Design Platforms

There are a good many difficulties to overcome when designing and building something sustainable and worthwhile, whether we are a startup or more established and skilled in that process.

In the Design stage, do we fully understand what problem we are addressing, and what the real world costs of that problem actually are? Studies have been carried out, for example, that show short term cost savings, eg shutting inefficient coal mines, are too often far outweighed by long term costs, in this case in terms of failure to re-skill and accompanying long term social security costs.

(Yes, this is an extreme example, but one we still need to tackle.) Do we fully understand the need to prototype, have we found a suitable audience who are willing to test our ideas and give us feedback, so we can pivot as needed before incurring massive time and cost overheads. Can we develop a boot strapping ethos to carry right through all our work, to ensure we never fall prey to the "money is everything" ethos?

In the Produce stage, can we find trusted partners who will take working prototypes and produce more robust solutions where costs can be managed and returns offset costs sufficiently to allow future development and use of assets. For those of you not yet aware, www.github.com is a fabulous resource just beginning to understand the power of projects, and with a wealth of tech support sitting quietly and waiting to see any sensible projects we might care to put up there. #GitHub will be the subject of a separate blog later this year.

In the Publish stage, can we find the means of reaching our identified audiences, providing them with related products and services, educating them where needed, managing their expectations, and ensuring they get value for the type of investment they are making. Interestingly, that same study also recognises the near exponential growth in cost of education. This is very odd, in this day and age, because if there is one challenge automation has always been good at, it's lowering cost. So I will again be blogging separately about needs and options in #EduTech shortly.

Finally in the Learn stage, do we stay alert to the experiences our audiences have, allowing and encouraging feedback from both audiences and on the ground team members, so as to understand where our team goes next in our evolution.