Saturday, March 14, 2009

Be Core ... then be Cool

When you prepare a presentation or develop an application or maintain a website design or write a report. You have a lot of thoughts in mind. You know a lot. You want to show others that you know a lot. So your presentation or your application or your website or your report get overwhelmed with your details.

Then, perhaps, you wonder why others suffer
when they use your work.


You like to show the cool stuff (I do, alas), fancy transitions, new controls, you say to yourself "YES, I won't leave any white space there (6) (6) (6) , fill everything, yes I'll put my logo here. No I don't want to say 'I prepared 10 items to enhance the database' I'll use new English words, hmmm right click ->synonym, yes exactly this is much better 'Below is a list of 10 items I have been compiling for the rest of last week for enhancing the database', much better."

Be Core. Be Simple and to the point. Have the guts to remove the unnecessary stuff (you know them). Believe me, I know it hurts, its not easy, these stuff are cool, but they are not core! they distract others.

Be core, first, then its OK to be cool.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry


4 comments:

  1. This reminds me of a zen saying I have read years ago. It said:

    "Improvement is not daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away the unessential."

    Indeed, being core, as you say it, is a virtue.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice Zen quote,

    Thanks for dropping by Cody

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your so right. It's a "must" for the presenter, but in the end the audience just care about the core (mostly).

    And yes, it truely hurts.

    I also guess that oral presentations is the hardest and most painful. In a text you may be detailed (sometimes at least), but in an oral presentation the audience is caring about the core.

    Also in websites and applications (I don't have much experience with, but I can visualize it) is important to keep it "core".

    Clean and simple is quite popular these days, I guess.

    Simple is difficult.

    Great post by the way Hussein!

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  4. Whether you are a presenter or writer or anything people care about the core of your idea but you do care about everything because its your idea.

    Its difficult. It hurts. It works!
    Thanks Andres for dropping by.

    ReplyDelete

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