My grandfather gave my father a gift once – I was all of twelve years old, but I remember it vividly – it was a small wooden box with two brass hinges on the back and engraved on the top were the words “For the person who has nothing…” When my dad opened it, another flat piece of wood appeared (i.e. it was NOT a box, but simply two pieces of wood hinged together) with the words “…and now something to put it in.”
Aside from how hilarious I thought this was at the time, a box for nothing is exactly the kind of box we all need – keeping things in boxes is problematic for several reasons:
1. It creates a space to store stuff (mostly useless)
2. Because we have a place to store stuff, it encourages us to get more stuff
3. Once our important (and useful) belongings go into a box, they are essentially useless
If your “stuff” isn’t being used, why make it?
If your service, or product, or website, or whatever…is sitting in someone else’s box or worse yet, sitting in YOUR box, what’s the point?