The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
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The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
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Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
#2(Sorry for the offtopicness but could you please email hn@ycombinator.com? I want to send you a repost invite.)
Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
#3I loved this. It crystallizes some vague ideas and feelings I've had floating around for a while. Like kneejerk distrust of the typical over-reliance on A/B testing, while still having enormous respect for what it can provide.
And on the many small tools I build for myself because the mainstream workflow just doesn't feel quite right. Some of them are a hit for other people, most not, but it doesn't matter that much to me because I really am building for myself. And yet, I'm often confused why nobody else is implementing something that is so obviously an incremental improvement in my mind, even if it's not something that's going to double your productivity or address the Real Problem or whatever.
Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
#4Oddly, including Amazon in that initial description sours the idea. It was decidedly not someone building something in a garage they thought was neat. Rather, it was chasing a long tail market by taking advantage of the large exposure of a website.
I am not sure this hurts the post overall.
Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
#5Oddly, including Amazon in that initial description sours the idea. It was decidedly not someone building something in a garage they thought was neat. Rather, it was chasing a long tail market by taking advantage of the large exposure of a website. I am not sure this hurts the post overall.
She did say -
“At that time, in situ “applications” like bookstores, post offices, and auctions had a service gap: location dependence. You had to be at the place. That limited access to folks with time & transportation. It limited access even for wealthy, well-connected college kids.”
Essentially saying in this case everyone was marginalized. Though I guess you’re right in that might diminish the point because the “data-driven” approach could be used to target these large groups of “marginalized” people.
Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
#6while i agree with the spirit of the title, i find the specific conclusions dubious and the arguments presented unconvincing.
if touch ui wasn't more convenient for _everybody_, it would remain a weird niche use case. so it's still building for the majority use case - it's just building the right thing, not a "faster horse", so to speak.
the problem ive seen with data-driven design is overfocus on specific metrics, and the resulting tunnel vision leading to building "faster horses".
Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
#7In the US at least this principal is true for all kinds of innovation - food, humor, clothing style, music, religion, science fiction, etc., etc. The boring homogenized dominant culture blands things out seeking an anti-creative hegemony, while the marginalized people keep things moving forward. From the 60s there was a truism that in a given situation the less powerful see more of the overall reality than the more powerful. The less powerful have to see things in the dominant world view and in their own world view of how to stay safe and get their needs met in the skewed system; seeing more of reality leads naturally to having better solutions to various problems.
Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
#8Oddly, including Amazon in that initial description sours the idea. It was decidedly not someone building something in a garage they thought was neat. Rather, it was chasing a long tail market by taking advantage of the large exposure of a website. I am not sure this hurts the post overall.
She did say - “At that time, in situ “applications” like bookstores, post offices, and auctions had a service gap: location dependence. You had to be at the place. That limited access to folks with time & transportation. It limited access even for wealthy, well-connected college kids.” Essentially saying in this case everyone was marginalized. Though I guess you’re right in that might diminish the point because the “…
I cede that I'm not sure it kills the point. Does dull it, though. Amazon becoming a thing was very much a business investment from the beginning.
There is also the very inconvenient fact that the value at the margin will, almost by definition, be lower than the majority. The only way to turn that, is by capturing the full margin.
You can see this with starlink. Getting some rural coverage for internet is not a large value proposition. Capturing all rural internet is.
Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
#9A small and non-relevant repair: Wayne Westerman didn't built FingerWorks for his mom. He did it for himself, he has difficulty using keyboards for a long time. A designer at Apple had a temporary injury and used it. The rest of the team loved and used it to build a touch interface for the Mac, long before they even considered a phone.
Source: The One Device, the secret history of the iPhone by Brian Merchant
There is also the OXO vegetable peeler. It was designed for the creator's wife, she had arthritis. Then the whole company grew from that.
Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”
#10In the US at least this principal is true for all kinds of innovation - food, humor, clothing style, music, religion, science fiction, etc., etc. The boring homogenized dominant culture blands things out seeking an anti-creative hegemony, while the marginalized people keep things moving forward. From the 60s there was a truism that in a given situation the less powerful see more of the overall reality than the more p…
I'd argue that is true universally in all countries and not just in US. If TV is your source of news in any capacity, you are in that skewed reality.