Mantra’s of Development and Innovation

A couple things I’ve been learning and constantly repeating to myself while developing spot.us.

1. Keep it agile and iterative.

• I can’t predict how people are going to engage with my site. I shouldn’t try and force them into a user experience they don’t want. I must stay iterative. That’s why the wiki has been so informative.

2. Ten people in one chatroom is more valuable than ten people in ten different chatrooms.

• I’ve tried to cut back on sprawl as much as possible. This was one of the great downfalls of Assignment Zero in my humble opinion.
• UPDATE via the Comments: When I think of “sprawl” I picture Assignment Zero. When we first launched we created hundreds (probably close to 150) of small assignments people could do. Each assignment then had “tasks” (2-3 tasks per assignment). As such – people were forced to find a small area on Assignment Zero and stay there. We created hundreds and hundreds of chatrooms with one person in each room, talking to themselves. Start small with one chatroom – see if the conversation splits – and THEN build a new room.

3. Path of least resistance.

• Given the lesson of #1 – sometimes it’s best to take the path of least resistance – get something up and working so people can interact with it and you can react. Spending four or so months building a dynamic site won’t do you anygood if during those four months all you did was build a site. Create and accomplish concrete steps along the way.

4. It’s not a race.

• What spot.us is trying to figure out (how to pay for investigative journalism) won’t be figured out anytime soon. What I’m trying to accomplish isn’t a “solution” – more like a step in the right direction.

5. There is no such thing as a competitor.

• Competitors are just collaborators in disguise. This is especially true if what you believe in is the larger mission – not just your specific project.