What do you do when you look at your competitors solution and say “yep, they nailed that one”?
As a designer, you are fighting hard to try to come up with a better way but you keep coming back to your competitors solution, the one that has nailed it.
At what point do you stop pulling your hair out and admit that you are unable to come up with a better way of doing something? Further, what do you do at that point? Do you:
- Reapply with pride – effectively copy what your competition has done
- Deliver a weaker offering – effectively conceed defeat to your competitor in order to ensure you won’t be accused of copying?
The answer is often controversial, as evidenced by the Yahoo! vs. Digg debate from a few weeks ago, but I maintain that there is nothing wrong with accepting the fact that someone else got something right before you did – as long as it doesn’t happen all the time.
Sometimes it is difficult to know whether you are suffering a creative block or whether there really is not a better way. Ask your peers to help, more often than not, they will help spark some creativity but sometimes, all you can do is say “well done Competitor X, the best I can do is mimic”.
I’m a convert!
I have always worked in a Microsoft shop. I have always worked with ASP, .NET, IIS and Windows. I have always wondered how I might go about setting up a CMS, shopping cart, BB or blog. I have done some research into these areas in the past and ended up throwing it all into the too hard basket.
I always avoided looking at Apache/PHP solutions because I figured I’d best go with what I know and stick to the technologies and languages that I was familiar with. Foolish!
In setting up this blog, I decided on WordPress as an engine, partly because I knew I could get it running on my Windows server.
When a mate offered me some space on his Apache server, I jumped at it and very quickly discovered the beautiful world of 1 click installation. Thanks fantastico!
I’ve just played with a bunch of shopping carts, CMS’ and BB’s and am now confident that I could set up these products on sites that I build.
Every question I have had has been answered by a quick Google search and there is generally a plugin/installer/script/instruction within easy reach.
Hmm, getting PHP, MySQL and Mambo running on my Windows box is going to be tough. Oh, apparently not! Thanks mambosolutions!
Anyway, I’m sure that I am preaching to the converted. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get here, but I’m very glad that I have finally arrived. Now, I’m off to learn some PHP.
My second attempt at blogging. I suppose what I will do this time is look at the rapidly changing world of the internet and communicate what my view of developments is.
Who am I?
I’m a guy, married, couple of beautiful kids, house in the suburbs, work for a large Australian website in the user experience design team, interested in Web 2.0 (it’s more than a buzz word now) and believe it will change a the way we do things a lot more that the early web. Don’t get me wrong, I work for a Web 1.0 company that revolutionised its industry and is making a pretty penny.
So, Web 2.0, social networks, mashups, SEO, syndication, RSS and standards adoption will change the way information is gathered, published and consumed. We will look back at 2007in 5 years and say “I can’t believe we used to do it that way” about so many things.
I’ll be here, documenting the developments and changing landscape as I observe it. Sometimes interesting, sometimes humerous, sometimes dry, but always real.
Enjoy!
