Simplicity Sells

Think selling on line today is all about engagement? That's what the marketing gurus tell us. And certainly in some cases engagement is important. But according to this recent study, simplicity may be a bigger key to selling on line.

Tom

Simple Search and what it says

Don't look now, but that simplest of web activities, the search, is getting simpler. There have been a rash of articles like this one, pointing out how Bing and others are streamlining their search results pages, and pulling market share from Google.

This is part of a larger trend. As devices from computers to phones to TV's get so they can do more and more, Joe Average is more and more feeling overwhelmed by choices, and the guy who provides the most features, most simply, get's attention, and often, gets sales.

I have been experimenting lately, testing a theory I have had bouncing around in my head for some time. On one of my laptops, I dropped back to old versions of my most used software - which in my case would be Microsoft Office (where I dropped back to Office 2003), Mindjet mind mapping software (where I dropped to my 2002 version, ACDSee, Paint Shop Pro, and Chaos Software's Intellect (where I dropped back to the 1.1 version.).

What I found surprised me. I was able to do my work just fine. Oh, there was an odd feature here and there that I kind of missed, but my core work had not been enhanced at all by the updates since then. In almost a decade, nothing they had done had significantly upgraded my ability to do good work. The one exception was Chaos Software's Intellect, where they did the brilliant thing of keeping their original, powerfully simple interface intact, while adding significant workflow features. (Not an easy thing, that.)

But, I had bought the new versions, slowed down my computer with software bloat, taken the time to relearn workflow... and for what?

Interesting, the people who's software HAS changed how I work are companies that have developed a whole new way of working. Those investments have paid off for me in terms of increased efficiency or higher productivity.

I understand that companies feel a need to upgrade to keep up with the competition, but my gut tells me it's overkill, and as I asked others around me what they thought, they agreed.

I am not making the point that we should never upgrade, but I AM suggesting we think twice before we do. Look instead at the core ideas and workflow, and ask yourself, honestly, if the new upgrade really buys you more than what the new complexity costs you. My guess is that we'll be surprised at the answer.

Tom

PS - the graphic is a full sized wallpaper, if you happen to need a reminder. Click on it for the full sized version.

Creativity is.....

"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while." ~ Steve Jobs

Lessons from a Clock

The clock in the picture belonged to my great grandparents, on the Drewry side. It’s a late 19^th century gothic mantle clock. From there it was passed down to my grandmother Lassiter, then to my mother, and on my 50^th birthday, it was given to me.

In all its homes, the clock’s simple Victorian mechanics clicked away, the reassuringly reliable click-click of the pendelum, the hourly deep gong of the chimes. Through my early childhood, when its ticking in the room below my bedroom lulled me to sleep at night, to my turbulent teen years, when it’s chimes told me regularly that I was up way too late, to my adulthood when the clock began to be, not just a timepiece, but a connection point to my family and it’s history.

I’m one of the lucky ones in that I remember well all of my grandparents, all of whom were alive into my thirties and forties, and some of my great grandparents. I have pictures of them in my house, and for me, they are not pictures of people not known, but of people I loved and love still, whose lives still touch me, here in my late fifties.

When I was given the clock, I lived in Troutville, Va. My life seemed settled, and the clock in a small way, was something of a symbol of that, but of course, life does not work that way. A few short years later and I was divorced, and my life and work came undone. I moved twice in a few short years there in Botetourt County, then making the decision to move to Vermont to be close to the woman I have come to love here in Vermont.

And the clock moved with me. Carefully packed and set up, Whether I moved myself, or had someone move my belongings, the clock rode in my car, carefully set upright and strapped in so that it’s delicate works and old glass would make the trip intact. And once settled in my new homes, it would be one of the first things set in place, it’s ticking and hourly gongs a taste of stablility in what seemed to me to be a suddenly unstable life.

It did not make the trip to Vermont well.

The clock didn’t seem to have been damaged. It looked fine, but after I set it in place in my study, would it carefully, it would run for a minute or two, and slowly stop. I looked at it (which is something of a laugh, since I know nothing about clocks, and only have an average mechanical sense), read about clocks of that era, but I could find nothing wrong. And unfortunately, at this point in life, I had other priorities for any spare money I might have.

So I left it in place, silent. I told myself that it didn’t matter that much, that what was important was it’s legacy, the fact that it was a connection point. And to some extent, that was true. But still, it nagged at me, and from time to time I would return to it, trying to figure out what was wrong, how I might fix it. Again and again in the nearly three years I have been here, I would stand there, door open on the clock, tracing it’s mechanics, thinking, always failing to fanthom it’s mystery.

