This concept extends beyond software development, and applies just as well to help desks and technical support.
While support reps are not dealing with methods and algorithms, there is plenty of opportunity for beauty in their daily lives. Having a well-integrated set of tools that detects a problem with a customer's system, creates a trouble ticket that alerts the help desk, allows the support rep to troubleshoot and correct the problem, and then provides accurate and detailed reporting of the whole experience is a beautiful thing.
What makes a complete, accurate and efficient support experience beautiful? David quotes Richard Feynman in his presentation as saying, "You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right." So essentially, it is hard to describe what beauty is or why something is beautiful, but when you've got it, you'll know it. I think this rings true for technical support; it is difficult to describe how beauty can come from something that seems as mundane as a help desk, but if you are made for this work, and it is done beautifully, you'll know it.
Motivation is clearly an extremely valuable asset when it comes to running an effective help desk. Motivated reps will provide a whole new level of customer experience, and will be much more likely to be innovative and resourceful in improving the operation as a whole. While there are other ways of producing motivation, such as monetary or other compensation and a warm and encouraging culture, happiness will produce a higher and more sustainable level of motivation.
So the challenge is to strive for beauty in all aspects of your help desk. While it may seem unlikely, your tools, processes, measurement and reporting all have the potential to be beautiful things. It is not the dry details of these things that can create beauty, but the way they fit together, along with the support staff and the customer, to create an experience. Along these lines, D.H. Lawrence says, "Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness."
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