Updates Available

This morning my phone let me know I have 23 app updates available. 23. Let that sink in.

In what other industry can you sell a product to the public and then let them know, every day, that you’re still working on that product to make it better? Hope you like today’s potato chips but tomorrow’s will be crunchier...we think. Enjoy driving your new car today, but your brakes will be stronger tomorrow...we think. Good luck with that very dangerous power drill but tomorrow’s might be safer...we think.

I don’t get it. Never have. Especially at these prices. Especially with an industry that throws around words like genius and ground breaking the way I throw around Hi and how are ya. 

And what about the updates that no one ever asked for and no one ever needed but the committee decided would be better if they just changed the visual or storage concept, so that now you can’t find anything because it’s not where you put it? It’s like having a mother-in-law who rearranges your kitchen drawers without asking because they just didn’t make sense to her.

Change is a constant. Improvement is valued. But on a daily basis, it comes off as insecure and unsure. It’s always impressive when people or institutions stand by their work and don’t change their minds on a whim, but that’s something we see less and less. It’s almost as if many people in all walks of life, but especially the app-people, are training to be cabinet members.

Yeah, that must be it.    

“Change cannot be put on people. The best way to instill change is to do it with them. 

Create it with them.” 

— Lisa Bodell