Outside the Box – Perspectives, News, & Notions

There is a fundamental law in economics: when the price of a good falls and the friction to access it is removed, the use of that resource skyrockets. We’ve seen this throughout history with everything from salt to computing power. Today, we’re witnessing this phenomenon in real-time within the realm of software development.

As AI automates the friction of production, designers are evolving from technical artisans into strategic directors of the human experience.

Before you spend a dime on a new system, step back and take an objective assessment of the steps your team takes every day. Understanding your unique “heartbeat” is the only way to ensure your next tech investment actually drives measurable goals instead of just creating more noise.

In technology, the fastest way to get moving is often the quickest way to get lost. We see leaders under immense pressure to “just get something in place,” but choosing a solution based on how fast you can start is usually just a down payment on future rework. Real efficiency isn’t about how fast you can write a check or a line of code; it’s about where you invest your time upfront to avoid paying the “speed tax” later.

What if we treated our business strategy the same way we treat a software product? Your business is, after all, a product. It has users (clients and employees), features (services and capabilities), and bugs (operational inefficiencies). By applying the discipline of software roadmapping to your business planning, you can build a strategy that is resilient, iterative, and focused on value.

Switchbox recently hosted ProductTank Columbus’s October Meetup, a Halloween-themed event titled “Feature Graveyard Stories: Lessons from Features that Didn’t Make It.”

Breaking those long-overdue software projects into manageable and affordable pieces is a hallmark of Switchbox’s approach. We can help your company make forward progress when stalling seems the smartest option – but might not be.

Just because a system runs doesn’t mean it’s actually working for your team. Half Solutions and systems duct-taped together could be eating your productivity alive and creating frustration for you and your team. We explain more on this – and how we can help.

Security Concerns. Hardware Dependency. Training Woes. Band-aids covering band-aids. These are some of the ways, discussed here, that Legacy Software can be burdening your company and inhibiting your growth.

A Web App is only as good as the UX created for it. One of many Switchbox specialties is understanding your user’s needs *before* we build. In this post, we share some of the core tenets of our UX philosophy.

After launching several successful, high-impact products in the IoT space, we’re excited to share the details of our latest IoT venture: Blues.io