I feel the need to share a funny story because I think it relates to business as well as life.
About 12 months ago, we got our first Google Home. I think it came free with a phone that Steve bought. Friends of our had an Alexa & apart from the timer function & controlling your music, I couldn’t see much use for it really, so when we got the Google home, I thought, “Oh well, that’s nice – maybe I’ll stick it in the lounge & we can ask it stuff”.
Fast forward 9 months & we have just about everything in our home controlled by Google. We have a Googe in the bedroom (Princess Aurora), a Google in the Lounge. Dining area (Maitre D) & a Google in the Kitchen (Nigella).
We have wifi lights, wifi plugs, wifi electric blankets, wifi ai conditioning & heating, even wifi cat fountains & cat feeders – you’d’ be amazed what you can get that is wifi controlled.
And now when we go to bed, we say goodnight to Princess Aurora and see turns everything off or on or whatever we have programmed her to do.
When we wake up we speak with Maitre D and she tells us the weather & what appointments we have.
When we get home we speak with Nigella & she helps us prepare dinner.
And at various times we yell out to any one of these 3 Googles and they answer random questions like, “What’s the chemical composition of bioethanol?”
So, life has changed… a lot.
But just recently, I realised it was of a pain in the arse to keep asking Google to turn lights on & off. Whilst it is nice t have her turn them all off when going to sleep, when I walk into a room, I want to just turn the light on easily.
And so we went out & bought wifi light switches!
These now sit above the original light switches & they enable us to turn the lights on & off – how novel is that? To be fair they do offer the ability to dim & brighten them too & they are removable so that you can carry them around with you, but effectively they are switches to turn on & off the lights 🙂
It got me thinking – why do we do this?
In life & in business, sometimes we get too wrapped up in what’s new & shiny, we forget what we really want to achieve, therefore we overcomplicate it.
Sure, technology, new platforms, new channels, new ‘whatever’ can add to the experience but at the end of the day, the question you really need to ask is “Is it going to make my life, or my customer’s life easier or better?”.
According to Wikipedia, KISS – is an acronym for “keep it simple, stupid” or “keep it stupid simple“. It is a design principle noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore, simplicity should be a key goal in design, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided.
Albert Einstein also said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
The analogy of the above being that everyone is looking for the next course, the next book, the next coach – the magic silver bullet to make everything better (which we all know doesn’t exist!). So, sometimes it’s best to go back to basics & ask what you are really trying to achieve & what will best serve you get there – Keep it Simple!
If you’d like to know how you can simplify your business & your life, then let’s have a chat.
Book a 15-minute phone appointment with me – https://calendly.com/debra-chantry/eos
