Tag Archive for 'design'

The Glories of Design Thinking for Everyone

Published on June 4, 2010 in design. 1 Comment Tags: books, design, designer, IDEO, recycling, Target, TED, Tim Brown, video game.

Good design is life-affirming. It makes us feel like someone cared enough to make something that we will enjoy. The deliberate beauty inherent in good design is proof that existence is not all chaos and suffering, so hooray for that.

BMW Museum, headquarters

Photo credit: flickr.com/max78

One of my favorite design companies is IDEO. The company was founded by David Kelley, because as he told Fast Company, “I had an intuition I couldn’t survive corporate America. I hated the hierarchy and just wanted to work with my friends.” What’s not to love about that?

The current CEO for IDEO is Tim Brown. In an earlier post, I looked at his ideas about playfulness. This time I want to focus on another TED Talk he gave. It’s here below:

[ted id=646]

Most striking to me is his challenge to wrestle design away from the “priesthood” of designers and give it back to everyone. Mr. Brown explains that you don’t have to study design for years to use its principles. Just think about how someone else will use a particular product or service and adjust accordingly. When other people start smiling while experiencing what you do, then you’ll know you’re on the right track.

This got me thinking about the kinds of everyday things that are well designed. Here are a few examples: If you’re buying furniture at Target you’ll notice that all the display items have an easy-to-see red circle with a number. To ensure the furniture you buy is the same as the one you saw on the display, all you have to do is match the circles and the numbers.

Simple, but a lot of stores don’t do that, and that means there’s more of a chance that someone will buy the wrong item.

Photo credit: flickr.com/bhamsandwich

The recycling program here in Chesapeake provides a blue recycling bin that is the same size as the city’s trash cans. The lid on the recycling bin features colored pictures and words that illustrate what can and cannot be recycled. It is now so convenient to recycle that someone would have to exert more mental effort to avoid doing so.

Suppose, though, that the bin wasn’t the same size as the trash can and it had no picture. Then, I might notice that the recycling box is already full and out of reach. Suppose too that I wasn’t sure about whether the bottle I was holding could be recycled. Instead of taking the time to Google it, I would just throw the bottle in the trash. The thoughtful design of the city’s recycling bin undermines that possibility.

These days when I play a new video game, I first like to try it without reading instructions. It’s not just because I’m a guy who avoid instructions on principle to demonstrate manliness. Rather, I want to notice the kinds of clues that the developers added to aid my progress, and besides the better designed games render the manuals redundant.

In those kinds of games, not only do you learn where to start, but you also get contextual hints if you linger too long in one spot, and should you run into trouble too soon, healing potions appear. That way you won’t get too discouraged before you’ve had a chance to get immersed in the game. Wouldn’t it be great if consumer electronics like cameras or WiFi routers did similar things?

Photo credit: flickr.com/adobemac

In regards to books, when I see a chapter that approaches a hundred pages, I think to myself, “oh man, how will I finish this? Not too long thereafter I end up doing something else. (Perhaps you, my noble reader, can relate. I don’t write the shortest of posts, I know, but I’m working on it. Until then, maybe you can just look at the pictures and nod solemnly a few times as you pretend to read.)

In comparison, Stephen King generally keeps his chapters short. It’s the literary way of saying, “come on fella. You can do it. Just a few more pages and you’ll finish off another chapter.” This is not to say that Mr. King’s books are hard to read. He knows how to keep his audience engaged, so the pages basically turn themselves.

The Right of the Road - Fredric Remington, 1900

A few more examples: A masterful painter adjusts his composition so that the vanishing points, sight lines, and areas of contrast guide your eyes to the important parts. Or, think about all the Westerns you’ve seen. When the bad guys wear mostly black and the good guys wear mostly white, isn’t it easier to tell what’s happening in a big gunfight or bar brawl? Without color clues to distinguish the warring factions, action scenes sometimes devolve into noisy confusion.

But, you don’t have to be a movie maker to bring design thinking into your world. If you turn off your wipers when going through the tolls then you’re designing a better experience for the attendant who won’t get splashed with water. If you write company policies in readable English, then you might actually get employees to read them without resorting to threats.

Photo credit: flickr.com/bhamsandwich

Do you have any additional suggestions about how others could design a better experience for you at work or at play? If so, please share them.

Should you, for some freak reason, want to design a better experience for me in regards to this blog, then you could leave comments or share your gratitude if you appreciate my writing. I’m not doing this for a paycheck, so it keeps me motivated when I know that I’m doing something others value and find helpful. Also, if you happen to be planning your will in the near future, I could use a foundation of some kind because, you know, that does look nice on the ole resume.

There’s another way you can help. One of the things I do when I’m not writing or sharing meals with the stars—and by stars I mean the illustrious ones in the sky— is technical support for Canon.

On behalf of the world’s technical support representatives, let me humbly ask you to graciously AVOID WRITING IN ALL CAPS. It is not enjoyable to read. We want to help you. Help us help you.

One more thing, and this is more of a personal issue, so take it with a grain of salt, or spice it up with a dash of pepper, if you prefer. Here goes: when you say ASAP, you might think that you are communicating your cleverness and efficiency by saving the 2.3 seconds that it would take to say something more personable like “as soon as you can.” Unfortunately that is not the case.

Furthermore, you might also believe that by writing ASAP repeatedly and then underlining it and highlighting it and maybe even putting glitter on it, you are bumping your inquiry to the front of the ASAP queue. This too is a tragic inaccuracy.

Just be honest about your situation and treat people with respect, and you’ll get much better results most of the time.

Photo credit: flickr.com/austinevan

In closing, we can all show others that we care through the things we design, even if we’re not professional designers. It’s just a matter of doing unto others as you’d have them do unto you and doing so in an elegant way.

Walt Disney, the Illusion of Life, & Being Less Corporate

Published on May 6, 2009 in design and storytelling. 3 Comments Tags: animation, business, design, Disney, lawyers, love, speech, writing.

Walt Disney films are largely responsible for my interest in making movies. I’m not afraid to admit that. I couldn’t say that in college. I was too preoccupied with what my classmates and professors thought of me. Back then I was more likely to talk about Citizen Kane and Stanley Kubrick films. Those are masterfully crafted movies, sure, but they had practically zero influence on my aspirations. Not so with Walt Disney’s creations, but in my effort to matter to the world I had forgotten that.

It’s taken me a while, but I have slowly returned to the things that I loved for their own sake and not based on what other people said. Reading The Illusion of Life, a marvellous book about the story of Disney animation lovingly told by two early Disney animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, helped me to restore my unashamed enthusiasm for many of the Disney animated films I grew up with as a kid.

book_the_illusion_of_life

The first film I remember seeing in the theater was Snow White. Pinocchio was the first film that compelled me to stay up late and ponder its mysteries, in this case I was trying to figure out what it would feel like to get transformed into a jackass. (A few years later, I would understand the jackass thing all too well, unfortunately. I’m working on getting things right these days, but it’s a process.)

During the holidays, going to a Walt Disney film became a tradition for my family. It was a time when we’d stop fighting with each other and informally agree to be temporarily harmonious. It was a nice time. But moving on, my interest in computer animation too was colored by my exposure to the Pixar films that Disney distributed.

Not everyone in my world had a similar admiration of Walt Disney. My college professors carefully avoided any reference to Disney’s influence on cinema history, although the man pioneered new techniques for working with sound and color and had won twenty-six Oscars before he died. (For all you film kids doing the math at home, that’s a few more than the nine Oscars that Stanley Kubrick’s films won.) It is also worth pointing out that while Hollywood was still years away from conceiving of the effects film, Walt Disney gave the world Snow White, the first movie in which every single frame featured a created effect.

One of the books I had to read in college was Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard. He wrote several long and loveless paragraphs about how Disneyland was the ultimate example of our false and simulated existence.

Baudrillard’s book was a joyless thing, perfumed with important-sounding philosophical concepts. I don’t remember much from the book beyond an impression that Baudrillard wanted to convince me that he was smart and very well read, and that his work anticipated the Matrix films (films that I enjoy much more than Baudrillard’s book).

