Bringing back the fun

With all the buzz around the iPhone, I've started thinking about what is getting people so excited. Jobs and Apple are masters at creating the buzz, but what is it about their products that people connect with?

The answer lies in their approach to consumer products. Technology companies (from VCRs to cellphones) have conditioned us to think of technology as something that can give us something we want, but for a price. I can record television shows, but it's impossible to set the clock; I can make a cell phone call, but I have to search through a thousand menus to store a phone number. The classic example is Microsoft's impossible error messages.

Along comes Apple and says, "Here: it does what you want/need it to AND it's fun." Mac users have known this for years, but what I think is interesting is that business is waking up to the idea that fun is not only OK, but maybe even preferred at work.

I've been leading an Agile (see previous post) team of software developers lately and one of the most intriguing things about their methods is how fun is consciously part of the plan. We invited our CTO to our weekly post-mortem meeting (what an unfun name) and he couldn't get over how much fun it was (see his post here).

And it's not fun that exists as a diversion to allow us to continue doing our (unfun) jobs for longer hours, it's an integral part of the way in which we work. It's an acknowledgment that we've chosen a field because we enjoyed something about it; let's not strip all of that enjoyment out, now that we're getting paid to do it.

It's also a recognition of the fact that happy people who are enjoying themselves are more productive. And from Apple's perspective, making people happy is good business.