Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success

by Ken Segall

Overview

To Steve Jobs, Simplicity was a religion. It was also a weapon.

Simplicity isn’t just a design principle at Apple—it’s a value that permeates every level of the organization. The obsession with Simplicity is what separates Apple from other technology companies. It’s what helped Apple recover from near death in 1997 to become the most valuable company on Earth in 2011.

Thanks to Steve Jobs’s uncompromising ways, you can see Simplicity in everything Apple does: the way it’s structured, the way it innovates, and the way it speaks to its customers.

It’s by crushing the forces of Complexity that the company remains on its stellar trajectory.

As ad agency creative director, Ken Segall played a key role in Apple’s resurrection, helping to create such critical marketing campaigns as Think different. By naming the iMac, he also laid the foundation for naming waves of i-products to come.

Segall has a unique perspective, given his years of experience creating campaigns for other iconic tech companies, including IBM, Intel, and Dell. It was the stark contrast of Apple’s ways that made Segall appreciate the power of Simplicity—and inspired him to help others benefit from it.

In Insanely Simple, you’ll be a fly on the wall inside a conference room with Steve Jobs, and on the receiving end of his midnight phone calls. You’ll understand how his obsession with Simplicity helped Apple perform better and faster, sometimes saving millions in the process. You’ll also learn, for example, how to:

• Think Minimal: Distilling choices to a minimum brings clarity to a company and its customers—as Jobs proved when he replaced over twenty product models with a lineup of four.
• Think Small: Swearing allegiance to the concept of “small groups of smart people” raises both morale and productivity.
• Think Motion: Keeping project teams in constant motion focuses creative thinking on well-defined goals and minimizes distractions.
• Think Iconic: Using a simple, powerful image to symbolize the benefit of a product or idea creates a deeper impression in the minds of customers.
• Think War: Giving yourself an unfair advantage—using every weapon at your disposal—is the best way to ensure that your ideas survive unscathed.

Segall brings Apple’s quest for Simplicity to life using fascinating (and previously untold) stories from behind the scenes. Through his insight and wit, you’ll discover how companies that leverage this power can stand out from competitors—and individuals who master it can become critical assets to their organizations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101572047
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/26/2012
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	387 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ken Segall worked closely with Steve Jobs as ad agency creative director for NeXT and Apple. He was a member of the team that created Apple’s legendary Think different campaign, and he’s responsible for that little “i” that’s a part of Apple’s most popular products. Segall has also served as creative director for IBM, Intel, Dell, and BMW. He blogs about technology and marketing at kensegall.com/blog, and has fun with it all at scoopertino.com.

Follow Segall on Twitter: @ksegall.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Introduction: The Simple Stick 1

Chapter 1 Think Brutal 11

Chapter 2 Think Small 25

Chapter 3 Think Minimal 46

Chapter 4 Think Motion 69

Chapter 5 Think Iconic 82

Chapter 6 Think Phrasal 104

Chapter 7 Think Casual 126

Chapter 8 Think Human 136

Chapter 9 Think Skeptic 165

Chapter 10 Think War 185

Chapter 11 Think Ahead 197

Conclusion: Think Different 211

Acknowledgments 225

Index 229

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A blueprint for running a company the Steve Jobs way . . . should be required reading for anyone interested in management and marketing.”
—The Times (London)

“Gets inside Apple’s branding and marketing to explain its directness and power.”
—Financial Times

“Required reading.”
—The Observer

“Ken Segall has literally captured lightning in a bottle. Insanely Simple reveals the secret of Steve Jobs’s success with such clarity, even we non-geniuses can make use of it. Ken shows us how to cut through the cobwebs of fuzzy thinking, bureaucracy and mediocrity, and clearly see what’s most essential—and therefore most important.”
—Steve Hayden, legendary Apple creative director, author of the “1984” Super Bowl commercial

Editorial Reviews

In this captivating book, Segall (who worked with Jobs as agency creative director for NeXT and Apple and named the iMac) has succeeded in distilling what made Steve Jobs succeed in ways no one would have imagined—simplicity. The idea of going simple, and Jobs’s obsession with it, is neither a set of rules nor a goal, but a worldview of how things should be and should proceed. Presenting simple from almost every angle (advertising slogans, product names, product lines, group sizes), Segall shows how simple has propelled Apple, creating powerful changes within the company. Contrast this with the path of complexity, of which Segall offers plenty of examples from companies such as Intel, Microsoft, and Dell. More practical than theoretical, this essential book is about “using the power of Simplicity to set a company apart.” Readers will appreciate personal stories about Jobs, which contribute to the narrative of Jobs the icon, and the role simplicity played in his success. Agent: Christy Fletcher, Fletcher & Company. (May)

Publishers Weekly

A blueprint for running a company the Steve Jobs way . . . should be required reading for anyone interested in management and marketing.”

—The Times (London)

“Gets inside Apple’s branding and marketing to explain its directness and power.”

—Financial Times

“Required reading.”

—The Observer

“Ken Segall has literally captured lightning in a bottle. Insanely Simple reveals the secret of Steve Jobs’s success with such clarity, even we non-geniuses can make use of it. Ken shows us how to cut through the cobwebs of fuzzy thinking, bureaucracy and mediocrity, and clearly see what’s most essential—and therefore most important.”

—Steve Hayden, legendary Apple creative director, author of the “1984” Super Bowl commercial

From the Publisher

Steve Jobs' longtime advertising guru weighs in with a memoir/extra-long promotional brochure about the secret to Apple's success: Simplicity with a capital S. Inveterate copywriter Segall's goal is to sell readers on the idea of how the ruthless but noble Jobs beat his Silicon Valley competition into submission using his "Simplicity Stick." Like an inescapable mantra throughout the book, the author constantly reiterates the idea of Apple's colossal struggle against Simplicity's worst foe: Complexity. When Jobs left NeXT to head up Apple, he went on a mission to streamline his products to make them simpler to use than those of complexity-loving rival brands such as Intel and Dell. In relating Jobs' monomaniacal mission to make the world of handheld technology a simpler place, Segall employs an unsettling combination of militaristic language and softer terms that suggest humanist sensitivity in Apple's quest for global domination. Describing Jobs' commitment to brutal honesty with his employees, the author writes, "Being straight with people alone does not make you a heartless bastard." Of course, having well-documented ties to sweatshop labor doesn't exactly make you a paragon of virtue. Readers should not expect to find unpleasant facts that undermine the deification of the author's subject. Although Segall fully discloses Jobs' well-known tendency to steal ideas from competitors, this dubious characteristic doesn't stop the author from painting a broader portrait of Jobs as a tirade-prone earthbound god ruling his Apple kingdom with fear, while generously dispensing technological convenience to the grateful masses. "Steve's greatest achievement wasn't a Mac, iPod, iPhone, or iPad," writes the author. "He accomplished something that no one had even contemplated before. Steve Jobs built a monument to Simplicity. That monument is Apple itself." Fine inspirational material for aspiring tech moguls, but far too propagandistic.

Kirkus Reviews