Hack Everything

I’ve read this post three times now, not only to keep absorbing the message, but to attempt to summarize it. Thus I have nothing, except “Everything Can Be Hacked”. Here, I will share with you some of my favorite exceprts from “How to Hack the Industrial Economy” from Umair Haque.

Everything can be hacked. One of the most enduring aspects of hacking was that it was anti-authoritarian. It wasn’t about software: rather, it was about rejecting an industrial era worldview of narrow, limited possibility – anything could be hacked, and often, with tremendous simplicity.
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Why is everything hackable today? Because in the edgeconomy, the universe of the economically possible has exploded: resources are more and more accessible. And if you can get your hands on it, you can hack it. The point is simple: nothing is impossible when you’re hacking.

Hacking means taking things that suck and making them better. Hacks aren’t always elegant, though they should be. But the logic of hacking is elegant: find things that suck, and make them better.

Hacking industries, markets, and companies is more valuable than hacking technology. Yesterday, hacker principles yielded the greatest gains when applied to technology. Why? Because changing the ways in which we organized and managed people was costly - but bits and microchips were relatively cheap.
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Today, it’s hugely powerful to apply hacker principles not to bits, but to industries, markets, and companies - because putting resources and activities together is cheap and getting cheaper.

This is some good stuff… powerful thinking. Why is Threadless successful? They hacked the clothing industry by turning it upside down and shaking it. Why is 37Signals successful? They hacked the software industry by doing things opposite of the status quo created by the Microsoft’s of the world. Why is Revision3 successful? They hacked the entertainment industry by doing the exact thing the traditional broadcast media companies were scared of.

Viva la Revolucion!

Technorati Tags: hacking, change, business

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