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Summary: Practical Tools for Overcoming Communications Stalls
Review: The thesis of this book is one that I love, and can relate to emotionally as well as intellectually. Work keeps getting more complicated, unless we keep simplifying it. At the same time, making work simpler is hard work. But it is work that Must Be Done!The survey of problems in companies rings a bell because it parallels our own research on the stalls that delay progress in organizations of all kinds. Poor communication is the worst culprit. In extreme forms, that poor communication is complicated by difficulties in understanding that lead to misconceptions. Other human emotions and habits get in the way, too. Jensen makes three very valuable points that you should learn if you want to be much more effective: (1) focus on what will make a difference (basically an application of systems thinking from The Fifth Discipline, etc.) (2) reorganize the processes in your company to make understanding of what needs to be done and the doing to be as simple as possible and (3) communicate much more effectively following 5 simple rules when your give and review assignments. The strength of this book is that its appeal to the frustration that almost everyone feels related to complexity will help make people pay attention when they read the book. The weakness of this book is that it is a tough read for a book on simplicity and simple communications. The book uses a variety of formats and displays to get the point across. To me it felt disjointed and scrapbook-like. If you like unusual formats, you'll love this book. If you like simple formats, you may find this one confusing and distracting. The pearls of wisdom are there, though, if you make the effort to wade through to get them. The key limitation of this book is that it deals with dated practices in communications and business design. The best companies have moved beyond this model in a variety of ways. Dell Computer is an excellent company to study in the year 2000 on these points. But if your company is like most, you will find this book very valuable. Good related books are The 80/20 Principle, The Fifth Discipline, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, and The Dance of Change. I recommend you buy and read this book. As other reviewers have suggested, you will need to share the book with others to get the most benefit.
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Summary: Simplicity is Business 2.0. GET IT !
Review: Building upon a previous review: This book is Cluetrain 2.0, Wheatley/Leadership 2.0, Petzinger/Pioneers 2.0, Tapscott/Digital 2.0, Godin/Permission 2.0! Yet Jensen isn't trying to create the "next big or new idea." What makes Simplicity Business 2.0 is that it's practical. He takes many of the big ideas around us, and answers "where do we go from here?" He details what we need to think about if we are to leverage the Net in a world that's already on choice and info overload. He covers how to communicate effectively, organize one's thinking for faster implementation, storytelling as a business tool, even how to listen and delete most of what is shoveled at us. Jensen also focuses on the needs of Net Geners -- what tomorrow's pioneers will demand of our organizations. The entire book is about what it will take get permission, time and attention from the people who do the day-to-day work. Simplicity is about how our companies need to change so all our big ideas *actually work*. Buy one copy of your favorite new-big idea book. Get LOTS of copies of this book and give them to everyone you know!
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Summary: Good for starters
Review: After delving into John McKean's outstanding "Information Masters", this book seems far less profound. The great difference between the two books is that while McKean produced thought provoking illustrations of the current information analysis and usage void in corporate America, this author produced rather high-level (if more conversational) analogies that, in my view, fail to ask (and answer) the difficult questions surrounding true competitive advantage. For example, in ranking working complexities, "customer needs" failed to make the Top Four. While this outcome was based on exhaustive research, the author appears to overlook the probability that the reason this crucial business driver was ranked so low is simply because,as McKean points out, companies in general have no idea how to analyze customer information. It is not considered a complex issue simply because hardly anyone is truly able to put their arms around it from a strategic standpoint! On the plus side, the book is very easy to read and filled with anecdotal evidence from many different areas of corporate America. However, the book is so focused on internal organizational concerns that it conjures visions of those ERP vendors left gasping by the trendy shift to CRM and E-business. Much of the book's initial focus seems to lead up to five basic questions that every manager must clarify for his/her employees: 1. How is this relevant to what I do? 2. What, specifically, should I do? 3. How will I be measured, and what are the consequences? 4. What tools and support are available? 5. What's in it for me? The author also writes at length about the value of prototyping, and designing "backwards" (i.e., from the user's perspective). Again, this approach is certainly nothing new - frustrated human factors engineers know all about it! Overall, the concepts expressed in the book make a lot of sense, but are not revolutionary. The author clearly felt that the "Cluetrain Manifesto" was worthy of fearful analysis by corporate executives, but his warnings of dire consequences seemed to fall short of a real plea for proactive preparation. In summary: 1. IT (aka "technowonks") and Senior Management (since when did these entities develop a relationship?) had better involve front line users 2. Measures of three key "netgener" needs (ease of navigation, fulfillment, and timeliness) will be just as important as customer and performance measurement (are these well-worn ergonomic needs limited to Netgeners?) 3. Users will wield far more power in designing tools and support mechanisms. Overall, the author must be lauded for years of intense research, but the overall theme of organizational behavior and control seems to belong to the industrial age. Despite 'hip' acknowledgement of coming changes in structure, I personally feel that not enough depth or understanding of true user needs is expressed. Sorry.