For comparison, let’s look at how The Illusion of Life discusses Disney’s accomplishments. In the book, Walt is quoted as saying “I am interested in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter, to others, rather than being concerned with expressing myself with obscure creative impressions.” Did you notice the emphasis on serving others in that quote?

That’s a lesson that the book’s writers, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, absorbed well. Consider their advice to aspiring entertainers: “The ancient counsel ‘Know thyself’ is full of wisdom, but, for the entertainer, it is possibly just as wise to suggest, ‘Know your audience.’

photo from flickr.com/expressmonorail

What a contrast with Baudrillard’s style that is. Disney’s work has brought a sense of joy and wonder to millions of people around the world. Jean Baudrillard has filled the minds of philosophy students with intellectual contempt and a sense of superiority over the uninformed.

I know that the Walt Disney Company is a very powerful multi-national corporation, and I don’t celebrate everything that the company does, but I’m talking about the man who started it all, the man who lived up to his well-known quote: “We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.” I tend to root for the philosophers, but in this case Baudrillard comes off as the more banal and corporate one.

To delight in a thing for the sake of the thing itself and not for the potential profit it brings is an essential aspect of being less corporate. If you can’t tell that the writers of The Illusion of Life created the book out of a deep, delighted love for animation and for Walt Disney, then you probably can’t recognize love when you see it. There’s the cover that transitions gracefully from black and white to color, the textured yellow paper that greets you when you open the book, the full-page color stills that appear in the first few pages, and the playful, yet thorough, prose.

All of these things are clues that this is a book that cares very much about getting the details right. The book has 489 colored prints, thousands of black-and-white drawings, and it was printed in Italy; that’s definitely not the way to produce a book if you care only about maximizing your profits and keeping costs low.

On top of that, there are several flip-book sequences on the top-right corners of the pages that beg for your attention. I would have still bought the book without that feature, a feature that must have taken a bit of time to sync up, but how magnificent to discover one more extra that Frank and Ollie threw in for us.

photo from flickr.com/expressmonorail

The animator-writers of the book speak fondly of Walt most of the time, and they dedicated the book to him, so obviously they liked the guy. But, they don’t give him the idealized hero treatment that I’ve seen the Walt Disney Company do on occasion. Instead, the writers give us examples of when Walt was abrasive, difficult to please, and even wounding.

Look at how they critique a bonus system that Walt tried at one point: “The bonus system did not produce better pictures or even good ones. Few regulations do. Efficiency is better built through dedication rather than speed for its sake.” How refreshing that they were not afraid to discuss the strengths and the weaknesses of their boss and the man they admired.

Since Frank and Ollie are honest about Disney’s flaws, we are more likely to believe them when they sing Disney’s praises, and sing they do. They talk about Walt’s incessant curiosity and his high standards.

Walt Disney didn’t fall into the corporate trap of resisting change merely to do things like they’ve always been done, and his drive to innovate wasn’t limited to technology. For example, he didn’t hesitate to hire women for his ink and paint department, even though it was accepted knowledge at the time that only men could do the job effectively.

Nor was Disney afraid of failure. Apparently, he wanted to be a live-action director when he first came to California, but that didn’t work out so well. Instead of giving up, Disney returned to animation and worked hard to produce Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons.

But, thanks to strong-arm negotiation tactics by Charles Mintz, a producer working for Universal, Disney was soon locked out of the very cartoon he helped to create. On top of that, most of his workforce was signed away from him. Disney had every reason to get bitter, but instead he stayed focused and created a character known as Mickey Mouse.

photo from flickr.com/expressmonorail

Frank and Ollie also talk about the spirit of cooperation that Disney encouraged. Everyone was expected to share knowledge and to help those who were struggling on a concept. They quote Disney as saying, “Everyone has to contribute or they become laborers,” and they give a few examples of Walt’s determination to find the right job that best suited the strengths of his people. The assumptions that everyone matters and that everyone has distinct skills are seemingly obvious, but they are still ignored in more corporate environments.

Since Disney animators helped to define the craft of animation, Frank and Ollie could have thrown around corporate phrases like “proprietary information” and “intellectual property” when discussing their animation processes. Instead, out of a desire to see their beloved field of animation advance, they broke down their technique into twelve distinct principles that are thoroughly illustrated with one example after another. Those twelve principles are now the cornerstones of all the animation training programs that I’ve seen.

By giving information away and trying to be helpful, Frank and Ollie earned for Disney the loyalty of thousands of animation students who succeeded by studying their work. Too bad more companies aren’t as generous with their resources these days, since their businesses could benefit greatly if they did. It’s the curse of the all too-powerful legal departments and of the frivolous lawsuits that make such departments necessary, I suspect.

While discussing the craft of animation Frank and Ollie write, “The animator should be as surprised as anyone at the way it comes out.” Exactly right, but that should be true for any work that isn’t corporate in nature.

You can do all the planning in the world, but you’ll never know all the conditions and the particulars that might come up until you dive into the thing. When you react to changes in the moment, your work has vitality. Otherwise it is a representation of a preconceived idea that grown distant from reality.

Think of the last corporate event you attended. Were you surprised at all when the wacky speaker made lame, self-aggrandizing jokes and then talked about how the numbers for that quarter were great news for the company, regardless of what the numbers actually looked like? That kind of speech is bad because it stays the same regardless of what happens in the world or with the audience.

Anything with vitality, whether a service, product, or person, has to be surprising at least in some sense, by definition. Otherwise, let us call the thing in question dead or corporate.

photo from flickr.com/expressmonorail

I will end with two more quotes from the book. ”Our true personalities are best revealed by our reactions to change we did not expect.” Not bad insight from men who make cartoons, don’t you think?

Toward the end of the book, Frank and Ollie throw in a quote from William Faulkner. Faulker explains that it is a writer’s “privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.” At that point, Frank and Ollie add that “even the cartoon can try for such ideals.”

If animators aim for such lofty ideals, maybe it’s not asking too much for you to reconsider the merit of animation in general and Walt Disney in particular. Or, you could go back to reading Pretentious Quarterly and producing and endorsing things that bring more despair and decadence into the world, but don’t expect me to applaud you for that. I’ll be too busy celebrating the things that make me smile and keep me hopeful.

What Canon ITS Teaches Us about Being Less Corporate

Published on March 22, 2009 in business. 1 Comment Tags: advertising, business, Canon, design, photography, writing.

Whether you like it or not, your day job, the things you do to pay the bills, is a big part of who we are. This is not to say that our work defines us. Quite the contrary in most cases. We aren’t all fortunate enough to get paid doing what best represents our interests and passions. And yet, work lets us show the world what we’re like when faced with challenges and with things that we wouldn’t normally do.

Retrophone - from flickr.com/l-ines

During the day, I work for Canon ITS providing phone support to our customers who own digital SLR equipment. Sometimes I also provide email support for customers who have our camcorders and compact digital cameras.

This is not something I was quick to admit when I first started working for Canon. You see, I studied to become a creative type in college, and tech support is not the kind of work I had in mind. But my thoughts on the subject have changed over time. Even though I don’t want to work at Canon for the rest of my life, I now believe that I’ve been fortunate and blessed to have the job I do.

I’ve learned a lot at Canon, not just about technology but about the value of being focused on serving others. My interest in design and in improving other people’s user experiences have grown from the service mentality that was instilled in me with Canon.

Writing this post has been in the back of my mind for a while now, but I’ve resisted it. (That’s one reason why it’s been a while since my last post.) I was worried that I’d write Styrofoam-like cheerleader prose where I celebrate everything my employer does for the sake of preserving and advancing my career. And yet, I write about how to make the world less corporate, and there many things that Canon ITS does that aren’t corporate and worth celebrating. The question was whether I could write about those things in a way that would be both helpful and honest. I guess we’ll find out.

So what’s not corporate about Canon’s tech support? For one thing, I don’t get pressured to end my calls within a certain number of minutes. I can spend as much time as necessary to resolve an issue without worrying about getting reprimanded by my supervisors. Of course, I try to get things resolved as fast as possible, but I don’t have an incentive to end the call prematurely.

