Introducing QUAMAC : Crowd-Source “Production”
To tell a good story, you need a crowd
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Before Steve Jobs “believed” in himself, he believed in people.
After Steve Jobs “believed” in himself, he lost faith in people.
Says something, d‘n’t it?
Production for Product
It is indeed rather odd that Steve Jobs would or did say things like :
“Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’” People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”
when in fact, he did “copy” various ideas from children, Xerox, Unix, OO, Steve Wozniak, and the like.
We must understand, that to produce usable products, we need various “forces” in the universe to align: markets, regulations, global access, sales, messaging, engineering, tools, people, and “material”.
Yes, it’s true that “nothing new” comes from a page… but “everything” comes from the earth, people, and “time”. There is no need to be mystical, cryptic or abstract about the origin of “things”, ideas or products. Above all, engineering always forces one back to reality : physics, mathematics and material.
It is the “people”, who produce, using material, constraints and knowledge that they have available. As a result, it is by the people that we must “plan” production or the release of products. After all, all of this is being done for the people!
Misconceptions
Firstly, as engineers and product-makers we must be careful of “over-engineering” a product. But how can we tell when we are about to do it? Most likely by “trialing” the product yourself or with one’s closest confidant, probably of the “non-engineer” type!
Secondly, we must admit that engineering is actually not that “hard”. The reason “production” or “engineering” look hard is that it often requires some “brick-laying” level…
