Why Threes?

Someone asked me recently how I became interested in threes.  I told him I was driving to my office one autumn morning in Pennsylvania many years ago, when I passed a white panel van that read Plumb, Level, Square on the side.  It was the name for a carpentry business, and I thought it was a good one because it captured the essence of quality workmanship.  It represented principles.  It was catchy and obviously memorable.  That chance encounter led me on a 20-year journey to observe and record categories or groups of three things, such as Plumb, Level, Square, then to organize what I had observed or read and written into some format that makes sense, entertains, yet calls on the coincidence, if not the magic, of threes in our lives.  The process has become an exploration of incredible variety and richness.  And it’s been fun.    

Threes speak

Here are a few common threes expressions.

Plumb, level, square

“Third time’s the charm”

Fat, dumb and happy

“Woulda, coulda, shoulda”

Father, son and holy ghost

Faith, hope and charity

“Friends, Romans, Countrymen”  

“Liberty, equality, fraternity”

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

“preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” 

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“pretty good, not bad, I can’t complain”—John Prine from “Pretty Good”

“send lawyers, guns and money”—Warren Zevon from “Lawyers, Guns and Money”

“Exuberance, Raw Power and Punctuality”—This Is Spinal Tap

“The never ending battle for truth, Justice and the American way”

"faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound"—Superman

Swifter, higher, stronger

On your mark, get set, go

They create an appealing pattern and rhythm. 

What threes sayings do you know?

Innovators, Creators and Copycats

There are many good examples of threes in business and technology.  But I like this one a lot.  The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs talked about not bringing in the sales and marketing guys to run Apple because, he said, the company needed visionaries, who are those technical people who can be inspired to develop new products that drive the company.  New anything, including new products, are rarely created; they’re innovated.  Inventors create, which means they make something from nothing.  What keeps business growing is innovation that occurs when technical minds adapt an idea or product to a new use, a new market or a new application.  It’s innovation that drives business.  That’s what Jobs was so masterful at accomplishing.  He adapted Apple’s graphical user interface, its computer hardware expertise, and its ability to create supporting software to music to produce the iPod that changed the music industry.  Then he took iPod technology and produced the iPhone that changed telecommunications, and finally he came full circle in his wildly successful journey of innovation to produce the iPad, the smaller personal computer the world had been waiting for and wanted.  Only the iPad was better than anyone imagined it could be.  Steve Jobs was the ultimate innovator.  iPod, iPhone and iPad—his Big Three products after his return to the company he co-founded.  He possessed the unique vision that enabled technology innovation.  Everyone else is either a copycat or a creator, and there are few creators.  “He stood out in three ways—as a technologist, as a corporate leader and as somebody who was able to make people love what had previously been impersonal, functional gadgets,” wrote The Economist in a paean to his greatness following his death earlier this year.  What's your take on the Steve Jobs' legacy?  

Threes Form Patterns
I have been fascinated by threes for a long time.  The world is arranged, in part, by threes.  Often only three.  Not three or four or more.  We organize our thoughts by three ideas because three of them are easy to remember.  Three ideas form a pattern.  Sometimes those patterns are intangible.  Such as three laws.  Three rules of thumb.  Three principles.  Three classes.  Three categories.  Three ideas that support a point of view.  It’s uncanny.  Laws of nature contain three elements only.  Religions are full of threes.  We create commercial messages that are loaded with three selling features or benefits.  Sayings such as “fat, dumb and happy,” “this, that and the other thing,” “woulda, coulda, shoulda,” are ingrained in our culture.  Humor depends on threes—the set up, anticipation and the punch line.  Sometimes those patterns are tangible.  The modern traffic signal with its green, yellow and red lenses, each with meaning to motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians, fire in a predictable and never-changing order to signal proceed, slow down and stop when lighted in sequence.  Using threes to describe or unify is not a new idea; it’s been around a long time.   More to come.   What threes have you seen?