Form Follows Function and Features Follow Flexibility
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 02:31PM 
Louis Sullivan"Form follows function" was made famous by Louis Sullivan, stating that the shape of a building is driven by it's purpose. From a technology perspective, the phrase "features follow flexibility" is equally appropriate. I believe that a gadget's many individual features are ultimately less important than the overall flexibilty it offers.
Let's use my iPhone as an example. Its touchscreen is OK, the email app is rough around the edges, and the lack of cut & paste is brutal. So then, even with these shortfalls why has Steve's Jesus phone outsold the wildly popular Motorola RAZR? Flexibility. It multi-functions as a calendar, media player, web browser, and phone. It's a single platform that takes care of all my communication and productivity needs when I'm away from my computer. Each atomic feature enhances the overall value of the iPhone.
Consumers tend to buy based on feature lists, and it's OK to want a gadget that's smaller, faster, and jammed with more features. Unfortunately, business owners make technology purchasing decisions based on a subconscious attraction to the bells and whistles- and without assessing the overall flexibility of the technology. Business owners must not buy based on features because they'll end up with technology for technlogy's sake.
That's an ironic statement since what I do at M5 Networks (an on-demand phone system provider) is help build new features into our core platform. A softswitch must have key features and functionality to be competitive, yet it's the flexibility of our platform that delivers the business impact to our clients. Here's an example- each of our phones is a network device with an IP address which means that it can be used anywhere with a cable/DSL connection. Unlike traditional office phones, our clients relocate our phones as easily as laptops.
The significance is that anyone can easily (and for free) relocate an office phone to a home office, effectively extending the workplace and eliminating commute time. Also worth mentioning is that notebook sales surpassed PCs for first time in US. Now my laptop and M5 phone has useful features, however it's the overall flexibility which freed me from my office and increased my effectiveness at home- a win for any business.
Reader Comments (2)
Ricky, nice post. You've given me inspiration to write on something similar - Project Mentality vs. Profit Mentality. Your article coupled with a lunch meeting I recently had spurred this thinking. A lot of what we do at Tier1 affects organizations and how they do business from a process standpoint and cultural standpoint. Like CRM software, putting a learning platform in place should fundamentally change how a company works (internally and externally). Yet, often, the implementation is seen as a one-off project. Thus, after the go-live there is a 6 month window in which many companies revert to what and how they used to do business. Leadership is then onto the next "project." After a time CEO's wonder, "why haven't our profitability margins gone up...we spent all this money on infrastructure?" The reason: the initiative was never seen for what it truly was, an organizational performance enhancing solution. Check with many CRM companies and you'll find the same. The abandonment rate is high and the user adoption is low. Why? Same reason as above. If businesses truly have a profit mentality they are going to understand they need to adapt and change for the better of the company and not because of the latest technology trends. That said, once the change is committed to, it needs to be seen as a fundamental change in the business and communicated and practiced until it becomes part of the life of the company. I'll give more detail in my article with examples. Keep posting!
well, hi admin adn people nice forum indeed. how's life? hope it's introduce branch ;)