Work, in Plain English

Feedback is central to collaboration. This is true for any size project, but truer and truer the bigger it gets.

No doubt, it’s a two-edged sword that can cut a project to pieces, fracturing its focus and gutting its spark.

Designers have been complaining for years about decision-makers who request outrageous changes at the worst possible moment, rather than taking the time to catch issues during the review process.

Still, we need feedback, and we often need feedback from people with wildly varying ideas about what it is we do and how we work. It’s up to you, not only to clarify your role, but also to reconsider it often, because it will change and evolve.

One way to do that, and make the most of all that review power, is with a Review Guide:

At each presentation, at each phase of the project, tell the review team what kind of feedback you need, and explain how honoring this will save time and resources. I predict this will never get old. Every time, at each phase, provide a list of exactly what is expected, and provide it in a checklist form. And every time, at each phase, inform the reviewers that skipping the items on this list is likely to result in delays and expense.

Keep in mind that this puts the onus of achieving ideal results squarely on you. If you neglect to include an important item on the checklist, or include it at the wrong phase, it becomes your responsibility.

That is, of course, if everyone completely honors the Guide.

I’ll be sharing more thoughts about how to create Review Guides in the weeks ahead, so if it sounds like a tool you can use, please stay tuned!

The plus side of committees is that everyone brings a different perspective, and different strengths, to the table. One of their infamous minuses—the bottleneck (sometimes known as pea soup or the black hole)—becomes exponentially aggravating for each person you add to the group (not to mention those that show up near the end of the project).

Here are a few tips to help you transform snags into synergy. They refer mostly to design, but have value for anyone moving a project through committee approval:

Committee Un-bottlenecking Tip#1:
Committee involvement is easier—and more productive—if the group reviews only a reasonable sampling of the project. Be on the lookout for issues that don’t really belong in the meeting room.

Recently, as we neared the end of a website design project, I realized I was unnecessarily prolonging the agony, not only for myself, but for everyone poring over the layouts. After taking a look at which pages were truly critical to business, I was able to halve the number of page templates I submitted for committee review, and free myself to put this baby to bed.

What’s a reasonable sampling? Just make sure you understand which parts of the project are critical. For example, on the current project, I know which pages are expected to generate the most revenue, and which involve external business partnerships. For those pages, I’ll need input from the individuals who intimately know the market, the numbers, and the nuances of the partnerships.

Of course, some participants may insist on seeing it all, but I wouldn’t even say, “Hey, we’re only going to show you a sampling.” That’s too tantalizing a whiff of the “forbidden” (it would be for me). Don’t bring it up.

Committee Un-bottlenecking Tip#2:
Cull again: Watch for issues that can slip in, especially as you get close to the end of the approval process. Do these really require executive involvement?

Present it as a positive: “The key issues are A, B and C. If you’re happy with these, we can call this phase done and move on to [next urgent project].” By the end of a long approval process, only the most dogged will really feel the need to “see it all”, and will understand that they’ve seen enough.

Committee Un-bottlenecking Tip#3:
Take the time to engage and empathize with the key detractors.

If there are too many hanging issues, meet directly with one key detractor at a time (maybe two), and be prepared to do some genuine listening (that’s different from caving, and even more different from manipulating). There’s a good chance they have concerns and perspectives that are easier to explain in a one-on-one meeting. Whether you fully agree or not, you’ll have a chance to find some common ground, and you’ll have an advocate at the next review. If you’re not sure how to do this, I highly recommend Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, also known as compassionate communication, an approach that’s been used by families, businesses and communities to work together to meet the needs of all concerned.

I’m not against working with committees, as long as they have essentially productive intentions (mostly free of power wars), and I get to be there in the room. Do everything you can to meet all the individuals deciding the fate of your work. If you are a designer working with corporations, this, too, is design. But be smart: Tap the business wisdom being made available to you and take the time to make sure they are reviewing only necessary items.

Listen, respond, get the sign-off, and get out!

Viva la Revolution!

Granted, Twitter is noisy, overwhelming, confusing, and difficult to step into. It’s also incredibly vital, and potentially bottomless. I’m still experiencing regular epiphanies about business, collaboration, art and humanness. Half the fun is that I’m doing it together with others. It’s the biggest team effort I’ve ever seen.

Without further ado, here are the six:

Twitter…

1. …is fast

Twitter communities had spread the US Airways Hudson River story an hour before most of the news channels (Wall Street Journal sent out an alert within 25 minutes—good for them), and smart reporters knew to tap Twitter for sources, finding witnesses and the first photo (shot by a iPhone from a rescue ferry).

Some call it Citizen Journalism. I call it Communication Freedom.

2. …is uncensorable

Something that fast is virtually uncensorable. Unless I am one day caught with my hand in some political cookie jar, I’m going to continue to like it that way. This is a good time to re-watch Johnny Mnemonic (just fast-forward past the goofy Keanu Reeves monologue).

Another perspective: Sure, Big Media is slanted. So are you. Now all our slants have equal voice.

