do_matic

Tidying up - a critical part of the design process

(Banksy gets it. Courtesy of danbrady, flickr and creative commons.)

This morning I engaged in one of the most satisfying and productive parts of the design process. I cleaned up after a frenzied day of creation with my team yesterday.

When I see a team that's looking for some direction, one of the things I'll suggest is to go ahead and clean the workspace. I think cleaning, at the right time, can be as important as getting messy.

When we do it in the middle of the process, what we throw away and what we keep tells us something. In that sense, it's a codeword / code activity for "convergence." Taking it slow and being quiet, ends up being really good reflection time as well... meditation while keeping your hands busy and steeping in the space.

At the end of a project, it can be really valuable as well (as well as polite). In that sense, it helps us learn, reflect, purge and let go.

Non sequitur: Be stupid

My buddy Scott pointed me to this Diesel campaign embracing Stupid and eschewing Smart. Some really nice overlaps with doing innovative stuff. The right approach might feel kind of stupid at first!

You might not love the approach or the brand, but you have to admit that they're on to something. Here's the Diesel site: http://www.diesel.com/be-stupid/

 

Apparently I'm a child of the Bauhaus

(Josef Albers Stacking Tables; My wife's favorite piece in the exhibit.)

Until a recent visit to the Moma's Bauhaus exhibit, I wasn't aware how influential that movement was (and the importance of the word "diaspora"). Apparently I'm a child of the Bauhaus and we're all brothers and sisters. It was pretty amazing.

Some observations:

>> The commitment, desire and expectation to work across mediums and disciplines. That's a hallmark to what our teams exhibit at work, but wanting to do it and committing to do it as an individual requires another level of curiosity and risk-taking.
>> There's a difference between a studio and a workshop. This made me think about the idea of "craftspeople" and how they may differ from "tradespeople" (see Shop Class as Soulcraft). Guess which side I err towards...
>> The striking similarity of what we have, use and like today with what they were designing then. Great design is self-referential.

My favorite piece was the so-called telephone enamel pieces by László Moholy-Nagy. He didn't build it, he gave the specifications to the builder over the phone:

I'm sure I missed tons of stuff and actually learned one one-thousandth of what there is to learn, so I bought a big ol' book about it to learn more. (Update: a few pages in and man I didn't understand half of it.)

Inevitability: A tell for disruptive innovation opportunities

My colleague Joe just pointed me to this nice article describing one of the big aspects / inner workings of the Visa business model.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/05visa.html

We do a lot of work in this space and there's lots of room for innovation and designing for users. I was struck by the sentiment in the article that interchange is a God-given right. Hmmm... maybe...

Certainly banks and the associations have real expenses and there is a value they are providing. They should absolutely have a right to capture and compete for that value.

Yet the idea that this situation is inevitable could be a dangerous one to hold onto too dearly within these companies. There are lots of smaller players out there that would gladly halve those fees and take a percentage of the now smaller amount. It's a good message to broadcast to keep competitors at bay and vendors placated...

There are some firms trying to do it, but that are having trouble competing effectively quite yet. The barriers and scale benefits are still difficult for these entrants to overcome. But some big folks, Google among them, are playing with payments.

Where else is there an "inevitable system constraint" in this industry or any industry?

It could point us to other disruption opportunities.

Define: Idea Blindness

(Photo courtesy of Giancarlo D'Allesandro's Flickr stream and Creative Commons.)

Sometimes we hold onto an idea just a little too tightly. Sometimes we encounter somebody holding on a bit too tightly.

You know the situation. No matter what is said or suggested, it always comes back to the same concept, the same meme, the same position.

The concept is a black hole possessed of such gravitational might that it bends light and twists words. It's not that we're ignoring other ideas or people, it's just that we can neither see those ideas nor hear those people. We're idea blind.

Sometimes we cling to the idea because we couldn't possibly have been wrong all this time. Our commitment, as the psychologists say, has escalated. Sometimes it feels like this idea is all we've got.

But to others, those that might feel otherwise or be talking about something altogether different, it's like living with a parakeet that only knows one phrase.

I wonder what it would be like to force ourselves to let our pet idea (or parakeet) go for one solitary day? To convince ourselves that we were wrong all along.

Have no fear, I'm betting that we won't lose much in one day. And if the idea is good enough, it'll actually be stronger in the morning.

To get it right, be interested in being wrong

Mrs. F was my first grade teacher. She was wonderful. At the start of first grade, she handed out those big, thick pencils - the ones without erasers. I asked Mrs. F why our pencils didn't have erasers. She said, "so you'll take your time and do things right the first time." Though I love her still, I think Mrs. F had the right pencils but the wrong message.

To do new things - things that are delightfully better and fundamentally different - you have to be really, really interested in putting things out there and being wrong; making mistakes and loving it.

