You’re always in beta. Always. If you think you aren’t, you’re already falling behind and bleeding relevance.
What does being in Beta mean? It means being in perpetual test mode. It means constantly asking “how could I do this better,” even when this worked just fine. How can I listen better? How could I improve customer service? How can I make my billing process smoother? How could we improve the UI/UX of our websites? How can I engage my user community even better? How could this brochure have been better?
I know what you’re thinking: Poor kid. He’s terminally obsessive-compulsive. 😀 (Actually, I’m just compulsive, not obsessive, but that’s a topic for another day.)
The point is this: The moment you start thinking that you have found the perfect model, the second you start adopting a “let’s not change anything” mentality, you’re screwed. The “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” saying I hear a lot in the South is may have been pretty good advice a hundred years ago, but it isn’t anymore. Not if you want your company to stay competitive. Not if you want to see your company grow. Not if you want to see chronic improvement in everything you do.
Check out today’s video if you haven’t already. And if it doesn’t launch for you, go watch it here. (Thanks, Viddler!)
Interestingly, the “you’re always in Beta” mindset that I am talking about today seriously reminds me of the mindset athletes and coaches get into when it comes to improving performance. Say you’re currently a 24:00 5K runner, and you want to relive your college glory days by running an 18:00 5K a year from now. How do you do it? Simple: By stressing your system one little bit at a time. By challenging your comfort zone with every run. Going from 24:00 to 23:55, then 23:50, then 23:45 for the same distance, and so on. Turning up the heat and the intensity for a few weeks, then giving your body a chance to adapt. To plateau. And then starting over with a new cycle of stress and adaptation followed by a rest period. During that time, you are constantly testing your boundaries, monitoring success and failure, learning what works and what doesn’t. (And yes, measuring your progress to know what works and what doesn’t.) Pretty basic stuff.
The alternative would be to keep running the same 5K route every day at the exact same speed, in the exact same way. What would happen? Well, you would become pretty good at running a 5K in 24:00. Comfortable? Sure. But whatever happened to improvement? See where I am going with this?
Okay, now let’s complicate things a little bit:
As a triathlete, training and competing in what essentially amounts to three sports (swimming, cycling and running) adds some pretty substantial layers of complexity. Not only do I have to figure out how to train for three specific sports, but I have to figure out how to combine and integrate all three in a way that doesn’t lead to injury or burnout. I also have to fit all three in my already busy schedule. Then I have to consider how to time my training cycles to coincide with specific races. In addition, I have to incorporate changes in nutrition and hydration based on my workouts, my training mode, outside temperatures, etc. And if I get into my head that I am going to train for a marathon, half Ironman or full-on mac-daddy Ironman, all of these variables take on a level of complexity I can’t even begin to explain in one blog post. How much Gatorade should I drink per hour in 94 degree temperatures at 80% of my maximum heart rate? How many energy gels can I absorb per hour without getting sick to my stomach? What cadence should I adopt to sustain an average speed of 21mph for 112 miles? Only one way to find out: Test it.
And I haven’t even talked about gear. Will the improved aerodynamics gained from dropping my aerobars down 2 millimeters shave 20 seconds off my 40K time? Maybe… but as a result, will my upper body’s new angle offset my hip angle enough to reduce my power output or stress my hip flexors enough that I will start cramping up 5 miles into the run? How will I find out? There’s only one way: Getting out there and testing that theory. It’s clipboard and stopwatch time for the next six weeks.
Should I go with a disc wheel or a deep dish rim for my next race? How will I know which works better for me on a moderately hilly course in 15mph crosswinds? Only one way: I have to go test each wheel configuration on a variety of courses in completely different wind conditions. Then I’ll know what works best in specific course conditions.
Rear-mounted bottle-cages or frame-mounted? Aero helmet or regular helmet? Motion control shoes or racing flats? Test test test test test. You get the picture.
Call it an occupational benefit or a pre-existing condition, but being a triathlete kind of trains you to be in a perpetual Beta mindset. And it isn’t a stretch to jump from the world of competitive endurance sports to the world of business performance. Different application, but same principles and same basic methodology: Ask, test, observe, validate, learn, repeat.
