Clay Shirky wrote an insightful article recently entitled The Collapse of Complex Business Models. The last line of the article contains the observation
… when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.
It’s interesting to think how ecosystems reward complexity or simplicity.
Academia certainly rewards complexity. Coming up with ever more complex models is the safest road to tenure and fame. Simplification is hard work and isn’t good for your paper count.
Political pundits are rewarded for complex analysis, though politicians are rewarded for oversimplification.
The software market has rewarded complexity, but that may be changing. There’s a growing demand for simpler products, and software vendors are responding. For example, no one has ever accused Microsoft of having a minimalist aesthetic, but Window Phone 7 looks like a bold departure from Microsoft’s bloatware past.
Related posts:
Organizational scar tissue
Good, fast, or cheap: Can you really pick two?
Maybe NASA could use some buggy software
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Daniel Lemire 04.06.10 at 21:04
That’s certainly true.
What probably hurts is that teaching, blogging and industry consulting are not rewarded in academia. So, people can build nonsense unhindered.
Ahmed 04.11.10 at 23:12
He is wrong.
The reason for nation’s collapse is not complexity but sins.
Material oriented minds will not understand that life is a very short period in which we will be judged according to our deeds ,
good deeds = simple happy life ,
bad deeds = complex miserable (collapse) life.
Thanks,
Ahmed.