Friday, August 10, 2012

On being a bit of a control freak

We talk disparagingly about "control freaks"- how annoying they are, how difficult to work with, how....controlling.

But the real truth is that when you have a vision, you have to be a bit of a control freak. In moments of exhaustion or desperation, turning ideas over to the masses to be "implemented" or "improved" may seem like a good choice- but it is very rarely the case.  Seth Godin's blog post summed it up nicely this morning:

Left to its own devices, the mob will augment, accessorize, spam, degrade and noisify whatever they have access to, until it loses beauty and function and becomes something else.
The tragedy of the design commons. .........  It seems democratic and non-elitist to set it and forget it and let the users take over. But the tools we use (Wikipedia) and the brands we covet (Nike or Ducati) resolutely refuse to become democracies. 

If you have a vision, you have to grow it wisely, pruning the sucker branches that would distract or weaken it.