But before you do all this – the testing, the experimentation, the analysis and learning and adaptation – you have to make a choice. You have to pick a camp. You have to decide whether you are satisfied with your business performance as it is today (“good enough” is good enough for you and your customers), or hungry for improvement.
There’s no right or wrong answer here. It doesn’t matter what camp you decide to align yourself with: The one happy with the way things are or the one looking to kick ass a little more each day. What matters is that your decision work for you. But let’s be clear about the impact that your choice will have on your business: Sticking with a “let’s not change anything” mindset will not earn you more customers, increase customer loyalty or generate more sales. Where you are today is exactly where you will be tomorrow. If you’re lucky. Eventually, perhaps not next week or next month or next year, but eventually, this mindset will seal your doom. A Beta mindset, however, will help you uncover ways to innovate, earn more customers, cut costs, increase customer and employee loyalty, improve product design and performance… You name it: Whatever the opportunity to improve, do do things better and smarter, may be, you will systematically uncover it in the same way that Apple, Nike, BMW, Cervelo, HBO, Michael Phelps, IDEO, Lance Armstrong, Comcast and Zappos have.
If you want your company to be best in class, to own a market or an industry, to be the trendsetter, the example to follow, the leader in a category, you must adopt a perpetual Beta mindset. You have to constantly stress your systems and processes. You have to turn every action into a test an look at every activity as an opportunity to experiment.You have to measure, analyze, learn, adapt and repeat the cycle over and over and over again.
Question everything.
Work harder than the next guy to build the best XYZ the world has ever seen, and then find ways to make it even better.
Perfection is a process, not a milestone.
Embrace a state of perpetual Beta.
Brand Building and Online Marketing Blog 
Another terrific post that reinforces the concept that so many companies have difficulty accepting: perpetual, incremental improvements.
As your athletic metaphor illustrates, achievement and success are typically acquired through carefully planned, incremental steps, not in huge leaps. Gains that can be measured in tenths of a second are valuable and keep you ahead of your competitors.
Too many companies view the process of incremental improvement as unnecessary or unimportant. They want to introduce the next big product, the industry game changer, the paradigm shifting next big thing when their focus should be on listening to their clients and providing continuous, responsive improvements to their existing products and services.
How many companies could strengthen their competitive position by improving dozens of little things? Can your invoices be redesigned, using color, so that they’re more readable and more appealing? Are you providing all of your documentation online so anyone can find it? Do you have training videos on your site, refreshed monthly, so your users can get the most out of your products? Are your proposals beautiful? Are your key employees accessible through social media channels? How delightful is each contact with your company, from first touch through purchase?
Every time you improve one of the touchpoints with your clients, you demonstrate your passion and communicate your level of care and commitment. And extend your lead over your competitors by one more step.
I should cut and paste your comment and add it as an insert to the post. It’s dead on.
Thanks, John. 🙂
Agreed. This is the second post of yours in two days that has inspired me to further develop some additional thoughts on my own. Good stuff Olivier…thanks for being a muse 🙂
Sweet!!! Thanks, Stuart. 🙂
Innovate, experiment, implement, then start over. So simple, yet so terribly overlooked by brands all over the world. Thanks for today’s dose of inspiration 🙂
Thanks for commenting, Tibi. You’re right. It’s simple yet surprisingly overlooked.
Olivier, I’m a fairly new regular reader here. Great stuff and love the videos. Even if the videos are getting me to look you up when I’m getting turning off for the day and too tired to read.
Today’s video made me smile and shake my head at the same time. I needed this. I’ve only had a blog for a year and a half. And I do love playing around with all sorts of different things, testing things out for myself. So a Beta mentality is kind of cool.
But recently I found myself wondering, WHEN will I stop playing around and testing?! It seems to be never ending. And I’m definitely a strategy person, which means I like to stop and take stock every once in a while to re-evaluate strategy to incorporate the new stuff.
Trouble is that I’m only one person… so it comes down to finding the right balance – one that I can work with realistically.
Acknowledging that I will always be in Beta will help to get this right. After reading your post, I’m now thinking of doing my strategy re-evaluations more regularly. Up til now I’ve used slack time to do this every few months or so, and it usually takes time for me to create new programs.
