I Have Some Feedback About Your Feedback

Got some feedback on my blog from another web professional. Here it is:

“No need to publish this comment, but damn man… For a UX blog, work on your colors. It’s extremely difficult to read anything, you need more contrast.”

I don’t find this to be particularly offensive and I am not angry. In my 17 years of making websites, I have certainly heard worse. But after reading this, I started to recall when I was younger and I would sometimes send blunt feedback with a negative overtone. It was as though my superior intellect would illuminate their dim minds. I thought I was just being honest, but when you show a lack or respect to the wrong person or enough people, you might find no one listens to you or worse. 

A long time ago, my creative director at the time pulled me aside and told me to just talk to people, because emails live forever and can be easily misinterpreted. I wish that was the last time I needed to hear that.

Years later, I was doing freelance at a big agency for a big client and regularly working onsite until 2am. Close to burn out, I sent an email to the project manager telling him I wasn’t coming in that day, along with a colorful diatribe about what I felt was going wrong with the project. This is someone I would go to lunch with regularly. I thought I had a certain level of trust with him. I was wrong. He shared that email with a group of other people at the agency. The next day, I started hearing back from my wife about what I had written. She was friends with a coordinator at the agency who was not even working on the project. I had already begun planning my exit, as I had grown to seriously dislike that agency and that client. Thanks to my own carelessness, however, my exit was expedited. The point is, after you hit send, your words will have a life of their own. So you better be prepared to defend them. That’s easier to do when the words are constructive.

So let’s go back to our feedback and break it down. One caveat: I figured out how to darken the text on this WordPress theme. Anyway, the feedback says, “It’s extremely difficult to read anything.” Since the feedback wasn’t more specific, I have no choice but to make assumptions about the meaning. So in this case, I will take that to mean they had a difficult time reading the body copy because it was gray text on white. I have seen some monitors that do not show gray very well, so if that is what they meant, it’s legitimate feedback. The headline is large black text on white, so the user must be able to read that just fine. I guess?

“For a UX blog, work on your colors.” Again, I will take that to mean that the body copy needs to be darker. But telling me to work on my colors leads me to believe they think that all of my colors are bad. Which tells me they exaggerate instead of providing specific, constructive feedback.

Yes, a lot of it is politics, but I’ve learned the hard way that you need to be professional, if not even nice, when addressing someone. Starting off with “but damn man” will put most individuals on the defensive. The words become like an off switch. And when you turn people off, you may as well be talking to a wall.

I recognize it when other people do it. They tell me they like my shoes, or compliment me in some other way. It’s a polite way to get someone to listen to you, albeit a trick of human protocol. Always start off with something nice, or at the very least, inoffensive. To some people, it comes naturally. To others like myself, however, it takes conscious effort. But I have found that, almost without fail, it is the best way to open someone up to a difficult conversation they might otherwise shut down.

In the end, everything that is said is just one person’s opinion. I hear opinions all day at work, but I pay more attention to the ones that are presented respectfully and constructively. So to the person who decided to give me some UX feedback on a previous post, are you right? Probably. The font needed to be a little darker. I spent some time figuring out how to customize this theme. So thank you for the advice.

But does this type of feedback make you look like a jerk? Yes. This is a clear example of how not to approach another professional. There are better ways to get your point across. Take my advice and learn from my mistakes. There is a better approach. 

Choking People Made Me A Better Designer

Some days I run out of work at 5 PM to go choke people. Not to be rude. I let them choke me, too. I am a student of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a martial art that promotes the idea that a smaller, weaker person can beat a larger, stronger person through skill and technique. And yes, sometimes chokes. I love the art. I love the science. There is so much to understand and it keeps me fascinated. I often see the similarities between my 9 to 5 and my version of happy hour. My job as a designer at Amazon is challenging. What I do for fun is equally challenging. Work hard, play hard. There are so many lessons in fighting that are relevant to my life and to my job. But three in particular stand out for me.

Lesson number one: calm down. When I first started training, I would physically exert myself to the point I would burn out in a matter of minutes. Like pushing against a brick wall, all my effort was getting me nowhere. You’ll never learn to control other people if you can’t control yourself. Early on, my instructors told me many times to slow down. What they were actually telling me to do was to think more about the problem at hand. Take time and analyze the opportunities as they arise. So in time, with the right direction, I began to understand how to slow down and apply pressure only where there can be forward movement. Attack the weak spots and defend with minimal effort.

