I enjoyed "The Beauty of Simplicity" (November 2005). Simplicity is more than a reaction to information anxiety (and shrinking attention spans); it's a timeless moving target. Such a pursuit is not simple. Consumers are complex. All this would seem to make simplicity a creative myth, but it remains something worth fighting for. As your piece echoes, the interdisciplinary triad of design, business, and technology is what we need to take up the challenge of easing human efforts. Simply put, simplicity ultimately helps people cope with and navigate an ever-complex world--another thing worth fighting for.
Nate Burgos
Chicago, Illinois
Kudos to Linda Tischler for a beautiful cover story on simplicity. Maybe it takes a woman to see what's really happening in consumer electronics. All the articles written by men have focused on "convergence," a concept that is making products more complex.
Al Ries
Atlanta, Georgia
Terrific article on Marissa Mayer and the art of the simple. For the longest time I've been telling people that no, your desktop computer is not simple to use--you just don't realize how much you've had to learn to operate one. Your car is simple to use. . . . And folks stare at me like I'm the idiot.
Mike Field
Baltimore, Maryland
Google's Marissa Mayer compares her company's service to a Swiss Army knife. If I read or hear one more "leader" comparing his or her technology to a Swiss Army knife, I'm going to scream. The problem is, it's old, ubiquitous, and not all that great a metaphor for technology. Having lived for 15 years with an IT director, I can tell you that these days, the handy Leatherman has far surpassed the Swiss Army knife's place in all those geek pockets. Maybe someone should try to compare their technology to a Leatherman. Or better yet, how about just explaining what your technology does without all the metaphors? Are we all becoming such simpletons that we need a doodad analogy to understand Google?
Nettie Hartsock
San Marcos, Texas
In "Fast Cities" (November 2005), Richard Florida of George Mason University considers it a bad thing that Salt Lake City and Colorado Springs have a low tolerance for homosexuality while a good thing that Vancouver "has a large gay community." I'm trying to understand the relevance between the Gay Index score and a city's business climate.
Tim Saint
Seattle, Washington
There's sad irony in the caveat applied to Colorado Springs' ranking as a "fast city." Red-flagging a city's conservative Christian dynamic, as if there's something inherently wrong with that demographic, seems more than just a little intolerant to me.
Mike Spinney
Townsend, Massachusetts
Florida's research focuses on what causes creative people to cluster in particular locales. Among other things, the percentage of gay people in a region's population is indicative, Florida believes, of "an underlying culture that's conducive to creativity." After all, creativity drives innovation and innovation drives business. Salt Lake City and Colorado Springs had superior rankings in Florida's measure of talent and technology, and therefore made the list.
Thanks for the article on Roadtrip Nation ("Inspiration Junkies," November 2005). I am a 25-year-old woman who graduated from a prestigious university in 2002 and pretty much have had the access to do just about anything I could ever imagine. This has paralyzed me. I've been stuck in jobs I'm unhappy with, and nearly all of my peers are in a similar boat. I'm so glad to know that someone is working to spread the message to young people like me that we should not be afraid to bust free from the invisible walls of the mime's box of career choice--that we should take some chances, because now is the time. I myself am on the brink of chucking my day job, doing a bit of traveling, and then coming back to pursue a hobby that I've loved for years but never figured could put food on my table. I am terrified. But I could not be more exhilarated that I'm following the "choose your own adventure" advice I've been hearing so much of lately (a lot of it in your pages).
Forest Michaels
New York, New York
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