BTW – very happy with my strategy sessions, always get good results when I use new info/feedback to create better tactics and they are fun. But after a year and a half, I was truly wondering if this was a continuous exercise, or if I would find the “ideal” way of doing things and stick to it blindly for a (long) while 🙂
Oh, it’s a continuous exercise. 😉
How is this surprising to people? Is not the web considered by many to be in its second iteration? Don’t people recognize computer software upgrades and updates are constantly released? You can even think about your local city street and its evolution from dirt or gravel to asphalt, and the continual repaving and pothole repairing.
The world is in beta, with people birthing and dying every day.
And yet here we are. Companies always looking for the next BIG thing but completely missing the incremental improvements that could make them successful faster (and more successful, period).
While ruminating about the contents of your post and my previous affirmation of your theme I was slightly conflicted about my unchecked endorsement of incremental improvements.
The source of my internal conflict is the recognition that significant innovations don’t come from incremental tweaks. Design thinkers pose questions and explore constraints in creative ways that proceed in entirely new directions, unfettered by preconceived limitations.
Take a look at truly innovative products or services. The iPod, the iPhone, FedEx, Dyson vacuums, the Aeron chair, the Flip videocam, and Apple’s iMac desktop computer are all innovations that leaped ahead of their competitors by rethinking how a problem could be solved and creating a new, previously unknown, alternative solution.
Rather than ask your business team to make an already developed idea more attractive, perhaps the better approach is to ask them to create ideas that meet clients’ needs and desires in entirely new ways.
Of course, these radical innovations then need to be refined and improved. After all, the iPhone is already on version 3.0 of their software, with version 3.1’s release expected any day. Even Apple recognizes the need to continually improve their products or be relegated to the dustbin of gadget history.
So, perhaps the question is how can a company integrate the two approaches: leveraging strategic design thought to introduce radically innovative client solutions, and embracing an iterative approach to solving problems that relies on trial and error to continually evolve. Sounds like an ideal blog post to hack out this weekend. I’ll keep you posted.
Good points and questions. Apple’s example of the Beta mindset is fantastic because they look at problems and solutions from a perspective that allows them to either tweak or completely reinvent. It’s almost as if their product development process actually has that question built-in: Improvement or New Product?
My Triathlon example tends to focus too much on incremental tweaks and not enough on the completely new ideas like the computer mouse (with IDEO), iMac, iPod, iPhone, etc. Thanks for pointing that out. I should have spent more time on that aspect of the conversation as well. (Macro changes + micro changes)
Thanks for another excellent post! Your blog adds real value to my day-to-day life. It challenges me to examine my activities, probe my passions and constantly think about how I can maximize the ROI I bring to the world (in both business and the “real” world).
Great job!
Thanks, Rich! Comments like yours always make my day. 🙂
I really appreciate the test/retest approach here, Olivier, and think that encouraging companies to think of themselves like products could be another way to explain this.
As for John’s comment, I see his point, but I think that iPod didn’t come up with a new problem, them came up with a new solution and a test/retest situation could arrive at this type of result; always think of the most efficient way to solve your ‘problem’, whether it’s a tweak to an existing system or a new system altogether.
This is only the second post I’ve read from you, but am really enjoying your blog; keep it up and thanks!
-Nicole
Yep, sometimes, the solution is a tweak, and sometimes it’s a whole reinvention. Apple is good at both. 😉
This is a very personally special post to me. Yesterday, after months of what felt like struggling we launched a product I designed back in September 2008. It is in public beta, and for the first time, ideas are being generated outside of me, and they’re *good*. This product will, with the help of its users and our advisors, be better ultimately for it. That’s one great advantage of being in perpetual beta… if open-minded, the creativity continues to flow, and someday John, I think that’s when you realize “we need to start over from a blank drawing board and envision nirvana.” If you have the attitude of this beta mentality you don’t feel any loss – it’s just part of the evolving creation.
I have many, many plans for my little product that I hope come to fruition. Though we will remove the Beta label at some point and become officially a 1.0 version (and so on) I think the attitude of remaining in beta and continually churning fresh ideas will remain for years to come.
I too, am a work in beta. I go to this trail that I eventually would like to run entirely, but right now can only walk and run alternately. I have noticed I seem to be getting faster at it, but since I am not a triathlete type person I had no idea this is something one should do deliberately. (I normally do gym classes and am not a runner.) Now I have a bit different perspective on this whole trail experience, so thank you for that.
