I have been working for Comcast Interactive Media for over 5 years, thats a lot by some measures and barely anything by others. This is my first full time job and as those go, not particularly shabby. Off late I have been involved in more R&D/labs/prototypes kinds of projects ever since my move to the UX Technologist position. Sometimes I still struggle with the amorphous nature of this position. Things were a lot clearer when you executed on someone else’s plan. I am closer to product development now which is great and gives me a new look at how some of the things we build get concepted. And you have these interesting conversations around things like ROI on User Experience, the importance of time invested in design vs the need for getting features out of the door quickly, the love/hate feelings towards 300×250 ads of dancing polar bears on our sites. Its fascinating to see the camps erected on either sides of these debates.
Trying to pitch a concept to a friend of mine recently, our conversation moved towards revenue models. Usually these are answered by either “well, there is slot for an ad here…” or “We’ll increase user engagement by x “. However, I realized for that at the core, I didnt really care for the rev model immediately. I was really trying to work on something valuable. Something I can look back in my later years and be proud of, not because it would help my career but because I would have made a difference (in as significant a way as a web programmer can I guess) and people would use it.
The thought of course had been crystallized by the book I have been reading: Daniel H Pink’s “Drive”, I haven’t finished it yet, but its a great read so far on what motivates people to do what they do.
Looking back, I realize I have been making these distinctions for a long time, just not realizing it: why I was glad I didn’t write an app like “iFart” even if it made a lot of money and why working on projects that I perceive no value irritates me like crazy. “Drive” says this is a fundamental human characteristic. Nothing kills morale than knowing you are working towards revenue oriented goals and not value oriented ones. That morale is hard to substitute even by money. And you can get a lot of people working on something if you convince them of the value of that. Value and revenue don’t have to be in opposition. Something valuable can and will generate revenue, but the goal of your project cannot be to make something revenue-able, it has to be to make something valuable. If your goal is revenue targeted only, your success if any would be pretty small.
Apple lost someone today too, Director Jerome B. York, and they showed it by changing their entire homepage to pay respect to him:
Bet they lost some revenue on that one, but I bet it makes them a lot more valuable a company
Code Zen 