I meet lots of folks in my work: designers, innovators and business people. It's a rare person that's confident enough to have their ideas critiqued. Even more seldom is the person that seeks feedback on an idea after it has been delivered. If you get it wrong, it sucks. If you got it wrong and it's your only shot, it really sucks. We confuse critique of an idea with a critique of us. I've certainly felt that way.

Great designers and innovators see evaluation moments as learning opportunities. They couple confidence with humility and curiosity. Some really amazing designers certainly possess a "never look back" approach. I think that works really well when what you're doing is closer to art.I don't think it works as well for innovation. I find with practice that it gets easier and easier to be wrong - you hate the sting, but you seek it.

So next time you hear something akin to "that's the worst idea I've heard in a long time." Say "Perfect, when did you know it was awful?"

Congratulations Tim!

Today, Tim's book Change by Design launches. Writing a blog post is hard enough, so I can't imagine writing a book (let alone a book as good as this).

I really enjoyed the whole book. Chapter 10, designing tomorrow today, was my favorite based solely on my love of lists. It's squarely aimed at the knowing-doing gap.

Congratulations Tim!

Intuition, innovation, collaboration and credibility

 

(There's a good idea in there somewhere. Some bokeh courtesy of u07ch's stream on Flickr.)

Intuition is fire for creativity: absolutely necessary yet potentially dangerous when wielded clumsily.

Intuition describes a personal process of connection-making and idea generation that occurs at a subconscious level. In a sense, intuition describes what it's not: a systematic, rational process of analysis. When working alone, a personal process works great. (I always like my own intuition when I'm having some.) In collaborative and interdisciplinary settings, it gets a little stickier. Here are some thoughts I've had about intuition reflecting on collaborating for innovation.

Embrace intuition and make it concrete
Leaders of creativity and innovation should embrace and encourage intuition in their people. If it's not acceptable to have and share intuitive ideas at all points throughout a creative process, then the process is broken. People should be bringing to life unconscious connections informed by their innate sensibilities, outside inspiration and practical experiences. Leaders should encourage and support systematic inspiration-gathering and sketching of all forms.

Honestly discuss
Early in a creative process, when divergence dominates*, intuition is extremely important and sometimes all you really have to get going. But early, intuitive ideas aren't easy to judge as you transition towards convergence. Collaborators get curious about why something is good or the origins of an idea. If you have a nascent idea and can't describe its provenance (because it sprang forth from your subconscious), you could end up having a tough situation on your hands.

At the same time, individuals bring a wealth of experience to life through an idea or in a decision**. These experienced folks might say an idea or decision just "feels right" based on their experience. But if you find yourself saying that, and only that, you're missing an opportunity to share that experience.

Channel intuition
Here are some ideas about how to wield intuition in collaborative and creative organizations:
    ▪    Encourage intuition and lay the foundation for it to occur (promoting, inspiration, sketching and safe, early sharing)
    ▪    Bring intuition to life through "sketching" and concrete design
    ▪    Accept that your intuitive idea might not be the right idea
    ▪    Explore in advance why others might find your idea "good": whether they be a user, a team member or a client
    ▪    Be honest as a team about whether one person's intuition (experience) is more valued, and then be open to ignore that hierarchy if the merits of an idea dictate that you do so
    ▪    Embrace critique
    ▪    Be open to the fact that others will be curious about your intuitive idea's underpinnings
    ▪    Claim and share your experience if you have it; others will learn from it
    ▪    Don't steamroll with "my gut" when you're really talking about your experience
    ▪    Don't use "my gut" to replace "I don't know" when you really just don't know
    ▪    Make it safe to say "I don't know"

*My gut (ha!) says that, in team settings, intuition is more practically valuable for divergence than convergence because of the friction involved in justifying intuitive decision-making. That makes a willingness to detach from an idea during convergence really important as a designer.

**I'm finding it useful to think of two "types" of intuition in individuals: inspired and informed. Sometimes the most experienced individuals, those who might exhibit a high degree of informed intuition, could use a dose of inspiration. Likewise, some of the most inspired individuals would do well to learn from and listen to the experience of others.

Countermeasures vs. Solutions

In the August issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review, there is an article by John Shook describing the A3* report - a lynchpin of the famed Toyota approach to improvement. As a structured, fact-driven and ideally visual way of capturing and sharing a situation, the A3 is really attractive. It's more rational than intuitive, but there's room for intuition in the A3 for the enterprising business designer as well. We've got similar tools that we sometimes use at work.

In one of the callouts in the article, I found a really nice observation by the author that made me stop for a second.

In the A3 report, design responses to challenges are typically framed as "countermeasures" rather than "solutions." Whereas "solution" connotes the "end-all, be-all", countermeasures represent a refinement or evolution to combat a challenge. As Shook points out, countermeasures might introduce new challenges to the system. You'd never expect such rude behavior from a solution.

