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May 10, 2004
Software Development like a Chinese Chef
I liked this analogy from Eric Sink's latest article.
Traditional marcomm has its place, but there are new approaches. With the ubiquity of the Internet today, one of the best ways to build awareness of your product is to develop it "in the open". In other words, using a combination of weblogs, public discussions, and preview downloads, let your prospective customers watch and talk with you as you make your software. Think of yourself as a chef in a Chinese restaurant, your customers watching as you stir-fry their shrimp and peapods.
This really is a practical way of eliciting feedback that's so critical to the agile/XPish style of development. But a lot of people get hung up on open source software when they think of being open. That's why I like this analogy. The chef doesn't tell you the recipe (though you often know most of the ingrediedents). He doesn't explain how he selects the best shrimp or peapods at the store or even where he buys his ingredients. He might explain a little about his techniques (his public API) but not everything (his IP). So in the end you've learned something and feel like you know more of the process but you're not going to go home and recreate the same meal, let alone open up a competing restaurant.
Posted by mikel at May 10, 2004 05:06 PM
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