Simplicity Rules

Sun, Dec 16, 2012

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Sometimes the road blocks that are keeping you from where you want to go are actually the ideas you like the most. Perfection is the enemy of progress, but so is vanity. Learn to let go, says Henning, as he describes a feature he loved, but removed from his bucket list app.

My first app concept included just one screen for each goal. That screen had an area for a picture, and area for text, and a thermometer on the side, which would show your progress in achieving your goal. I envisioned the user sliding his finger on the thermometer to set the goal’s progress.

Today there is no thermometer. It was a bad idea. It took me a while to realize that, and I didn’t want to admit it at first. I just thought it would be cool, and my stubborn little brain didn’t see what a crazy idea it was.

Henning had to become comfortable “killing his darling,” a turn of phrase from William Faulkner that I first read in Lew Hunter’s screenwriting book. Faulkner and Hunter were both offering advice on writing. I think it works for many areas of your life, from product management to planning a vacation.

Ideas are nothing without execution and a misplaced idea that you love can be a major barrier to executing. Assumptions are powerful when you don’t take a moment to question them.

So, don’t kill all your favorite ideas, your darlings, but at least consider it.

Sat, Aug 11, 2012

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If I told you there is a guy who travels the world dancing for a living, you’d call him a professional dancer. If I told you he had no formal dance training, you’d be impressed.

Matt Harding has paid his bills by dancing dorkily all over the globe. And in a great interview with the New York Times, he shares one secret to his success:

We usually only danced a short time for each clip. I knew I was only going to use four seconds, so I would just loop the move I wanted and we’d do it a few times; there wasn’t much point in beating it to death. When you’ve got a large crowd of untrained dancers, the challenge is keeping their energy up. The most fun and exuberant moments always come at the beginning, after they’ve gotten the basics of the move down, before they start looking tired, bored and cranky.

Also, I’m very lazy. If there’s a word that means the opposite of perfectionist, I’m that.

What are you spending too much time on now that would be good enough if you didn’t try so hard?

(This post written in about five minutes)

Sun, Jul 15, 2012

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The following is the not-so-simple tale of how I finally came to own the domain name that many people thought I already owned.

Why did my blog even need a name?

When I started this site in 2004, it was out of a mutual challenge with Mike Duffy. We were reading a lot of blogs at the time and it felt like we needed a way to participate beyond comments. So, Mike started up Smarter Stuff and I named what had been the news section of my personal website Simplicity Rules.

Maybe it was because Mike had a catchy name for his, but I also think I felt like a blog needed a name. I didn’t want it to be just my name, but something that described my ethos. I’d always liked the dichotomy of the simple and complex:

• Simplicity can be the answer to complexity, like the old myth about the Russian space pen just being a pencil.
• Simplicity can also disguise complex inner workings, like what Google makes available in a single search box.

In either case, simplicity is amazing–it rules. And also, I decided, there must be some tenets to follow–rules of simplicity.

This blog was started to explore and celebrate simplicity, with a focus on the web in which I work.

Why didn’t I buy the domain from the start?

That’s the question I’ve asked myself for a long time. SimplicityRules.com was available when I started the blog. Apparently I thought the blog needed a name, but not its own URL. So, Simplicity Rules sat where it still does, at adamduvander.com.

Sometime in the months after I started this site someone else registered the domain, but he never put anything on it that I saw. It was just a parked page, with a cheesy graphic and spammy links. And that’s what I saw when I finally realized I’d missed my chance to register SimplicityRules.com. Over the years, I’ve received emails from friends telling me my site is down or parked. Here I had named my site something memorable and I didn’t own what turned out to be the domain people assumed I had.

Why didn’t I just pay the guy?

I figured with a parked domain that the owner would prefer to sell it to me than collect the pennies is may have been generating. His contact information was in the domain information, but I first decided to learn a bit more about him. It turned out there was quite the exposé in the newspaper asking Who is James Dicks?

