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A client photocopied the beauty of simplicity (no link available yet) for me last week (an article from Fast Company's November issue.) My favorite quote--which will not be a surprise to anyone who knows me or who has seen Edward Tufte's fantastic and mildly subversive The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint print on my office wall--relates to Royal Philips Electronics, a company that has reportedly taken simplicity to heart over the last decade with a Sense & Sensibility campaign that applies to their products and the company itself.

Even things as prosaic as business meetings have been nudged in the direction of simplicity: The company now forbids more than 10 slides in any PowerPoint presentation. Just enough, they decided, was more.

The article begins with a profile of Marissa Mayer, dubbed the "high priestess of simplicity" at Google, who is responsible for the uncluttered look of Google's homepage. (Thanks Marissa!) The article also lists TiVo, Apple's iPod, Skype, and Blackberry by RIM as examples of simplicity.

Posted by Jen at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was out having drinks with a few coworkers last night and mentioned that I had gone to the Cubs game Saturday night.

The what? my coworker asked, looking at me with an astounded look on her face.

The Cubs game. You know, the World Series, big baseball game, fireworks, the whole works...

Jen. It's the White Sox. Get it straight.

Oops. It wasn't intentional (at least not the first time I slipped up.) Chicago is definitely home now, but I have yet to develop the one key Chicagoan characteristic that will mark me as someone who truly belongs. I have yet to develop a runs-in-my-blood loyalty to either of my city's two baseball teams.

Maybe next year. In the meantime...Go Sox!

Posted by Jen at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A must-read for the week (from last week's print edition) if for nothing else than to see the context for this quote:

One finishes this book persuaded by Mr Gallagher's thesis: that he is surrounded by idiots. That would certainly explain why he was unable to do any research.

Posted by Jen at 04:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)