I’ve made it no secret that I embrace simplicity.

But I know a lot of folks in the industry who take the opposite viewpoint and embrace complexity. The world is chaotic and full of tiny details that don’t play by the rules of broad, generalizing concepts. And that’s true.

I don’t think they have to be mutually exclusive, though. And too often, my friends who embrace complexity do so at the sacrifice of clarity to those of us who don’t know what the heck they’re talking about.

For me, simplicity leads to clarity. And clarity wins. Always.

This doesn’t mean that the issues aren’t complex, of course. And any one of the tiny underlying details can screw up everything, no matter how simple the big picture looks.

But that’s the challenge. That’s why making things simple isn’t simple.

The goal is to have a simple foundation that everyone can understand. This, then, helps guide the more complicated details.

Apple makes this look easy. They have an insanely clear focus on how their products should act. Actually building products that live up to this focus, however, is really, really difficult.

I’ve also found that a simple solution can often solve 80% of the problem. A complex solution might solve 90-100% of the problem, but usually takes way more effort. The trick is deciding when it’s worth putting in the extra work, and when 80% is good enough.

Ultimately, I really do try to embrace both simplicity and complexity. Details matter. And they require a lot of thought. I just embrace simplicity more.

Simplicity leads to art. Simplicity leads to clarity. Simplicity leads to action.

Complexity leads to the tax code.

“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way.
An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”
– Charles Bukowski

I’m juggling a ridiculous amount of projects all at once. It would be hard enough if those were all I was doing. Yet, 75% of each day is actually spent responding to stuff I wasn’t planning on.

This is the Focus Problem. If we’re not focused on something, it won’t get done. Simple as that.

Being interrupted doesn’t help. Research from UC Irvine shows that it takes anywhere between six and twenty minutes to recover and refocus after you are interrupted. Phone calls, emails, instant messaging, dude who drops by my desk to see what’s up while it’s obvious I’m wearing headphones — you aren’t my friends.

In fact, I think focus is the biggest issue we have to deal with as an industry. Imagine how much more we could be getting done for our clients if we could actually get stuff done.

We all feel this, but nobody is actively building work environments that support focus. We build them to encourage interruption. We’re then made to feel irresponsible when we don’t reply immediately to an email or shut off IM.

We compensate by working late hours just to keep up. But this is unsustainable. I love the thrill of working late to get a project just right and out the door. But working late just to keep up with stuff? That’s working stupid.

I have a personal policy to spend the first two hours of every day focused. No emails, no meetings, etc. But it’s constantly being put to the test, because the rest of world doesn’t share the same policy.

But imagine if it did.

There is tons of amazing content out there on the internet to read and be inspired by. Yet, stopping to read articles or blogs every few minutes isn’t particularly helpful when it comes to productivity.

That’s why these five apps rock my world. They help me devour, share and process inspiration on my own time. Plus, they’re gorgeously simple and easy to use.

You may be using many or all of them already.
If so… good.

INSTAPAPER

Quite possibly my favorite app ever. Drag the “read later” button to your bookmarks bar. Then, whenever you find an interesting article, click it. The article will be beamed to your phone or ipad where you can read it later. Say, on the subway. Or on the airplane. Or standing in line at Starbucks. And the article is formatted for readability – so it’s no longer packed with ads and teeny-tiny type.

Bonus points, because it downloads the articles to your phone or iPad, so you don’t need an active internet connection to keep reading. (Hence it’s awesomeness for the subway or airplane.) Bonus bonus points for being able to file your favorite articles into folders for handy reference later.

FLIPBOARD

The best magazine on the iPad isn’t actually a magazine. It’s a reader that pulls a bunch of stuff you like together and turns it into a magazine. You can read your friends’ Facebook updates like a magazine. Tweets, like a magazine. You can even pull feeds from other magazines into a brand-new customized-for-you magazine. And best of all, if you use Google Reader to manage your blog subscriptions (and really, you should – It’s super-easy) then you can flip through all your blogs like a magazine.

It’s only downside is that it doesn’t load the full articles right away. So if you don’t have an internet connection, you’re kind of stuck.

REEDER

Another superb app for handling your Google Reader subscriptions. It’s a case study in simplicity. One of the best user interfaces I’ve ever seen.

Where Flipboard randomizes the articles so you get a bit o’ this and a bit o’ that, Reeder is better at easily navigating through the different blogs you like.

