I have a couple of decade’s worth of process knowledge, design thinking, and pure strategic insights. I have led projects worth tens of millions of dollars all the way down to shoe-string budgets. I can remember seeing through any project no matter how big or small. The due diligence for each of them was similar and while the strategy for the larger ones may have been more complex, the principals involved to ‘solution’ the answers were comparable.

I am not going to attempt to write down ‘the answer’ because I am sure that other people study strategic thought for a living; however I do want to part with some of my knowledge as an exercise for personal clarity.

Adapting

I think that most businesses concentrate on their ROI and generally see things from their perspective. In other words, what will help the business’s bottom line. But I have always tried to get my clients to focus on their audience instead and try to think about what it means to them, their ‘personal ROI’ if you will. This is never an easy task but one which I think is necessary to ponder when devising a business plan. Perhaps this is the first step in the strategy. It is about adapting. Adapting your ideas to an increasing fast paced and fickle world environment where loyalty is difficult to earn and harder to keep.

Ideation

When there is a sufficient definition of the audience ROI it is time to start the strategic due diligence. The most important of which is; understanding the client’s needs and where the particular project fits into their grander scheme. For instance is the project a temporary measure to offset another company’s move into their territory, or is it a long-term strategic initiative that will cement one corner of the company’s foundation. Regardless, at this stage you have to not just understand their needs but forecast the company’s initiative beyond their industry’s limitations. Look hard for game-changing ideas that may shift the focus of the project in a radical way. Of course the client is invaluable at this stage as they should understand their business better than anyone else. But this is where looking outside their company and at their direct and indirect competition helps birth a wider understanding of the project.

It is important in this stage to concentrate on divergent thinking, keeping in mind that the ideas will be generative. No one should be evaluating any of these ideas for their merit just as yet, that will come later. This does not mean that anyone in the groups are disregarding anyone’s ideas just that the convergence process is being deferred for a limited time so that the focus of the ideation sessions can remain ripe with energy. It is sometimes tough to remember but even bad ideas can spawn interesting thought.

Asking the right questions

So we now have a good understanding of the project’s ecosystem. Now comes the hard part, are we asking the right questions to begin with, or are we just attempting to answer the cries from c-class level officers who just want something done immediately to show movement. In all things business we have to be critical of what it is we are doing, why we are doing it and how is it benefiting the bottom line. Too often companies have a “me too” attitude, they follow what is out there but they do not initiate critical thought at any time towards a deeper/truer understanding of their business model. Maybe it is about honesty more than anything else?

Assessing the situation

None-the-less with the research and other information in hand we can now assess the situation. What is it that all our collected knowledge points to? Are there definitive patterns to what our research says or is the information we gathered more cryptic or indefinite? If it is open-ended, are there nuances that we found that will set us apart? This might be the stage in which we figure out what or how this company can really differentiate itself from its competition.

Making the decisions

But at some point we do have to make some decisions, and like I always say, “This may not be the right answer but it is the best one.” Now we have collected our available knowledge from within the company’s business and their ecosystem, we have attempted to ask the right questions, we have thought about what this will mean to our audience, and we have found the nuances that will set us apart. So we are not making our decisions lightly. We have spent days, weeks or months to get to this point with different groups participating towards this day of decisions. Not everyone agrees with the all the findings and some of the information we reviewed was incomplete but we must move our project forward and most of our answers have already made an impact on the larger project group. By this time there is already a rallying cry behind some of the potential initiatives, and even more of the group feels energized with the anticipation of building out the project.

Aligning the group

Of course we will move ahead and start to build the product or service but what about those who dissented? Yes those people, they will always be there on every project. We have to get them on board; they have to understand that for the good of the project and the majority of the stakeholders, we must get their best. Not that it wasn’t going to happen in the first place, mind you.

In one business facilitation lecture I participated in, one of the chief questions to ask was, “What is stopping you from moving ahead?” Well, this type of question must be asked sometimes for the betterment of the project because you must figure out if the non-aligned person will be an impediment. Aligning the group during this build stage is paramount because the launch will follow shortly.

