"Simplicity" Posts on ValleyZen

Paglo is a search company named after the Italian explorer Francisco Paglo. There may be Italophiles in the company, I didn’t find them at today’s Lunch 2.0 event.

I did meet a brilliant engineering team with a deep appreciation of Japanese Zen aesthetics. “You’ve stumbled upon the company’s two Japanophiles,” Chris Waters, Co-Founder and CTO of Paglo, said of himself and Eric “Scanner” the online application architect.

Is the use of Information Technology by Government Bureaucracies Consistent with the Zen Concept of Simplicity?

Bureaucracies could learn from the Zen principle of simplicity. They have the incredible ability to add complexity to people’s lives: confusing them, cluttering their minds, and raising their anxieties. Simple, targeted, non-cluttered communication could greatly improve the quality of the interactions between citizens and bureaucracies. An extreme story of bureaucratic clutter illustrates this…

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…

What is a Valley Zen experience? Share yours!
Zen principles resonate with the spirit of Silicon Valley:

Simplicity, clarity, intuition, immediacy, harmony with nature, action over theory…

We’ve all had our Valley Zen experiences…

• When simplifying your product and removing features makes it more useful
• When intuition leads you to the right solution though away from the ”logical” solution
• When…