As a UX designer, I am sometimes pulled into conversations where someone has already framed the problem and is telling me how to solve it with their solution. I know an impulsive response when I see it. This is where I take a step back and consider all angles before deciding how to solve the problem, because I have learned that when you get in a hurry and allow someone to press you, you make mistakes.

When you’re tired and a 225-pound athlete is crushing down on you, trying to pull your arm out of socket, it’s easy to lose your wits and give in to the pressure. But I find that if you steady your mind, you’ll be better equipped to defend yourself. You focus on survival first, slowly working your technique to get back to a position of neutrality. Then you attack.

Lesson number two: seek efficiency. So often we hear this message. The idea seems easy enough to grasp, but often slips through our fingers. When fighting, efficiency is a matter of applying the appropriate leverage at the appropriate time. Anything else becomes a waste of your energy, the most precious commodity you have in a fight. Worse, inefficient movement exposes you to counter attack.

When designing an experience, our principal goal is to create an efficient experience. Any online task we ask a user to complete should contain the minimum number of steps they can cognitively manage. Sometimes there is an argument about needing to add more things to a design. But more often in my experience, I find people wanting to take too much away. There are essential steps you can’t combine or remove. Try cutting out a few essential steps in a Jiu-Jitsu technique, and you’re going to lose. Too few steps is just as inefficient as too many.

Lesson number three: learn to fight by fighting. When I was much younger and training in Karate, I thought I was learning to fight by punching the air. There were all these theories about how to defeat your opponent in a given situation. Yet, no one was regularly testing these techniques, and no one seriously questioned them.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu techniques can only be fully understood when you learn to use them on someone who is fully resisting. You find some things work for you and others that don’t. It is a test-based mentality. When something fails, you ask, “What did I do wrong? Are there details I am missing?” The challenge is that you are reacting to a living thing rather than just the air, and not everyone reacts the same way. So you adjust your technique and try again.

Creating a user experience is no different. It’s easy to get lost in a world of theory and opinion without testing and feedback. Even the most educated guess is still a guess. But seeing how people react to a situation will keep you headed in the right direction. I am fortunate that I practice two disciplines that pursue a higher truth through testing. For me, it’s a cornerstone of both.

 

I train at the Gracie Barra Ballard academy just north of Seattle. Stop by for a free intro lesson!

Minimum Viable Product: Good Idea, Poor Execution

 

There’s a process for software development called Minimum Viable Product, better known as MVP. When executed correctly, it should help teams mitigate risk by keeping focus on core functionality, avoiding unnecessary features. You take limited releases and get them in front of your users so they can test the viability of an idea. Sounds good, right? But what happens when this process is overprescribed, and you find yourself on this path for everything you do? If you’re testing truly unique ideas, then MVP makes sense. Truly unique is truly rare, though. What I have seen launched in the name of MVP are immature versions of products that were developed to compete with functionally mature products. And many things can go wrong.

If a user has invested in your product by taking the time to learn about it, downloading it, installing it, and exploring it, only to reach an impasse by finding out something they wanted to do is completely absent, you have violated their expectations. You have wasted their time, and people will judge you negatively for it.

Once a judgment is made, the belief may persist long after it is disconfirmed. Years ago, Hyundai motors made really bad cars, but I can’t remember the details that made them so bad. What I can remember, however, is that my family had a negative experience with a Hyundai more than 20 years ago. But the memory of my dissatisfaction has outlasted more recent information to the contrary. I am still unsure about Hyundais even though I have read nothing but good reviews about them lately. My negative experience has turned into a negative bias. I was done with Hyundai because they screwed us once, and I don’t care if they make better cars now.

MVP makes the assumption that users understand that digital products will evolve over time and get better. But the average person doesn’t think that way. Amazon.com is constantly evolving and releasing updates, yet I have talked to people outside the industry who are surprised that Amazon has more than one designer, or any designers at all because, “Isn’t the site already designed?” The here and now is when most people make a judgment.

When I first engage with a product, it will be the strongest impression I will get about that product. Apple knows this. Consider the care they put into packaging. As you unbox that shiny new iPhone, you are taking ownership. Your first experience is with packaging that is beautifully crafted, because Apple wants to amplify the strong emotional response that accompanies taking ownership. They know you will tell other people how amazing it is, and in turn, those people will go buy an iPhone. Conversely, ever buy something at the store, take it home, and unwrap it only to find out it’s missing some of the pieces? How does that make you feel?

The half-baked version of your software called MVP will lack beauty, craftsmanship and delight. Those attributes make great experiences that people care about and come back to. Those attributes count because they communicate quality and much more. