When a team asks me to join in a brainstorming session, and the first thing I see is someone with a notepad trying to capture all their thoughts, I always find a way to have them change to sticky notes and a large wall space. Why?
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How are your team meetings?
If your team meetings need a kick in the seat of the pants, try something radical, like a structured team huddle. Watch the video of a team huddle and find the six key parts of the huddle.
Kat Neville writes on Smashing Magazine “The Art and Science of the Email Signature.”
Nice work. Too many of my friends and coworkers have loaded down their signatures with every number, every tagline, every graphic logo of the company, in every color in the company-approved brand palette.
Brevity. Clarity.
That’s all recipients want.
Also, if the majority of your email is sent inhouse, then create an internal signature that’s your default.
Name, Extension.
Period.
No need to tell your coworkers the name of the company you both work for, your own Web site, and monthly Marketing tagline.
Speaking of company brand, the pastel colors some companies include in their palette are instant turnoffs. Try reading this: andy gee, communication specialist
eye-to-eye with a lens
For those who haven’t heard that one, photography is a balance between two parts, science and art. The science : light, equipment, and mechanics. The art: composition, timing, light, balance and contrast, and story. My point? Too often, people concentrate on Continue reading
From Eric Burke’s Stuff that Happens blog, his graphic “Simplicity” blog entry speaks for itself.
Funny, yet maddenly true.
This is not knocking enterprise-specific apps designed for data-intensive entry. It’s to point out there are SOME usability guidelines designers often overlook for the sake of getting in every last system requirement or user requested feature.
But before those of you in Information Technology division start to get hot under the collar, remember this is just a comic strip, meant to be funny.
Andy, whose life mission is “to simplify the complex, serve others, and sing of creative problem solving.”
“Geewhiz, send these photos out for the staff to see.” OK. I’ll just take a few hundred hi-res digital photos, paste them into a PowerPoint file, store that file on a local server, attach that file to email and send it to 200+ employees spread across the country. Aaaaaahh! You can see we have a recipe for a file storage disaster!
That process typified the old-school method of sharing photos, once used by our division. What’s wrong with that picture and what are we doing differently today?
Our first mistake was adding them to a PowerPoint file Continue reading
This is how to drive your user or customer away from your site. I was eagerly filling out an online form one day, when I suddenly came to a screeching halt at the phone number.
Check it out and see if you can spot what’s wrong with this.
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Why do some creative teams run brainstorming sessions like futbol instead of paintball?
I first thought of this analogy while channel surfing between a futbol match and a paintball game on TV. Both were at world-class competitive levels. In both sports, you could argue that, to win, you must score more goals than the other team.
Surfing to the futbol match, the score was 0-0. On the paintball channel, a quick win, I saw hundreds of paintball splats all over the field (missed shots), and several shots that hit the intended targets, wiping out the opposing team of seven players. Back at futbol, the score was still 0-0.
So how does this relate to brainstorming?
"geeWHIZ" 