Genii Weblog

Setting the bar high on purpose

Fri 13 Feb 2009, 07:41 AM



by Ben Langhinrichs
I got a fairly unprecedented number of hits on my post yesterday, Busting through "No way!" to get to "Wow!" (although, curiously, I only got 76 hits on Planet Lotus using that title, and Gabriella Davis got an amazing 337 hits with her post, Stop what you’re doing right now and prepare to be amazed, which directed people to my post).  The obvious question which the post should raise is, does the current iFidelity beta 2 really render everything coming inbound that well?

The blunt answer is, Not yet!  But a better answer might be, It will!   The product is still in beta, and not everything works perfectly, but it will be as close as we can get it.

The reason I posted those images was that I wanted to keep the bar high from the very beginning.  It feels to me as if too many companies, software and otherwise, aim for 70%, hope for 80% and settle for 60%.  How many features in Lotus Notes/Domino feel like that?  I didn't want that for iFidelity, so I decided to aim high.  I decided to aim for better than 100%, so if I eventually have to settle, it will still exceed people's expectations.

Willing to come along for the ride and see how far I can push this?  Willing to be amazed again?

Update:  Changed the wording some to emphasize that we fully intend to make iFidelity as close to perfect as possible, but this is a beta, so there is still some improvement to come.

Copyright © 2009 Genii Software Ltd.

What has been said:


788.1. Lars Berntrop-Bos (02/13/2009 01:51 PM)

Excellent!


788.2. Rodney Scott (02/16/2009 02:23 PM)

Maybe off-topic, but I'm not certain a good place to post the question will come up. I did the math and was wondering if you were first accepted to Swarthmore when you were 16? If so, what's the story?


788.3. Ben Langhinrichs (02/16/2009 03:39 PM)

Well, that is pretty far off-topic, but I'll go with it. I skipped 6th grade because I had already covered everything they would teach (in 5th grade, I was in a combined 5th/6th open classroom, and just did everything for both years), and transferred to a private school for 7th grade and up. I was there for five years, but was finished with pretty much everything they had to offer, so I decided to graduate early (skip 12th grade) and go on AFS (cultural exchange program) for a year. I didn't want to try and apply to college from abroad (much harder back then than it would be now), so I actually applied at 15 (birthday in December), got waitlisted (they thought I was pretty young!), then accepted, and then asked to be deferred a year to go on the cultural exchange. They said OK, and I got a bit of a chance to catch up maturity-wise before starting school at 17 instead of 16. It probably wasn't enough, but what could I do?

That explain things at all. Were you reading about my getting accepted when Barack Obama didn't?


788.4. Rodney Scott (02/16/2009 04:40 PM)

Yeah. Is that where your son is studying now? You said you were encouraging him to study what interested him, so I gather he is in college right now.


788.5. Ben Langhinrichs (02/16/2009 04:46 PM)

No, he thought Swarthmore was "OK", but wouldn't apply there. He decided to go to the University of Chicago, where he seems very happy.


788.6. Rodney Scott (02/17/2009 08:03 AM)

Okay, two more questions - where did you go for the cultural exchange program, and did that influence your choice of college major? Sorry, just putting pieces together? (Latin American studies)


788.7. Ben Langhinrichs (02/17/2009 08:08 AM)

I went to Venezuela, so it did influence my major, although mostly I wanted to study Poli Sci and History and wanted to avoid two courses required by both. Swarthmore let you design your own major if you could get it approved, so I designed a major which avoided those two courses, but included lots of Poli Sci and History, as well as Latin American stuff I was interested in, and they approved it.