And it downloads the full articles. So you’re cool on plane trips.

DROPBOX

Dropbox is brilliant at many, many, many things. But one of my favorite uses is for PDFs or presentations. I hate looking at 50+ page powerpoint decks on a computer screen. I hate printing them out even more.

Now I just drag the file into my Dropbox, grab my ipad and have a seat on the couch. I can immediately pull up the presentation and flip through it.

MINDNODE

Once you’re done ingesting information, Mindnode is a great way to reflect on it and spit out a bunch of thoughts of your own. It’s the best Mind Mapping app I’ve found on the iPad. (Not saying it’s THE best – just the best I’ve found. If you’ve found a better one, I’m all ears.)

And if you haven’t tried mind-mapping, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. It’s a fantastic tool for a busy mind. You can capture every random thought you have, then drag it around the screen to organize and make sense of it.

ANYTHING I’VE MISSED?

If so, please let me know. I’m always on the lookout for cool stuff.

There are a couple articles flying around the internet at the moment arguing whether we need “social media experts” or not. (This guy says no. This guy says yes.)

I think I agree more with the “yes” guy on the subject at hand. But there’s a lot I like about what the “no” guy says, too. (Particularly his ideas that it’s all about Transparency, Relevance, Brevity, and Knowing your customer.)


IT’S TOO NEW

My issue is really with the word “experts.” If you take the Malcolm Gladwell definition of an expert being someone who’s invested 10,000 hours (approximately ten years) in developing a skill, then it’s not even possible to have social media experts. The discipline hasn’t been around long enough. At least not the way it exists today.

Twitter is only five years old. YouTube is five and a half. Facebook, barely seven. And Facebook, as it works today, is a completely different animal than it was a few years ago.

Also, in my experience, “experts” like to act as if they know everything there is to know. They make themselves seem important and vital by throwing around declarations and buzzwords that nobody else feels empowered to question.


CONSTANTLY LEARNING IS BETTER

These days, I’m most attracted to the people who realize that knowing everything is impossible. The ones constantly on the search for a better way to do things. The ones who don’t claim to have all the answers, but know how to go find them for each unique set of circumstances.

While it’s really just a matter of semantics, I prefer the word “specialist” over “expert.” Specialists (like my friend and colleague, Rosie Siman) dig deep into understanding the intricacies of social media that the rest of us don’t have the bandwidth for. And there are plenty of intricacies. Keeping up with changes at Facebook alone deserves having a Facebook Specialist. And “Social Media” is a lot more than just Facebook.


YOU’RE NOT OFF THE HOOK

Certainly, that doesn’t take the burden off the rest of us when it comes to making an effort to understand and immerse ourselves in social media. Imagine trying to write a TV spot if you’d never watched TV in your entire life. Imagine trying to produce a TV spot with an entire organization that had never done it before.

There’s a huge benefit to having people on your team with experience and a focus on social media. Just don’t call them experts. The world is changing too fast for that word to mean anything anymore.

When everyone talks about the fact that agencies need to “go digital,” it doesn’t mean they need to tear up the TV storyboards and burn the print ads.

As many have pointed out, TV isn’t going anywhere. It’s still the best way to communicate to a lot of people at once.

Problem is, all too often we’re creating the same type of work that we would have made fifteen years ago, when there were very few ways to learn about a product or service. If a commercial told us that Product A got whites whiter, we pretty much believed it. (At least until we tried it ourselves.) Not the case anymore.

We don’t all need to create digital work.
But we do need to create work for a digital world.

PROBLEM NUMBER ONE

In our digitally-connected world, people can choose what they pay attention to. It doesn’t matter what we want to say. Only what people want to hear.

PROBLEM NUMBER TWO

People can get information from better sources than TV commercials. Sources they trust. Like their friends.

Heck, they don’t even need to be friends. Just anyone who’s NOT the brand. Sad to say, most people are more likely to trust an anonymous comment on a blog than what we say in a TV commercial.

PROBLEM NUMBER THREE

Our audience can now talk back.

Yet, we keep talking AT people instead of WITH them.

EXHIBITS A, B & C

Exhibit A:  How most people feel about a certain phone carrier.

Exhibit B:  What the phone carrier tries to talk about instead.

Exhibit C:  What people keep talking about anyway.

