Today (or, technically Monday UK time) I’m publishing the first lesson in the BETA version of a new course I’ve been putting together over the last few months.
I had hoped to publish the first 2 lessons, since they’re written (as powerpoints, with some detailed scripting), but then my head exploded.
BOOM!
Like that.
It was going okay until I realised that the videos were meant to be in 16:9 HD format, but my slides are 1024x768.
I made a copy of the slides then switched themes to the right size and “*;$}$/$:&:&{*” they looked awful.
So, rather than fix them, I went and lay in my bed, pulled the pillow over my face and tried to suffocate myself.
IT DIDN’T WORK.
So, I went and made a cup of tea.
And, then my wife came home from work and I told her how the world was about to end.
She said, ‘Will the people taking the course care?’
I shook my head.
And she said, ‘Okay.’
And I went back to work.
—
There are many fancy definitions of quality - fitness for purpose, conformance to spec, and so on.
Maybe a variation on my wife’s question, ‘Will your users or customers care?’ is good enough.
Very interesting tension high describe!
I wouldn’t publish Rolling Rocks Downhill before I was not-embarrassed by it, even though my (then)publishers were happy to, and even though others enjoyed reading it. I’m glad I didn’t!
So I know what you mean.
In this case, with the video, my wife’s question made me realise that I was imposing a requirement that my customers don’t care about and I don’t care about!
Nice to hear from you Jeremy.
Interesting.
My first reaction was: "they may not care, but *I* care."
There's a tension -- at least for me, and maybe you too -- between "good enough [quality] for your customer" and "good enough for you".
I think I need to think about this more deeply, but could I be happy shipping "product" that I wasn't happy with, even if my customer "doesn't care"...?
=Jeremy