The value of an idea

I was sitting down with my fellow co-founder the other day and we got to talking about the philosophy of ideas. Specifically how you value them.

It was an interesting conversation. My takeaway was that your perceived value of an idea is in direct proportion to the difficulty you would have had coming up with it yourself. Thus, creative ideas from your accountant about how to avoid unnecessary tax are more valuable than fashion advice - it's not hard to figure out what looks good, but it's tough to avoid the IRS.

If you're pitching an idea, you need to reverse-engineer this argument. You need to present a simple idea with a complicated or difficult creation path. This gives the idea scarcity - originality borne of difficulty, not newness.

Scarce ideas and new ideas can both have value, it's just easier to see the value in something that LOOKED like it took effort to achieve.

One of these subtle, but important points.

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You can't be serious?

I just had to mention this news story that popped up this morning. It looks like Kolcraft (makers of various baby gear) is pulling some of its playpens from the market. A 10 month old apparently choked himself to death while playing in one.

Now normally the odds of this sort of thing happening are low - these guys make baby products and are obviously interested in keeping them safe. In this case though, it's amazing this is the first incident. If you look at a picture of one of these playpens, it essentially has a noose hanging in its center!

In the picture below, imagine the strap on the top flipped over to hang into the pen when the top basket is removed (there was actually a picture of it hanging down on TV but I couldn't find one online).


It boggles the mind that the guy who designed this didn't think about the possible ramifications of a loose noose-like strap hanging in the middle of a baby's play area! They should have just labeled it the 'playpen of death' and had a pit of crocodiles to remove the lifeless body come as an accessory.

This is one of those cases where you can obviously see the problem with hindsight, but still fail to imagine, without hindsight, how the issue was missed.

It's the sort of thing I dread happening with our software product - some serious design flaw that is a major game-breaker. Of course, we won't be killing babies so the stakes are a bit lower.

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Rugby World Cup points spread

This is a graph of the current points spread in the Rugby World Cup - being held in France. This is actually points differential - points scored minus those conceded.

It's sort of ridiculous that the top 20 teams in the world can be separated be such large differentials, and that that there are countries in the World competition that don't really have serious domestic leagues (or any leagues at all).

And for those of you who don't know much about rugby, getting outscored by 100 points is a very big deal! You kinda suck if that happens.

I wonder how many years this will go on before the World Rugby Commission realizes that they might have to design a new format? I'd rather see the top 10 teams in the world play a set of series against each other that decide the semi finalists than see the top teams walk all over weaker countries in a one-sided affair.

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Losing My Virginity

I just finished the Richard Branson autobiography, Losing My Virginity. I can't remember who exactly recommended the book to me. I think I might have read a blog post about it somewhere - so apologies to the forgotten source!

Bottom line, an interesting read. Are you going to learn Richard Branson's secrets from this book? Does he reveal the reason behind the seeming madness of his professional life? Are you going to come away with the knowledge to build a global brand in disparate industries? No, no, no and no.

But you will find out a lot about how the Virgin empire was built and even more about the remarkable life Mr Branson has lead. I think he should be the ultimate inspiration to all entrepreneurs. His belief in his own instincts is only surpassed by the belief he has in others - and the love, yes love, he has for everyone who works for him. His impeccable business ethics. His love for his family and children. His dedication to social causes and his adoration for small furry creatures everywhere.

Ok, that was one was laying it on a bit thick. My point is that yes, he seems like a pretty nice guy from this book, but maybe a bit too nice. No one can be that perfect. Although maybe he comes close? I really don't know, having never met him I don't want to pass judgment. But he is now in the top ten people I want to meet before I die.

He fascinates me now largely because I know there is some serious complexity there - you can read it between the lines of every paragraph. But none of it emerges in the book. His hopes, fears, desires, etc, are all there, just never explicitly addressed. It's like reading about a biblical character in the actual bible - you get their story, but only as part of a larger narrative, never as a personal journey. And no, I am not comparing Richard Branson to Jesus Christ, although they have both laid claims to the Virgin Births name at various times in the past.

Bottom line, an interesting read. Definitely recommend.

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Using online applications

As part of our business, my business partner and I have been using many of Google's online applications - a word processor, spreadsheet program and now a presentation program. These applications can be located in the app area of your Google account (you have to have a Google account to access them).

By and large, they are good. The functions they have are useful, although they do lack some of the more sophisticated formatting and mathematical functions present in their off-line counterparts. Despite this though, a major consulting firm recently signed a deal with Google to get these online applications used by more businesses.

This move is good for us. Google's applications are an example of something called Software as a Service (SaaS) - where you use online software services rather than download and install software. The software tool we're developing works in this way (kind of).

However, having used Google's applications quite a bit over the last couple of months, the experience isn't without problems. The biggest one is feedback - it's just too slow. Things that you do with a swift two key-stroke combination or a couple of menu choices in Excel or Word that are executed instantly, have a constant delay in Google apps - which gets worse the more information you have on a screen.

It feels like a big step backwards in terms of design, which is sad.

It vindicates a decision we made when we began development of our software tool - we decided to build a SaaS tool that worked on the desktop, not in the browser. With the UI on the desktop, there is no user lag and you can create a much richer experience. Significantly richer. Check out this example.

Even with all the advances in web technology over the last few years - mostly targeted at improving the user experience - the browser is still a straitjacket for really good design.

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Iraq and prediction markets

So having read through the Greenstone article, he does put some caveats around the use of Iraq government bonds as a predictor of the success or failure of the surge. Most notably, he admits that the market reacts to the same information we all have - making it, in my opinion, vulnerable to the same errors and biases. Of course, he argues it's the size of the market and the more rational opinions that make it better at predicting the outcome. More 'rational' as traders are only interested in the future income stream from the bonds, they have no other vested interest one way or another in the outcome.

All things being equal, I would rather place my bets on the collective wisdom of bond traders than any of the opinions on Iraq coming out of the US government - I think that is a given. I would also trust the traders more than, say, a poll of American citizens - most don't understand the war and just parrot back the media spin.

But I still wouldn't put a lot of money down. Why? Because the situation in Iraq is too dependent on Black Swans - the name Taleb gives to highly unpredictable but game changing events. A single incident (the bombing of a holy shrine, the murder of a political figure, a massacre, etc) can turn the course of the war. These incidents are hard to predict. No amount of public information helps. No amount of rational, unbiased assessment helps.

Because of this, the nature of the problem in Iraq is, in my opinion, ill suited to a prediction market. The prediction might be less biased, but it's not necessarily any more accurate.

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Microsoft can be cool...

http://www.microsoft.com/design/Default.aspx

In their own sort of 'Microsoftie' way.

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