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Beta today, beta tomorrow, beta forever

January 18th, 2008 | general

Effectiveness

Chief Learning Officer, December 2007

Forever Beta

Astute CLOs keep all their programs in beta. A dozen years ago, software developers said a program was
“beta” if it was nearly finished but not ready for release. (“Alpha” meant the application was a collection
of scraps that only a developer could run.)

Netscape changed the meaning of beta forever. Instead of limiting beta tests to a small, handpicked group
of users outside the company, Netscape posted beta releases on the Internet. Anyone could download the
latest beta version. Many of us did. Improvements in the Web’s early days came fast and furious, so we
downloaded betas time after time after time. Netscape received feedback and suggestions from thousands
of users. This accelerated product development, and that led to even more frequent beta releases. Running
the most recent beta version was a sign of derring-do.

Traditional software companies continued to release new versions every year or two rather than
incrementally. Customers might not see new features until a year or two after they appeared in beta. This
exacerbated customer frustration over missed deadlines. Journalists published lists of vaporware. At one
point, Microsoft was more than a year late delivering a promised release of Windows.

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Beta today, beta tomorrow, beta forever — Informal Learning Blog http://informl.com/2008/01/18/beta-today-beta-tomorrow-beta-forevah/

Years later, Google became the poster child for the perpetual beta. Google
Search was beta for more than a year. Unlike Netscape, which offered an official release alongside the
betas, Google offered only beta. Google Labs highlights programs that are pre-beta experiments.

Google is not simply releasing products before they are finished, because from the word Go, Google’s
betas have been more reliable and polished than most firms’ final releases. Rather, Google is setting high
expectations. The implication is that what’s good enough for other software companies is only a beta
release for Google.

Beta users have a different relationship with vendors. Their input is valued. What used to be a complaint
becomes a suggestion for improvement. The developer and the user are partners, working together to
improve the product. This is why Tim O’Reilly says that the perpetual beta phenomenon is a core aspect
of Web 2.0.

A developer who calls a release beta recognizes that nothing is ever finished. There’s always room for
improvement. This lack of arrogance is endearing, but something more profound is going on.

Everything is connected to everything else. That’s the heart of the network age. And it’s why every
product is beta. The world is forever changing: Everything flows. Thus, when a company says a product
is beta, it demonstrates its recognition that nothing lasts forever and there’s always room for improvement.

Peter Drucker said the purpose of business is to create and maintain a customer. A developer who says,
“Here’s what we’ve got now, but something better is on the way,” forms a relationship of mutual
self-interest with the customer. The developer who says, “This product is final. We won’t be doing
anything more with it. This is as good as it gets,” gives the buyer no incentive to participate in a
continuing relationship. Beta empowers the customer to decide what’s good enough. Nothing’s set in
stone. Nothing is absolute.

It’s even more important to label learning beta than software. All learning is cocreation, a product of a
learner and an outside agent.

A professor gave her class a paper on urban sociology to read, explaining that they would be tested at the
end of the hour. The professor gave another class the same paper and instructions plus a warning that the
material was controversial; it might not be correct. In other words, the paper was beta.

The group that read the beta paper scored higher. Why? Because uncertainty engages the mind.

This is why it makes sense to label all learning activities beta. Engage the learners’ minds. For that matter,
mark plans beta: It will invite participation. And make your department beta — after all, everything’s an
experiment

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