Last night, I was looking at it again, and it came to me. Perhaps it was not the clock. Old clocks are a magical mix of mechanics, gravity and physics. They need to be level, both side to side, and front to back.

The clock looked level, as did the piece of furniture it was on, but, I suddenly realized, I live in an old house, built in 1800. NOTHING is level in an old house. Visually it might look that way, because everything might be tilted the same way.

I went back to the project room (my version of a workshop, since my tiny snapshot of a lot has no room for a real workshop), and found my level. I put it on the kitchen counter. it was level. I move the clock to the counter, started the pendelum, and it clicked, as long and steadily as if it’s work had never been interrupted.

Five minutes with the piece of furniture and the level and everything was plumb and right. The clock was back in place, and now, 12 hours later, it continues to echo through the house.

Like so many things we lose in life, often we don’t fully realize how much we miss something or someone, until we have them back. I miss my friends in Roanoke and other places less when I am here, than when I am back with them, enjoying their company and their goodness and the joy of their presence. The same was true of my clock. Last night, as it began to tick happily away, the law of physics making all right with it’s world, I felt a return to mourning, just for a while, about what I had missed in the years before I finally discovered what was wrong.

And I was reminded of a few life lessons along the way.

First, that persistence pays. If I had not kept at it, returning to it again and again, it would have been a museum piece, instead of the living reminder (and timepiece, Rona is always telling me I don’t have enough clocks in the house.) that it once again is.

Second, that often things that seem hard, really aren’t. It was embarassingly easy to fix the clock. I battle depression, which ebbs and flows in my life, and when I am in the midst of it, everything is hard. But most things in life really aren’t hard.

And so the clock that now sits above my head to one side as I write and work and seek work, has taken on yet another connection point, this time not to family, but to an idea that is important to take to heart: Most of life is simpler than we make it, whether we are dealing with work, life or art. 

Good lessons, both.

Now, I just have to get used to the tick-tock again. 

Tom

Be Uncomfortable

In my first Life Lessons newsletter, I wrote about the very first thing we must understand if we want to change things about our life. And that fact is that beliefs are not reality, and we have the power to change our beliefs, at will. It’s a scary truth, really, but we absolutely must understand this to move forward in our life. Otherwise we’ll spend a lifetime of running through the same cycle again and again and not get very far in life.

And that leads me to the next scary truth – If we are going to change, to get to a better place, to get beyond where we are in whatever terms we want to change – better finances, a more fulfilling life, deeper relationships, we can’t keep doing the same things.

I think it was Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet, that is what most of us do, clinging to our old beliefs and habits even though, if we would step back, we KNOW those old beliefs and habits got us… to where we are, over and over again.

And so, if we want to change some important element of our life, we have to change our beliefs, and change our habits.

It sounds so simple when I say it, doesn’t it? And yet, most of us don’t manage to pull it off very well. And the reason is quite simple. Change is, for most of us, pretty uncomfortable.

We’re wired to make our lives simple and secure. That need to for something to be comfortable and safe is wired into our DNA. So we build houses and nest eggs and beliefs to keep us safe from that uncomfortable feeling change brings.

On the surface, that might seem to make sense, except for one thing. Life changes. And we have a choice of directing and controlling much of that change, or having it happen to us and having to change by force.

Now, which of THOSE two choices seem safer?

So if we are going to get what we want out of life (and we don’t have it already), then we are going to have to change something, and that is uncomfortable. so what to do?

Well, this is my experience. When I gather the courage to do something different, I am uncomfortable for a short while, and then as I do it, I become more and more comfortable.

And that is not all, when I take that step into something new and different and uncomfortable, the world around us seems to pay attention. People notice. God notices. The universe notices, and things seem to fall into place to help me.

This is not wishful thinking. I’ve kept a journal for many, many years and when I go back and read it, I see this pattern happen again and again. If I am willing to sacrifice some uncomfortableness, I am rewarded with something very good that lasts long after the uncomfortableness fades. It’s been remarkably consistent. And I’ve seen it work for others, again with consistently.

And so, it can work for you. And here’s why.

It doesn’t depend on you. You don’t have to be smart enough or strong enough or anything enough, but cause this just seems to be the way the world works. Not immediately, but over time, if we are willing to change, to become a beginner at something, to deal with that uncomfortableness, the world adapts to us and lets good things, good changes, come to us.

