In this season of reflection, I humbly offer my corporate version of Charles Dickens’ timeless classic with my own dream team—the CEO, CMO and CTO. Upon leaving a festive office holiday party, they are confronted by a ghostly guide who brings into sharp focus the highs and lows of the customer experience of the past year: the Ghost of Simplicity Past, Present and Future.

Your customers see it. We see it. And now so can you. With the launch of Siegel+Gale’s 2012 Global Brand Simplicity Index, there's no ambiguity about what customers find simple or complex. Complexity is real—customers feel it, read it, hear it and experience it—and in this year's Simplicity Index, we show you the winners and losers in each industry and region.

During election years, really big ideas emerge on taxation, regulation, education and the like. In the spirit that intriguing ideas are often the most provocative (they couldn’t really do that, could they?), I am humbly offering my really big idea. One that leaps all industries in a single bound. An idea so crazy that it just might work. I call it the “Complexity Discount” and here’s how it works: Every citizen is entitled to a Complexity Discount (I’m thinking 15%, but just stay with me here) when they come face-to-face with unintelligible information that stops them dead in their tracks.

As someone who strives for simplicity during my action-packed day—as a wife, mother of two young girls and a Strategy Director at Siegel+Gale—I spend the majority of my time noticing complexity. Where does it trip things up, how can you fix it and how do you stop it from ever starting?