We no longer have control of our own brands. We’re now simply one of many participants in the process of creating a brand image. And if we’re not working WITH everyone else, we’re working against them.

A big part of advertising to a digital world is acknowledging what our audience already believes. Sticking our fingers in our ears and saying “la la la, I can’t hear you” isn’t working.

I heard a comment the other day that disturbed me.

To make a point about a particular digital strategy, a presenter shared several examples which happened to be retail-oriented. And then came a question from the audience — “But how can we use this stuff for brand work?”

What? What? What?

A BRAND IS BUILT (OR DESTROYED) WITH EVERYTHING IT DOES.

Every interaction with people is an opportunity to build a brand. Even the retail interactions. I might even argue, ESPECIALLY the retail interactions.

A million-dollar 60-second “anthem” spot is not all that is required.

Customers don’t differentiate between ”brand,” “retail,” “direct response,” “point-of-sale,” “above the line,” or “below the line.”

It’s all just “advertising” to them. They have no idea it was done by different agencies, with different briefs and different objectives. If it has your name or logo attached to it, it’s being added to the collective cloud of mystical stuff that is a “brand.”

Even an error page on a website is a chance to build your brand.

SWEAT THE SMALL ADS.

Building a brand is like a house of cards.

One wrong move can destroy everything you’ve worked for. But if you do it right, people will be mighty impressed.

About a year and a half ago, I figured out a brainstorming technique that’s highly collaborative and produces tons of strong ideas in a short amount of time. It works amazingly well, and I’m quite fond of telling people about it.

A few months ago, I shared it with Edward Boches during the BDW Making Digital Work conference here in New York. And a few weeks ago he wrote a fantastic blog article of his own about the technique.

In fact, he made it even better by giving it a kick-ass name: “Shut up & Write.”

Then, this week, I was asked to write about it for Hudson/Houston. Which is great… but Edward already wrote that article.

So, I’m going to write the sequel instead.


IT’S NOT JUST FOR BRAINSTORMING ANYMORE.

Now that it’s got a super-catchy name (seriously, what I used to call it was lame-lame-lame), here’s another way to harness the power of “Shut up and Write” — use it AFTER a meeting.

Try it. After your next meeting, instead of doing what we always do (rush to check emails or rush to yet another meeting), set aside 5-10 minutes to shut up and write.

Grab a blank sheet of paper and write about what you just experienced.

What do you think? What was discussed? What did you learn? How can you implement it? What are your next steps? Who’s going to make those things happen? Did you see or hear anything inspiring? What are you going to do with that inspiration? Or, was the meeting a waste of your (and maybe everyone else’s) time? How could it have been better?

When you go through this process, things happen.

You have revelations. You make decisions about where to go next.

When you don’t do it… you respond to emails.
And everything discussed in the meeting fades blissfully into the ether.

A simple 5-10 minute investment makes the previous 60-120 minutes more powerful. It’s like a protein supplement for conference calls.


CHECKING FACEBOOK CAN WAIT.

If it was important enough for you to be there in the first place, it’s important enough to “shut up and write” about it afterward.

It works with more than just meetings, too. Try it after you’ve read an interesting article or blog post. Like this one, for instance.

Give it a shot and see what happens.
I offer a money-back guarantee.

This is the beginning of my blog.

I have a love / hate relationship with beginnings.

At the beginning of an idea, everything is full of promise and potential. Nothing’s been ruined by reality yet. At this stage, every idea is a million-dollar idea.

But to take even that tiny first step into action is frustrating. Because things stop being perfect. They require time and effort to figure out.

At this point in my blog-writing, I haven’t totally found my own voice yet. (I seem to be channeling a more humble Seth Godin at the moment.)

Thoughts that are brilliant in my head seem fuzzy when I put them into words. And the whole process of writing and editing takes WAY longer than I thought it would.

But, hey. Now I’m writing a blog. And that’s more than I could say last week.

With time and effort (there are those words again), all my issues will get figured out. Eventually, I’ll develop my own style. (Or at least grow more confident in ripping Seth Godin’s style off.) I’ll get better at articulating my brilliant thoughts. And it will take me less time to do so.

With everything that’s new, we just have to do it. And we have to accept that it won’t be perfect right away.

That’s the creative process. Whether it’s creating an ad, giving birth to a song, painting a picture, starting a company or writing a blog.

Beginning is the hard part. So, there. Now at least I’ve begun.