The New Ford Simplexity at the Chicago Auto Show
Paddock Talk (a NASCAR racing site) has a transcript of the remarks of Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields at the Chicago Auto Show. He talks about “simplexity” – the state that exists when something is both simple and complex at the same time – and how it relates to the business of designing and selling cars.
While the payoff of Fields’ speech is the fairly mundane news that the Ford Five Hundred will become the Taurus (and Freestyle the Taurus X and Montego, the Sable), I found the deeper implications about the business of making and marketing cars fascinating. When you think about the massive investment a car represents, the idea that it might become a digital/entertainment hub not so silly when you consider that it may be the most significant piece of “real” property an under-30 person owns.
I was sorely tempted to use the photo Ford And Microsoft Birth N’Sync: The End Of The World Is Nigh At Hand from Jalopnik. Although I had never really heard of the concept, apparently simplexity is fairly well established.