Kicking the tires

Launch should be a celebration of a job well done. It should be a joyous affair, not roughened by the minutiae of politics or bad personal temperaments. At this point all the teams need to be vigilant of any missed project functionality. All the people that were once on the teams that had moved on to other projects need to come back for a short time to ‘kick the tires’ of the project. They will be invaluable in the effort to make sure that all their important contributions were part of the final project solution.

Collecting the Knowledge

The main reason I always want the whole team back for this final step in the strategic project cycle is for the knowledge gathering: a review of the good and the bad, the successes and failures. What did we learn along the way, what would we do differently, what could we improve, how could we engage the client in a friendlier manner, what communication worked well, what methodology was appropriate for what situations, etc. This is our chance to learn and grow our knowledge base, it will potentially help us make easier decisions the next time and allow us to avoid the pitfalls of certain situations and if we are really lucky, the review will help us work more efficiently with the next project.

Besides this process is about to start all over again, we now understand the client better than ever and have some ideas on how we can help them further… BusDev is already walking down the hallway, they want more ideas.

Charter Clip Art

Keith’s preface: “The flood of 30th anniversary comment regards this document, made me ­realize just how wretched looking the actual document is! And I know it is what it is and we are stuck with a tacky image, but only had they asked…”

A layout & design critique

The pathetic design/typography of our most historic ­of Canadian documents

Boring Symmetry
Symmetry is a layout strategy loved by committees it offers an outcome that no one can quibble with, a guaranteed perfect balance.

Humane Silhouettes
The use of clip art as a design element is the most troubling. A sadly naive attempt to “dress up” the document, has resulted in lowering its tone. The insertion of humane silhouettes is the ultimate cheapening of the message. They so succinctly capture hackneyed thinking. “Now let’s see, from the left we have a male holding something, on his right we’ll put a female (note skirt) then beside her a youth, male I think, then his mom, an older woman (she’s wearing dress and she’s heavier…), then a hockey player. What an inspired choice!” Really so totally Canadian!) etc.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

The Typeface
Carl Dair’s “Cartier” type was commissioned and released for Canada’s 1967 centenary celebrations. This alone would make it an easy choice – but wait there is more! The face was named after the great French explorer Jacques Cartier. So Canadian, eh? Perhaps a more suitable name should have been Carldair! The late Carl Dair was one of Canada’s most talented graphic designer, he died in 1967 at a young 55 years. In his design for the Cartier typeface, his love of lettering shows through, perhaps too much so, I think Cartier suffers for its mannered hand-lettered look.

The charter’s upper case title needs extra spacing between the lines. A little more air would display these six words with an ‘uncrowded’ elegance. But the body text of the Charter is overly kerned (set too tightly and not enough space between the individual letters within words) and the space between the words needs to open up as well. Perhaps using a different type face for body text would have been a better solution.

Other Graphic Elements
Our poor flag so jammed into the clip art crowd it can hardly breathe, flags need air, this Maple Leaf is suffocating. With our Coat of Arms and our flag do we also need the House of Parliament? I say delete the ‘HP sauce’ engraving at the bottom use the space gained to enhance the readability of the text with a little extra leading. Some might say “Oh Keith stop complaining!”, they could have set the entire document in Times Roman or heaven forbid, the ubiquitous Helvetica! But all kidding aside, Times would have been a better choice for the text.

My “Non-withstanding Clause”
To avoid future visual embarrassment when historic documents are required to be drawn the Feds should consult visual professionals. Had they asked The Society of Graphic Designers of Canada, (their office is in Ottawa) the clip art would surely have been clipped.

– Keith Branscombe, Toronto, April, 2012

Nationals, final logo

In 2011 and for lack of a specific branded approach they initially called their live show the ‘National Championships’. But for 2012 onwards the CEO and Executive Producer, Peter DaCosta unequivocally stated that their Showchoir Canada main event should be called ‘Nationals’ because that is what most performers and vendors from the previous year called it.

The new ‘Nationals’ logo would have to tie into ‘Showchoir Canada’ and be understood under the same brand umbrella, perhaps not equally but closely associated. The attributes for Nationals would be official, vigorous, musical, dynamic, easily recognizable, bright and ultimately Canadian (we know generally what this means).