Solving problems for others or helping them choose a lens that’s appropriate for their needs is generally an enjoyable thing. There are always going to be a few jerks who aren’t as rewarding to assist, but they are in the minority. If no one is waiting in the queue, I will take time to explain more details about our equipment that I think the caller might appreciate. Not only does this allow me to be potentially more helpful, but it also makes my job far more enjoyable.

Here’s another remarkable thing: Canon works very hard to ensure that most calls coming in are answered in less than a minute. Sometimes the wait time is longer, especially if you call the day after Christmas with a 14-part question, you lovable Canon enthusiasts you! But, the point is that complicated scheduling and staffing matters are handled by Canon behind the scenes, so that you can have a better, less stressful support experience. Camera support is free for the life of the camera at Canon, so someone in management could have easily decided to provide bare-bones service to our customers, making short-term profit statistics look better. But we chose to offer not merely functional but excellent service, a desirable quality from a business perspective but harder to measure in terms of profitability.

It’s been over three years, and I’m still with Canon. Initially, I was only planning to stay for a year. The people at Canon are a big part of the reason why I haven’t left. Canon has allowed and encouraged the EOS camera department to develop into a cohesive group. We know each other well enough to joke around when we aren’t too busy. That helps the job from getting too stressful, but it also helps us learn what areas of expertise each person has.

This is so much less corporate than a hierarchical approach that requires you to go to your superiors for every bit of unknown information. Just because someone is higher ranked than you doesn’t mean he or she will know more about the particulars of Wi-Fi networking, or video editing, or lighting, or anything really.

My supervisors have also been exceptional. They’ve been personable and ready to manage me as an individual with unique strengths and weaknesses. I was never handled like just another faceless number. When I made my first mistake in the early months when I was hired, I was expecting to get yelled at. Instead my supervisor calmly told me that I had to call back the customer and explain the situation. Not only was I allowed to make a mistake, but I was given the chance to learn from it and then correct it. If my supervisor hadn’t allowed me to fail with dignity, I would have been too hesitant to try things that have led to my current level position.

Brian, one of the senior support managers at Canon ITS has taken time out of his busy schedule to hear my concerns on more than one occasion, and he went out of his way to provide invaluable assistance with a side-project I was developing. That one thoughtful gesture had more of an impact on me than the thousands of dollars that Canon spends on employee benefits.

When my father died, Canon sent flowers for the funeral. The Contact Center Director at Canon ITS, Doris, even stopped by my desk to share some sincere, comforting words. She offered to do anything she could to help. (Most of my indie-rocker friends who are contemptuous of businesses in general never even called to see how I was doing. Does this explain my tendency to mock hipsterista indie-rockers whenever possible? Perhaps.) If Canon had a mentality of only doing things that directly impact profitability, then I wouldn’t have these stories to tell.

"Listen up - in red" from flickr.com/davidtrindade

Some days, it is true, I find that I am overwhelmed by my job, so much so that it is hard for me to be myself. This is more of a reflection of who I am than what my job is like. A whole and harmonious person can find a state of grace no matter what he is doing, while radiating himself in a good and elegant way. I am not that person, not yet. Sometimes the banal, bewildering moments of the day trick me into believing that I don’t matter, that the divine spark God put in all of us isn’t there.

You see, every now and then, my job involves dealing with an angry customer who gets abrasive, and even insulting, because his equipment isn’t working the way he wants. To some extent, I can understand those strong sentiments; many of the photographers we serve have trusted Canon with their entire livelihoods. That’s a big responsibility. But if I don’t make an extra effort or if I don’t already have a healthy level of respect for myself that goes beyond my work, then I can let their frustrations get to me.

When I define my job as one that involves listening to others complain about their problems, it becomes very difficult for me to be engaged by my work. But, at some point, I realized that I didn’t have to think about it that way. I could instead see my work as a chance to help others appreciate photography in the way that I do, to help them take better pictures, and to make their days a little better with friendly, useful information that solves problems. Just a simple change in how I thought about something, in this case my job, made the world seem far less corporate.

I’m not saying that everything Canon ITS does is perfect or uncorporate. By my cubicle, a big poster of a bar graph (we’re talking larger than life) with some meaningless abbreviations reminds me of this. I have wondered about this poster and its intended function for many, many days. It hasn’t helped me remember any new information, even though it has been up for several months, and it doesn’t inspire me to work harder. It certainly does not add aesthetic appeal to my environment.

I suspect that the people who commissioned it are people who look at numbers every day. When the numbers go up, they get a sense of euphoria at a job well done. To them, perhaps, a bar graph that goes up and up has wonderfully positive associations, and they wanted to share that feeling with others. An admirable sentiment, is it not? Even so, my supervisors would never convince me to work harder by calling my attention to the remarkably large bar graph on the wall.

Let us suppose, though, that the poster represented something I did care about that was also relevant to my job. For example, what if it was a poster of some Canon photographers that I admired like Thomas Hawk or Vincent Laforet, and my supervisor asked me to work overtime to help provide better service to guys like them. That could very well convince me to give more effort or time than I originally planned.

If you look at Canon’s advertising, it becomes very clear that our marketing department understands the value of tailoring a message to the interests of a particular audience. In National Geographic we run beautifully photographed ads that feature exotic animals with text about their unique qualities and our efforts to preserve them. In business magazines like Forbes we run advertisements that discuss Canon’s innovative capacities as a global business leader. In Entertainment Weekly and on popular television shows we run fun, light-hearted ads with the lovely tennis star, Anna Kournikova. Wouldn’t it make sense to also tailor internal company marketing efforts based on what would be of interest to the employees? Our polished, informative, and well-produced internal company magazine, Imagine, is an encouraging step in the right direction, but we could do more.

I spend enough time in this blog talking about my own struggles and about the things I need to do better: being transparent is a good way to motivate change, and the world has too many people who are ready to tell you how unconditionally awesome they are at any given hour. So, I don’t think it’s inappropriate for me to comment in a respectful manner about how others, even my employer, can improve what they do. I would not have written this if I did not have an overall admiration for Canon, but I also would not have written this if I felt compelled to write only positive things. I know there are risks that come with that kind of mentality, but writing honestly is more important to me than job security.

from flickr.com/tomooka

It is only recently that I’ve gotten to the place where I can acknowledge that working at Canon plays a big part in who I’m becoming, more so than the creative freelance projects I do on the side. My work at Canon doesn’t define me, but what I learn from the experience and how I react to the work, toward both the friendly and frustrating moments that come, will shape the person I someday become. A bad employer can leave someone more broken when his employment ends, but when I leave Canon I think there’s at least a good chance that I’ll be a stronger, more vibrant individual than when I started working there. For that, I am sincerely grateful: Thank you Canon for helping to make the world less corporate.

Six TED-Talk-powered Tips for Making the World Less Corporate

Published on February 21, 2009 in business and design. 2 Comments Tags: Barry Schwartz, business, design, education, honesty, jazz, TED.

Photo from ramon_perez_terrassa on Flickr

“Too many rules prevent accomplished jazz musicians from improvising, and as a result they lose their gifts, or worse, they stop playing altogether.” That’s a quote from Barry Schwartz’s fantastic speech on our society’s loss of wisdom. (It was a speech given at this year’s TED conference, and I highly recommend watching it.)

It’s sad isn’t it, when our jazz musicians, athletes, unique thinkers, visionary entrepreneurs, volunteers, and all the others who strive to bring more meaning into the world experience something that causes them to forever stop doing what they do. Too often the villain responsible is a corporate one, a thing that could have been avoided with a thinking mind and a working heart.

The death blow doesn’t always come from the heavy artillery. Sometimes all it takes is a phone call. Please allow me a personal story: it’s why I had to write this post. With just one five-minute phone call, a producer that I’ve been in contact with for over seven months almost shattered my inclination to ever create again. He did this not by denying the merit of my project, something that I’ve been working on for the past few years of my life, but by telling me that after 7 months he hadn’t gotten to read it yet because his time was very valuable.

