1.0 is the Lonliest Number (Matt Mullenweg)
I have just been reading this blog post by Matt Mullenweg: http://ma.tt/2010/11/one-point-oh/.
That’s exactly how I envisage setting up a Fab Lab — for many it might be hard to “release early, release often” when thinking of an organisation. But that’s exactly the Fab Lab spirit … being ahead of the pack and having this next feature secretly ready when releasing 1.0.
“You can never fully anticipate how an audience is going to react to something you’ve created until it’s out there.”
Or as they sing in Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper: “ja mach nur einen plan / sei nur ein grosses licht / und mach noch einen zweiten plan / gehn tun sie beide nicht”.
Others might call it design thinking, design acting, rapid prototyping, …
One commentary to Matt’s post is well to the point: “One kind of perfectionism demands minimalism and clarity and robustness in a tool. This perfectionism is brutal about eliminating extra features.” — This is not the perfectionism of watchmakers, it’s the the most painful art of elimination, concentration, reduction.
So, to start a Fab Lab … what is the most minimal combination of features? A minimal combination of features that still has “something in there that that ‘wows.’” (Matt).
Additional reading:
- Why Being Embarrassed is Critical to the Success of Your Startup on the cambrianhouse blog
- What Startups are Really Like by Paul Graham (Y Combinator)