Innovation in Software

I have a problem with “the vision thing” in the industry at the moment. I don’t know where we’re going, or why. The technology – and our insight on how it can be applied – available to us has the ability to change the World, and instead we’re producing pointless crap and obsessing over details of page animations as if they alone will save the World.

If I hear one more wannabe-startup tell me that they plan to change the World and get rich off the back of social networking I will scream. If I see one more aggressive pitch for a site that a teenager could put together in a weekend under the guise of it being “World leading” I will hurt somebody. If I’m asked just one more time to give a quote to develop a site “a bit like eBay but with a social graph” I’m going to quit and go and be a farmer or something.

When I first got into computing, it was because of the potential of what you could do with this technology. When I first got on the Internet in 1996 I genuinely believed we were on the cusp of changing everything. An anarchic communication system where ideas could flow easily, people connect and work together to have a positive impact on society? I’ll take one of those please! Except 12 years later I think we’ve used it for mostly plastic, soulless and philosophically bankrupt ideas because “that’s where the money is”. There are exceptions, but the fact they are by definition exceptional means I feel we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere.

I know I haven’t made any great personal contribution so am as guilty as anybody, but at least through efforts around BarCamp, Co-working and support of GeekUp I’m trying to get the conversation rolling. Maybe I’m just hacked off we’re moving so slowly. I know we have the collective talent so why are we all – me included – not getting on with it?

Over the next ten years we have the potential to fundamentally change the way the World works. Not just our World, but the Third World too. There are threats, opportunities, risks and rewards – not necessarily all financial – but for me the “vision thing” we should be working towards is about making people’s lives better not by trying to replace TV or other media, not by providing entertainment, but helping enhance people’s relationships – somehow providing meaning. And no, I don’t mean social networking, business networking or anything else where a friendship is defined as clicking on a “Confirm” button. I mean genuine enhancement of whatever it is we’re here to do.

I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about whether I want to stay in this industry. Last week I was ready to serve out the 6-month contract I’m on at the moment and then go and do something else for a while. Over the long weekend something niggled me and I think I know what I’m going to do next. I’ll explain more in coming weeks/months, but right now I want to see if I’m alone in having the niggle.

Comments are still broken here, so maybe I shouldn’t be doing this, but I want to know what other people think of the “Big Picture”. Specifically I’m going to do one of those slightly annoying “tag things” where I point to the people whose opinions I’m genuinely interested in who will hopefully respond to this post with one of their own and then tag another five people and so on so we can try and get this conversation going. Tagging posts with “thevisionthing” with Technorati might help us keep track of where it ends up.

What the hell are we doing in this industry? Why do we spend so much time talking about Ajax and definitions of “Web 2.0” and virtually no time whatsoever trying to work out what people want? Is this just all an aspect of the industry being over-run by complete geeks, or is the industry lacking any sense of philosophy? Are we being over-run by ideas and concepts from the advertising industry and mass media generally, because they’re becoming more dominant in the industry? Should I turn my dev environment off and go and do something less boring instead? I just want to hear what people think.

I tag (in alphabetical order):

• Guy Dickinson
• Matt Lee
• Katie Lips
• Manoj Ranaweera
• Tom Smith

That said, if anybody else wants to respond to this – say, Hugh who sounds about as burned out right now as I feel, Seth Godin who was in the industry way before me, Guy Kawasaki who is simply on the ball constantly, or anybody shoving their feed into NorthPack – I’d love to hear about it. I have a horrible feeling this will fall flat on its face and people will simply suggest I take a holiday (probably a good point), but it’s worth a punt…

Update: we have a few responses in:

• Andy Mitchell makes my point better than I did
• Guy Dickinson broadly thinks I’m wrong
• Tom Smith feels the pain, but thinks I just need a holiday or to do something different

They all make valid points, but there is something here. Via e-mail Andy and Steve Ireland have continued the discussion a little more. I think there is something in trying to advance this a little. Stay tuned.