What's good enough for you
Is good enough for me
It's good enough
It's good enough for me
- Cyndi Lauper, The Goonies R Good Enough


We are the problem with quality. I don't mean software testers. I mean human beings.

My brother in law has talent as a carpenter. When our cat died he whipped up the most beautiful coffin overnight. It is nicer than what many humans are buried in. He created a covered porch on his house that is amazing. However, he doesn't work in carpentry. He would love to build furniture, but you see, I bought all furniture from China when I moved into my home. We really couldn't afford anything hand crafted in our first house having just paid the down payment. We are part of the reason that for fun he does carpentry and his talent isn't used on his job.

Those of us who love software want it to be perfect. We have a vision of the polish and groundbreaking delightful useful things it is going to do. I've been using twitter lately and it fails to load pretty often. I'd say between 4 and 5 times per day it doesn't work. Often I get the "fail whale" which is the cute page showing the site is overloaded. Sometimes it just times out without the whale. Either way, I still use it. Why? It is free and so I don't expect too much reliability.

I also think that some companies are competing against themselves. People don't want to upgrade because what they have is good enough for them. They know and like their older version. Unless something is amazingly different, they don't want the hassle and expense. Companies who are struggling certainly don't want to risk downtime. For example, my graphic designer friend has updated every Creative Suite for years. After 4 layoff rounds, she can neither afford the money, the time, or the learning curve to upgrade again because she's lost so many co-workers. I realize that she is lucky to just have a job right now, but the software she has is certainly good enough for now. Would she like new software? Sure, but it isn't practical right now. I think Office faces the same issue.

I have an online friend who creates beautiful custom corsets. I own two and they are of the highest quality, all original designs and they last. Yet, I bought a corset for a friend and because of the price I bought an inferior one from China, taking work from an artist I respect and admire. Why did I do that? I'm not happy about it. I'd rather have bought her a work of art from Electra Designs and instead gotten her less expensive gifts. I learned from that. I bought my best friend the base price of a corset for her birthday. She added features to it and paid the difference.

Right now price rules. Good enough usually really isn't that good. However, our actions as consumers can help bring quality back one decision at a time. Price is not value. Free is not always better. Who has the power to make quality matter? We do. When we are the customer we get to choose.

So, think about it. Is it good enough for your customer? We may not like the answer. Good enough for their needs may be woefully short of our expectation, or it could be higher. Either way we need to find out what good enough is to them.



I now present the rest of the lyrics with the thought that Goonies never die. Thanks to Cyndi.

Here we are
Hanging onto strains of greed and blues
Break the chain then we break down
Oh it's not real if you don't feel it
Unspoken expectations
Ideals you used to play with
They've finally taken shape for us.

What's good enough for you
Is good enough for me
It's good enough
It's good enough for me
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

Now you'll say
You're startin' to feel the push and pull
Of what could be and never can
You mirror me stumblin' through those

Old fashioned superstitions
I find too hard to break
Oh maybe you're out of place