Bonsai is a new way to inspire innovation within organizations. We believe in the power of simple, subtle software to make people better human beings and better employees.
>From a the blog post How Chipotle, Pinkberry, and others win big by doing just a few things well:
You can try to win a features arms race by offering everything under the sun. Or you can just focus on a couple of things and do ‘em really well and get people who really love those things to love your product. For little guys, that’s a smarter route.
In the opinion of Martin Cooper, who helped invent the mobile phone, today's devices are too complicated. An excerpt:
“Whenever you create a universal device that does all things for all people, it does not do any things well,” said the 80 year-old, who made the first wireless call from a busy Manhattan street corner on April 3 1973. “Our future I think is a number of specialist devices that focus on one thing that will improve our lives,” said Mr Cooper, who has previously criticised the iPhone for being overly complicated and hard to use.
Making software that's easy to use is no small feat -- lots of factors have to be taken into consideration. And when most consumers think of easy, they think of Apple and their hardware/software.
In a sense Apple software is easy to use, but this is mainly because the company controls the hardware and software their products run. This means that Apple has become a more closed company than even Microsoft in its heyday. Just try to get your iPhone 3GS to work with Linux, for example, and don't even dare to get iTunes on a Palm Pre or install Mac OSX on PC hardware. It ain't happening. I think being easy in the new world of enterprise software/hardware also entails a greater degree of openness and cross-platform compatibility than was the case several years ago. Enterprise software that just uses Microsoft Silverlight (not available in its current version all platforms) or only works with Internet Explorer forces users to choose between using software and making unneeded software/hardware changes. Otherwise the walled garden that's created means users can't benefit from accessing wider audiences, thus making the user work harder to achieve his or her objectives using the product. What's your take? What's your definition of good enterprise software?Salesforce.com has become in many minds synonymous with cloud computing. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently was recently asked in an interview how he planned to grow the business. His answer: "It’s all about customer success."
Notice he didn't say it's how many people buy your product, it's how much VC money your get or it's how much media coverage you attract. Nope, it's all about your customers loving your products enough to buy more and tell their friends. With Bonsai, one of the things we can deeply about is listening to our customers and helping them to do amazing things with the Bonsai tool set and approach to fostering innovation. We know that unless our customers see value in what we do, they won't invest in us. Remember that all the marketing in the world won't compensate for a product that doesn't make your customers better -- however they define better.
From a recent interview with Google's Eric Schmidt:
Schmidt argues there's not so much difference between enterprise and consumer markets as there once was, and the gap is narrowing. Gmail is one example: "Gmail's growth is accelerating from its current position of users as we seem to be gaining share from everybody else," Schmidt said. "That's a good example of the consumer and enterprise growing together." And Google is primarily interested in areas where the two worlds collide. "We'll keep trying to find ways to span enterprise and consumer," he said.
Why should consumers "spoiled" by Facebook and Twitter (and Gmail)'s ease of use be subjected to standard business software that fails basic usability tests?
The jury's still out.
I'm pondering this question as I look at a preview edition of The Complete Guide to Google Wave, a wiki-powered draft of a forthcoming book from Gina Trapani and Adam Pash. The book is worth a look. For the next few weeks the authors are asking readers to "revise and expand" the pages with new content. The paper copy comes out in early 2010. What's your take on Google Wave? Will it make your life easier? Will it become a valuable business tool? Does it bump up against the inability of the human brain to do well at multitasking?This month we're beginning development on Bonsai, and we expect to have a sign up page for the private beta posted at www.getbonsai.net in the coming weeks. This page will also give you the opportunity to get behind further development of Bonsai by purchasing a bonsai tree, a Bonsai t-shirt and even sponsorship space in the private beta.
This is a very exciting time for Bonsai, and I'll be posting updates as we move from paper to pixels. I welcome your feedback.This is a harder question to answer than it first seems. Sure, one could trot out conspiracy theories or ascribe bad motives to software companies. And there may be a kernel of truth at play there. But part of the answer might be that those who build the software in many cases aren't the same people using it.
Steve Jobs once said, "A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." In terms of specific functionality, perhaps this is true. But business software users, almost to a person, want software that makes their lives easier, not harder. The average business software user is: * Busy
A local shop gives away free ice cream at the end of the season. It's a great community outreach. How can giving something away free be good for your business?
