Work, in Plain English

It’s easy to stay focused on the objectives of a 6-to-8 week project. For example, a current site redesign includes objectives for building revenue from specific sources and strengthening the current community. It’s those 6+ month projects that can drag the team’s attention away… to things like checking off the task list, interruptions for smaller requests, and working around vacation schedules.

At the moment, my simple solution, and promise to myself, is to review project objectives every Monday morning. I’ll be starting this coming week, and expect to scan work to date to make sure it’s still doing that fundamental job.

I’d love to hear how others keep their sights on a project’s objectives over the long haul… Comments?

The best part is the silent moments as interviewees search for words—vulnerable, human faces. I showed this to my son, and would like you to see it, too.

After I posted this note, I happened to rediscover Only Human, “a community where people share stories publicly or anonymously about mistakes they’ve made in life and their advice to others.” Not a lot of recent posts, but I wonder what would happen if they created an area for project post mortems.

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.

To inspire great design, don’t teach design processes. A fixed set of design steps is more likely to stifle the unexpected bursts of breakthrough insight that newer designers can contribute to a project.

Instead, consider offering design challenges that help them discover and develop their own processes.

Here are some challenge ideas (always starting with acknowledgment):

1. Great layout! Do you think you can show me an alternate color palette within [tight deadline]?

2. Cool typeface! If we keep using it, we’ll need secondary and body faces that complement it. Wrap up this piece, and then let’s meet in three days with your suggestions.

3. Your banner ad generated 2.2% conversion! What do you think did it?

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I’m now a 3-week-old Tweeter, and new enough to be having daily ah-ha’s (and woopses). I’ve followed, then un-followed some good folks whose messages were more than I could process. I’ve obsessed over replies and RTs, downloaded TweetDeck, and installed, uninstalled, and then reinstalled TwitterFox.

I waited this long to sign up because I just knew all this would happen, and feared the rest of my life would come to a standstill. It was only when I watched election day tweets posting live at about three per second that I realized the standstill had happened anyway. A large, lovely, inexorable wave was headed toward and over me, whether I chose to jump on or not.

This is not a “How to Get Started with Twitter” post. Those are here and here, and elsewhere. This post is dedicated to other new Tweeters, though, because there are a few people I recommend following, mostly—but not only—if you are thinking about ways to use Twitter as a business tool.

1. Mack Collier
2. Chris Brogan
Both Mack and Chris would be saying essentially the same thing if this were 1909 or 2109, because their insights are based on a fundamental respect and esteem for other human beings. They do have a vision for the future of social networking (not just online), and they know how to use it. On their blogs (Mack’s main blog is The Viral Garden; Chris’ is plain old Chris Brogan), on Twitter and in person, they discourage people from using social media as another “tactic”, and believe that the really outrageous successes come from listening and making genuine connections. I must add that Mack is way more into sports than I will ever be, but I’m dealing with it.

3. Todd Henry
Todd doesn’t post more than once or twice a day, but he’s always thinking and writing about something intriguing. His blog, Accidental Creative, as well as his tweets, are so practical, immediately usable and down to earth, I’m delighted he’s in my universe, and happy to share.

4. Guy Kawasaki
When Guy is on a roll, I see as many as 30 posts from him in a single day. I’ve considered un-following, but too many of them are links to stuff I want to know about. Because of this, I’ve given him his very own group on TweetDeck, and have learned to quick-scan it for gotta-reads. For more practical inspiration, check out his blog, How to Change the World.

Side note: You’d think this fella would be too busy to reply when I tweeted him about a $5 bet I made that he did, in fact, know how to make a screenshot with an iPhone. The mensch replied within two minutes.

5. hashtags
Trust me on this one. If you’re new, you probably won’t use it today or next week, but eventually, you will come back around to it. Learn more about hashtags here and here.

Like Etsy for wanna-be product designers, Shapeways is providing 3D dreamers with a fascinating way to produce and sell their concepts online. If you can render it (in the 3D application of your choice, exported to Collada or X3D format), you can probably see it come to life here.

At the moment, the biggest size they can produce is 49x39x20cm. Materials so far are polycarbonate and a variety of acrylic-based photopolymers. The Material Options page has a chart of properties, example photos and downloadable material data sheets.

I copied the process from their About page:

They’ve also got special, customizable projects going, such as this Light Poem—just compose and submit your heartfelt words, and bring them to… oops.

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Hoefler & Frere-Jones have delivered an exquisite typeface that not only works for super-refined display, but also plain-spoken body copy.

This comment in the overview for the new Archer typeface made me smile:

“A slab could be personable, straightforward, and credible, though it would take special effort to also make it pretty, hard-working, and frank.”

Designed for Martha Stewart Magazine, it’s got an extensive set of styles, with four flavors of Light (use them as light on dark if your medium allows—they’ll look practically luminous), support for more than 100 languages, and two styles of Numerics.

What I find the most irresistible about this font, however, is the Italics. They stand on their own as nearly a script, and still complement the rest of the family with exceptional grace.