The Software Industry Has Reached Negative Returns

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Software just isn’t worth it anymore. We’re not talking about the financials, which are following the typical boom and bust cycle of bubbles inflated by zero interest money. We’re talking about implementation and customer service teams that don’t understand the difference between? a client using their software and a client using their software to do their job.?

Software in the last forty years has brought amazing productivity to the US workforce. From Excel to banking apps, the use of software has changed the way we do business and led to cheery slogans like, “Software is eating the world.”

Automation and seamless integration with the back end made us faster, automated dull processes, shrunk the time to create reports and pull data, and gave us insights that we could never have dreamed were possible.?

And then, it didn’t. I’m not sure when I first noticed the problem. I’ve used software to run a small business at a price that made me competitive with larger firms in recruiting and marketing for the better part of twenty years. Almost every time I picked up a software, my work product improved. I even trained others in using platforms and apps, reaching over 10,000 people who have paid me cash money to show them how to use Facebook, Google, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.?

The challenge is that with those 10,000 people, almost none of what I taught stayed with them. 60-90 minutes of live interaction resembled more of a dancing monkey show than real learning. In contrast, when I was paid to sit with one person a few hours a week over a period of months, their skills, confidence, and ability skyrocketed. They learned how to use software to do their job faster and better, which then gave them time to become expert in all areas of their job. Software plus time and training made them superheroes.?

But what of the others? What about the standard corporate spreadsheets and word processing? software that has been in use my whole career? Is it better? I remember shifting from Google backed corporate software to Outlook and finding myself lost trying to find the search bar. It was absurd. By definition, I am one of the most prolific software trainers in recruiting. How could I not find the search bar? Why is my screen so small? Am I just getting old??

No to all of those things. I would pivot from Outlook to far more complex software where I once again smoothly got to work. What happened? The constant new versions of software have so many features, you find yourself yearning for the simplicity of the early crypto wallets. If someone like me, who loves learning, testing, and serving as a case study for UI improvements doesn’t understand a new software, how is someone who is picking it up for the first time supposed to be successful??

The answer is they aren’t. When you run the analytics on any major software, from Salesforce to Marketo to LinkedIn Recruiter - you find a large portion of your licenses are either poorly used or not used at all. Think 50% never log in after training under used. Go check for yourself. A very few power users do the majority of the real work and many of them are mindlessly pounding away at the keys like rats in a cage getting a pellet.?

Developers will tell you it’s not their fault. They surf to a menu, or pull up a hidden list of features, or show you how to do your job the way they built the software. They have an excuse every time something didn’t work. You did it wrong. That’ ’s not how we built it!

You could call this bad requirements gathering, but the challenge is deeper. Software is asked to do too many complex tasks because there is a belief that you can track the data. Have you ever heard, “ If it’s not in the system, it didn’t happen.” That’s in 1984. I think it’s in the back of the book.?

Humans can’t easily add their daily tasks in a way that generates the promised benefits. If they did, data scientists wouldn’t spend 90% of their time cleaning up spreadsheets, and people like me wouldn’t say, “it’s directionally accurate, but l wouldn’t say it’s right?”

And that is the demarcation line where software returns go negative.?

Human beings don’t have the time and patience to learn every new bit of software and every change that occurs. Assuming the software never breaks or malfunctions, humans still can’t figure out how to use the software correctly in the time they have before going back to their jobs.?

And we all know it. We just don’t say it, because those who buy software don’t want to hear that their multi-million dollar purchase was a waste.?

There is no way to slow down. No company can afford to take a month to six weeks to train every user on every software. They need productivity gains and they need it now! We bought new software, and the beatings will continue until my dashboard is green and I can report on greater efficiency in my department! ?

You’ve all heard those commands. And you’ve also seen every employee using software complain that it’s dogshit, with the exception of the one person who knows just enough to be seen as the expert.?

What sane CEO would buy into this paradigm? Other than all of them, who have worked through the golden age of software and assume that 2-10X productivity is baked in, just the way it was when you switched from pencils in a ledger to a spreadsheet or when you no longer had to buy your sales reps the new Thomas Guide to drive around Los Angeles because they have maps on their phones.

The SaaS industry has a been a source of growth and media attention for over two decades The beauty of subscription software is the cost of additional licenses is near zero, allowing software companies to scale quickly and profitably.?

That time is coming to an end, as VCs pull back and the warnings of a SaaS winter is broadcast in slack and discord channels across the country. Is anyone concerned? Is there anyone in the trenches who bemoans the lack of software innovation from yet another startup??

No. Software is now considered yet another thing that just doesn’t work. And as we all know, you can’t automate something correctly unless you have perfected it. But let’s not attack the software companies where ping pong table are considered culture. Let’s put the blame on where it belongs - on humans.

Look for Part II, The Death of Human Competence in a special edition next Monday

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