Old Poorhouse Woman with a Glass Bottle - Paula Modersohn-Becker

I sent him 11 pages to consider, and yes folks, that’s 11 pages and not 110. Before I did that I saw his shows and read his book to better understand him and to determine whether my project could possibly be relevant to him. I thought it could be, but I assured him that I would not call or email him again if he gave me a definitive no. A “no” he would not give me, but a declaration about the value of his time, he freely shared.

I shut down as a person for almost a week because of that. I got little done, and I wasn’t the easiest to be around. Because of him, I thought seriously about just settling for a life of doing corporate work and spending money to buy more comforts and pleasures. Thank God, I no longer feel that way.

I’m not writing this to lash out at him in public. That’s not my style. I prefer to settle my disputes with someone person to person, and as God is my witness, he will know what I think of his actions, and I will get a definitive yes or no from him, or I will die trying.

My point is that sometimes even seemingly small, thoughtless moments can perpetuate a more corporate world. The producer in question is not altogether bad man. He is in many ways, I’m sure, more decent than I am, but he almost convinced me to give up entirely on pursuing any kind of creative expression, the very stuff that gives my life the strongest sense of purpose, harmony, and hope. Put differently it’s part of the least corporate elements in my life.

I recognize the very real possibility that I have done or could do to someone else what he almost did to me. This list, inspired by Barry Schwartz’ lecture, is my way of fighting that possibility:

1. Take strong positions.

If you’re not interested in a project, why tie up someone’s time by being ambiguous? By saying an honest no, you make it easier for someone to turn his attention to more rewarding possibilities. Certainly, it can be uncomfortable to say no and face the disappointment or frustration of another person, and besides, staying undecided for as long as possible is convenient. Unfortunately, with your ambiguities and your delays on a decision, you add your own home-made resistance to someone else”s dreams, and dreams are hard enough to bring to life without your half-hearted opposition.

Barry Schwartz isn’t vague about what he accepts and what he doesn’t. That’s one reason why he’s compelling. Corporate speakers, though, are too concerned about saying the wrong things, so they hedge. To prevent you from realizing this, they distract with mesmerizingly awful PowerPoint animations. No one enjoys hearing those people speak, but everyone claps out of habit.

Speaking of PowerPoint presentations, you’ll notice that the slides Mr. Schwartz uses have an elegant, minimalistic design. The ideas are strong enough on their own so that cutesy, animated gifs aren’t needed to hold the audience’s interest. (To read more about the thinking behind the slides for the presentation, check out this helpful lessons-from-TED post from slide:ology.) If your presentation isn’t compelling enough, maybe you should spend more time tweaking your ideas and not your clip art.

2. Avoid meaningless clutter.

I am amazed by how many companies choose to use hold recordings that go something like this, “Thanks for calling. Your call is very important to us. It will be answered in the order in which it was received.” This is something any company can say. Is your company just like any other company or does it have something special to share with the world? Your advertising says that you are special, so why let your phone messages or your internal training videos, or your memos argue otherwise?

As if the above phone message isn’t bland enough, too many companies opt to have the message repeat every 45 seconds or so. Right when I am getting comfortable enough to start daydreaming about new possibilities, I get interrupted with generic words from a generic voice. That’s sort of like throwing balls of Styrofoam at patrons right when they’re bringing a spoon of hot, savory soup to their mouth. That kind of thing robs me of my appreciation for the moment, a moment that could have begotten good and useful things.

Why waste words to apologize for the inconvenience when it really isn’t an inconvenience? Asking me to use a different grocery-store isle because the one in front of me is closed is not an inconvenience. It is a reasonable situation that common sense illuminates. Using plastic phrases on me rarely makes me feel better, and clunky legalistic prose doesn’t encourage me to spend more money. When I discover it in stuff I’ve already purchased, I have fewer reasons to smile about the product in question.

As Mr. Schwartz suggests, there’s no reason for teachers to read the lesson from a script. That insults the competent teachers and bores the kids. If the teachers aren’t able to come up with their own coherent lesson plans that address relevant topics, then they should be doing different work. Making things easy for incompetent people to be mediocre has the unfortunate consequence of making the world more corporate at an exponential rate.

3. Incubate possibilities.

Both babies and new ventures cannot survive on their own without support from others. The call that you don’t return could be the one that seduces someone to give up on something that would have changed the world. One of my goals is to return a call or email that asks for a response within 2 days. I’m pretty good at doing that most of the time. If I can do it, why can’t you? Why risk the chance of demoralizing someone when returning a personable call usually takes just five minutes or less?

Barry Schartz warns us that if people have to swim against the current for too long, they’ll give up. Some ideas don’t have enough merit to justify their survival, but others do. It’s tragic when the good ones get strangled by the organizational resistance that attack with bureaucracy and mindless adherence to policy.

4. Avoid unnecessary rules.

To quote Mr. Schwartz again, ”Moral skill is chipped away by an over-reliance on rules that deprives us of the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations, and moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing.” The more rules you make the more you encourage the rise of corparate drones who merely follow policy and don’t think or interact with the particulars at hand. Those kinds of workers can be crafted into docile automatons, but they won’t be very good at generating innovation and adapting to change.

5. Don’t be cynical.

Everyone has their shortcomings, but we sell people short when we search for base motives behind every deed. Treating others with weary suspicion even when they do good makes it harder for that person to continue doing good. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, maybe even guiltier than most; I face an on-going battle against encroaching cynicism, and I don’t always win.

When you’ve been hurt, it is a challenge not to project those past experiences of cruelty and selfishness onto other people in the present. But, if you keep treating an organization or a contact with enough cynicism, eventually they’ll ignore you or live up to your expectations. Neither party benefits from that, so that’s reason enough to keep a vigilant guard against corrosive cynicism.

Follow Mr. Schwartz’s advice: “celebrate moral exemplars.” Dare to praise others not just for their technical capacities but for the nobility of their actions. You may risk looking unsophisticated, naive, and unhip, but do it anyway. Virtue matters enough to justify the risk.

6. Be honest.

Well-intentioned buisness people are, on ocassion, hesitant to speak the truth out of fear for the market’s reaction or their jobs. On a personal level, people are hesitant to tell the truth out a fear of rejection or of the consequences that come with the truth. These are not petty matters to be easily dismissed.

Sometimes being honest will cost you in the short term, but it comes with long-term freedom, freedom to be yourself and to make decisions based on what can help you or your organization grow. In the end, honesty always prevails, but you won’t believe that unless you accept a metaphysical reality greater than the perceivable material, and often very corporate, world around you.

If your worldview does not allow for a God or a universe that ultimately rewards character over profitability, then there is a very real danger that you will end up as another corporate denizen who will do anything to stay on top, perhaps you’ll even apologize for the inconvenience as you uppercut me with your meaningless clutter. Anything to stay ahead, right?

Photo from flickr.com/rickz

Here’s me being honest: I had decided against writing this post, until I came across Barry Schwartz’s speach. The beauty of his ideas helped snap me out of my own private hell, long enough to write this. Whether this post will be helpful to anyone, I don’t know, but writing it was helpful to me. Before watching Mr. Schwartz’s speach, my plan for the weekend was to spend much of it drinking one beer after another at a local bar. By being less corporate, Mr. Schwartz helped me to do the same.

You can do likewise, if you’re so inclined. Somewhere in the world a jazz musician will thank you.

If this article has been valuable to you, consider adding a comment or sharing this with a friend.

Business and Design Lessons From Malcolm Gladwell

Published on January 21, 2009 in business and design. 1 Comment Tags: acting, artists, design, designer, indie-rock, Malcolm Gladwell.

If you wish to carve out a corporate existence for yourself, you will probably avoid showing others a new way of seeing something. Doing that is risky, unproven in profitability, and more conflict-prone than the old tried-and-true methods approved by the powerful and the influential. Corporate fellows avoid the above-mentioned adjectives in the same way that unrepentant alcoholics avoid AA. (This applies even to the indie-rock scene kids who slavishly follow the fashion dictates of their hipster overlords in the name of assimilated nonconformity.) Malcolm Gladwell is not one of those fellows.

