Juggling 101

There is an old anecdote, documented by Walter Isaacson in his book JOBS, about a meeting involving Steve Jobs and my old boss, Lee Clow.

It is said that Steve wanted to add a few copy points to a thirty second commercial, you know that old school media stuff. Allegedly, Lee stopped Steve in his tracks and crumpled up several pieces of paper. He then slid the balls of crumpled paper to Steve and asked, "If I asked you to juggle, which would be easier with 1 or 2 balls or 5 balls?"

Steve did not pick up the wads of paper and start juggling. The point was made that 'Less is More.'

I don't know if this is true. In all my years of working with Lee, I can safely say he not given to boardroom theatrics. 

Except when we were pitching the Wall St. Journal. After several trips to NYC for chemistry checks and the mandatory factory tour of the WSJ newsroom, we had a very good feeling we were going to win the account. So good in fact that a week before the decision was made, the brass from WSJ came to visit our sprawling Playa Vista campus and were met by 1000 employees, all sporting business suits. Including the tall grey bearded one.

Goodby Silverstein won the account.

Nevertheless, the original point stands, "less is more." 

It's something I've been saying for years. You've been saying for years. And clients have been ignoring for years.

Last week for instance, my daughter convinced me to sign up for a new pre-packaged food delivery service. To ease our busy schedule and to eat good fresh, low carb food. Now the good folks at Hello Fresh won't stop sending me e-mails.

I'm not interested in their emails, I'm interested in their gluten-free carnitas tacos and their Mayo/Siracha sauce.

Tomorrow, we are going camping in our luxury RV rental. But before we can leave town I have to skip a week of food delivery with Hello Fresh. A task easier said than done because to find the option to Skip A week, I have to plow through 37 web pages of promos and other assorted non-sense.

It is, like so many things on the Internet, so complicated.

A testament to a point I have made years ago; this country doesn't have an unemployment problem, we have an over-employment problem. We have too many people shouting too many messages.

Pick up one ball and juggle.