Monthly Archive for October, 2008

The Smile or the Sigh: Why Delighting Us Matters

Published on October 26, 2008 in design. Closed Tags: , , , , .

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.

Healing Corporate Relationships

Published on October 18, 2008 in relationships. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

“All tragedies are finished by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage.” Lord Byron wrote that in Don Juan.   Great quote, especially when you think about it beyond a theatrical context (but then all the world’s a stage, isn’t it).    I think about this quote sometimes as a way to evaluate my life when it is all said and done.  Will I have lived a life of selfishness and distance from others, dying alone after a lifetime of sowing dissonance and death in others? Or will my life end as a small, but miraculous, divine comedy, one that involves building relationships with others that are bigger than me, while growing and giving back to the world a love greater than death?

Lord Byron painted by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

Lord Byron painted by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

I don’t know the answer to that.  I hope for the second choice, but fear the first.  How would Lord Byron answer that question, I wonder.  With his work he gave us astonishing poetry that defies the shackles of a conventional existence, but with his personal life he left passion, yes, but also chaos and sorrow with his wandering, profligate ways.   I’m not judging; I don’t know that I can do better with my personal life, at least not on my own.  But, I must hope and pray that it is still a possibility, even for me.

By now, you may be thinking, “well that is very nice, but what does this commentary have to do with making my business less corporate.”   Actually, I have no idea about what you’re thinking, so I have to guess.  (Perhaps you are actually thinking about the delciious bologna sandwich you will make for yourself very soon.  If that’s the case, go make that sandwich and come back when you’re ready.)

This determination to keep our personal lives separate from our business lives is part of the problem. In earlier days, people lived in more tightly-knit communities and they had some sense of each other’s personalities and characters.   You did business with the baker because you knew him and knew his personal reputation.  If he wronged the town in his personal life, then that would be something that the sensible townspeople would address before continuing with business as usual.

I’m generalizing, I know.  I’m not trying to suggest that everything was as it should be in the past, but I just want to call attention to the strange modern idea of severing the business life from the personal one.   That’s why we hear so many more business consultants talk about improving business through better public relations or better marketing.  It is  less popular to talk about improving business by becoming a more caring, less broken person (although there are people out there like Zig Ziglar who do this well).

It’s like Tolstoy said, “everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” But if we want to change the things in business that don’t work, the stuff that leaves others discouraged and demoralized, we have to change the things in ourselves that cause the problems.   I’m writing this first and foremost to myself.

I have corporate interactions with people too often. Sometimes it’s because I want something out of them instead of valuing them as wondrous individuals worthy of affection and respect simply because they exist.   Sometimes it’s because being honest and facing the truth of the moment is hard, because it’s safer to prevent anyone from getting too close. (But, the same distance that prevents someone from stabbing another also prevents him from offering a hug.) Sometimes I don’t trust in a decency greater than myself or in a sense of self-correcting harmony that transcends the threat of easily observable punishment.

I want to change these things.  Talking about them helps.  So does prayer.  So does art and genuine friendship and playtime. Yes I really believe that even finding a sense of playfulness in the most mundane or painful of moments can make a big difference.   (That’s my justification for planning to buy myself a wii, by the way!)

I’ve been to awful business networking events where I’ve been encouraged to see other people as mere business opportunities.  Those things are proof enough that I’m not the only one who’s been tempted to see others as means to an end.

I’m sharing my personal struggles for my sake and for yours. If we all aim to be less corporate, even in our business relationships, then we’ll make the world a little better.  And maybe just maybe we can make those business meetings less about schmoozing to expand your brand and to maximize the power of your network (just the thought of that makes me want to throw up or get drunk) and more about meeting, appreciating and learning from interesting people.

Do you have any thoughts about how to turn corporate interactions into authentic ones?  If you do, I  hope you’ll share them.  Sharing honestly is one way to wish that it ends as a comedy for each of us. So, here’s hoping for a divine comedy to one and all.

Lord Byron by Richard Westall

Lord Byron painted by Richard Westall