Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
I really enjoyed this book (more so than Steve Jobs autobiography). It has some fantastic stories, and shows what a scary person Steve was to work with, but how his brain worked with regards to hitting marketing with the "Simple Stick". I had some great takeaways from this book that I will implement for my business such as:-1. I will look at my website from a different perspective - is it simple enough and easy to find what you are looking for?2. Marketing messages - should be one message only. The story that he tells about throwing five balls of paper at a colleague and expecting him to catch them all really resinated with me. 3. Presentation skills - again, one image, one message. Steve Jobs had a very unique style of his own, but being genuine, enthusiastic and just being himself was what worked. 4. Don't accept 2nd best or a mediocre service. Look at the whole package, from packaging, the product or service, to the after sales. The voice of the company is important. What does your business represent? 5. Project groups - keep them small and make sure the decision maker is involved in the discussions. When you have large groups involved in a project then procrastination sets in and it takes forever to make a decision. Having meetings for meetings sake is a pure waste of time. You're going to have to put in some extra work on this book to actually get the point that Segall is trying to covey. For a book espousing the virtues of simplicity, Segall rarely takes his own advice. Truly, this book could have been around 30% shorter, and lose no value for it.Another point of contention I had with this is that Segall, it would seem, has no point of reference for Simplicity outside of Apple. Or more accurately, outside of Steve Jobs. As Segall's work is very much a core building block for Apple as we know it today, you could almost see it as a proud parent rambling about how wonderful their child is. He paints Jobs as this superhuman, larger-than-life individual who could do no wrong, even when he DID do wrong. Somehow the mistakes of the execs at Dell et al are failures on their part to uphold Simplicity, but Jobs' failures are quickly defended by throwing Simplicity out the window and focusing on how "even Jobs can make mistakes".While I do believe that Ken Segall set out with the intention of talking about Simplicity, his own perspective of this is immensely biased by his contribution to Apple. It ends up being a shrine to Jobs and to Apple, and while I'm okay with this for the most part (after all, Apple has done some spectacular things. I'm typing this on a MacBook and loving it.), he takes it a step further by dissing the actions of every other competitor. In Segall's eyes, Apple is the brilliant talented maverick cowboy outwitting, outshooting, and outriding the slow fat bloated villains in a magnificent tech-inspired western. You only have to look at such lovingly objective phrases such as "In one sense, Apple doesn't give a hoot about those who see arrogance. They're not Apple customers and aren't likely to be." after he touts Apple as the most "human" technology company, to see what I mean.In the end, though, there IS value in this book. It's worth it, but are you going to have to grit your teeth and sift through the endless Jobsmania to get it? Almost certainly. But then again, maybe I'm just holding the book wrongly.
What do You think about Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success (2012)?
Further insights on to the business aspects that Walter Isaacson's biography didn't cover.
—DeeDee
Simplify everything! This book will help any organization learn to get things done.
—mohammed
Fairly obvious examples but good points none-the-less and a quick, easy read.
—emileny
Very good book, focuses on simplicity and what it can do.
—Candy
