I have been reading a survey book on American History (vol 1 and 2) (along with a tomb on the Civil War and John Adams) and one of the things that struck me from early pre-US history is how we used to have craftsman. In those days we worked our way up from apprentice to journeyman to craftsman. We don’t call ourselves craftsman anymore and it is a real shame.

The beauty of this set up was the process. Moving from apprentice to journeyman to craftsman took years, maybe decades. Today we rush that process and think we can accomplish it overnight. When I graduated from college I started a company. I didn’t think twice about the process and the things I needed to learn in order to do it successfully. And as I look back now I see that I was really an apprentice for all those years.

Now that whole statement is a bit misleading. My craft is not running companies; my craft is creating great software products. But even there I would say I have been, at best, a journeyman. Yes, we have had some products that had tremendous success. powerOne Graph for Palm OS devices was so popular that our customers still buy PalmPilots off eBay to run it. Our powerOne Finance for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch has a 5-star rating and our line-up of iOS calculator products is approaching a million downloads. But I wouldn’t say I crafted these products. I wouldn’t say that I had internalized the customer experience. I wouldn’t say I understood the magic.

When I started Infinity Softworks I did it because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I started college in the engineering program, majored in business where I came close to getting degrees in four subjects, should have majored in computer science and considered majoring in journalism. While running Infinity I have done ten other jobs, too: accounting, marketing, sales, business development, writing code, writing copy, designing. It has taken me a long time to figure out my specialty and now that I have, I desperately want to hone that skill, to go from a journeyman to a craftsman.

I think we all are or are aspiring to be a craftsman in something. I worked with a woman who was an amazing salesperson. She was definitely a craftswoman at her trade. I have also been lucky to work with a number of amazing developers who were craftsman at their trades. I hope as Infinity Softworks moves forward I once again get to work with amazing craftspersons and hope that I get to focus more and more on my own.

I have been thinking about the theory of great products a lot. I would say, in fact, that I have thought more about the craft of creating great products — software and hardware — over the past few years than at any time before in my life. It wasn’t until the last few years that I really started to understand the word “magic” and what it means to a truly successful product.

It is funny to think of this as new learning. Our powerOne Graph for Palm OS devices, written seven years ago, still has a loyal following and customer base. I hear all the time from customers who buy old Palm devices on eBay just to keep using powerOne Graph. And if you ask any of the dozen people involved with that project they would still tell you how amazing the experience was, how liberating it felt as we saw it come together, and how awesome the response was from those that used it.

To me that was luck. I don’t think it was specifically thought through at the time. We were just trying to make a better mouse trap and succeeded. How to repeat that experience — but with a more financially viable product — is what I am striving for.

The magic is what makes a customer stand up and pay attention. Apple has been very good at this and is one of the things I admire about the company. The iPod, for instance, made it brain-dead simple to carry around your entire music collection. Other examples: the PalmPilot gave me personal information at the point where it was needed; Roku streamed web programming to my television with a remote control the same way I watch other television programs; Dropbox gives me my files wherever I need them; Visicalc automatically calculated every time I changed a number; Siri takes care of whatever I need.

What I have come to realize just in the past few days, though, is that magic is not singular; it’s plural.

I believe there are actually two parts — an inner magic and outer magic — and without both parts, a product will fail. The PalmPilot’s inner magic was that it made it brain dead simple to have personal information wherever I needed it. But its external magic was that it fit in a shirt pocket. Before that handhelds were more the size of tablets than smartphones. Siri’s internal magic is that it takes care of my needs. Its external magic is that it does that without me having to type or think about what I need — I just ask.

Without the two, the product is nice but not impressive. Take away any one and there are problems. Take away the inner beauty and using the product becomes a problem. It is not usable. Take away the outer beauty and selling the product becomes a problem. No one will show it to their friends and showing it to friends is what drives adoption quickly.

As I have alluded to a few times here, we are working on something new. We were preparing to ship next week but realized that it is lacking outer magic and needs more refinement. I believe we are on to something big. I don’t want to release a half-thought-through experience.