It seems many of the things I do, end up somehow connecting to product development, my time coaching small teams and developing prototypes. I suspect it's my passion for problem solving that drives me to try and invent new things and optimize everything. A lot of the time this amounts to automating server creation and services, but quite a lot also goes into strategy, service design and just business logic. After all, life doesn't happen in a vacuum (except the big one, out-outside). So understanding how things connect and seeing things form the point of view of multiple disciplines can come in handy.
The better solutions often lie between disciplines or somewhere between theory and practice. What you get form most experts, by definition is very deep knowledge on their subject and (hopefully) a lot of experience in implementing things based on that theory. Expertise is an essential ingredient in any successful venture, however, you need to take care in evaluating the emphasis of each of the components in your solution. As people are taught to seek the correct and optimal answers in their education, but the real world is full of compromises.
I think successful development projects start from research and involve validating your ideas. Often the painful part is knowing that there is a more elegant solution, but understanding that the result needs to be balanced. That is to say that you should strive to involve business design and engineering in a balanced way, validating your results by engaging users along the road to toward a product launch. Over emphasizing e.g. technical finesse, will often lead to a product that is either too expensive or too complicated to use for it's purpose. The same balancing act applies all ways in this combination. The sheer hardness of achieving this balance while optimizing on all fronts is the reason why good companies often release products when they are good enough and make them even better for version 2.0. The pause in development also opens ones eyes to reality and helps find more perspective in what is important to answer the customer need.
I really like the problem solving and development part of this activity, which is why I seek out projects that allow me to use my experience and skills in the most optimal way. Though I too am burdened by my highly technical background and must fight to leave things imperfect in my internal experts eyes.
Recently many things have changed with the pandemic closing down movement, but it has pushed the government, at least in Finland, to push companies to innovate to stay alive. I think I will focus some efforts on this, to help companies, artists and freelancers find new ways of working or new markets, with new tools.
Business in a pandemic
COVID-19 has forced many people to work remotely. Also, gatherings are forbidden, leaving restaurants and entertainment venues closed. Many companies are suffering because most business relies on customer flow. Small artists and freelancers are finding it tough to reach their customers. Most entertainers have resorted to online streaming, but revenue seems to mostly come from donations.
Digitalization can be one part of the answer, but I see many opportunities in also developing interaction and customer experiences. I think there is more that we can do than turning each kind of entertainment into it's own tv-channel. Now is the time to experiment and companies need to reinvent at least part of their services to stay alive if this situation is prolonged.
I may write more on this topic.