A/B Fit

Solution/problem fit: A solution is a strategy that fits the needs of a specific problem. If a strategy technically works, but is too expensive, or too slow, for the specific problem, it still won’t fit and the problem will not be “solved”.

Product/market fit: a product must fit a specific market before it will take off and grow.

Idea/person fit: Ideas must fit the people who are working on them. Tell 10 people an idea, and each person will know rather quickly if it fits their values, beliefs, needs, aesthetic, self-identity.

Idea/company fit: A product idea also needs to fit its company culture. I spent a couple months this year trying to help a team spread the idea of social at one company I contracted at, and it just didn’t fit. The same idea is grafted into the DNA of other companies. The quality of the idea is unimportant… what matters is that it fits.

People/company fit: And the people at a company must also fit its culture. Each hire changes the people/company fit of the next hire, and ultimately change the idea/company fit of ideas and products within that company.

A/B Fit has been turning up everywhere for me.

The best A (apple, app, answer) doesn’t exist.

There is only the best A (apple, app, answer) that fits B (meal, situation, context).

The implications of this are huge (at least, in my own head).

Quality doesn’t exist as a stand-alone attribute. It only exists in relation to the timing, location, and needs of the present environment.

And the quality of those environments in turn only exist in relation to the next layer of context.

The notion of human equality has been around for a long time. However, it has taken a long time for it to fit in the culture (and still has a long way to go). The culture itself has been in a long process of fitting into the local and global needs of its people, of society.

Natural selection is a test of animal/environment fit. And as the animals adapt to the environment, the changes the environment, and changes the test for new animals in the new environment.

Every A must take into consideration its timing, its location, its placement in the hierarchy of power and acceptance in order to know its own chance for success.

There is no perfect glove. The perfect glove fits the hand that buys it.

The perfect computer is the one in your hand.

The perfect app is the one that you use right now.

The perfect book is the one that speaks to your present life. The perfect word fits its sentence, paragraph, and page.

Those same gloves, computers, apps, and books will not be perfect if you plop them a different context, at a different time, with different circumstances.

The heroes of our day fit the day perfectly.

Right place, right time = right fit.

Right place, wrong time = wrong fit.

Right fit today may be wrong fit tomorrow.

Think about timing. Think about placement. Think about context. Think about fit.

The ultimate question for our own lives: person/universe fit.