I decided that I might not want to deal directly with him. So, I spent $69 to hire a reputable domain acquisition firm. Along with it came a free appraisal of the domain: $1,750. That was more than I was able to pay, but I proceeded with an offer of $500 from my representative.

Looking back, I think sending a third party sent the wrong sign. I let Mr. Dicks know how much I wanted it. He countered with $10,000.

That was the end of that.

Why did I register the trademark?

The attempted acquisition was in May, 2007. A year later I again found myself disturbed that the domain was in someone else’s hands. Still without 10K to blow on my personal blog, I set out with a new method. I’d learned there were rules in the domain world and one of them is that a trademark owner can obtain a domain that matches their mark. And since my first use of the term pre-dated the domain name, I felt like I was entitled to using this legal route.

In May, 2008, I registered the trademark. That October, it was granted. I could now write Simplicity Rules ®.

A funny thing happened around this same time. SimplicityRules.com went down. It was no longer parked with the cheesy graphic and spammy links. The domain was still registered, just not showing anything. I nevertheless continued with my plan and sent Mr. Dicks the following email:

I am the owner of the trademark Simplicity Rules. ICANN guards against
domains that infringe upon a trademark, so I would like to arrange to
have simplicityrules.com transfered to me.

Because I know this doesn’t come without hardship for you, I am
willing to offer the reasonable compensation of $200 US for the smooth
transfer of the domain.

It’s perhaps a bit presumptuous that someone who had counter-offered $10K and kept the domain for four years would roll over. He was cordial, but referenced an internal law firm that watches out for trademark issues. The domain had stopped resolving because that’s a loop-hole in the domain rules: if there’s no website, there’s no confusion in the market.

He was able to keep the domain even though I owned the trademark. Foiled! I probably deserved it–that was sneaky.

How did I finally get the domain?

Every January passed and as the domain expiration neared, the owner would re-register it for another year. In 2010, another friend emailed to tell me the domain wasn’t going anywhere. I sighed and replied back, “I don’t think SimplicityRules.com will ever be available.”

There’s a line at the beginning of Swingers where the main character is told the only way to get his ex-girlfriend back is to forget about her:

Rob: I mean at first you’re going to pretend to forget about her, you’ll not call her, I don’t know, whatever… but then eventually, you really will forget about her.
Mike: Well what if she comes back first?
Rob: Mmmm… see, that’s the thing, is somehow they know not to come back until you really forget.
Mike: There’s the rub.

So, I forgot about the domain. Until this April.

SnapNames sent me an email to let me know it had grabbed up the domain when it became available. At some point during this saga I had backordered SimplicityRules.com on the chance that it ever did go un-registered in all the future Januarys. Apparently it did in 2012.

Next I had to wait through an auction process, in case there was someone else who had backordered the domain. Thankfully, I was the only other person in the whole world who wanted SimplicityRules.com. I got it for the minimum bid of less than $100.

Now what?

If you go to SimplicityRules.com, you’ll find yourself redirected to adamduvander.com. Back before I forgot about it, I planned to move this blog over there, minus personal posts. I wanted to double down on exploring simplicity. Now I’m not so sure it needs its own site. There’s the rub.

It’s not that I don’t want the domain name. When I renew, I’ll probably max it out. Might as well. It’s now eight years from when I first started this blog. When friends type in SimplicityRules.com, for the first time they’re getting where they mean to go.

Thu, Jun 14, 2012

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If you want to run a marathon successfully without getting injured, spend four days a week doing short runs, one day a week running long and hard, and two days a week not running at all.

Now, that seems like a pretty smart schedule to me if you want to do anything challenging and sustain it over a long period of time. A few moderate days, one hard day, and a day or two of complete rest.

– Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

Wed, Apr 11, 2012

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I’m on my second year of having a real job. It’s still a new experience, working on one project (though I still find a little time for the stuff on the side). Part of the corporate structure, that annual review and plan, has helped me discover a great aspect of a real job: taking the time to make sure I get better at one thing each year.

