The old football saying goes “Offense wins games. Defense wins championships.” Great dynasties—like the Steelers, the 49ers and the Cowboys, won big games with outstanding defensive plays. I can’t wait to see what will happen today — the Patriots’ offense colliding with the Giants’ defense. Similarly, Aikido—arguably the most Zen among the martial arts, fights through defense, not offense. An interesting aspect of this Zen defense is that aikidokas, without losing their internal balance, redirect the energy of the attacking opponent to their advantage. In the words of Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of Aikido…

Yahoo: decidedly Non-Zen
Today MSN announced a bid to acquire Yahoo for $44.6B. This completes Yahoo’s slow slide downhill from the top of the search Mount Olympus.

One can argue that lack of focus on Zen features, particularly Simplicity, in Yahoo’s Search Advertising business was the major force behind this slide.

1. Complexity of opening an Advertiser Account in Yahoo: It has always been difficult, time-consuming and non-intuitive to open an account in Yahoo. Before, with the old Overture interface, the difference with Google in this respect was stunning. Now, under Panama, this problem is less pronounced but it is still more difficult.
Why does it matter?

Simplicity is a key Zen tenet. However, a common misperception about Zen is that it comes naturally without training and that it is simplistic. Being simple is far from being simplistic.

Simplicity in Zen disciplines like Sumi-e comes through years of training, says Zen authority Daisetz Suzuki. Quoting Georges Duthuit, Suzuki says:

“Draw bamboos for ten years, become a bamboo, then forget all about bamboos when you are drawing. In possession of an infallible technique, the individual places himself at the mercy of inspiration.”

I think that the same holds for learning how to be a great technologist…