“Normal people… believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.”
Innovation can truly be a great thing, resulting in brand new products that can make our lives easier, more efficient, and more manageable. But not all innovation is made alike and some of that innovation really doesn’t do us much good at all. In fact, they could make things worse.
Not surprisingly, I witnessed quite a bit of this phenomenon first hand at the Consumer Electronics Show last week. In an industry that is built upon one-upping the competition, there is a constant race to add more features and improve those specifications, even if they add no real value to the final product and to the final consumer.
The quote above, however, does not come from a technologist. Instead, it comes from cartoonist and satirist Scott Adams
That’s exactly the mentality that industry legends like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos have taken. There is no finish line. There is no last nugget. Everything lends itself to a new opportunity for innovation.
Scott Adams reiterates this idea in another way:
“Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.”
If life gives you lemons, then you have to figure out how to make an aluminum unibody smartphone with automated Twitter updates and a 18MP low-light digital camera. And a can opener. You know, just because.
My favorite cartoonist, Scott Adams. He is great, and has an insight that is so intuitive for a man without a background in engineering.
The geeks will always want to make something better. They are never satisfied with the end user product. Time and again you will see a product that does exactly what the consumer wants changed just because some engineer thought they could make it better.
We should always try to make things better, but we need to take a look at what we are making better and decide if it really needs to be better.
I love your last bit about turning a lemon into a phone just because. You are right we as a race strive to one up the competition who can do or create this or that first. There is no end to what we can do.
Steve Jobs said that you don’t have to follow what your customers wants but convince them that they need exactly what you’re selling
Talking about computers, many of us have a machines with components (cpu,video card;etc..) more powerful that what we really need!