Les Saltimbanques at the Races - Picasso

In his book Outliers, he challenges the idea that someone’s success is determined almost exclusively by his or her own efforts. Mr. Gladwell still argues that individual effort matters: he insists that successful people need about 10,000 hours of practice to become masters of their craft. Still, the book spends more time discussing the role society plays in encouraging and nurturing the success of outliers, the superstars in their fields who are exponentially mre skilled than their colleagues. That kind of non-conventional thinking makes the book worth reading, but I want to focus on a specific quote from the book that hasn’t been as widely discussed.

Here’s the quote: “Autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward are the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.” If there is a better way to describe an uncorporate job, then I haven’t heard it. As it happens, it’s also a helpful framework for discussing great design.

Few things deaden my enthusiasm for a job more than an employer who tells me exactly how to do my work. Yes, every business and design assignment has its standards and protocols. Nothing wrong with that, but why insist on making me or my coworkers read from a script or do things exactly like you do? Machines need to be micromanaged, competent people don’t. Instead, why not tell us what results you want, give us some flexibility in pursuing those results, and reward those of us who best achieve those results?

One of my worst experiences on a design job involved a client who wanted to tell me exactly what elements I should use for a poster and where they should go. I don’t mind that kind of thing if a client has design instincts that are as good, if not better, than my own, but that was not the case with him. He relished the clip-art aesthetic. I’ve had enough of those experiences that I now reserve the right to refuse to do work that I find ineffective in conception. The customer is not always right, and life is too short to do ugly design.

Designers, artists, and employees in general have their own unique perspectives and abilities that they desperately want to share with you. Why not seek to discover and use those abilities to your advantage, so that you can accomplish whatever specific tasks need to be done? You’ll get more interesting and more valuable results while keeping your employees more engaged. I understand there this a place for procedure. Deviating from it can involve some experimentation, and not all experiments succeed. Still, the potential for discovering a friendlier, more appealing, more efficient, more profitable way of doing things, seems to be worth the risk, don’t you think? Not convinced? Well, which would you rather have in your house: a Picasso painting or a generic photograph with a caption about corporate excellence?

Maxalot - Joshua Davis

Take a look at the above design by Joshua Davis. This kind of visual complexity is something in which he specializes. Maybe you’ve seen some of the ads he’s done for companies like Motorola? (If you like his style, you can see more of his work at joshuadavis.com.) In any case, is there not something compelling about this kind of complexity? We are inclined to look for patterns in the complex, to discover a sense of order and harmony that transcends the chaos in our world and gives it meaning. Too much complexity is an overwhelming, frustrating experience, but without enough of the stuff, we lose interest and don’t stay fully engaged. No wonder Mr. Gladwell sees it as an essential ingredient in fulfilling work.

You could also say the same thing about a good design, which is after all, a pleasing arrangement of complex elements that serve functional or aesthetic purposes. Too simple a design conveys half-hearted apathy. On the other hand, if you add too much complexity, then you produce something that interferes with its own functionality. To pull off this balancing act with elegance and style is the real trick of the thing.

And now we get to the connection between effort and reward. Notice that Malcolm Gladwell did not say the connection between effort and the amount of money earned. It’s a pernicious corporate assumption that everyone does things simply for more money. Some people just want to see that their efforts earn them respect or affection from others. Whatever the payoff may be, people want to see it come eventually, or they’ll stop working as hard or stop working altogether. From a designer perspective, that means users may give up on a product, protest a policy, or ignore a poster that demands too much effort or attention without giving back enough rewarding functionality.

The volunteer who helps out at her church probably doesn’t want money for her efforts. And yet, if she continues to give her time to serve others but gets no appreciation or sense of making a difference in return, she will probably stop helping at some point.

The local actors I know don’t care so much about getting paid big bucks or becoming famous (at least not all of them), but they do care very much about giving performances that are well regarded in meaningful productions. They also care about connecting with other actors and earning their respect. Taking away those things and you could jeopardize their future dramatic endeavors. I’ve done a little bit of acting myself (I’m not a great actor, but I enjoy learning and going through the process), so I know how hard it is to face rejection after rejection without hearing, on occasion, about how someone was affected by your performance, big or small.

Conversely, if you want the world to be a less corporate place, be sure to pay people for the efforts that bring you satisfaction. One of the owners of the Boot, an Italian restaurant in Norfolk, Virginia known for a vast beer selection, hearty meals, and great music, told me about his visits to a nearby, upscale comic-book shop called Local Heroes. He aims to buy something from the store every few weeks, because he believes the area deserves a place like that. I feel the same way about the Boot. I want to reward them for their efforts, so that they will continue to find satisfaction from staying in business.

Support the things you cherish with money if you can, but an honest, heartfelt thank-you is cheaper and sometimes more appreciated. Comments on this blog have helped me see that others value my efforts, and so I continue writing, instead of merely looking for more ways to make money. On some difficult days a few kind, thoughtful, or grateful words have made all the difference to me. Knowing this, I look for every opportunity to offer a sincere and unique expression of gratitude to others whose efforts I appreciate.

Find ways to include autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward in the work you do, the work you ask others to do, and in the things you create, and you’ll be doing your part to make the world a less corporate place. (By the way, thanks for reading this. I really appreciate it.)

The Designer vs. the Artist: Who’s our Uncorporate Champion?

Published on December 29, 2008 in art and design. 3 Comments Tags: Amazon, art, artists, design, designer, drama, Google, Quo Vadis.

Good designers and artists make the world less corporate in their own unique ways. Their creations inspire, provoke, and engage us, and for that I am grateful. I aim to do the same with my work, and I like learning from people who are better at achieving my own goals than I am.

Still, the potential for making things more corporate exists for both artists and designers. I talk a bit about how to avoid being a corporate artist here. In this post, I’ll look at some distinctions between a designer’s mentality and an artist’s, and how they can contribute to or fight against corporate thinking.

Essentially a designer is someone who creates things with a strong consideration for the end-user’s experience. A good web designer thinks about how easy a site is to navigate and how pleasing it is to read. A graphic designer aims to capture his audience’s attention with just the right visual elements for the represented message. Someone who designs products pays attention to how functional, elegant, and costly the product will be to customers.

gmail

Gmail is my email provider of choice because of how intuitive it is to use and how elegant it is in its simplicity, but I can assure you that it was neither intuitive nor simple for the Google engineers to design. They didn’t make an application that was easy for them to build or that gave them the best chance for self-expression. Rather they put emphasis on creating something that was easy for me to use and to customize based on my own aesthetic preferences.

Amazon.com didn’t think about what kind of return and shipping policies would be most convenient for their business managers. They thought about what would be most convenient for their customers, and so they designed policies that allow for a 30-day exchange period, free shipping for purchases over $25, and friendly customer support. (The one time that I had to call Amazon support was for a shipping mistake. The mistake was my fault, but Amazon still offered to replace the item if I couldn’t get it recovered. They corrected the shipping address so quickly that it was a non-issue.) That’s why they get a lot of repeat business from me.

Various designers have their own styles and sensibilities, but the good ones are all still user-oriented. Can you imagine one of Google’s or Apple’s designers getting rewarded for designing an interface that not only baffled you, but left you demoralized and unproductive for days at a time? Would it make a difference if these hypothetical designers wrote long and boring essays about what they were thinking when they created the hellacious, unusable interfaces? Of course not, and yet there are artists out there who would consider it a professional triumph if their work had the effect on you that I described above.

Why? Being an artist involves more emphasis on personal expression than being a designer, and the effectiveness of self-expression is sometimes evaluated based on whether it affects audiences in any observable way. Nothing wrong with that. Artists can use their imaginations to paint pictures or tell stories that grow from their own experiences in this world. Done honestly and with skill, that can help us better understand and appreciate our own lives.

