Good Enough

This is a great article from Wired about how technology that is “good enough” can rule the marketplace.

I attended a session with a similar theme last year at the Adobe Learning Summit, which targeted the explosion of online video in training and the 80/20 rule.

“If that 80 percent number rings a bell, it’s because of the famous Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. And it happens to be a recurring theme in Good Enough products. You can think of it this way: 20 percent of the effort, features, or investment often delivers 80 percent of the value to consumers. That means you can drastically simplify a product or service in order to make it more accessible and still keep 80 percent of what users want—making it Good Enough—which is exactly what Kaiser did.”

The point being, users will put a higher value on lower quality material that is available right when they need it and want it, over higher quality material that takes longer to develop. It’s in line with the Just Enough, Just In Time model of training that I find highly effective in most instances.

Think about it, then talk about it. Here or on Twitter.