recycling
Turn them into cycles
A side that goes unrecognized
The mirror-image economy
When we enter the world of refuse and waste, we cross over into a mirror-image economy. In the "normal" world, we pay to acquire things; on the other side of the looking glass, we pay to get rid of them. Junk isn't merely worthless; it has negative value.
A chemical engineer once told me about a recent improvement in a manufacturing process; by fine-tuning a chemical synthesis he had increased the yield of a certain commodity from 98 percent to 99 percent. I congratulated him, but I couldn't help remarking that this seemed like a rather paltry improvement. "Ah, you miss the important point," he said. "The amount of waste goes from 2 percent down to 1 percent. It's cut in half. We save tremendously on disposal costs."
Hints towards a non-extractive economy
An Article by Matt WebbThere’s a movement called the circular economy which is about designing services that don’t include throwing things away. There is no “away.”
A non-extractive economy is going to look very different to today’s economy. These points feel opposed somehow but they are part of the same movement:
- With CupClub, it’s all about infrastructure.
- With the battery-free Game Boy, it’s untethered from infrastructure: once manufactured, no nationwide electricity grid is required to play.
We’ll need better tools to track and measure. There will be new patterns for new types of services. New technologies to build new products. New language. So it’s fascinating seeing the pieces gradually come together.
Dear Microsoft
We realized a few years ago that the value of switching to Slack was so obvious and the advantages so overwhelming that every business would be using Slack, or “something just like it,” within the decade. It’s validating to see you’ve come around to the same way of thinking. And even though — being honest here — it’s a little scary, we know it will bring a better future forward faster.
However, all this is harder than it looks. So, as you set out to build “something just like it,” we want to give you some friendly advice.
It's not the features that matter
First, and most importantly, it’s not the features that matter. You’re not going to create something people really love by making a big list of Slack’s features and simply checking those boxes. The revolution that has led to millions of people flocking to Slack has been, and continues to be, driven by something much deeper.
Building a product that allows for significant improvements in how people communicate requires a degree of thoughtfulness and craftsmanship that is not common in the development of enterprise software. How far you go in helping companies truly transform to take advantage of this shift in working is even more important than the individual software features you are duplicating.
An open platform is essential
Second, an open platform is essential. Communication is just one part of what humans do on the job. The modern knowledge worker relies on dozens of different products for their daily work, and that number is constantly expanding. These critical business processes and workflows demand the best tools, regardless of vendor.
You've got to do this with love
Third, you’ve got to do this with love. You’ll need to take a radically different approach to supporting and partnering with customers to help them adjust to new and better ways of working.