During the development timeframe the clients kept seeing logos that showed off a ‘bling’ type approach, examples being the new television series SMASH or GCB. After seeing about 4 of these logos within the span of only two weeks I persuaded Mr. da Costa not to approximate this all too common fad. We didn’t want their logo to be passé, or mistaken for someone else’s when it launched. However it did need to have the flexibility to be embellished for different situations and still be easily recognizable.

We went through several iterations, and finally came out with a logo based on Akzidenz-Grotesk BQ Super with modified characters including a treble clef for the ending ‘s’. It ended up being exactly what they needed, clean, easily recognizable, unique, musical, Canadian and official.

Dreamtime Book Excerpt – This is where it gets strange...

I think the hardest part of creating the book is the actual idea for the story. At least last year the idea of using a snowflake as the main character was developed. So for this year, I continued the story of the snowflake as a young toddler who learns that when he goes to bed, he has dreams. For simplicity sake and for my sanity, I kept the book format exactly the same. Primarily this meant that I could use my last year’s book format but I would have to write the story to fill the same number of pages. I think I made the right choice.

Again this year, as the last, I used Blurb as the service provider to print the book. Strangely enough, the only difficulty I had was when I went to load the cover artwork. Although I had used the exact same template as the previous year, Blurb’s automated upload routine told me that the cover artwork was too wide. But besides from inputting the book information again into their website forms, the updated template was easy to manage.

My Dream Time

The thrill of creating these books is simple; my nephew loves when people read to him. Fortunately for me he is only to 2½ years old and I don’t think he’ll be logging onto this website anytime soon. But I guess as he gets older and if I continue making him a book at Christmas I will have to post these articles after he unwraps his gifts. I keep wondering how long or how many times I will make him a book. Though I imagine he will not want a book from me indefinitely, when he does look back and if he had say 20 books, I think he would be quite happy and impressed with his fortune.

I hope he likes this one too… even the scary snowflake.

Questions Issues

So on September 14, 2011 I had a chance to explore these issues. I joined a discussion along with 30 other people led by Dr. Peter Jones at Design with Dialogue that asked “Can a powerful question change the world?” We started our discussion with the question “What question is burning to be asked in your life right now?” Although simple enough, we wondered how this question worked for us and spent some time doing other exercises before we explored it further.

During the DwD session we practiced different methods of exploring the impact of what powerful questions could produce. The session was divided into three separate challenges. The first one was called the question game, in which participants engaged in conversations that were entirely made from questions. The second challenge was to look carefully at the process and practice of asking questions. The third and final challenge was to explore how questions might direct a purposeful, intended response.

The first challenge was particularly interesting. Only asking questions to continue a conversation is incredibly difficult, and I might add, awkward. As performed in this exercise it literally hurt our brains. Sometimes as a participant I found this method of conversation argumentative or even aggressive. It sometimes felt that the other person was not listening and you wanted to shut the conversation down. On the other hand — and depending upon the other person involved — the conversation became silly. In some ways, not having to answer the questions took the pressure off because you didn’t have to be the expert or the one with the answer. One person noted, “It’s almost like two magnets pushing against each other.”

The second challenge was broken down into three other questions:
1. What is the function of the question?
2. What is the effect of a question on the person being asked?
3. What kinds of questions have potential to engage a better experience?

Albeit not as silly as the first challenge it became apparent that there are many facets to fully understanding questions. For example, when characterizing the question being asked we sometimes look at the energy or enthusiasm of the person asking, the scale of the real problem being addressed or even the age of a person taking the lead. For instance, if the person is younger there might be more time to solve the issue, whereas, if that person is older they might have more knowledge to bear. Questions might be mere inquiries, examinations or research. They might be asked in an exclusionary or an inclusive way, and depending on how we view the question it will affect how we answer. There were many more ideas that came out of this challenge, too many to mention but it suffices to say that these were simple questions that produced a lively debate. By the end of this challenge it was obvious how creatives could better use this knowledge to build better opportunities with their clients.

