Simple Is The New Black
Clay Shirky in his latest post ‘The Collapse of Complex Business Models’ makes a statement I find very important for businesses seeking to keep their audience engaged on the web.
“When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse, their members disperse, abandoning old beliefs, trying new things, making their living in different ways than they used to.” He describes these ecosystems as complex systems where the system’s principals assume that complexity is an automatic advantage. It’s a post that’s got me considering how I go about doing business.
Complex systems collapse and when they do, they collapse into simplicity. Clay speaks of some heavy stuff here so it seems really trivial to bring just one simple thought into this and yet it is the one thing that occurred to me. How complex are the ecosystems we attempt to build around our client’s brands? It could be as simple as site navigation or account security or even integration with various social media APIs (ok, maybe that last one isn’t so simple).
Visitors to websites are already inundated with a multitude of options online. Once they arrive at a space prepared for them, they shouldn’t have to continue sifting and figuring stuff out. If they do, they will eventually disperse, abandoning the brand’s online space (probably off-line too) to try a new thing (read competitor). Simple is the new black.
Is simplicity top of mind for your business?
(This post originally posted at muchiri.com)
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