Me, Too

I spent Monday night of this week at a small gathering of technologists, investors, and marketers in San Jose, CA. There were folks in the room from LinkedIn, Google, Facebook and other organizations, all there to discuss how to better collaborate around Christian philanthropy.

It was a lively discussion, lasting about four hours, and there were a lot of interesting perspectives in the room. One of the segments of the meeting gave each of the application providers a chance to get up and present what they were doing, why they were doing it, and how they saw themselves fitting in to the larger context of cooperation and collaboration with others in the room.

What struck me as I sat in the meeting is that fully half of the participants / application providers felt strongly that there application had what it took to become the “Facebook” of the Christian community.

There was one really interesting presentation from an organization called trvrs.org. It is a new approach to presenting information, as well as how you find your way through a sort of personal journey kind of Q & A online. I thought it was great, in that it showed some original thinking about some not so original material.

I came away feeling a bit disappointed in the time there, not because of the people involved or the time spent, but because it really struck me that there is a real lack of innovative and original thinking in general. I definitely put myself in this category, so it is not an assault on the participants of this meeting.

I think we tend to have a case of the “me, too” disease. We see something that works, and that is wildly successful and immediately try to simply create the same thing over again and assume it will produce the same results. The reality is that Facebook, or the iPhone, or CharityWater.org, or other “first mover” apps came about because someone saw a problem and thought about it in a completely new way. And, the way they thought about it resonated with a lot of people. It’s a rare mix of innovation, market timing, and good fortune.

I was not a part of the iPhone design meetings, but I bet Steve Jobs never said “Let’s build a better Blackberry.” I bet he stepped back and thought about it for a good long while.

We need more of that kind of thinking. I once had someone tell me “Think at the pace that you write.” I have started using notebooks and just sitting and staring at the paper, and just writing down whatever comes to me. I write at a much slower pace than I type, so it forces me to value the output a little more, and take the time to make sure it’s worth writing before actually committing it to paper.

Here’s to taking the time to create things that are truly great, rather than just the next generation of the thing we already know about.