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Diminishing Returns

Diminishing returns: when the value of what you put into something is progressively greater than what you get out of it.

Most of us have come across this at some point — at work? Someone has pushed for the latest, greatest thing, which gets dumped on everyone. Or maybe someone’s pet project got the green flag from up above. Now you and your colleagues are stuck with it. Something that makes you put in more hours and effort just to get the same amount of work done.

Soon this someone’s glee is overturn upon witnessing the responses of those dealing with it. Soon this someone thinks of some other feature/software/hardware to deal with the problem they’ve created…

It’s a treadmill of diminishing returns until somebody else stands up and says, “f# it!”

A long time ago, I was on the phone with a vendor. He was an independent studio hyping his latest stuff on DVD. While mentioning some PC problems we’d been having, he responded sympathetically. Then he told me how he was running his shop with the same set of Macs he’d had for well over a decade without a hitch.

So here was someone who’d been in business for a long time. A survivor. Someone who was still relying on hardware that’d been obsolete for just as long. But, he was a happy camper. How many of us who work with computers can say the same thing?

This isn’t to say we all should do the same thing. However, it pointed out to me how rotten so much new and/or current software can be. Big, bloated and a bitch to deal with at times.

In many businesses, one can assume that your productivity should increase based on doing better with your existing resources. Therefore, any investment in a new resource, should have some beneficial effect on one’s work. An effect that outweighs the cost of its purchase, management and implementation. For example, it’s going to be a lot easier to work with a monitor that isn’t an ancient, fading 15″ CRT. But that doesn’t mean everyone from marketing, to accountants to sales staff need a 19″ LCD.

Similarly, one variable in the appeal of new products should be some actual benefit. CPUs that consume less power and do more would be a current example.

Getting something that suits your needs can be really tough though, even if you’re building your own. The reason is that, you’re not the only one looking for something. Any large vendor has to consider building something of appeal on a scale that will SELL, and thereby meet their own tangible needs. So how well can this middleground be met? Well Nintendo would seem to have done it. See this article, “How the Wii was born” by Jeremy Reimer over at Ars.

He mentions how some of the people at the top figured out that, game and console development can go as far as to cost more than it will ever make. In other words, R&D cost overruns can overrun returns from sales. So they did the smart thing. They tried to figure out what their customers wanted, in a package that would appeal to them, and not cost a zillion dollars. And so came Wii.

It looks the way a modern console should. Small, but not too small. Like a pint-sized thin client, just ready to amaze the unexpected soul who touches it.

Mind you, I’m not a gamer. My last real experience was in a video arcade over 10 years ago. However, it amazes me what people have been able to do with their consoles beyond gaming. This is also where there’s a potential to go too far. However, I think Sony’s problem has more to do with identity. They need to better explain that they’re taking the whole concept of a console to a different level. In other words, it’s no longer a console. A name change would’ve helped too. Hopefully, they’ll have enough documentation on the PS3’s OS out upon its release.