The one thing I choose is not a direct skill, like “learn Spanish.” I suppose it could be, depending upon your job. For me, I’ve chosen skills that will help with my current work, but also serve me well in whatever is next.

2011: Year of Management

Last year I focused on becoming a better people manager. My team is entirely freelance and virtual, which is admittedly a challenge. It also didn’t exist until December, 2010. So I also had to learn to find good candidates and hire the best ones.

By the end of the year, we had six team members working 20 hours per week. We moved communication to a web-based platform called Podio and started to feel like a real team.

It’s a work in progress and I’m still learning, even though I’ve moved on to another “one thing” this year. Among the things I’ve taken away is the power of systemizing my approach to tasks so that I can scale myself via others. And I also found a great outlet for my obsession with what other people think. I can listen to what the team needs and make adjustments to help them do their work better.

2012: Year of Metrics

What is measured improves, goes the saying. This year the one thing I’ve chosen to focus on is everything. I’m trying to quantify everything that is important. Then I can measure the change and make the changes to hopefully make the numbers go up, down, or whatever direction means success.

Since we’re a content site, I’m obviously focused on traffic numbers, like most websites. But there’s also volume of new content, the cost of each piece of content, the output by employee, content decay, user engagement outside of the site (ie, social networks), registrations, logins, interaction with important users and many others.

With each of these One Things, my aim is to improve in an area of my job, but do so in a methodical way. I want the skill to be generic enough that it will help me in my future professional life and even in my personal life. The focus on only one thing and the intentional approach means I have an excuse to work on the skill every week, often every day.

What One Thing do you want to improve upon?

Sun, Jan 8, 2012

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If I were a cobbler and I had kids, they’d be very happy today. Today would be the day I finally gave them shoes! My Portland WiFi site was responsible for some of my first forays into map scripting, but it was dreadfully out of date. Now the site has a brand new look and is more map-centric than it was when it was redesigned six years ago.

In fact, when I started the site in 2004, there was no such thing as the Google Maps API. And I’ve given many mapping talks where I go a little bit grandpa on the audience, telling them how hard it was to translate addresses to latitude and longitude points (geocode) in those days.

The WifiPDX of 2005-2011 was showing its age, both technically and visually. In late 2008 I started working on a new version, but writing a mapping book got in the way of creating a mapping site. Finally, last August I decided to pick up the project again.

When I look at the progression of the site, I’m really happy with the updates. But, working in fits and starts over the last few months, I had a much longer list of things to do. These weren’t even major features, just ways to polish what’s there. Then I realized I needed to listen to my own advice and release early rather than release ready.

Some of the non-technical updates I particularly want to point out:

• Every hotspot page can be edited by anyone–WifiPDX is a sorta-Wiki
• The home page is mapified, complete with closest WiFi searching
• The closest WiFi feature tries to guess your location
• The WiFi map can show both neighborhoods and types of places

There’s plenty more going on, but those are the big ones. I could also do plenty more to it–and perhaps I will. But for now it’s nice to be at a state of completion on my first side project in two years.

Fri, Jun 3, 2011

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Many people use “complex” as a synonym for “complicated.” In make a complex startup, Peter Ehrlich doesn’t argue to make things complicated. In fact, he says to make them simple. And complex.

An idea must be complex inside (to the founders), for otherwise it is nothing and weak. It must not be complicated inside, for then the founders do not understand their own creation, and more time must be spent.

An idea must be simply represented on the outside (to the users). In a world rich with information, understanding something complicated is a heavy investment on the part of the user. This can only rise in correspondence with the popular belief of the worthiness of your product.

An idea that is complex on the inside, but complicated on the outside is ahead of it’s time. Users need catch up, so that it becomes more simple and obvious.

Some call this simplexity, the idea that a single button can connect to a complex series of events in order to start a car, run an elevator or buzz an intercom.

Taken from the other direction, I like the idea that to be useful something has to be complex. Otherwise there’s nothing left to make simple. In startup terms, you need to solve a problem. And if your problem is too simple, then it might not really be a problem.

