I've never met Jason Fried, and my life is a little empty because of it. Jason is one of the founders 37Signals, and his e-book: Getting Real was a complete inspiration to me and the rest of us here at Compendium Blogware. A core idea of the 37Signals philosophy is to think small and narrow. What is the big problem in Corporate Blogging Software? Why doesn't the Enterprise Blog? What does Blog Software really need to accomplish to add value to Business?
Work on that that causes your customers the most pain and release in a hurry. What's great about Software 2.0 is this ability to iterate on the fly. Trust the users and the Community to give you the right feedback...they know a lot more than any product manager about how to create the best blogging solution.
Jason spoke the other say at the South-by-Southwest event and his comments were summarized brilliantly by Sean Ammirati on the ReadWriteWeb blog.
My favorite thought as it relates to Compendium Blogware was this:
Jason claimed that the "Biggest sin on the internet right now is bad copywriting ... paying too much attention to pixels and not enough attention to words." Beyond this he pointed out that words are actually less expensive to correct and improved copy will make doing the design second result in a stronger design.
Bingo! So often, people get so sidetracked by "design" they lose track of the goals. Blogging for business is a Content Driven Strategy beyond all else. Our Blog Authoring Software is the best manager of content on the market. Is it the easiest to micro-customize a template design? I'll be the first to say NO. We are getting there and our community is giving us continual feedback.
But at the end of the day business tools are about results not about pretty pictures. I thank leaders like Jason to keep reminding the Art Directors out there to focus on content and lose the obsession with pixels.