3. …is a “now” medium

There is no “catch up” or “make up” or “keep up”. In the twenty-first century and in Twitter, there is only now. You’ve got to sleep sometime, and you’re going to miss stuff. Read back a little, but as Mack Collier reminded me when I panicked over following 70 Twitterers (to date, he’s following 1,833), “I never try to go back and read missed tweets, there’s just no way to catch up.”

This is a good thing, because it keeps your attention focused forward (this is also probably a good place to recommend TweetDeck again).

4. …is super malleable

Like the rest of the web, Twitter is what you make it. It’s not done being born, and probably (hopefully) never will be.

People ask, “What do you do with Twitter?” Now that I’m a whole month old, I’d day: Start by listening. Complete your profile, then find people you want to listen to, and follow them. What you do next is up to you.

5. …invites new ways of thinking

If you think like you’ve always thought, the benefits of a this untethered tool will be limited. If you try out new perspectives, the benefits will most certainly expand. Find inspiration from your regular sources, try my recommended Five Favorite Follows on Twitter (another five coming soon). I also highly recommend hanging out with a child or teen for a bit.

6. …invites new ways of relating

I’m not really sure what this means yet. I just know I’m listening differently, sharing thoughts differently—sometimes with people I never expected to engage. I’m not a particularly public person, so I’m having to come to terms with the harrowing transparency of this and other social media tools. Still, I love finding people who post inspired, sparkly thoughts, and I love when they expand on one of mine. I guess you could say it’s about learning to participate in an ever-larger conversation.

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Been thinking about this a lot lately, sparked by a big, fat design project, as well as questions about the foggy role of “creatives” in a technical environment. Then Amber Naslund polled her readers about their line of work. I had just started following her on Twitter, and mentioned something about how Design is Communications (grouped with PR and Marketing on her poll). She tweeted back with a rather pointed and clarifying question, which leads us here, to these five essential ideas:

1. Design Guides an Audience
Outstanding designers observe and speak to the human experience, and how people respond to their environment. As a hopefully-inflammatory example, the idea of handing website architecture to a specialist can be either really smart or really wasteful. Designers have been building complex wayfinding systems, from product catalogs and professional directories to zoo and parking signage, for decades.

2. Design Anticipates Growth
Strategically-minded designers look beyond what their client offers to what they plan, dream and hope to offer. This prepares both the client and the audience for a healthy, long-term relationship.

3. Design Influences
At some point in their career, a designer must consciously choose whether they will manipulate their audience or connect with them. Sure, you can connect for the purpose of manipulating, but you can also connect for the purpose of connecting.

The idea is not at all new, but the effectiveness of genuinely connecting with your market is being dramatically proven by the social networking movement. And this choice is a kind of rudder for all intentional influencers.

4. Design Listens
Really another look at how design influences, consider that the most successful design manifests itself not as a statement, but as a conversation. As an example, here’s a link to the old NYT mytimes welcome page.

5. Design Individuates
Whether it’s a billboard, a discussion forum or an injection-molded gift, great design does something more than give form to function: It creates an individual “face”—with all its subtle nuances—by which people recognize it as being familiar, valuable, approachable and relevant.

These five points need more fleshing-out, but then designers talk about this stuff all the time, probably too much… Perhaps that’s a good reason to keep these short and sweet.

I am taking in a great article on my latest blog gem, The Simple Dollar. I found it while working on the redesign of another financial site that is chock full of content so inscrutable it’ll make your eyes water. This blog is subtitled, “financial talk for the rest of us”. It does keep it’s promise, and I nearly wept for joy.

It was probably relief that got me to read, Financial Success Isn’t About Who Has the Most (or Best) Stuff, because, heck—I know that. What flicked the light on for me, though, was the reminder that:

Being rich or successful is never measured in the amount of stuff you have. It’s measured in the amount of security you have and the amount of freedom you have from the worries of day to day life.

Most of the comments in response to this article were more of the “I knew that” sort. Still, if so many of us know that, why are we still expanding our expenses to the very brim of our income? The answers are complex, and include both the positives and negatives of our consumerist culture, as well as a healthy dose of personal soul searching.

Some might argue that the trappings of success are key to making you feel successful. For me at least, I rarely feel more successful than when I see my investment balances going up because of my contributions or when I see an opportunity to really make someone else’s life more successful through a helping hand delivered by my knowledge or a connection that I have.

This kind of success requires more thought, and a commitment to continuously search outside of what society, family and the media would like us to believe.

So many of us 21st Century People have to husband our money the way we once husbanded farmland. Unfortunately, most big (and popular), Happy Friendly Money Sites are filled with a quagmire of content that is the modern equivalent of swampland.

In the meantime, it’s amusing, frustrating and heartening (all at the same time) to see someone speak Money in Plain Talk. One might suspect, considering the title of my own blog, that it’s an important issue for me. After years as a communications professional, I’m ever more convinced that I’m not alone.