Problems develop when artists buy into the absurdly stupid, corporate idea that they can and should express themselves in any way they wish and completely ignore how that expression will affect other people. Nero considered himself a consummate artist, using his power to gain forced acclaim for his music and staging maniacal torture and killing procedures. He was rumored to play his lyre and sing wildly as Rome burned, entranced perhaps by his own exquisite artistry. ( Peter Ustinov played Nero in the 1951 film Quo Vadis, and it’s one of the best depictions of a mad, self-absorbed, and heartless artist that I’ve seen on film.) Do you wish to be like Nero, dear artists? If not, then be so good as to think about the sentiments of others as you promote yourselves and produce your work and carry on as artists do.

A former artist friend once told me that I didn’t understand her as an artist when I asked her to be more straightforward with me. Distorting the truth is not artistry, sweetie. It is called being dishonest. Sleeping around with everyone in town is not “artistic freedom.” A more appropriate phrase for that kind of thing is “being a whore.” (I am just as guilty of this kind of thing when I drink more than I should, influenced by the mistaken, corporate idea that artists need alcohol to produce compelling work.) It’s a tricky thing to find the right balance between self-expression and self-restraint, but it’s worth trying.

photo from flickr.com/onkel_wart

Artists, and non-artists alike, including me, have their own vices that they struggle against, but most people don’t use their job status to justify their vices. Artists shouldn’t get a golden get-out-of-jail-free card just because they’re artists. They affect others in good or evil ways just like the rest of us. To believe otherwise is to perpetuate narcissistic, corporate thinking.

So far I’ve come down harder on artists, but designers too can err on the side of corporateness. Just like the chaff that surrounds the wheat, there are ugly and hard-to-use things out there, trying to drown out the well-designed stuff. Sometimes it’s because a designer tried to imitate stylish fads instead of discovering what works for the task at hand. Or maybe it is a matter of designing with an emphasis on low cost over quality. Or perhaps someone just lacked the drive to put in the work needed to get polished results.

Those are all definitely corporate conditions, but most designers would not consider the above examples to be definitive characteristics of good design. We sometimes hold up our artists to different standards, though. Our museum curators, after all, put up literal pieces of shit on display and celebrate the artistic accomplishment, the glorious self-expression involved.

Still, good artists offer unique points-of-view that come from the deepest parts of their souls. They can illuminate problems, encourage us to dream and marvel at the world we inhabit, help us to understand and appreciate each other, and illuminate the hidden inner, demons inside of us. Designers sometimes approach that territory, but they don’t dig as deep.

A movie made by a bunch of designers runs the risk of becoming shallow eye-candy driven by what designers think people want to see and not on drama that resonates with greater truth. Not wanting to displease his intended users, a designer too may be less inclined to introduce ugliness or dissonance to make a greater point, and yet it is hard to get a complete sense of our lives without taking into account the ugly and the dissonant.

Obviously deliberate ugliness is very different from ugliness due to half-hearted or incompetent design work. It is also worth pointing out that an artist is more prone to overuse dissonance or ugliness by overemphasizing the value of any kind of self-expression, no matter how depressing or misanthropic it may be. Still, the complete absence of dissonance or at least a healthy acknowledgment of reality’s constraints is an obvious characteristic of all things corporate. Now you know why those corporate training videos full of false smiles and exaggerated enthusiasm are so awful and hard to watch.

What the world needs is more designer artists, creators who care about the recipients of their work and the effect it has on them, but who also create by refining their own abilities for self-expression instead of relying only on trends and templates. I will try to be that kind of creator. Will you?

If you’re up for the challenge, then we can make the world a less corporate place together.

Why Target Doesn’t Feel Corporate

Published on November 8, 2008 in business, commercials and design. 2 Comments Tags: advertising, Canon, church, commercials, design, Target.

I cringe when I enter some places. Certain homes, businesses, and community establishments have this hard-to-describe, but easy-to-perceive corporate quality to them that makes me want to leave as quickly as possible. Target isn’t one of those places.

I go to Target sometimes even when I am not planning to buy anything. Unlike other stores, no one tries to pressure me into buying something as soon as I walk into the door. As long as I don’t linger after closing time, I can stay as long as I want without getting the stink eye from one. When I do have to make big purchases, I think of Target.

So why exactly do I go to Target when I’m not making a purchase? Well, the delightful variations of good design on display inspire me. Seriously. I love how Target makes design a priority without being snobbish about it. They hire top notch designers like Sami Hayek to create fun and fashionable stuff, but the prices make practical-minded people smile. (I would say practical-minded people like myself, but then I am only practical-minded about fifty percent of the time. Maybe less. Still it’s a good thing to practice.)

The corporate thing to do these days in the worlds of fashion and design is to posture like a rock star and mark up the prices accordingly. Fortunately for us, Target doesn’t do the corporate thing … at least not here.

Target’s dedication to design is evident in almost every one of their commercials. Here’s one of my favorites:

The commercial shows us a playful and deliberately designed world that includes samples of the gadgets you can buy at Target. As we watch, we’re reminded that Target cares about accessible design. Plus the Target logo is incorporated into the beginning and the end of the commercial, which helps us remember what the commercial is about. Most of the time, it takes only one viewing for me to remember a Target commercial. There are so many other ads that I’ve seen 7-8 times, and I still can’t remember what product is being advertised. And I study advertisements, people, so someone out there isn’t doing his job very well.

But enough of a digression. One reason Target’s ads work so well is because of the company’s clearly defined reason for existence. If you go to their site about themselves (found here), you’ll note that they have an entire heading dedicated to design. Even more impressive to me was their 64 page PDF on Corporate Responsibility. It’s a document that’s easy to look at and one full of beautiful pictures and informative text. Among other things, the PDF explains how Target gives back 5 percent of profit to the local communities where they operate, how they promote safety in and around their stores, and what they’re doing to protect the environment and promote sustainability.

Does that mean they’re a perfect company? Of course not. Like any organization, I’m sure there’s room for improvement. But, when you spend the time and money to put together a polished, 64-page document about how your company tries to make the world better, it shows that you care about more than just making money.

What can you learn from Target? Make your reason for being more important than your pursuit of profit or measurable results, and create environments where people enjoy lingering by meeting their needs and being hesitant about the hard sell. I need to be inspired, and I’ll reward places that inspire me with my time, money, and participation. Other people need to be informed, to have internet access, to feel comfortable, secure, or appreciated. Serve the need and you’ll get your reward eventually, whether it’s a financial, social, or spiritual reward that you seek.

Of course, this doesn’t apply just to places selling things. When I first started working for Canon, I would leave the office as soon as I could. But that’s changed now that I’ve developed good relationships with my coworkers and my supervisors. When I’m off the clock, I can get other stuff done in the office, so I linger sometimes, and I avoid rush-hour traffic in the process. That adds values to my life, and so I’m more likely to stay with Canon as an employer.

My church has an artistic, friendly sensibility so I sometimes go a few minutes early and linger for a few minutes after the service ends. But, you can bet an entire collection of in-your-face Jesus stickers that I’d get the hell out of a corporate church as fast as possible, and I do mean hell in the most literal of ways.

Whatever you do, don’t do everything just to gain money or popularity or measurable results. That’s corporate thinking and that kind of thinking isn’t welcome here.

Why I’ll Vote for John McCain

Published on November 2, 2008 in politics. 1 Comment Tags: abortion, creativity, design, economy, John McCain, military, Obama, Sarah Palin.

(This post is unusually long, so sorry about that, but sometimes you can’t say everything that needs to be said with a few fun catch phrases. Look for key words in bold to find topics of interest if you don’t wish to read the whole thing.)

Believe it or not, I have wrestled with whether or not I should or shouldn’t write this post in particular and whether I should or shouldn’t publicly discuss politics in general. After all, politics can be a polarizing subject, and I’m not immune to the passions it can stir up. Recently, I’ve had to apologize to a few people for the things I said within a political discussion. I will do best to be civil this time, so I hope that you’ll at least give me the benefit of the doubt before dismissing everything I have to say.

