posts tagged ‘linkedin

It has to be Readable

By James Caldwell | Published: February 11th, 2011

There are so many key phrases in the design industry and for the last decade the technology industry has supplied the design industry with even more jargon. We now talk about sustainability, ROI, stakeholders, experiential design and usability as we have evolved from paper, to screen, to multitouch to gestural… and the list keeps growing. But every time I sit down with clients I try and take them back to the core purpose of having empathy with their audience and making sure that their message is eminently readable.

Readability

An exercise in readability.

All this for 30 seconds

By James Caldwell | Published: January 13th, 2011

For the last three days I have experienced what it is like to have a film crew come into my house for a one day commercial shoot. Over a year ago a friend of mine told me that my place would be perfect for filming, but up until this week, it had not happened. Since I was a newbie, I was admittedly a little nervous about what might happen to my place during the shoot or what the aftermath would be. Of course they constantly assure you that everything will be put back to normal but that still doesn’t necessarily calm your nerves.

Unnamed Commercial Shoot

Unnamed Commercial Shoot

My Snowy Life

By James Caldwell | Published: December 13th, 2010

A few weeks ago my family and friends gathered together to celebrate my birthday. One of the people in attendance was my friend, Keith Branscombe and with him he brought a book he made about his visit to Cuba. I was immediately intrigued and asked him how it all came about. To make a long story short he said it was his first one but that he had another couple that he was still working on.

Snowflake Book Excerpt

Snowflake Book Excerpt

Positive Deviance

By James Caldwell | Published: November 11th, 2010

On Wednesday, November 10, 2010 I participated in a session that dealt with the practice of Positive Deviance (called PD after this). This conversation was facilitated by Erika Bailey who calls herself a ‘Human Systems Consultant’. I have had the good fortune of talking with her in the past but I never had the opportunity to hear her speak.

The Power of Positive Deviance

The Power of Positive Deviance

Appreciative Inquiry

By James Caldwell | Published: July 3rd, 2010

Appreciative Inquiry was first conceived in 1986 by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva while they were studying an organization. In this study they interviewed half the organization looking for “problems to be solved” and the other half looking for “miracles to be embraced”. What they discovered was that the information they collected was significantly different in each case.

Appreciative Inquiry Cycle

Appreciative Inquiry Cycle

Family Photo Wall

By James Caldwell | Published: June 2nd, 2010

I have been prodded by several friends to showcase my ‘Family Photo Wall’ but I don’t really like the idea of placing my personal life on display. However a good friend suggested that I write a brief instructional of how I accomplished this task because they knew that I documented the whole procedure. (Actually they were politely poking fun at my sometimes meticulous nature.) Of course they were correct and so the following is a brief instructional on my inexpensive, albeit time consuming, family photo wall.

Photowall Snapshot

Photowall Snapshot

Help me first – more meaningful ROI

By James Caldwell | Published: June 19th, 2010

Businesses always want to increase their ROI. This is a pretty straight forward statement and one which no one ever argues against. The question of “How do we, as a company, increase our capital within the confines of our set marketing and advertising budget?” is an issue every company has.