Alan Siegel swam into my consciousness with a Tedtalk on simplicity. I was intrigued enough to seek out his company blog, one of the least corporate blogs I’ve ever seen, which makes sense. There, today, I read a great post about unpacking text to get rid of complexity. Here’s the sequence:
- “We bring innovative ideas to maximize your efficiency with flexible solutions that adapt to your evolving needs and consistently give you detailed performance data so that you can have transparent control over costs at all times.”
- “We make you more efficient, and give you more control over your costs.”
- “We save you time and money.”
And here’s the bottom line:
Original? No. Human needs are not original. Human needs are eternal. Human needs are simple.
There’s a little bit more analysis that makes reading the whole post worthwhile. It sang for me, and may for you. I’ve lately been involved in the exact reverse of that process, doing it as well as I can because if a job’s not worth doing, it’s not worth doing well. But how I wish I weren’t.