If at first you don't succeed...

"If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0."

It's an old saying in the tech world. But it reflects the mindset that has enabled Silicon Valley to produce the likes of Apple, eBay, PayPal, and Google. This mindset says: "There's no such thing as failure. There's only version 1.0. And then version 2.0. And then 3.0."

Things aren't expected to work great -- or even work -- the first time around. But that's OK. Things not working right the first time around doesn't constitute failure. It constitutes a necessary step on the way to figuring out what does work.

It's a mindset news organizations simply need to adopt. They need to move away from "We don't release it to the world until it's fully baked" to "Let's throw it up against the wall and see what sticks."

So let's say it again: "If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0." (And then go back to the drawing board to start working on version 2.0.)

Photo courtesy of eyesplash Mikul. Creative Commons license.

What we can learn from the new iPhone launch

Yesterday, Steve Jobs launched the new version of the iPhone. The move was met with the usual fanfare and hoopla that accompanies such announcements in the world of techies and Apple afficionados. But the move also contained a lesson for those of us in the news business.

Many traditional newspeople take a look at news on the Internet and recoil. They see flash and snark and gossip and... well, not a lot that looks like the journalism they have long revered. And maybe they're right about what they see. The problem, though, is that they're seeing what is here today, not what will be there tomorrow.

Apple launched the next generation iPhone because the first version wasn't good enough. In the tech world, this isn't considered failure. It's business as usual. Every product goes out the door as "v1". Companies then learn from real-world use of their product what works and what's lacking. They go back to the drawing board, tweak, and launch v2. And so on. Internet Explorer, for example, is on v7. So is iTunes. Microsoft Word is at least v11.

The key to having faith in the ability of the Internet to deliver the news we care about lies in having faith that technology evolves. You might not be able to do everything you want to today. But you will be able to tomorrow.

Photo courtesy of chakote. Creative Commons license