Dialogue sketch composed by Patricia Kambitsch.

The third challenge produced a plethora of ‘post it notes’ that covered many different questions from the audience as noted in the picture are below.

Specific powerful questions

Questioning myself

In the end I realized the most important thing to do is ask the right question. Far too many people have an answer already in mind when they ask, or the question they ask is too vague. I know in the future the way I ask and the way someone responds is something I will be looking at more carefully.

An exercise in readability.

For me, readability should be the number one concern, but we often get lost in all the buzzwords and current ideologies that many times run interference with great, easily understood communication. We need our visuals to be clear in order to understand graphic communication but the message is seldom as clear as it could be.

Although we seem to have a good grasp of the printing process, display technology is still advancing at a rather fast rate. Considering that the technology industry is investing billions of dollars into in enhanced displays to help people more easily comprehend what is on a device why are content providers obfuscating their content? Although my personal attention span is high, even I have a difficult time reading on a display because of all the distractions. Technologically speaking; pixel density, improved colour accuracy and greater contrast ratios aren’t necessarily helping me understand anyone’s message any better, in fact I would almost argue that if we went back to CGA resolutions I would be less distracted.

Fortunately there are some initiatives right now that take readability very seriously. Basically both serve up platform and resolution independent content that can be easily read without distraction. The two companies I am referring to are Treesaver and Readability.

Treesaver

Treesaver is an open source JavaScript framework and platform independent technology based on HTML5, which allows for the fluid reformatting of text, images and video. I think the best thing about this technology is that it automatically reformats gracefully for various screen sizes:

Obviously one of the benefits of this technology is that it encourages great design because the designer can place more emphasis and time on a single layout. And instead of wondering what the next ‘killer product’ will be, e.g., the iPad, one no longer has to be boxed in by a single technology standard.

In the end, the reading experience is great for all concerned: there is minimal distraction for the reader and more attention can be secured by the designers into original content design that better uses the native screen real estate. I must close by saying that my old boss and mentor Roger Black is a partner in this endeavour.

Readability

This is another very simple but effective technology play. Readability is an application that functions as a browser add-on, which allows for the unobstructed reading of saved articles. Once one saves the article they can then read it at their leisure on any device at a more convenient time. As a bonus this technology also allows one to share their reading lists.

I have only one wish for this application: I hope it becomes an open source project to allow people the option of distributing their content freely.

Both of these technologies cater to the content providers or writers by allowing for monetary benefit. I encourage all readers to go to both sites, learn more and play around.

Although both these initiatives are designed to benefit article content, I think the message is clear that we as readers want and need better experiences when it comes to the delivery of content on display devices. Both of these companies are taking grand steps towards achieving this and both seem to be very flexible with their delivery methods. I am sure that in the near future we will all benefit.

Unnamed Commercial Shoot

So what does a film shoot entail… lots of work, many people and great coordination. I certainly have a new respect for the difficulty of filming a 30 second spot for television that most of us just skip right through.

The whole procedure

Choosing your home

To start things off a location scout came by to see if my home was worthy of shooting in. If it gets placed on the short list the directors, producers, etc, come by for a visit to understand where and how the commercial will be shot. Then if it passes this test and your house is chosen the primary team of about 10 people come by and storyboard every shot and figure out what furniture and props to bring in for what rooms in your home.

The day before

A day before the shoot a team of people comprising of the ‘set dressers’ and the ‘location prep’ come into your home to safely pack away your things, move your furniture and protect your walls and floors. The set dressers then stage your home with their furniture according to the story boards. In the evening a security guard comes and starts placing orange cones on the street to reserve parking for the next day. And yes his job is to sit there all night.

The day of

This is where it gets crazy but remains extremely organized. Everyone all 50 of them show up at your doorstep. To say the least it is overwhelming. There are the producers, directors, gaffers, actors, clients… and the list goes on. The electronic gear comes in first and the clients get directed to their seating area to watch the whole production. I saw a distinct line between the pampering of the clients and the workers on the set. After areas are cardboarded off and the lighting is set up they pull away the protective floor carpeting, the actors move into place and the call for ‘quiet on the set” is announced. Besides from a lunch break, this goes on for the next 12 hours until all the scenes are filmed. When the day is done the electronics are packed up and all electric is removed along with all the people and the long day ends.

