The End of Dumb Software = The End of Dumb Thinking

Seth Godin is a marketing god. I say that because he very often exposes the obvious.

In Seth's latest blog, he talks about the End of Dumb Software. His point? Basically there is no reason for the stupidity of today's software. He is right. Sadly...

Seth's example is about the calendar app and mail on the Mac. It applies to any calendar or mail app I have ever used. There is a wealth of data, but the developers don't use it.

Many years ago I designed software that was not dumb. In fact it was what Seth is dreaming about. It understood who was important in your address book. It understood that 2am is not working hours and in fact would understand that you don't make appointments with friends and family during working hours unless it is for lunch or you were on vacation.

Where is this software? In a cardboard box in storage. Ericsson killed it. They couldn't see the utility. You might ask, how could they not see this as great? Well the VP of Ericsson I met was perfectly happy to silence the ringer on his cell phone by popping the battery off the back of the phone. In fact no Ericsson built phone had a way to silence the ringer and send a caller directly to voice mail.

That's why there is so much dumb software. Not that people are dumb, it is that they do not think. There is no analysis. It is epidemic. There should be billions of people like Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Robert Goddard, leonardo da Vinci, and other great thinkers. The problem is that most people don't explore the world with their minds. They are mentally handicapped by an inability to add two ideas together to create greater ideas.

I'll say this again and again. There are no stupid people, just a lack of people that don't use their brains and maybe never had the skills to think. People are generally lazy. It is not a degradation of their work ethic, they never had a work ethic because most people do as little as possible. That includes thinking and learning. We learn the minimum. Curiosity stops as soon as we get the information we need. The ideas stop when we solve a problem partially. Or worse, we stop thinking when a problem crops up and we don't bother to solve the blocking problem.

Smart software requires smart developers. I'll go farther and say that smart software requires renaissance thinkers. Programming and design is just a couple of your skills. Your primary skill is learning, exploring, curiosity, and invention. Then you can create smart software.

Please, if you have a pulse, please make a promise to yourself to be a renaissance thinker. Study everything. Mix ideas. Don't stop thinking at the happy path. Don't stop thinking when there is a problem. think until the problem is solved.