Love the line “Perfection is a process, not a milestone.” You just totally hit the spot sometimes, Olivier. 🙂
Every once in a while, I state the obvious and people seem to like it. 😀
Beta mindset people tend to click with other beta mindset people. We’re all a source of inspiration for one another, I think.
As a chiropractor, I am continually changing the way I treat a patient that is not seeing the results they, or I want. And what works for on person is not necessarily the correct treatment for another person, let alone the changing/beta personalities of the individual…as stated…everything is in a state of impermanance, evolving, changing and adapting. thanks for the great! insight into life.
You bring a very fresh perspective to that discussion, Vinnie. I love it. Your comment could be a post all on its own. 🙂
Great post. I haven’t thought of it in those terms before, but it’s the way I am as well. One of my frustrations though is when I take personality profile tests it usually comes back as saying I stick to the status quo. Trouble is, that’s only half the story.
I am a process guy. I love to problem-solve by working through a process and the solution I like best is because the process works best! Also, the reason the status quo is just so quo is because there is something there that works. Cliches and doing things because of tradition are true because they are rooted in something solid or true. But that doesn’t necessarily make it the best.
So I respect the status quo but constantly test it to make sure it’s the best. If it’s not, I find a new process to replace it — and try to make IT the new status quo – the way things are done.
Guess that is “always being in beta” also.
Very well put. I have A LOT of respect for that perspective, Rob.
Another solid post, as usual.
I’ve often blogged on my own commitment to Perpetual Beta and given your love affair w/metrics, you might appreciate an effort (really more of a link to an effort) to begin to quantify the value of Perpetual Beta, using the Grabowski Ratio.
http://jer979.com/igniting-the-revolution/grabowski/
One thing that may stand out is that, in a triathlon or whatever, you have clear goals in terms of improvement, on a personal level. It’s easy to have big corporate goals, but to achieve them, you need people who know how to drive towards goals using this approach. In my experience (however limited and blindered it is), I’ve reached the conclusion that most people don’t operate that way.
Ask a financial planner and they’ll back me up on this one.
Regardless, I’m a part of the perpetual beta movement, so part of the choir. Happy 4th (do you also celebrate Bastille Day? 😉
Awesome comment, Jeremy. And yep, I celebrate the 4th and Bastille Day. 🙂
Darn you,
I was just about to become happy that I had accomplished something when I now have to go back and look at it again. And again. And again… never been done is not fun.
Great post. Seriously.
I especially appreciate the last part, where you say that you have to make a choice – are you moving forward or are you staying where you are? if you don’t need to shave those 20 seconds of your 40K, then why lower your bars? Why try the new gel that is supposed to never make you sick (does not work, trust me)? Why strive for more?
I wrote in my blog couple of weeks ago how the role of the consultant was to reach 80% perfection, then release it and improve as things move forward. I guess it is another way of beta… it is all about making it as good as possible before release — but it doesn’t die at release. It does not do that anymore.
Darn, I was about to be happy for the first time in a long time. Back to the drawing board. Need to shave those extra 3-4 days from my Customer Experience Methodology…
Thanks for a great post.
Muhahahahahaha!!!! All part of my evil plot to make you work harder, Esteban. 😀
I agree, you either have the energy to maintain the beta mentality or you don’t. If you don’t. Quit. Evolution moves too fast now to rest.
I’ve been looking at your presentations and blog posts, and though I agree with the general point of this one, I think you should amend your suggestion to test and experiment to TARGETED TESTING and TARGETED EXPERIMENTATION.
The information on what works (or what could/should) work is out there, it’s one reason we are on your blog. To test without taking existing models/ research into consideration is to be inefficient.
*I’m a little sports obsessed, maybe this article will help with your fueling dilemma (I researched your question about refueling in great detail. One suggestion, give up the gatorade. You need malto to fuel your muscles, some new research points towards a fructose as a complimentary fuel source)
Click to access PEAK%20PERFORMANCE%20Glucose%20Article.pdf
http://thesportfactory.com/site/nutritionnews/Race_Day_Nutrition.shtml
Agreed. Even we we sometimes accidentally run into something that will improve performance, proof of concept through targeted experimentation is a sound course of action. Absolutely.