When we built the first version of our social media monitoring platform, we had to cut some corners. One of these was that our users’ data was only refreshed once a day. While online discussions were happening 24/7, our customers could only see data up to the previous midnight - so they had no clue that Bob was bad-mouthing their products this morning, not until the next day.
We knew we had to address this at some point, but this was just version 1!
Realtime, really?
We eventually came up with a technical solution for this, effectively making our platform near-realtime, with data being updated throughout the day. A great step forward - except that once shared company-wide it triggered some big red flashing lights. “Our team of report writers will hate this! How can they write a report if the numbers keep changing all the time? The numbers will never add up!”
This made total sense. We already had complaints when the odd bug forced us to correct data from the previous day - report writers then had to redo their morning’s work. Damn. Surely realtime is a good thing? How can it not be?
Rather than trying to come up with a complex solution (such as letting users take snapshots of the data), and because we just didn’t have time, we put the changes into production. The world didn’t end. Our users loved the new release. It turns out (and we should have guessed this) that our users have different use-cases. While ongoing monitoring really needed realtime data, report writers only used data from previous days or weeks, so new data coming through for today didn’t affect them. Good we didn’t spend months building a workaround.
Software development, building a great product, growing a business is hard
All of these are laden with many obstacles, often seemingly unsurmountable. But surprisingly often these obstacles are just in our minds. Once challenged, they fade away like mirages.
Questioning our assumptions and deeply-held beliefs can lead to surprisingly simple, effective solutions. Question your mirages. And if you spot a mirage in somebody else’s mind, help them question it.
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Image courtesy of Michael Gwyther-Jones