I feel like typing about value today. So what is value? Value is perception of what you think what something is worth. I'm going to talk about value because value is important in a customer's consideration for what something is worth. Why is this important? Because people often spend time developing things which often contribute nothing of value to the end product. Often it is something else which drives them to purchase the product.
Well let's consider apple laptops. Bloody expensive compared to similarly priced spec'd machines, yet they cost a premium and people still purchase them. Apple has "fooled" people into thinking it has more value. How? Better design. Social status. It's considered "cool" to own a macbook, own an ipod, etc. Whether or not that's logical or rational is another question. Macs, PCs, ultimately they are the same things underneath, wrapped in different packaging. People are not rational, hence you can always add the perception of value through better design, or the image of providing "higher social status", in order to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Adding value is extremely important because you do not want to waste time and effort on tasks which do not contribute to the bottom line aka profits. The whole idea is to develop the greatest value at minimal cost and time. People often wonder why they spend so much time developing something only to produce minimal results, very often it's just that what they spent time developing has no value to anyone else other than themselves.
So how do you develop value? Ask people what they want, then think about how you can make it easier to solve the problem or even better, get rid of the problem. Think of the best way to do it in the least amount of time. This is when technology comes in. Remember, no one cares what technology you develop in, as long as you can solve the problem. Technology gives you tremendous leverage in not only allowing you to charge the full cost of what it would usually take, but also save you a LOT of time.
Most recently I developed a custom software solution for a company in New Zealand. If I had chosen my traditional choice of software development, (MFC!) it would not only take much more time but would require me to write more code (potential for more bugs!) as well. So I went the the .Net route instead, not only did I save a lot more time, I charged my usual rate which amounted to a pretty good amount considering the amount of time I actually spent on the project. Create value in the eyes of the customer using technology as leverage = recieving a greater amount of money for your time.