So that’s the second life lesson we need, that change means some uncomfortableness. But if we will absorb that uncomfortableness for a bit, it pays off in a life time of better.

Scary, huh? 

Tom

Creativity in 36 minutes

What if you could spend 36 minutes and learn everything you need to know about becoming more creative? What if you could laugh at the same time?

Watching this video, a speech by John Cleese really sums up everything you need to know to be more creative. Seriously. (but sprinkled with light bulb jokes.)

Tom

The power of simplicity

This is one of those rare occaisions when instead of writing three newsletters, I only have to write one, because what I want to focus on this month applies to all three of my client bases. That’s so rare, that when the chance came, I couldn’t resist.

This past week has been wilder than normal. Not only has there been the work to do, two software packages that I use to do much of my work have presented me with major upgrades. I am sure that in time, I’ll get my head around all the changes, but in the meanwhile, a lot has changed and I am stumbling through my work instead of running like a well oiled machine.

I don’t envy software manufacturers. They are under constant pressure to add features and make changes. And yet, adding all those features adds complexity. What they do is what all of us do, we add things and patch and tinker and tack stuff on until at a certain point, what they have is an unweildy mess.  

And at a certain point, they have to decide, do I continue my patchwork path, or rethink the whole thing?

That same point comes to each of us, whether we are upgrading our technology infrastructure, adding new marketing initiatives, or growing as individuals. We patch and pile, add and tweak until we HAVE to find a more efficient way to work, a way to make what is very complex….. simpler.

The Benefits

Simplifying has a lot of benefits.

• Simplicity provides focus. And that focus helps us be more productive in what really matters. This is true whether we are moving our TV facility to a file based work flow, integrating our marketing, or building a better life.
• Simplicity makes us more productive. Yes, us gadget hounds in the TV/AV/IT world love being able to do everything, and marketing seems to be becoming more and more fragmented, but when we make what we do 95% of the time more complex to meet that 5% that doesn’t fit so well, we are not as effective 95% of the time. Study after study shows that simplicity makes us more effective in every aspect of work and life.
• Simplicity helps us make better decisions. This is because inherent in doing simplicity well is that we’ve already pre-prioritized what’s most important, less important, and what has little value. This has been verfied in industries as diverse as health care, manufacturing and personal coaching.
• Simplicity requires less maintenance – again, this truism crosses into technology, marketing and life.  Less maintenance means we can do more with less, or a lot more with the same, and just as importantly…..
• Simplicity reduces stress – and that makes life, work, technology, marketing and everyone, more creative, productive and just plain happy.

 The payoffs are enormous. Companies like Apple and Bose have build their whole product lines on simple quality. Amazon succeded where others failed because they made it easy. Companies that have simplified processes have saved millions, giving them a competitive edge in the marketplace. People who have simplified life and work create, innovate and produce more, and more happily than those who just keep piling things on in a web of complexity.

The Problem is....

The problem is, while BEING simple has all these benefits, actually simplifying is not as easy as most people think. Simplicity is not natural. It has to be concious or we just go on piling stuff on until we break. It has to be by design.

Designing simplicity takes discipline, and it takes an investment in time and thought before you see any results. And we want results now. That is why so many of us fail.

I spend a lot of time in all three of my main types of work simplifying. That’s not what people hire me for. They hire me to design TV systems, or to develop marketing campaigns, or to build better companies, ministries or lives. Each of these have a lot of particular skills involved to do them well, but the most important skill, and by far the most important thing I do, is simplify.

Hire me for my other skills and you will get results. I am a good consultant with a long list of world class projects in my resume. I produce quality marketing materials and have helped companies market well. I do good work. You get good value. But, hire me to go further and analyze what you do with an eye towards simplifying – be it a workflow study for TV/AV/IT or your entire marketing process, or your life and work, and the power of those individual skills is magnified several times.

Want more?

That is the power of simplicity more than it is the power of Quarry House - it gives you more and mutliplies your effectiveness on so many fronts. Whether you use me, or someone else, simplifying will make a profound difference in your effectiveness, in the quality and quantity of what you do, in your sales, in everything. I promise. 30 years of doing this has shown this to me again and again. 

Tom

PS – My whole business philosophy is that “Business is about promises made and promises kept. Everything else is fluff.” Just thought you should know