Since I often think with a designer mentality, I do care about what the user experience is like for my readers, and I’m sure that many readers who like design, authenticity, and a less corporate existence may disagree with me. Beyond that, as someone trying to make a living by being creative, I’m not exactly advancing my career by taking a position that goes against what most industry professionals think.

from flickr.com/respres

But, part of the function for this blog is to argue that there are more important things in life than just advancing a career. To do everything for the sake of career advancement or profit or hipness is corporate thinking, and if I can’t avoid that kind of thing when there are stakes involved, then I shouldn’t waste time writing here.

I’m not an angry left-wing blogger or a shiny celebrity, so I’m not going to throw around swear words, insults, or cheap accusations at my opponents, but I do think it is important to speak up in a respectful but firm way about what I believe. In our world where almost every public figure feels compelled to tell us how to think, keeping quiet about politics means offering implicit consent, and that is not something I can do.

I may lose some readers and job opportunities as a result of my position. Since creative jobs are already scarce enough, that’s a big deal. On a lighter note, I’m probably also hurting my chances of making out with the Obama girl or making it into the inter circles of the celebrity-of-the-month’s entourage. Oh man, how will I live? [long, contemplative pause] … I will find a way.

Before going further, let me mention that I am an independent who leans right, but I don’t identify with either party anymore. I am not trying to suggest that the Republicans are always right while the Democrats are always wrong. I am only writing to explain why I believe the McCain ticket is the better choice in this particular election.

I do respect Senator Obama as a person, and I acknowledge that he’s a graceful speaker, but I believe that John McCain and Sarah Palin are better suited at resisting evil and guiding us through these troubled times. Follow along and I’ll explain.

Let’s consider a popular but misguided idea that hipster Democrats dish out: namely that anyone who values a strong military does so out of fear. I imagine that these types have a secret urge to draw up a chalkboard with love on one side and fear on the other and suggest, in Donnie Darko style, that enlightened souls should move from fear to love and avoid violence in the process. Nothing wrong with avoiding fear and choosing love, but it’s too simplistic.

There’s a difference between acting firmly with prudence and doing so with fear. Unfortunately, our popular culture doesn’t seem to understand the difference. When I rode my bike around in Boston, I locked it up when I’d go into a building. Why? Because I’m a racist? No, it’s because my bike’s actually been stolen before, so I don’t see any reason why I should make things easier for thieves. In the same way that a lock protects me from the baser impulses of the people around me, a strong military, used prudently, offers similar protection against the baser impulses of rival countries.

I’m not someone who believes that we should go to war at every opportunity, but I do believe it is important for us to stand firm in some matters, with force if necessary, if doing so allows us to preserve or expand freedom, opportunity and decency.

In John McCain, I see someone who has shown strong resolve in the face of conflict, whether it involved refusing to get released early as a prisoner of war, breaking with his own party on some prominent issues, or refusing to undermine the slow and steady progress in Iraq for easy political gain.

(We Americans have a wide range of thoughts on Iraq, and discussing whether or not we should have gotten involved is beyond the scope of this post. But at this point with the money we’ve spent and the lives we’ve lost, it would be a great tragedy if we left before bringing lasting improvement to the Iraqi people. John McCain acknowledges as much with his firm language about winning the war by stabilizing the region and then leaving when the job is done. Senator Obama doesn’t talk about achieving victory but about timetables for withdrawal. Here, McCain insists on achieving goals and doing good before exiting, while Obama talks about practical considerations and diplomacy in the region. The tougher, more principled stand comes from McCain.)

In general, I have not seen Obama take a strong stand when faced with conflict. He waited until it was politically expedient to distance himself from Rev. “God damn America” Wright, even though the Reverend had been saying similar things for years while Obama attended his church. As a member of the Illinois Senate, he voted present 130 times, which means he voted without taking a position one way or another.

In spite of his insistence on change, Obama has sponsored very little significant legislation, and only 3 of the bills he has sponsored in the Senate have been enacted. More troubling, when asked at what point babies get human rights at the Saddleback discussion, Obama responded that it “is above my pay grade” to answer. Not in your pay grade, Senator? I know you talk a lot about change, but that just sounds like more of the same positioning that politicians do to avoid taking a firm stand.

Speaking of which, I get a little disheartened by the way that the language for abortion is phrased in the context of a woman’s right and as something that makes it possible for an inconvenience to go away. Here’s what Obama said about abortion at the 2008 Democratic Compassion Forum at Messiah College Apr 13, 2008:

“People of good will can exist on both sides. That nobody wishes to be placed in a circumstance where they are even confronted with the choice of abortion. How we determine what’s right at that moment, I think, people of good will can differ.” Once again, ambivalence: a lack of a strong position one way or another. Contrast this with John Mcain who goes on record to say “at its core, abortion is a human tragedy” and that we’ve got to work at ending abortions as a society.

If we are going to insist on talking about a baby’s life in terms of woman’s rights, why should this stop at child birth? I mean, surely it is also within a woman’s right to enjoy Manhattans at lunch instead of paying for food to support the baby. Shouldn’t it also be a right for her to enjoy luxury items without having to take care of a child day after day? Why should her dreams, or those of the father for that matter, be burdened by another messy creature’s demands for food, shelter, and love?

Isn’t it time that we free ourselves from these past, oppressive traditions, and legalize child abandonment? What’s the problem as long as it’s done at government sanctioned disposal centers? A modest proposal indeed! No, let us do what we can to embrace life and avoid such a horrible future. Let us choose leaders who celebrate human life even when it’s not convenient to do. It’s hard to get sex, lust and passion right, but let us not degrade the value of human life as we struggle to deal properly with this challenging part of our lives .

So what about the economy? Yes things are kind of rocky right now. And yes, part of the problem was greed on Wall Street, but another part of the problem was due to the way Clinton-era Democrats encouraged lending organizations to make more subprime loans. These institutions were promised that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would cover the loans should the people default on them. As a result, citizens with poor credit history and low incomes were given loans that they couldn’t afford to pay back. (Read more about this under theLegislative changes 1992 heading here.) Eventually the banking institutions wanted their money back, and when a lot of that money isn’t there to pay back, all kinds of things collapse.

We should take some measures to prevent this kind of thing from happening again, but in our concern let us not completely destroy our innovative economy in the process. We already have the second-highest tax rate in the world, so why raise it? Businesses give us jobs and innovations that improve our lives, and they let people take success into their own hands. (When was the last time you heard about the rights of the nobility in American society?) Yes, there are corrupt businesses just like there are corrupt people, but in our zeal to stamp out the corruption, let’s be careful not to also stifle innovation and incentives for success.

I don’t consider Obama to be a complete socialist, but his quote about “spreading the wealth around” does have historical connotations to socialism. Don’t believe me? Try searching the phrase “spread the wealth” on Wikipedia (or click here). Notice that a link for socialism is listed under the See Also heading. In other words it is just slightly less of a loaded phrase then something like, “soak the rich, and bleed the bourgeois, comrades!” Consider also that the National Journal found Obama to be the most liberal senator in 2007. Notably, Bernie Sanders, who is a self-described socialist, ranks number 4 on this list. So, Obama might not be an outright socialist, but he sure seems to talk and think a lot like people who are. And since Obama dramatically reversed his position on accepting public funds for his campaign, how can we be sure that he’ll keep his word about another financial matter, namely that he’ll cut taxes for anyone while expanding government programs?

Helping other people is important, but in a socialist society, the government decides how resources are redistributed. Free economies, in comparison, allow individuals to choose the people and organizations to which they will give financial aid. Done properly, this kind of giving allows a healthy relationship to develop between the giver and the receiver. When the government becomes involved in wealth redistribution, it tends to separate the two, since giving isn’t done directly or by someone’s free will. And so neither the giver nor the receiver fully benefit from the act of giving.