"Countermeasures" is just a much more honest way to frame design responses. Plus, the word appeals to my irrational attachment to The Hunt for Red October.

*As a paper size, I like A3 (tabloid or 11X17) for worksheets and sketching - especially early in a process. You can see the whole problem, especially if your sketching is as "loose" as my ideas usually are. I find my writing and visualizations get smaller and clearer as I work through the divergence and convergence cycle. Too bad. If I was working more sustainably, I'd flip that.

August: A lost month? Or not?

Do you ever get that feeling of something slipping away, even as you experience it? August was like that for me. I was traveling a lot, working with clients a ton, spending time with design teams and reading as much as I could.

What I didn't do during August was make time for conscious distillation. I was doing some quick synthesis on the fly in conversations with design teams and with clients, but much of my focus was on execution.

Twitter helped me, but it also might have hurt me. I could throw little intuitive thoughts into the void and, at times, dip my head under the faucet for some rapid inspiration. But when I did that, I was also giving myself a free pass from doing some deeper thinking and connection-making.

While in the midst of this period, it felt as if I was alternating between floating in and treading water. But looking back I don't think anything was really lost. I was laying a nice foundation of inspiration and charging my batteries a bit for a busy Fall. In the meantime I stretched my feet out below me, realized I was only in four feet of water, and I've walked onto the shore.

As a jumpstart, I've started giving myself constrained challenges to share some long-simmering thinking.  Regardless of where I am at the end of the day or week, I have to share what I have with an interested party (or sometimes disinterested!). I'm also trying to share some of the inspiration I gleaned over the Summer, an important creative act for me because I like to give my point of view on what I read.

Reflecting on August, I've been reminded that anyone, regardless of where they work and their role, has to balance execution with exploration, reflection with creation, inspiration with action and consumption with creation. The trick seems to be to notice when it's time for a change and then do something about it.

(Really cool map and graphic design idea courtesy of LeSmou Imperator and Flickr.)

Walt Disney: The prototype

If you're interested in the process of creation or are interested in the dynamics of creative companies, I'd recommend reading Neal Gabler's excellent biography Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination.

This book is a biography in all its glory (nearly 900 pages one third of which are end notes, now in softcover). I'm late to the party, but it blew me away. That's where I pulled the William Blake quote from above. So I decided to write a back-to-school inspired book report on it...

Gabler chronicles Walt Disney's life and efforts through early childhood through the conception of Walt Disney Studios/Enterprises on to the birth and early evolution of Disneyland. I was amazed by the influence of Disney animation and animators from that time period, as well as the process innovation and tool creation required to constantly push the state of the art (e.g., the invention of the concept/role of a dedicated sketch artist, product placement on TV, etc.).

Disney didn't really do it alone. He attracted his early acolytes by doing the coolest stuff. His mission was to make the highest quality and most inspiring animation possible. Camaraderie developed as young people pursued these goals and made it up as they went along. Even as the definition of quality and inspiration shifted, people knew Disney Studios was the place to be.

For the formative part of his career, nothing would stand in the way of Walt Disney's vision and personal pursuit of quality. Not people, not money and sometimes not even the tastes of the American public. His comrades became first his hands then merely objects to pursue his goals - often easily disposed of and abused. It seems working at the studio downright sucked at times. Gabler's Disney is moody, singularly-focused, ruthless and a tyrant. If something couldn't be made the right way, his way, Walt Disney would berate or delay or disengage completely. Despite all of this, the productively being on the edge somehow worked.

Over time, Disney's approach to the organization changed as did his role in it. Check out Disney's begrudgingly conceived, process-based organizational chart from 1943 (discussed in the book and sent to me by Colin and discussed in atissue):

First, Disney was everywhere and in everything. Then, he was in the middle. Once this chart was drawn, he found himself at the start with the story. Then, once he was disillusioned with the animation and enthralled with Disneyland, he was nowhere.

There were all kinds of great connections for me in this book, but what really resonated for me is this:

Not only did the development of Walt Disney Studios and Enterprises provide a blueprint, Walt Disney himself was the prototype of creative leadership in all of its gritty, flawed and wonderful glory. We can all be Walt Disney every once in a while.

If you're interested in such things and stuck with me to this point (and want a shorter starting point), I'd also recommend reading the Ed Catmull Pixar piece in HBR and Hugh MacLeod's Ignore Everybody.

Constraints are inspiring: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC

The quicker than expected reorganization / sorting out / emergence of General Motors has been all over the news last night and this morning. I was struck by how clarifying, for me at least, the commitment to a few brands could be.

Once I saw the list, I stopped the internal argument about whether Buick was old, whether Hummers were evil and whether Saturn was really different.

