Marty Neumeier obviously agrees with Albert Einstein who urged years ago, “Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.” In his latest book, THE BRAND FLIP: Why customers now run companies and how to profit from it, Neumeier identifies and discusses these seven “enemies” of simplicity:
1. THE URGE TO ADD: Most of us have a strong tendency toward creating “more,” even when less would be better.
2. THE DESIRE TO MAKE A MARK: Another strong tendency is the desire to “brand children” — features, products, services, and businesses that you can name and point to with pride.
3. THE NEED TO GROW REVENUES: Selling more stuff leads to higher profits, doesn’t it? It’s a common perception, but not always true
4. THE LURE OF COMPETITION: Marketers often find it easier to play an existing game than to change the rules or start a different game, so they focus on one-upmanship instead.
5. THE FEAR OF FALLING BEHIND: If one company adds a hot new feature, panic sets in. Fast-following companies will fill the need to match that feature, usually without subtracting others.
6. THE EXPEDIENCY OF EXTENSION: Brand extensions, the process of adding variations to an existing product or service, often produces in the short term (at the risk of defocusing the brand).
7. THE MASKING OF WEAK DESIGN: It’s easier to obscure a poor design with more details than to make the fewest number of details count. Designers refer to these cover-ups as “band-aids.”
It is impossible to eliminate clutter from one’s life unless and until clutter is eliminated from one’s mind.
How? Review Marty’s list, read THE BRAND FLIP, and then, if you’re [begin] really [end] serious about maximizing your cognitive skills, read Marty’s METASKILLS: Five Talents for the Robotic Age in which he provides a brilliant examination of how to develop metaskills within the context of a global business world that is increasingly more complicated, confusing, frustrating, and uncertain than at any prior time that I can remember.
He calls it the “Robotic Age” while noting that today’s robots are, at best, early prototypes of what are certain to become far more sophisticated than we can possibly imagine now. Human beings must develop both the nature and extent of their mental capabilities (e.g. cognition) if they are to control rather than be controlled by the advanced technologies that await.