Complexity
Ian Goldin from the 21st Century School in Oxford says that there are 6 things you need to think about approaching 2030:
1. Globlization: integrated fragility
2. Revolutionary technologies: info-bio-nano
3. Medical miracles and ethical nightmares
4. New dynamics in aging and migration
5. Global systemic risk: climate-disease-bio
6. Ideas: eco-affluence or eco-collpse
So what's he trying to tell us? It sounds very important...
He is trying to tell us about Complexity.
And he's drawing some valuable conclusions. For instance he's suggesting that if you're under the age of 20 you will most likely not require a long retirement because you will be able to work longer, and you can expect a longer life than your parents; such, he predicts, will be the health advancements. But also you will have to make ethical choices that will have a dramatic impact on the working class and will most likely change its constitution.
Complexity does two things simultaneously:
It makes systems harder and it makes them more brittle, like a living diamond.
- Systems are in constant flux, but complexity makes them harder and harder. And as they get harder they are more and more likely to shatter at any moment.
- Complexity increases options but not destinations. So it becomes a lot easier to find yourself on a dead end career path, but success comes a lot quicker should you choose a good path. 50 years ago a man would be regarded as trustworthy who worked for the same company for 20 years. Today he would be regarded, not as trustworthy but as lacking vision. Trust is now measured by variety not endurance, and that is only because of complexity.
- It increases opportunities at the same rate as it increases barriers to entry. Which is why complexity helps the middle class entrepreneur, but it seldom helps the poor. This negative effect has a double edge, because the poor are as aware of the increased opportunity as they are of the increased barriers to entry. Understandably this makes them angry, which then becomes another factor added to the complexity.
- Complexity also means that we are more likely to trust data that has not been processed by a body of "qualified" minds.
It's the Google conundrum, people prefer the raw data, but it comes at us at such pace and quantity that we cannot make head or tail of it, and so we tend to draw the wrong conclusions. Google is at least finding a mix that most people can tolerate. We all want at least a million results on our searches, but 99% are there just to satisfy our morbid sense of hierarchy, that some objective inhuman process has done the difficult work for us. - Complexity means that I have all the tools required to measure outcomes, but too many possible outcomes to measure them all.
And what about Brands?
- Markets are easier to reach but more difficult to penetrate.
- Increased social communication can do as much damage to a bad brand as it can help a good brand.
- Social media is no longer an option for brand building. Even B to B marketing is people marketing and people are social creatures.
In a talk about branding I did recently I highlighted one of the issues of brand simplification. Many times a strategy team will come up with 2 or even three really good ideas. Maybe around a logo design, or a campaign. The worst thing you can do is try and make all of them fit.
Let me illustrate what I mean:
- The purple splodge represents a really good idea that someone just came up with in your team of brand specialists and marketers.
- But then someone else comes up with an equally good idea. And the first temptation is to try and make them fit together. If they are good ideas, they won't fit together, and if you try and make them you will have lost the advantage of simplicity.
- Just then someone else throws in an idea better than the first two. If someone doesn't have the courage or the authority to pick one of the good ideas, you will end up with a mess.
It’s better to stick with one mediocre idea than try and merge 10 brilliant ideas.
Better than both is to choose one brilliant idea.
“Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.” Alan Perlis
So what should you do?
Here are a few very simple keys for business owners and marketing managers to begin to leverage complexity, make it work for you.
- Stop saying that you'll never get into all this Social media stuff.
- Sign up on Facebook and Twitter and make a point of writing something at least once a week, it does not matter how stupid you feel or how few people follow you. Focus on single sentence posts, quick info, rather than long content.
- Put a Twitter and Facebook "Follow me" button on your company web page, as well as a social media "Share" button.
- Create a Google page for your business: .
- Create a Wikipedia page for your business.
- If you don't have one already, get a Content Managed website that allows people to register with their existing social accounts; and allows you to update the site yourself.
- Write a Newsletter that people can subscribe to.
- When you write content on your site let people know on Facebook and Twitter.
- Start thinking about building a Community of your own. I'm going to write about that next.
That is a great start. And let us know if you need some help with any of this.