As to Sarah Palin, I don’t see her as liability. I see her as person of character, strength and inner goodness. Just because you’ve read a lot of books and can quote a lot of facts doesn’t mean you know how do what’s right or that you can effectively resist evil. I’ve had so many professors who were insanely book smart but absolutely dead inside. Sarah Palin isn’t like that. There’s an inner spark in her that gives her a certain magic and grace. Forget everything you’ve heard about her so far, and take another look with unbiased eyes. Then, maybe you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t write all of this with the belief that I am completely right, and whole, and good. I’m not. There are a lot of things that are crooked about me, but like Lestat de Lioncourt in Anne Rice’s Blood Canticle, I can recognize and admire goodness in others even as I acknowledge my own shortcomings.

Some people run from a goodness greater than themselves or try to muddy it into ugliness. (Perhaps this explains why there are so many derogatory Sarah Palin videos out there? Don’t get angry, folks. It’s just a thought about the unusual level of public viciousness toward a decent lady.) I am astounded by this goodness, and I want to do whatever possible to preserve it.

Like any country, we have our problems, but we are still, at our best, a noble country for good, one that openly debates problems, encourages innovation, embraces freedom, and shares compassion with the world. In these challenging times, we need leaders who will stand up for what’s right and lead with courage and decency. That’s why I’m voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

(OK folks, this post is already long enough, so I won’t respond to any comments here if any such comments should come. I will allow opposing positions but if you resort to degrading insults, I reserve the right to delete your comments. This will be a blog that features only civil discourse.)

Thank you for reading, and God bless.

The Smile or the Sigh: Why Delighting Us Matters

Published on October 26, 2008 in design. 0 Comments Tags: AIGA, design, designer, forms, lawyers.

Want to know if the things you do come off as corporate to others? Then ask yourself this: Do my policies, products, presentations, performances, or practices make the people who experience them smile or sigh? (The alliteration was on purpose, oh yes!)

Below, I’ve included a release that I designed for when I deliver photographs on a CD. (As you may know, most reputable photo developers will ask for a release before printing high-resolution images from a disc.) What’s the point of including a boring document in this magnificent blog? Well, good reader, continue onward, and soon you shall know.

I didn’t include the (resized) form to suggest that I’m the best designer ever. I’m sure there are hundreds if not thousands of designers out there who can come up with a more compelling layout. But there is something pleasing to me about this particular form. It makes me smile. From a distance, it declares its function, and it defies convention with a sense of distinction. Maybe you don’t like it though. That’s OK. Design your own forms that look better, and you’ll make us both happy.

Normally, forms make me sigh. They are slapped together without much thought and they reek of corporate, bureaucratic language. I associate them with words like boredom, obligation, and inhumanity. I like my customers too much to wish those things on them, so I took the time to design a more interesting form for them, a form that I hope will help them smile just as it does for me. This took me an extra hour or two, but I think my customers are worth it. Are your customers and acquaintances worth the extra effort?

It amazes me that companies spend millions of dollars to get their advertising just right, but then they stuff their elegant products with inarticulate, soporific manuals and anti-human legal documents. Boring manuals are the norm, but what if a company started writing manuals of elegance, clarity, and wit? Would this not be a competitive advantage in the marketplace? I don’t know about you, but I personally would rather buy from a company who astounds me with excellent manuals than from a company who throws singing squirrels at me, trying to persuade me to buy their (squirrelly?) stuff.

And why should reading a legal document be to your spirit what the dentist’s drill is to your tooth? Take a look at the GNU General Public license here for example. Not bad. The language is easy enough to understand, but there’s room for improvement even here: I know that you lawyers write stuff in ALL CAPS because you want to make it harder to read, but how would you like it if I WROTE THE REST OF MY POSTS LIKE THIS or if I walked around yelling at everyone? Not cool? Exactly. The law is there to keep society running smoothly. It’s a good thing, so why not write it in a way that helps us admire both the law and your humanity?

In one of their promotional PDFs the AIGA (The American Institute of Graphic Arts) writes, “The role of the designer is to have ideas – and to inspire them in others.” Great quote. Everyone has ideas, and everyone who isn’t entirely evil enjoys inspiring other people at least in some way. Not convinced? Lets assume that you get paid the same for doing your job whether you do it in a banal, uninspiring way that makes people sigh or in a way that inspires them and makes them smile. Which one would you choose? You don’t have to be talented at illustration to be a good designer; all you have to do is have ideas and aim to make people smile with them. The rest is just attention to details.

Organized Lovelessness

Published on October 12, 2008 in being corporate defined. 2 Comments Tags: art, church, design, love.

In The Perennial Philosophy Aldous Huxley describes contemporary institutions as “organized lovelessness.” What a poignant phrase, and it’s a much better definition of being corporate than anything I could articulate even with hundreds of words. (In fact, maybe you would be better off reading his book instead of this post. If that’s what you’re thinking and if you have the time to read more than 200 pages of metaphysical commentary, then you can find the book here, provided online by Google Books.)

When I protest against being corporate, I’m not talking about the ever-growing complexity of specialization or organization that have developed to accommodate our modern society. After all, highly specialized, organized people have made it possible for me to write this blog post at no cost, within the comfort of my home, on a computer I can take anywhere. What’s not to like about that? No when I’m making a case for being less corporate, I’m talking about the organized lovelessness that can show its ugly head in our business, political, and religious interactions if we’re not vigilant.

"Child in a Harsh World" (a sketch I did)

How awful it is to be treated like a thing and not like a beloved person. But, that’s what happens when a mission statement becomes more important than the people whom the mission statement is supposed to serve. It’s why company policies meant to help serve customers can become bureaucratic nightmares and why a noble political system dedicated to preserving individual freedom can devolve into pressured conformity.

Even churches or other religious institutions are not immune from this plague of organized lovelessness. This is indeed a disheartening thing, since places of worship, at their best, are built on the belief that God loves his creatures enough to care about their development. From this foundation, dignity for human life and decency within a civilization can develop. And yet, perhaps you’ve been to a loveless, dogmatic-driven church that left you feeling so cold and unconnected to others that you were driven faster into the seductive (but still loveless) arms of vice. I know I have. Not every place of worship is like that, but unfortunately, too many of them are.

To help me illustrate these ideas, let’s try a little thought experiment. Suppose, for a moment, that I am not a lowly writer, but a powerful bestower of wishes. (Tragically this is untrue, but let us suspend disbelief together for the sake of this example.) Close your eyes and imagine that I will present you with a package that contains your heart’s desire. Now open it.

There are many things you might have imagined, but I am willing to bet that you did not imagine a corporate poster featuring bar graphs, pie charts, or banal graphics. ( Perhaps some day I will find the man who affectionately decorates his home with productivity graphs, and then I’ll have to eat my words, but for now I’m safe, I think.) And yet, businesses continue to decorate their workplaces with these ugly things. Why? Probably because these companies are more committed to their mission statements then to caring enough about their employees to wonder what they would enjoy seeing.

Nothing wrong with reminding the people who work for you about your organizational goals. There is something enriching in holding someone up to high standards. And besides, you don’t really love people unless you want them to become and remain the very best versions of themselves. But don’t good families have admirable goals as well? Of course, but you don’t see these families decorating their walls with awful corporate-looking stuff, just to remind each other about those goals. Why not? They care about each other too much.

So take another look at even the small things you do in your business, organization, or even your personal life. Do the posters you put up, the jokes you tell, the ways you interact with people increase someone’s sense of organized lovelessness? Or do you fight organized lovelessness by putting more importance on caring about people than on achieving goals, looking cool, and growing profit? The second choice is hard to do, I know, but it’s still worth fighting for, don’t you think?

Tag Archive for 'design'

The Glories of Design Thinking for Everyone

Walt Disney, the Illusion of Life, & Being Less Corporate

What Canon ITS Teaches Us about Being Less Corporate

Six TED-Talk-powered Tips for Making the World Less Corporate

1. Take strong positions.

2. Avoid meaningless clutter.

3. Incubate possibilities.

4. Avoid unnecessary rules.

5. Don’t be cynical.

6. Be honest.

Business and Design Lessons From Malcolm Gladwell

The Designer vs. the Artist: Who’s our Uncorporate Champion?

Why Target Doesn’t Feel Corporate

Why I’ll Vote for John McCain

The Smile or the Sigh: Why Delighting Us Matters

Organized Lovelessness

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