The day after

The set dressers and location prep people come back and pack up all the rental furniture and props. The carpet pads are removed, the cardboard is taken off the walls and the cleaning begins. After the cleaning is finished a team comes in and replaces all the furniture to where it was originally as marked on the floor with tape or as seen through pictures taken previously to the shoot.

My impressions

The following things stood out at this particular film shoot:

1. The people in the crew are extremely courteous and polite and professional
2. Smart phones are distractions during filming (in one room about 8 people were sitting around playing with their smart phones instead of talking with each other, one of them even went so far as too say that the phones allow them the opportunity to not talk with each other… they all laughed)
3. There is an enormous amount of work that is done for a 30 second spot.
4. There are always too many people in a room.
5. Acting is not necessarily fun, either is directing
6. The clients are treated very well, and they seem to come out of the woodwork late in the work day
7. One day of shooting translates into three house days and more than a few initial walkthroughs
8. The cleaners that they brought in were excellent and really left my place sparkling

For ‘type A personalities’ like myself you just have to keep to yourself while everyone is performing and address and fix anything minor at the end of the shoot. (in my case, minor things needed to be fixed) Thankfully this process smartly allows for a liaison to the home owner called a location manager and for me this person was James Dawe and his assistant Luke Marshall. They are the people entrusted with the homeowner’s relationship and if it wasn’t for them it would be too difficult to deal with. A special thank you to James, he really came through.

It was a very interesting experience overall. My advice for anyone considering this would be to try and make it a multiple day shoot because once they are in, either for a day or for a week it doesn’t matter. You might as well get paid for it. I think I would do it again and if I am permitted to get picky I would like to do a television or movie show next to see what the difference might be.

In the end though it was great to be back in my home again.

Snowflake Book Excerpt

I inquired further about what company he used and if it was fairly easy to do or tedious and difficult. I also asked him how much time it took to understand the process. On all counts he said it was easy but that his first book required a bit more time. He said he used Blurb as the service company and that he really liked the end results. I genuinely enjoyed his book and started to think of a project for myself. At first I was extremely ambitious and thought of all the possibilities but within a week of uncontrolled enthusiasm and ideas I started to develop a single worthwhile book concept.

My idea was to write two personalized children’s books that I could give to my niece and nephew on Christmas day. But shortly after I started the first book I came to the realization that due to time limitations I would only be able to create one.

I was smitten with the idea of a snowflake theme because everyone likes them and they seem to be a perfectly safe and Christmassy topic. The two ideas that I came up with were:

1. the evolution of snowflakes, Darwin style
2. the life and times of just one flake

I started to write for both but then, with a little feedback, decided on the latter. I thought that writing about one single snowflake and its life would be a more compelling story than a made-up evolution of snowflakes. I would take the snowflake on his journey from birth to death. (mind you his death would be more of a reincarnation that could be celebrated) Basically the story follows the flake on his journey through life as he ages and goes through physical changes and life experiences. It is obviously a quick read and I hope my one and half year old nephew, Nathan will like it. You can read the entire book by clicking on the ‘cover’ below.

My Snowy Life

After producing this single children’s book I want to acknowledge all those authors and illustrators who made my childhood wondrous. And on a personal note I wish to thank my girlfriend Amrit. She was my sounding board for this endeavor and spent lots of time listening to me and throwing out ideas of her own. I think a true collaboration is in order.

The Power of Positive Deviance

Erika is a coach with the Canadian Positive Deviance Project as well a long time facilitator who helps people bring about positive change in groups which have complex systems. On a personal note I would also like to say that she is naturally disarming and cheery which just may be one of the biggest advantages that she has in the field of PD.

Origin of Positive Deviance

The husband and wife team of Jerry and Monique Sternin formalized what we consider PD is today. Jerry is described as the world’s leading expert in the application of PD and his wife Monique chairs the Positive Deviance Institute at Tufts University in Massachusetts. PD has only been in existence in an official capacity since the 1990′s.

