Solutions in Search of Problems

A solution in search of a problem is still a solution, but it’s not easy to see. Many blockchain projects are often challenged by whether they can solve an existing problem and if so, why that solution can’t be done with another technology.

This is similar to arguing whether you should fly or drive to a destination. There are variants and factors that enable you to achieve your goal by getting from one place to another. And those variants can be satisfied via automobile or via plane, both bringing different values as well as challenges towards reaching the end goal. There isn’t a right or wrong. The decisions are relative based on a specific need. But these decisions aren’t the end of the road; they’re the bridge to what’s next. And that’s why they warrant our attention.

If we’re looking to solve an acute problem, we shouldn’t be just looking at how to solve for existing conditions, we should look to challenge how those conditions came about in the first place. The greatest technologies question behaviors. It’s not about solving a specific problem, but questioning the behaviors that brought us there in the first place. It’s not just technical, it’s cultural. New ways of “doing” shouldn’t be applied to old ways of thinking, however innovation is often judged by the problems it solves, not the behaviors it creates. And that’s backwards. Often times products fail because they’re solving problems without questioning behaviors. If we can change behaviors, we can change, and solve, the problems.

A solution in search of a problem is a good thing. It’s core incentive is not to provide a solution for a problem rendered by an existing behavior. Its incentive is to create an entirely new behavior, thus creating entirely new problems. That’s how change happens.

At Po.et, we are rethinking the creative process at large. What does it mean to own your ideas? How do you build value and reputation around the work that you do? If there are new models for rewards, new models for funding and new models of acknowledgement for individuals, then everything inside and outside of the process can be rewritten as well. To best understand how to drive value, we must listen and build tools for opportunities that individuals see, feel and breathe.

Behavior follows culture. Culture follows incentives. Change the incentives, change the culture.

Now to the good stuff. Here’s a recap of what the Po.et project has been up to recently.

Engineering Updates

First of all, I’d like to draw attention to the Po.et engineering strides in the most recent progress report. There are a number of items to highlight, including:

• The implementation of batch claiming, an important feature for allowing Po.et to scale and process large numbers of claims at once.
• A redesign of claim structures that ensures forward-compatibility over the long term.
• A lot of bug squashing. The most notable achievement on this front is the fixing of bugs that caused problems in some cases for claims that dealt with foreign language content. We want everyone, everywhere to be able to use Po.et reliably, and the fixing of this bug helps ensure that they can.
• The completion of a security self-assessment and a code quality checkup by the Po.et engineering team. Software security and quality are also a core part of our mission, and we want to ensure that we’re taking steps as Po.et evolves to keep our code as clean and secure as we reasonably can.

With this work out of the way, the engineering team is transitioning from creating new features to testing and debugging those features. As reported, the team is putting the final touches on the Po.et mainnet release. We are excited to share more with the community soon.

“Blockchain in Journalism” Panel at Columbia

Last week, I took part in the “Blockchain in Journalism: Promise and Practice” event at Columbia University’s Journalism School in New York. The discussion allowed me to raise some important points about the current state of the media and journalism industries and how blockchain can help it.

Part of the solution, as I explained, is to use the blockchain and tokens to do a better job of showing readers the value of journalism that is produced. By using decentralized networks of token holders to validate information, we can prove to readers that what we say is accurate, and give them a more compelling reason to pay for subscriptions.

You can catch the full discussion (along with the rest of the event) in this video recording.

Adweek Elevate

I also spoke last week at the Adweek Elevate: Blockchain event. The discussion presented another opportunity to connect with stakeholders in the advertising and media industry and help them understand how Po.et can improve what they do.

Here’s a short clip that gives you the Cliff Notes version of what we discussed at Elevate.

RightsTechSummit

In yet another recent stop on the conference circuit, I spoke at RightsTechSummit at the New York Media Festival about how blockchain impacts licensing and intellectual property rights.

Hackernoon Article

Po.et was called out (in a good way) this month by Sam Radocchia in an article on Hackernoon. Sam wrote about the challenges that data collection currently poses, and how blockchain can help us shift toward a culture where people have more control over how their data is used. Blockchain will not only help to offer consumers the choice of opting into data collection, but will also provide them new incentives for allow their data to be collected.

Sam mentioned Po.et as an example of a platform that uses the blockchain to “reconcile content creation with a fairer, more transparent system for attribution and compensation” and to create immutable records of proof of existence.

There is a lot coming up. If you happen to be at DevCon next week, please make sure to find our head of product, David Turner.

Until next time.

JD