Sen Ze’s Business In Your Pajamas! Blog

Complexity is bad.

There are many types of complexities in business.

There is technical complexity.

There is conceptual complexity.

There is implementation complexity.

There is management complexity.

Just to name a few.

They’re bad because by being complex, it’s hard for you as the business owner to start a business that has them for company.

They’ll cost you a lot more money, time and effort than a simpler business that you can do.

And as with any business, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to overcome them all.

Complexity is bad.

But then again, if you’re looking at a business full of complexities that you would like to emulate but couldn’t because of all the hurdles you must go through – one thing start to come to mind.

Complexity is good.

It’s good because if you’ve gone out to overcome those hurdles from the beginning and you succeed, you will have few, to NO competitors.

Just like Boeing and Airbus - the world’s 2 main competitors for commercial airplanes.

Between the 2 of them, they get the lion’s share of all aircraft orders from around the word – totalling trillions of dollars.

Just like Intel and AMD - the world’s top 2 main competitors for computer chips.

And Search Engines, like Google and Yahoo.

Google’s algorithm is very complex and it gets more and more complex by the day.

Google’s quest to return very accurate search results to keep its users happy means that it’ll need to add all variables that will affect the accuracy of those results.

And there are hundreds of such variables, with many more being discovered and added all the time.

Even Yahoo isn’t quite close to Google in terms of the complexity of its search algorithm – thus you’ve seen how Google has slowly but surely pulled itself away from the pack.

Complexity is good in ensuring you get to protect your turf for a much longer period of time – sometimes for decades – before you need to share any customers with another competitor.

And if you constantly innovate and add even more value after having been successful with complexities in your business, you’ll be sitting on your throne literally forever.

Complexity is good.

Here’s the “business holy grail”:

Complexity in implementation and creation of a SIMPLE product that your Customer can easily understand, use and want is the best combination of all.

You’ll have lots of Customers and few to no competitors, for a long time to come.

Just like Walt Disney experienced with his hand-drawn animated full-length cartoon movies – before computers came along and made the process more accessible to his competitors.

But he was the king of animation for DECADES before Pixar Animation, Dreamworks and the others could even try to compete.

And what about IKEA - the furniture retailer?

Without knowing exactly what’s involved – you can SEE the sheer complexity of their operations and business in selling you flat-packed furniture with modern, functional designs that don’t cost you an arm and a leg to get.

Even thinking about being their possible competitor hurts.

Right?

Complexity is good.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/complexity/complexity-is-bad.htm

Technorati Tags: business, business complexity, Airbus, Boeing, Intel, AMD, Yahoo, Google, Search Algorithm, business implementation, Walt Disney, cartoons, IKEA

Simplicity is good.

A simple to use and understand product that is also easy to create is like a god-send.

Your Prospects and Customers can easily buy it without having to spend too much time figuring out what it is that you’re trying to sell.

It’s a good thing for you because it’s very easy for you to create that product for them too.

Take the “American Idol” singing competition (it’s a “business” for its producers), for example.

It’s a singing contest, and the winner is determined by the number of SMS votes that he/she has received, with the contestant having the lowest number of votes being booted out at the end of each episode.

Simple. Easy. And a super-hit.

If you were producing this program, all you need to do is to determine the format of the competition (how many songs, how long for each song, how many to start off with, etc), decide how many judges would participate, decide who they are to be, decide the date and venues for the auditions, set up the phones lines, deal with the network, find the sponsors, and so on.

Those are not rocket-science stuff. There may be many things that need to be done, but they’re simple stuff that anybody with the right experience can do.

And so American Idol began its huge money-making journey and has done so for the past 6 seasons now, with the 7th underway.

Now “American Idol” is a franchise of “Pop Idol” which began in the UK.

Before long, many countries bought the franchise and started having their own “Idol” competition on television. It’s hard to miss the “Idol” phenomenon everywhere you go.

However, because the show itself isn’t difficult to create, it wasn’t long before copycat versions of it started. This has resulted in the “Idol” competition no longer being held with the copycat version taking the spotlight instead, with a different label, different number of judges, different format for the competition, but always ending with SMS votes determining the winner.

Some other countries never bought the franchise, but borrowed the idea and started their own version right from the beginning using all sorts of label except “Idol”.

Simplicity is bad.

(For the “Idol” franchise, that is.)

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/simplicity/simplicity-is-good.htm

Technorati Tags: simplicity, American Idol, singing competition, copycat business, SMS votes, business competition, business competitors, product creation

The World’s First Personal Domain Name Directory at www.OMNICITI.com now has more than 1,000 listings of domains from around the world that contain the owners’ name…

Check it out below:

www.OMNICITI.com

It lists some unique occupations too. There’s a Lexicographer, a Polar Expeditor, a Calligrapher and an Apologist (!).

What’s an Apologist? Somebody who apologises for a living?

Here’s the definition, as found in wikipedia:

Apologists are authors, writers, editors of scientific logs or academic journals and leaders, who during their lifetimes were known as radicals and extremists for taking on the points in arguments, conflicts or positions that were during their eras either placed under popular scrutinies or viewed under persecutory examinations. The term comes from the Greek word apologia (απολογία), meaning defense of a position against an attack.

Interesting, no?

And click on –> OMNICITI Personal Domain Name Directory Search to find one such Apologist!

Do you know of anybody with his own domain name consisting of his own name who should be listed? Let him or her know about OMNICITI now. It’s also a great resource if you’re looking for people to work with you on your projects as they take themselves seriously enough to have a personal domain for themselves.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/personal-domains/omniciti-breaks-the-1000-mark.htm

Technorati Tags: OMNICITI, Personal Domain Name Directory, Web Site Directory, Domain Name, Personal Domain Name, Lexicographer, Polar Expeditor, Calligrapher, Apologist, web site, blog, URL, Domain Name Registrar