Anthony Milner

Do you have an idea for an all singing all dancing web 3.0 web app, widget, Facebook gizmo doodad. If you do then the first step is usually to dig around and do a bit of research to determine if it’s already been done. So you do some research and cannot find anything like it. Then you excitedly draw up some wireframes, use cases, maybe a full blown spec and start to build. After a few months of hard work you stumble on a site and to your horror you find that its been done. This was the fate of the tight web crew in the comedy “Knocked Up”. They find that their genius idea for an “informational” site has already been done and dusted. This is not the stuff of movies, it does happen and when it does, do you throw in the towel and go back to the drawing board? Derek Sivers, president and programmer for CD Baby and HostBaby suggests that it’s not about the idea but rather it’s all about execution…

It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas… …ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions. Explanation:

Awful idea = -1
Weak idea = 1
So-so idea = 5
Good idea = 10
Great idea = 15
Brilliant idea = 20

No execution = $1
Weak Execution = $1,000
So-so execution = $10,000
Good execution = $100,000
Great execution = $1,000,000
Brilliant execution = $10,000,000

To make a business you need to multiply the two. The most brilliant idea, with no execution is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.

So don’t despair if you find your big idea has been done. If the execution is weak or even so-so, there is still plenty of room for good, great and brilliant.

The success of blogging is in large part due to its simplicity. Most blog software requires you to do very little in terms of setup, just add content and your thoughts are elegantly displayed in a consistent and easy to navigate format. 

Another product that has experienced great success as a result of its simplicity is Basecamp, developed by 37 Signals. As the 37 Signals mantra suggests, Basecamp is an, “Elegant, thoughtful [project management] product that just does what you need and nothing you don’t”. At work we use Basecamp to manage multiple projects and I am yet to find a team member that doesn’t use it. I’ve used complex project management software that makes you coffee and takes the dog for a walk but isn’t touched by anyone working on the project except for the Project Manager. Basecamp has distilled the most important components of project management; communication of ideas, tasks, milestones and documents and made it child’s play to use.

MS Office is probably considered one of the biggest culprits in terms of featuretitis but Office 2007 has made a massive leap with the introduction of the “Ribbon”, a dynamic strip which endeavours to present only what you need (and what you didn’t know existed). Additionally Word 2007 has introduced the Blog Post feature which means I can use Word to create, edit and post blog entries without going near the WordPress editor.

This trend can also be seen in the number of companies approaching us to build web based applications. Besides the obvious benefits of “use it anywhere”, the browser environment is understood by the end user and can be easily modified/adapted to meet the needs of respective audiences.

We’ve probably all had enough of the “What is Web 2.0?” debate but elegant and thoughtful design is certainly a part of it.

It’s not until a small team get together to build an online search tool that you get an appreciation of what Google and others have done. We recently embarked on a project to improve the search in our Enterprise Content Management System – Community Manager. Last year we introduced federated search and we wanted to build on that success and improve search relevance.

Our challenge – improve search relevance whilst adhering to access rights, incorporate a thesaurus and taxonomies, cater for best bets, stemming and spell checking without sacrificing performance. In our industry this is sometimes referred to as a “non trivial” task.

The Team – We put the band back together on this one. It consisted of a formidable team of experts in the fields of search, taxonomy, thesaurus, usability, sql and asp.net.

The Build – From start to beta it took us 6 weeks to build and implement albeit there were some lengthy requirements sessions and sleepless nights.

The Result – A dramatic improvement to search relevance. Initially there were performance impacts but with subsequent tuning we’re now seeing a fast and highly effective search.

Search is a simple concept that anyone can grasp but when you scratch the surface there are layers of complexity. I guess this explains why Google have thrown some of the brightest minds and resources at the challenge. The great thing is that we now have our very own search product and it even has a name – Community Search.