The Laws of Simplicity get further into this topic, especially the law of differences, which says simplicity and complexity need each other.

Mon, Jul 12, 2010

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Big changes for me. My mapping API book goes to the printer this week. And, at the end of the month, I will join Programmable Web full-time as Executive Editor. I will manage a staff of freelance writers and do a bunch more reporting myself. We cover APIs and mashups of all sorts, with a healthy amount of mapping in there.

I’ve been calling this my first real job. I’ve never had benefits (other than from my own company) or actual vacation days–the sorts of things that most people are used to. Of course, it’s not “real” in the sense that I’ll work from most anywhere and have flexible hours.

I’ll also have a big challenge on a tiny team trying to do huge things. That’s exactly where I like to be.

Thu, Apr 29, 2010

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“Occasionally people slip out the front door and then they wander.”

That was the problem facing a senior center in Germany. Their patients, afflicted with dementia or Alzheimer’s, would walk away in a desperate search for a reality that only exists in their heads. The story is told in fifteen minutes on an episode of the Radio Lab podcast:

“He sat on an advisory board at the senior center. And one day he came up with this idea. It’s one of these ideas that’s so out there and yet so simple that you think it just couldn’t possibly work.”

Install a bus stop. Or, more appropriately, a fake bus stop. That’s all it took to stop the wandering patients and give the staff a chance to notice they’ve slipped away.

Do you have a recurring problem with your website, business, or personal life? Perhaps you need a fake bus stop, something that works with the other party rather than against them… and still ends up giving everyone what they want.

Tue, Jan 19, 2010

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Almost every day I walk down to a local Mexican restaurant and spend at least an hour there. The same restaurant. Every day. I may have mentioned this before. If there is anyone who needs out of a rut, it’s me. That fact gave me an idea for a new side project, which I started work on in early December, six weeks ago.

It’s called unrut and I think it’s a good example of a version one product. I included only basic functionality–there’s a lot of room for improvement. But instead of spinning my wheels as I attempted to finish a marathon list of features, I kept things simple. Users can search for places and then mark them as visited. What remains is a nice little organized list of places to try.

Using only cookies, the site remembers what you’ve marked as visited. So, if a place comes up in a subsequent search, you won’t have to mark it visited again. Would it make more sense to include user accounts, so that the site would work no matter what computer you are on? Yes. However, I trimmed this from the feature list for two reasons:

1. It is not a necessary feature in order to get feedback from people on the concept
2. Every site should let you sample, registration optional, so the cookie functionality will remain even after I include user accounts

And how about incorporating location-sharing sites to automatically determine where you’ve been? Yep, that’s a good idea. But creating a first version is about pointing your ship in the right direction, not necessarily sailing it all the way to your destination. Use the two simplicity paths to figure out the core and just launch that. You can always add stuff later.

Since posting a message about it on my Twitter feed this morning, I received good feedback. Some people asked for the things I already knew I needed. Others have said things that didn’t occur to me. That’s the power of getting a side project out there.

We all have side projects and I’ve written about many of mine on this site. I’d love to hear about your side project. And if you want help getting it done in six weeks, let me coach you.

• I'm Getting Better at One Thing

• Borked on ElCamino: This is 2012 and it is still a problem here in Nor...
• Toby Lucich: A terrific point of focus for 2012. My grandfat...
• Mike Duffy: You consistently impress me, Adam!...
• kimberly: Dore, thank you for your advice. It actually worke...
• nick: im nick and im 19 i was just diagnosed with bells ...

• Kill Your Favorite Ideas
• The Opposite of Perfectionist
• The Marathoner’s Guide to Accomplishing Anything
• Something Complex Can Be Simple, Something Complicated is Always Complicated
• The Simple Solution That Stopped Wandering Patients
• Unrut Yourself: My Six Week Side Project
• Social Software Needs More Context
• Make Up Units to Simplify Your World
• Give a Simple Gift Through Advertising
• What is Personal Feature Creep?

• Designing the Obvious
• Paradox of Choice
• Laws of Simplicity