better tools.

Innovation is certainly needed as a means to build better stuff in cheaper ways, but focusing on innovation as a goal would be wrong today - IMHO.

Here's my plan:

  1. Make it work
  2. Make it correct
  3. Make it fast (only if it's not fast enough yet)
  4. Got spare resources? Create something innovative.

(of course I'm borrowing stuff here ;-)

I'm sure the innovative bit will come if we focus on Making It Work, because we'll find weak tools in the toolbox along the way and we'll have the urge to fix them.

But we need to Make It Work first. And I think the open source community is Making It Work in big ways at the moment.