The Agile Executive

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21560098@N06/3636921327/

Misty Belardo published a great post/video clip on Social Media in which she describe the effect of the ‘Super-Fresh’ web on brands:

…  millions of people are creating content for the social web… the next 3 billion consumers will access the Internet from a mobile device. Imagine what that means for bad customer experiences! The ‘super-fresh’ web will force brands to engage with its customers…

I would contend we are also going to experience ‘Super-Fresh’ code in not too long a time. Such code is likely to emerge as the convergence of two overarching trends:

1. Continuous Integration –> Continuous Deployment –> ‘Super Fresh’ Code. Sophisticated companies are already translating velocity in dev to competitive advantage through Continuous Deployment. ‘Super-fresh’ code is a natural next step.
2. Open-sourcing –> Crowd-sourcing –> Expert-sourcing. Marketplaces for knowledge work expertise are becoming both effective and efficient. For example, uTest indicates “… 25,000+ testers in more than 160 countries.” A  marketplace for mobile application developers could probably be organized along fairly similar lines.

No doubt, complex software systems of various kinds will continue to be produced through more conventional processes for many years to come. However, ‘Super-Fresh’ code will establish itself as a new category. Code in this category will owe its robustness (and creativity!) to millions of people creating software and fixing it in extremely short time, not to process rigor.

In case you are still wondering about the premise, I would like to point out two corroborative facts:

1. It is a small step from content to code.
2. Various mobile applications are already developed and tested today in a different manner from the way web applications have been done.

A fascinating link exists between ‘Super-Fresh’ web and ‘Super-Fresh’ code. The dynamics (“Imagine what that means for bad customer experiences!”) Misty discusses in her blog post are a major driver for the evolution of knowledge work marketplaces and for the production of ‘Super-Fresh’ code.