In The Economist this week, Evan Williams is profiled as “The accidental innovator.” The piece asserts that many of the best new ideas are right-brained in nature and the creation of “accidental stumbling.” Twitter is described as an example of this type of innovation.
Another assertion is that minimalist thinking is the bedrock of many innovations. “What can we take away to create something new?” is a Williams-ism, which reminds me of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who wrote “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Many of the best software architects take this to heart, and many revered reductionist products like Google, the iPod, and Twitter are the result.
A decade ago, you could have started with Yahoo! and taken away all the clutter around the search box to get Google.
Welcome to our community! If you like what you see, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed!
{ 0 comments… add one now }