Unintended consequences

Simplicity

The KISS principle. A good one to go by!

If you keep it simple, the road is straight. You don't allow for curves into unintended directions.

I missed the mark yesterday. In trying to really nail a concept, I hit one too many nails, and one of those strikes caught my thumb. Yes, ouch. There was an unintended consequence.

Recognize. Acknowledge. Correct.

And keep it simple going forward!

Bert Jacob's advice

The University of New Hampshire Class of 2010 graduated on Saturday, May 22. Someone made a mistake in counting/allocating chairs for the graduating class so the ceremony was delayed while there was a scramble to set up additional chairs.

Once underway, the miscue on chairs was forgotten. Bert Jacobs, co-founder of Life is Good, gave the commencement address. He delivered his remarks with a dose of reality and spiced them with some Frisbees tossed into the crowd.



His message was to live life with simplicity, to live with optimism (the glass half full), and to give oneself to a worthy cause. If one did all three things, he said they would be successful and happy.

What has the picture of the red shoes got to do with the slideshow?
Well, they were worn by one graduate. At one point, clicking the heels together to go elsewhere may have crossed their mind like it did mine. They stayed for the ceremony (just as I did) and hopefully took in the three important points that Bert shared.

With Bert's approach to life, you wouldn't need to click your heels to go somewhere else. Where you are would be important enough to stay.

Life is good, enjoy!

I'm featured as Friend of Simplicity

Trevor Gay, my good blogging buddy from across the pond in the UK, has posted an interview with me on his Simplicity blog today.

Yes, by all means, you have my permission to click over and read it!

Thanks, Trevor. That was fun!

BTW - The Love Affair with Books this month can be found on the Joyful Jubilant Learning blog

Simple language = better interest

Fully 84% of all consumers say they are more likely to trust a company
that uses jargon-free, plain English in communications. And 79% say
they think it is “very important” that President Obama “mandate that
clarity, transparency, and plain English be a requirement of every new
law, regulation and policy.”

Three-quarters of survey respondents (75%) say that complexity and lack
of understanding have played a significant role in the current
financial crisis. Moreover, 63% of those surveyed feel that “banks,
mortgage lenders and Wall Street intentionally make things complicated
to hide risks or to keep people in the dark.”

The survey asked how much of an impact jargon-free, plain-English
explanations and disclosures would make on consumer interest in a
number of categories. Consumers reported:

a 79% increased interest in investing in a financial product,
a 73% increased interest in selecting a broker or a financial advisor,
a 67% increased interest in purchasing a life insurance policy,
a 63% increased interest in taking out a loan, and
a 63% increased interest in applying for a credit card.

No surprise here, the simpler the message, the more easily understood, the more easily remembered.

Thanks to Lee Lefever at Common Craft for the pointer on this.

"great rock & roll bands are exceptional business teams"

Well, it’s turning into my life work, given how long I’ve been hacking away at it. My focus is on business lessons we can learn from rock & roll bands. The book identifies 6 ways in which the great rock & roll bands are exceptional business teams: (1) they’re radical innovators and risk-takers; (2) they’re passionate and inspired about their work—and they have fun; (3) they manage differences and capitalize on conflict; (4) they create a distinct identity and brand; (5) they’re ambitious, focused, and result-driven, despite stereotypes to the contrary; and (6) they’re highly autonomous and independent-minded. Then I show how to instill—or liberate—these abilities in our organizational teams. And I argue that without an infusion of these qualities many of our beleaguered organizations and institutions, ill equipped to compete in this crazy economy, are headed for obsolescence or irrelevance. To keep it interesting I illustrate my points with lots of stories and anecdotes from boardrooms, bars, and recording studios. It will be a business book you can dance to. Hopefully I’ll finish it this year. I’m a slow writer, but maybe it will appeal to all the slow readers out there.

From John O'Leary as told to Trevor Gay as part of an interview at The Simplicity Blog. Well worth a read, you have my permission to click through and read it.

Tell Trevor, I sent you!

Neat and Simple start

One of my Joyful, Jubilant Learning partners, Ariane Benefit, is announcing her new ebook is available:

JUST RELEASED! I'm so excited to announce that my new book "Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing Your Office" is finally here! Just in time to help you get a Neat Start to the New Year. Two years in the making, it now has 129 pages chock full of my best organizing advice. It will be published as a print book by the end of 2008. For now, it is an e-guide, which helps keeps the price reasonable.

What a great way to start the new year! Getting organized!

Check out Ariane's blog post announcing her ebook here.

Blogging changes: simplicity desired

Following in the footsteps of a dear friend, I am going to consolidate my writing as I approach my three year anniversary here. I do have many interests (as you perhaps have noticed). One of the key drivers behind the multiple blogs was Bloggers inability to do categories. Well, they fixed that so I can adjust and simplify things.

Passionate Runner will remain active. My writing and podcasting on running will continue. The audience for this effort is respectfully separate from other interests I have and write on.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Blogosphere will continue. The Team is continuing to evolve but the effort and writing there is worth keeping separate.

Jerry's Story is just underway and will continue to develop as the oral history as told by may father, Gerald Sherlock. If you haven't clicked over to listen to Dad talk about growing up beginning in the 30's in Pawtucket, RI, I encourage you to do so. We have covered his early days in school, his time as a Marine during World War II, and are beginning to get into the post war period. I am learning a lot and there may very well something of interest for you.

quiet poet, is a new blog where I am posting my sherku and other poetry. This will eventually be a podcast available via the blog or iTunes (like Passionate Runner and Jerry's Story).

I will discontinue updating Passion for the Good Customer Experience and Tertiary Education. These topics are closer to what I want to continue to write about here so I will roll those posts into this stream.

I'll move my writing on Franklin to Franklin Matters. This new blog will help to define (frame) the discussion. Franklin is a good community (as Family Circle noted) to raise a family. Keeping the focus on solving our challenges in providing a good education to our children and a good experience for all our citizens, neighbors and visitors is very much related to what I set out to do once upon a time when I started blogging.

I will continue to contribute to 100Bloggers and to the Joyful Jubilant Learning blog. Those efforts are complimentary to what I do so there is no reason to stop. Connections, conversations and community building are good reasons to be a blogger!

Bottom line: what will you see?

• You will not find me writing at Passion for the Good Customer Experience and Tertiary Education
• You should see more posts here at Steve's 2 Cents as that writing comes over
• You will find the Franklin focused writing on Franklin Matters
  
• It should be business as usual at Passionate Runner, Jerry's Story and Hitchhiker's Guide
• And finally, you'll find my poetry at quiet poet

I hope these changes will allow you, my loyal readers, to keep better in touch. I look for our conversations to continue.


Updated 11/21/07 with the information on the creation of Franklin Matters