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From Best Practices and Case Studies: Be Very Afraid “This story reminds me of a warning I received […]

From Best Practices and Case Studies: Be Very Afraid

“This story reminds me of a warning I received when I was young — your parents probably said something like this to you, too (after you did something stupid with friends) — If Johnny jumped off a cliff, does that mean you should too?

That idea is not too different from that of best practices and the case studies of other companies’ successes. In fact, something might have worked well for one of your competitors or another company. But does that mean you should do the same, and will you get the same results? Following in the footsteps of other companies is called mimicry, and while it might be flattering, it is often very dangerous. ”

It’s a good article, tailor-made for forwarding to those who want to play it safe by copying.

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  1. 1
    victor

    I go back and forth on this issue. Ever since watching Anderson Consulting cobble together best practices from various websites as a design method I’ve been wary of them. And Adaptive Path makes a short, sweet argument against them too:
    http://www.adaptivepath.com/services/philosophy.php

    Though, for the truly clueless, copying is better than completely flubbing, right? And if we take a Darwinistic view of things, the smarter companies will use the smart design methods and win and smart designers should go work for the smart companies.

    I like Case Studies because they’re stories and stories appeal to people, always have. Again, I think smart people will extrapolate the lessons from the story intelligently and, well, the not so smart will continue to be so.

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