Thursday, October 25, 2007

Is less really more?

You've surely had those moments when it seems everything is just too much... and you would give a king's ransom to just take out complexity and make things simple again. I know I've felt that way often, when the noise from the world around just becomes too much. TV, radio, work, computers, cellphones, internet, wi-fi, global village, entertainment, and the list goes on. And with everything going on around and all the tasks and responsibilities, sometimes I wish it would all just be a bit easier.

Put simply, sometimes less is actually more.

Its so important I'll say it again -

Sometimes less is actually more!

We have officially moved from the information age to the attention management age. This is equally true in life and in business. Grant Brewer wrote an interesting article entitled "Why are products so complex?". His concluding paragraph hits a very sensitive cord as far as business goes - "One of the keys to overcoming the challenge is to stop trying to please everyone — accept that some potential customers won’t buy your product or service, and this takes courage." Interesting in an age where chasing market share and new customers results in many businesses trying to be everything to everyone.

In business I believe that we are increasingly moving towards a phase where delivering less results in more value.

Think of the choices when trying to buy a product online [a beautiful thing in itself, where the "long tail" truly has impacted our reality]. But imagine this... an online store where the entry page offers two different paths [I see two big buttons to make it easy]:

  1. One path for people who don't mind the complexity and want all their choices, the standard e-commerce stores you see now such as e-bay, Amazon, etc.
  2. A simpler option - where you follow a path of answering 5 or 6 simple questions which lead to the most logical product to suit your needs.

Let's face it - not everyone wants to customise their toilet seat or be able to choose the colour of the lights inside their desktop computer. Choices, choices, choices.

There's a fortune waiting for those who can bring simplicity back into an already overcrowded life.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I really agree with this - in an effort to "manage" my life I work across four calendars and 4 email accounts - try syncing all this to your phone to keep up with all the reminders and appointments!

Maybe one Google calendar really is the answer?

Often things we buy to make our lives simple, really just complicate the hell out of it.

Maybe it is time to clear the clutter and to embrace simplicity.

Darren said...

I hear you on the e-mail accounts but four calendars? Google one is an excellent idea, only trouble is in trying to synchronise with the different offices.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who feels this way about simplifying life.