Over the course of the past year, the MIX Online team has taken some great risks designing and developing our labs. Each lab requires months of effort, and we occasionally have to placate our legal department or internal influencers to do things that some consider controversial.

Not all of our labs pan out. I’ve personally worked on two labs that never saw the light of the day. It's truly frustrating when this happens, when the risk does not pay off. Back to the drawing board.

On the other hand, it's extremely rewarding when we successfully launch a new lab. Our biggest challenge is gauging whether our efforts will be worth the risk.

Are the risks worth taking?

What's the potential return for our risk? Is the potential return worth the effort? We try to mitigate high risks and envision all possible outcomes and issues that might derail a project before we start.

The S.W.O.T. analysis is a simple, useful tool we use to evaluate risk and form a good project strategy. It's basic questions are:

• What are the strengths of project X? What new ideas or innovations does it bring? How can it improve a user’s experience? How does it improve upon existing technologies, applications or things?
• What are the weaknesses of project X? What is it lacking in this project? Will it do more damage than good? How fragile is it? Is it compelling enough? Is the concept good, but the user interface poor?
• What opportunities does project X provide? Does this new project open up doors to new relationships and communities? Does it provide users and developers with something that can empower them? Is it something that will be picked up and incorporated into a product?
• What threats exist to project X? What development or design issues might bring this project down? Are we taking on too much in too short a timeframe? Are we overextending ourselves? Again, is this something that will be picked up and incorporated into a product?

Innovate or Die

We’ve all heard the cliché adages: No pain, no gain. No risk, no reward. I think it's imperative to research, invest, and take controlled risks—whether we're talking about Mix Online or everyday life. Either that, or stagnate. No one wants to see something everyone's already seen. We need to take calculated risks and raise the bar.

Are you or your business taking great risks? Have you experienced appropriate rewards when you have taken risks? How do you minimize risk while still being innovative? Or do you believe it's more rewarding to discover a new niche market and pwn it? Let us know by leaving a comment. And if you tweet, follow us on Twitter to learn about new content, opinions and articles.