Defining Positive Deviance

The Positive Deviance Initiative website states that, “PD is based on the observation that in every community there are certain individuals or groups whose uncommon behaviors and strategies enable them to find better solutions to problems than their peers, while having access to the same resources and facing similar or worse challenges.” But if anything, this is only a brief overview about what PD’s main belief is.

PD allows people in large groups to have a bottom up approach to solving agreed upon issues. PD believes that the people that ‘touch’ the problem have the wisdom to solve it. This type of problem solving is used to discover positive actions (mostly considered the minutia) that had previously gone unnoticed. But these actions can be quantifiably measured for progress. PD allows new relationships to form that allow the participants to ‘act their way to a new way of thinking’. In fact, Erika said that if the facilitator/coach is too aggressive with their help that the process of PD can actually fall apart. The idea is to allow the people affected to change their destinies by discovering for themselves what is wrong with their present system and by replacing some of their problematic actions with new habits.

The Approach

The PD model is fundamentally different than traditional “needs-based” problem solving. Not only is the strength of this model derived from the understanding of what the problem is and a willingness to change it, the structure of the change comes from the bottom up:

Positive Deviance Model

Whereas most traditional models have a team with a hierarchy of decision makers on top, PD allows for the flow of information to be decided on by the actual workers first and then the management or overseers are obliged to remove any barriers. At this point Erika stated that one of the most difficult parts of this process is to get the managers to say “yes”.

Throughout this process PD coaches must stay out of the way of the workers and just build or support structures to facilitate ongoing conversations. Since PD is about engaging people, it is usually slow at the beginning and patience is required. The coaches look for the following three things:

1. Positively deviant people and behaviours
2. Innovations that enable and encourage new behaviours or overcome barriers
3. The problem (which inspires people to action)

What the coaches have found is that about 5% of people in any group do things differently to create positive outcomes and it is these people that are fighting the status quo to create a benefit. The PD process strengthens over time as the workers generate mass awareness and actively change their behaviours. Erika quoted several times that “Knowledge doesn’t change behaviour” and that therefore PD encourages changes in relationships.

Typical Stages of the Process

Although every project may be vastly different there are 5 distilled stages to the PD process:

• Defining the problem and understanding what the desired outcome will be.
• Determining if there are PD’s
• Discovering where they are and what they are doing
• Developing new practices
• Disseminating the information (and then leaving quickly)

Bonus Tool/Methodology

A Tool for Positive Deviance: TRIZ

TRIZ is actually a Russian acronym meaning ‘a problem-solving, analysis and forecasting tool derived from the study of patterns of invention in the global patent literature’. (for more information follow the link above)

Simply put this tool is similar to applying a devil’s advocate like approach for problems. Most people understand very clearly how things work in their job and so usually they cannot offer a solution to a problem that exists because they can’t understand what they are doing wrong. But instead, if one tries to help define how a problem can grow (no matter how obvious or silly), a comprehensive list of actions can be made to detail the issues. When the list is complete, the facilitator then asks the group what they haven’t seen or experienced and crosses those items of the list. The one’s that remain are the issues that must be dealt with.

Our mini-case study:
We decided to think about the best ways for our group to pass on a cold virus amongst ourselves that evening. Within a minute we came up with the following ideas:

• hugs/kisses, high-5′s, coughing on others, a buffet, sharing of food, passing a bottle, pepper to aid in sneezing, addition of little children to the room, not washing hands

We then started to cross out the ones that were not done. What was left (circled) for us was our personal recipe for passing on a cold virus for that evening.

Final Thoughts

I was amazed at some of the real world case studies that Erika brought in to share. The PD process has been very successful in extremely large and complex systems in which people know the problem and they want it to change. I would encourage people to read up about some of the amazing global case studies that are shared on the Positive Deviance Initiative website. The stories are inspiring and well worth the read. Along those lines here are a couple of more links to take advantage of:

• The Official PD Workbook
• The Plexus Institute