3by9

The Power of One

Can you describe what you do in one sentence? What if you couldn’t describe it in one sentence? I would say you should start all over. Can you describe what your site is about or the topics of your blog? I’m not asking can you describe them so you understand, but can you describe them so any stranger on the street would understand? If you can do it successfully in one sentence you hold a lot of power.

How many relationships have you gone through that have been make or break based on one thing? Maybe the person lied too much and even though they did a ton of other messed up things, lying is the one that pushed you over. What if your partner was the only one there to hug you when your mother died and no one else was around? That one action alone sealed the deal for you.

Do you find it strange that people only seem to ask what your favorite book, song or movie is and never what your favorite books, songs and movies are? People want to hear one and that is it. Sure there are always others, but there always just has to be one that matters the most.

When two teams play for a championship the history books remember the one that won. I can name all the Super Bowl winners from the past 20 years, but can’t name all the losers. There was more than one team involved, but only one will ever standout.

Ever hear someone describe Linux to another person? It does everything like Windows they say, but there is never one thing they nail down. Ever hear someone describe using a Mac to another person? Most of the time they just narrow it down to the experience or the ease of use. One thing.

Yahoo! becomes a heavyweight in the late 90s and decides they should do everything. Google comes around and does one thing very well and look at them now.

When you think back to your childhood does one memory always come up first?

What is so special about one? If humans are so great at remember 7+-2 things, why do we focus on one so much? To me it comes down to the essence of whatever the focus is. You can’t get less than one without dropping to nothing so one is life at its simplest. People like one because there is nothing else to get in the way. If we can narrow it down to one we have narrowed it down to what we really like or want usually.

I think we all know this, but yet we continue to press for more. At 9rules we continually press for more, but maybe we shouldn’t. One of the biggest complaints is that there is so much going on you can’t focus on one thing. We lost the power of one.

This does not mean the Power of One relegates your site to simply doing just one thing. Yahoo is still the most visited web property in the world and you can do almost everything. Companies excel in many different areas without relying on just one, but that is because they have other factors helping to counter the Power of One.

So whatever you do next think about the one concept you want people to grasp and make that it. Nothing else exists and see how far you can go with it. One doesn’t always mean alone, sometimes it means everything.