3 Responses to “Latest Essay: Create Value By Relinquishing Control”

1. spcoon
   June 22nd, 2005 @ 10:29 am

   peter,

   while i completely agree with your premise and observations regrding how these companies have placed their business models on a different level by thinking differently (and the importance of thinking in a similar fashion across other domains), i still have problems with your dig at designers.

   “Whereas the designers that Jeff grew so frustrated with were unwilling to give up experiential control. Not surprisingly, this is pretty typical in the experience design and graphic design communities — the idea that the designer knows best, and the designer needs to have total control of your experience, and you should just sit back and enjoy it.

   Flickr relinquishes a combination of these forms of control. Flickr relinquishes behavior control, editorial control, and experiential control, really letting their users cobble together their own meaningful experiences.”

   i hate to break it to you, but most in-house/agency uxdesigners aren’t within companies/working with companies that view the web, products and the world through such a progressive lens. designers/design managers, such as livia labate or lawrence lipkin or robert fabricant, commit themselves to changing how deeply rooted, ivory tower companies think when leveraging the possibilities of the internet. the short-term results may not always be a sandbox, but the intent is there. their positive contributions to the domain are wrought through intense struggle over the long-haul. it’s a story of change on a different level than flickr.

   but let’s forget the politics of change for a moment, let’s talk about the experience design at, say, flickr. it may be “sandboxy,” but no matter how you slice it, there are design parameters in play. i mean, even a sandbox has controlled, fenced-in, design parameters, otherwise, it would be called the beach.

   these are experience design decisions we’re talking about.

   there’s no way around the fact that the folks at flickr designed specific behaviors (e.g. slick, Ajax methods to change a photo’s name, description or call up previously used tags) within specific levels of interface design (e.g. top level browsing of photos, secondary level of results with a different layout, tertiary level of focus on the information object itself). each of these interfaces, their placement in the information architecture, etc. have contributed to the overall effect of “relinquishing control.”

   this all happened by design.

   i assume that your overall point is on a higher level than this granularity, speaking to how open source and open thinking can affect great change. i agree 100%. but since you dip down into the humanity of the work itself, it’s necessary to make clear that no matter how you slice it, each of these product experiences have been crafted. they put on their interface “pants” one leg at a time. and whether a ux designer was the entitled contributor in that process or not, your stereotyping of designers affects the perception of the holistic practice and method of design in the eyes of business.

   personally speaking, i think that’s somewhat controlling.

   -sean

2. BJMe
   June 22nd, 2005 @ 11:10 am

   I have to admit that I have little understanding of your usual web design posts. Your field of expertise and interest is generally out of my realm and over my head. But when you focus on the less digital elements of human behavior and commercial enterprise I think you overlook some obvious aspects of personal experience.

   What little I do know, for instance, is that Netflix, and any subscription service, is totally controlling. That monthly fee you pay is all the control they want or need over you. And I assure you they love it when you hang on to a DVD so that they can satisfy more subscribers with a lower inventory.

   As for Google, Yahoo, Amazon and the rest, they are all advertising operations. And their success is based on their “persuasive control” of site users. Does the magician relinquish control when tells you to “Pick a card. Any card?” You know that he doesn’t. You know there is a “force” in play; but even knowing it you can’t figure it out, as Penn and Teller love to demonstrate. So you pick a card and enjoy being fooled. But what about Las Vegas? Why you can play on any table at any time and bet any amount on any spin, deal or roll that your heart desires. Where lies the control in that? If you have to ask you’ll neve know. Like Justice Potter Stewart, you should know it when you see it.

   I guess what I am coming down to is the suggestion that the easiest target for manipulation is the person who thinks he has found an honest Three Card Monte dealer. Slight of hand, in card or commerce, is nothing else than brain control through perceptual seduction, also recognized as manipulation.

   So if business success is what you seek, flatter your targets that they are under their own control, then follow the lead of Google, Netflix, Amazon, etc. and make them want to make you rich.

3. spcoon
   June 22nd, 2005 @ 11:41 am

   peter, you should hire your father as “director of keeping it real.”

   awesome.