I just told myself, "OK, if I was working there I know what we're working with. Time to start designing, growing and competing."

I don't know if even more constraint would help, but I do like some constraint paired with the idea of working differently as espoused by Fritz Henderson and coupled with clear goals (be best in class).

Delightfully or fundamentally different

How often do you find yourself saying "oh, that's different"?

When we experience something truly new, we notice it. When creating a new customer or business experience, you should design to elicit that feeling of curiosity, interest and wonder in your users and your colleagues. Resist the temptation to round off the edges, especially early in the process, otherwise you might get plain vanilla.

There's real opportunity for companies and teams that do this well. And there's real pain ahead to make it happen, but that pain can pay off.

So how different should things be? When trying to do something revolutionary, I'm looking for things to be fundamentally different. When trying to do something incremental, I want to create experiences that are delightfully different.

So when you're working on a design or innovation challenge, ask yourself whether you've fundamentally or delightfully changed:

The consumer's experience
The competitive dynamics in the market
How you talk about the experience
How something is sold
The ownership model for the user
The moment or mode in which you experience something
The value chain

(Delightfully appropriate photo from macwagen.)

Collaboration > Trust

Collaboration is a huge part of successful design and innovation. I don't need to quote stats or point to case studies to support that claim. Some outcomes come out better with coordinated effort, diverse perspectives and teamwork. Some outcomes and processes don't, but many do.

I don't know if it goes against human nature or where we've evolved to as "business humans," but we have to work at it. Bob Sutton had a post a while ago that suggested that some version of working together was the natural order of things as "human humans."

I was thinking the other day about what collaboration is, and I started to think about what it isn't.

Collaboration isn't...
... oversight.
... delegation.
... divide and conquer.

It's messy. It's hard. It requires lots of respect and taking personal risks on behalf of a greater good (kind of flying in the face of both the "tragedy of the commons" and the theory of self-interested individuals).

Collaborating with people that have talent and vision and conviction isn't easy. Especially if you see yourself that way. I think one of the tricks is to understand, as a leader and as a team member, when and how to collaborate.

Collaboration means with. You have to emphasize clarity of communications and interfaces as much as components or piece parts.
Collaboration means give. You have to give twice as much as what you'd expect to take away.
Collaboration means together. You have to give yourself over to a greater good or shared purpose. Someone might be accountable at the end of the day, so you have to be willing to support that person either explicitly or through agreement of some shared purpose.

Do you have to trust in order to collaborate? I don't think so. I think collaboration breeds trust, not the other way around. In fact, a fixation on trust or respect before collaboration could set you up for a long wait. Sometimes people ask for trust as a prerequisite for collaboration. As in, "we need to trust each other." I think some of that is just lazy collaboration.

So if you want to build trust give productive collaboration a try.

(Image of a well-secured collaboration from Mar00ned's Creative Commons fueled flickr stream.)

Consensus: The insidious limiter of growth

(Appealing, yet somewhat lonely, plain vanilla cupcakes from Euni's Flickr stream.)

What's the role of consensus in design and innovation?

Probably none. If everyone agrees, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.

Experience shows that one way you can tell if a design and innovation effort is working is that it's comfortably uncomfortable. The team should be exploring the edges and pushing towards the new.

If it isn't new, you aren't learning.
If it isn't new, it probably isn't a meaningfully differentiated offering.
If it isn't new, you aren't going to get the attention of a new user.
Since new offerings and new users are how you grow, then you're probably not growing.

When you're at the edges, people are bound to disagree on the right path forward. If everyone on your innovation or design team agrees, you probably aren't pushing hard enough. That's a tough reality and one of the hidden facets of what is usually a team sport.

So, what can you do to help inform your decision? Here are some options.

Observe and interpret what the ultimate user wants: Design research is meant, in part, to uncover explicit and implicit functional, emotional and reflective needs of a user. Getting out into the field to really look deeply and listen faithfully makes the difference.

Test, validate and repeat: Most large scale organizations know this well. Unfortunately, the thing about traditional validation and the use of benchmarks is that they are actually a form of consensus (albeit with folks or a standard that isn't even in the room).

Design for "yourself": There's a school of thought that says you can and should design for yourself. Steve Portigal has an article (the first in a series I believe) in Interactions magazine that discusses this point of view. I think this usually doesn't work for most large-scale companies (with notable exceptions of course) because most of their people are not the user.

Show the user: Build a prototype and show it to someone. Anyone. Projective methods, a type of design research, puts a question in front of someone to let them react. Let your users' reactions influence you (not necessarily guide you), refine what you're making and helping to craft how you'll tell the story of what you're making.

Build it, see what sticks and learn from it: The less the experiment costs, the better. Build a discovery-driven plan and you'll know what to learn.