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Summary: Empowering
Review: Simplicity is a brilliant book. In an age in which we are so overwhelmed with information, we need many of us to sink our minds deeply into this type of thinking. My thanks to Bill Jensen.
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Summary: Buy this book
Review: I work in a world (the garment industry) that sees the New Economy through gritty, scratched lenses. From these reviews, I see that many of you in that economy find Simplicity's focus on knowledge work, navigation, and designing tools around people's needs to be extremely helpful. That's all too far removed for me. I love Simplicity because it helped me take back control. It helped me to say 'no' and keep my job. It helped me change how my company and manager used my time. It helped me make more time for my family by cutting down on the noise and clutter that comes at me. Thank you Bill Jensen!
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Summary: Simplicity Competes on Clarity
Review: Jensen changes the way we look at clarity within an organization. In the first chapter, he has a diagram of three intersecting circles: Business Design, Information Design, Learning Design. He's saying that we have to start designing our business structures, conversations and information flows for the way people learn. I would agree with a previous reviewer. If your idea of clarity is following Strunk and Whites's Elements of Style, don't buy this book. Jensen's style is what he calls "kitchen table English," the way real people talk to each other. But if your view of clarity is designing business units, workflow, tools and structures so people can grow, learn and work smarter faster, get this book! It's worth it. The kinds of conversations you have will definitely change.
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Summary: Cluetrain 2.0
Review: Funny thing happened at my company. Lots of people were carrying around this orange and gray book, The Cluetrain Manifesto. They said it heralded the future of how we needed to treat our customers and all audiences we cared about. "Markets are conversations," the authors pronounced. Then a team leader asked "OK, but what do we do about it? Where's the Cluetrain guidebook?" That's when somebody held up a copy of Simplicity. Ever since, you never see the orange and gray book without the black and white book. Simplicity is about changing the way our companies communicate, have conversations, and share what they know so people can navigate through the noise and cut the crap. Simplicity is the Version 2.0 Handbook for people who've gotten a clue.
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Summary: Weak execution
Review: I was expecting to find some transforming content in the pages of this book but I was disappointed. Another reviewer pointed out that much of the advice in the book isn't followed in the design and execution of the book itself and that is true. Jensen has confused simplicity and clarity of presentation with soundbites and quick phrases. He writes casually but not clearly. It doesn't surprise me that Strunk and White's Elements of Style isn't referenced. A little discpline in his writing would have gone a long way to increasing the impact of his ideas.
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Summary: Would have made a great article.
Review: This book had some good points but there was too much filler in between them.
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Summary: It Opened My Eyes
Review: Several people I know said I just had to read this book. Why? Because it's true to the stuff that complicates our workdays. Within the first few chapters, Jensen provides tools and tips I started using immediately for cutting through the clutter, changing how I listened, how I communicated, and even how much more I could 'hit delete' on everything coming at me. But for me, the real value came in just one sentence: "Business must compete on speed and use your time effectively." What an eye opener! The entire second half of the book sets new criteria for how companies must use our time. Jensen calls this "working backwards" from the needs of the people doing the work. Buy this book! Buy enough copies to give to everyone on your team! The first half will help you create simpler workdays for yourself and your team. The second half will help you rewrite your employment contract. As others here have noted, Jensen says believes that contract is really about how we allow today's 1440 minutes to be used.
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