Steve Jobs on elegant, simple solutions, and a plea

I hate to be so timely, but I saw a Steve Jobs quote today that I like.

When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there.

He’s talking about design, but it goes for so many other things we do in the analytics industry, such as visualization, business analysis, public speaking, and writing.

So often, I struggle through someone’s blog post, webinar, or viz only to wish I hadn’t. The payoff was too small. Had the author given it more thought, it might have become something or at least my effort would have seemed worth it.