People seem to put me in the “easygoing, friendly guy” category, but I wouldn’t know—I have about as much self-awareness as a ferret. I’m also told I can be a real hardass at times, and I do confess to that. Certain things really do drive me bonkers.

One of them is the word “just”. It simply has no place in business parlance. When I hear it my skin crawls. At Moonrocks, in fact, the word “just” is prohibited when discussing business.

Imagine your supervisor looks at your deck and asks “what’s the point of your line graph on page 6?”

“Well, it just shows the inverse relationship between low spend efficiency and the uniqueness of local content.”

“Just” sends an immediate red flag. It trivializes your hard work. It implies that your objectives lack specificity, haven’t been thought through enough, or maybe you lack confidence. And if it turns out that you don’t know the answer yet, that’s not a negative—in fact, it can be a great opportunity.

“I’m not sure yet about my bar chart. I’m exploring this relationship, but I don’t have 100% confidence we’re there quite yet—it’s still evolving and I’ll have a recommendation by Wednesday.”

That’s not only a specific answer—it’s pretty impressive in my book. It’s honest, which garners respect and increases credibility.

I know I sound like a broken record, but words really do matter. Trust me on this: you’ll be blown away by how much clearer your thinking becomes by simply eliminating the word “just” from your business vocabulary.

Be specific. Put a stake in the ground!

I’ve parked myself on a bench at the London Zoo, notebook in hand, doodling sketches of preliminary ROI algorithms (which yesterday I thought would change the world but now I’m pretty sure I’ll trash) when I notice a plaque to my left: The Most Destructive Insect on Earth.

Peering through the filthy glass I see a gazillion grasshoppers—I mean, they’re everywhere—bumping into walls. Bumping into each other. Stumbling into grasshopper orgies. And the ceiling, it’s like, raining newly-hatched baby grasshoppers. During the pandemonium, a mountain of vegetation (courtesy of zookeepers) disappears before my eyes, ravaged by a battalion of these miniature eating machines.

Reading further, it turns out this is no run-of-the-mill grasshopper. These are schistocerca gregaria, a desert locust from Africa and Asia with a rapacious appetite. When there is no strategy in place to control their proliferation, they devastate massive crops within hours and cause human starvation.

So again: what does this have to with do Moonrocks? The success of these insects lies in their astounding ability to proliferate. The exhibit is brilliant because it shows how proliferation (and consumption of resources) gets magnified exponentially when placed in an enclosed space.

I see this principle occurring all the time within businesses—it’s a common trap—especially when it comes to content. Without a cogent content management strategy, businesses simulate enclosures, and both hyper-proliferation and uncontrolled duplication are the inevitable byproducts. And efficiency of spend? Fuggedaboutit.

This is what we solve for. It’s ultra-geeky, and we love it :)

I guess my love affair stems from the the humbling appreciation of how much hard work it takes to simplify. It demands grit. It takes smarts and immense patience. It even requires faith—belief that you have the skills to craft something poignant from what initially appears so overwhelming. So I suppose keeping it simple also requires courage.

So why am I blabbering about this in a business context? I think because, ultimately, I see my job as a storyteller, counterintuitive as that may seem. We regularly dig into humongous mega-tons of raw data that would scare the daylights out of any sane person. But that actually gets me juiced. Going into battle, grinding away, and digging out the clear, simple truths.

Simplicity empowers change because it makes knowledge shareable, and that shared knowledge becomes the foundation for preempting chaos, exciting innovation, and creating positive change.

PS – I’m writing this as I sit at the London Zoo, in front of a trippy exhibit called “the most destructive insect on Earth,” the subject of my next blog.