Gene Likes It…

Ninety Percent Perspiration

Disclaimer: As someone who makes his living implementing technical systems, I'm naturally biased towards the "implementation" side of the idea/implementation equation. Notwithstanding the foregoing, I also spend a fair amount of professional time ideating, and assure my readers (both of you) that I am sympathetic to both sides.

In the course of my professional life, I am presented with a great many richly-detailed and enthusiastically-presented ideas (but of course -- who on earth can help but think that their child is the cutest?). Sometimes, the presentation of these ideas is preceded by the traditional Kabuki of the non-disclosure agreement (NDAs are a topic for another day... don't get me started or I might violate one by accident...), sometimes not. Regardless of relative secrecy, the idea-presenters typically have one thing in common -- they almost always think that their brainchild is unique and special, while simultaneously holding the belief (frequently without benefit or burden of technical training necessary to determine so) that the details of its heretofore imaginary implementation will amount to a list of relatively simple tasks to be executed... by someone...

In short: The idea is unique and special. The implementation, however, should be "easy".

(I have trained myself, in the interest of decorum, to refrain from jumping in at this point in these conversations and inquiring as to why the parent of the brainchild in question has yet to implement it themselves.)

This misconception can often lead to a concomitant and proportional misconception as to the appropriate relative weighting of interest in a proposed enterprise, but that, like NDAs, is a topic for another day.

The topic for today, rather, is a pair of related rules that I would like to propose:

First, the "Math is hard" rule:

The unique specialness of a given idea varies directly with the difficulty of its implementation.

and second, the "Underpants Gnomes" rule:

The value of an idea varies directly with the amount of its implementation that has been completed.

(There is a third rule, probably more apropos of a post on NDAs -- the "infinite monkeys" rule -- which states that any idea good enough that you've started trying to implement it is also being worked on by at least two other people you've never met, but I'll leave that one for another day as well).

To recapitulate my disclaimer, and armor myself against the pitchfork-toting hordes quick to label me a techie snob: I am not dismissing the concept of the value of an idea, and certainly not the value of inspiration. I'm simply applying a sensible discount to the value of a given idea, based on a couple of measurable factors: how hard is this to implement? And how much have you already built? If the answer to these questions are "trivial" and "nothing", I contend that the value of the idea naturally approaches zero.

This is not a bad thing.

Unless it's your idea, and you're trying to trade it for an equity stake in something. Then it might be bad for you.

But it's still good for the commons. As long as you don't over-value it or hold on to it too tightly.

This was made clear and plain to me in a blog post that made me smile -- participants in a recent startup weekend event came up with 999 business ideas (naturally, they're of varying value) -- and unceremoniously loosed them on the world, free for the taking, to be implemented as the reader sees fit. Or not.

Awesome. I wish I had time to do some of these.

And there, my friends, is the rub -- the single most precious non-renewable resource in the universe is time. Execution, not inspiration, is the rate-limiting step, in nearly all cases.

In that vein, I present the first (of many, I hope) freely-offered no-strings-attached idea, yours for the taking. Do with it what you will. Or not. If you take this one and run with it, send me a postcard or something.

I've been pondering this one since i saw the following:

I couldn't agree more. Particularly since Amazon started blowing out great albums at $5 a pop, so much of my music is purely digital now. With my vinyl records and CDs, I can -- sometimes -- scratch the "who played that amazing part?" itch by going to the shelf. With MP3s, I'm left guessing too frequently.

Furthermore, as an admitted, unrepentant, unreconstructed music and recording snob, I frequently want to know not only who played on an album, but who produced it, who engineered it, where it was recorded, and as much of the minutia, myth, and legend surrounding its creation as I can find. The 33 1/3 book series is absolutely fantastic for this, but the obvious problem here is one of scaling -- there's no way that 33 1/3 will ever cover a significant portion of my record collection (nor should they), so these exegeses are a rare treat (particularly the volume about Paul's Boutique... but I digress).

It seems to me that, in iTunes or the equivalent, I ought to be able to source this kind of metadata for any track playing. I mean, I'm connected to the Internet all the time, right? And this information is out there.

So, the idea -- it's pretty simple, really -- a comprehensive online database of metadata regarding the personnel, recording staff, and circumstances surrounding the creation of each album and single out there. Much of this data already exists in Wikipedia, particularly for better-known albums, but it's not necessarily structured. A "placeholder" for each album could be gleaned using the Wikipedia API, and user-generated structured data could be added, much in the same way that the Gracenote CDDB was originally created. Over time, the crowd could refine and add to this structured pool of music metadata, which would be linked to tracks and albums similarly to how CDDB track listings are linked (based on track index / track time). The CDDB could even serve as the base of records from which to start.

As this pool of data is added to, the experience of each album could become that much richer, perhaps allowing for addition of user-generated imagery.

I have no idea how anyone would make money from this. But I know it would be incredibly useful to me, and the legions of other music freaks out there.

Anyone?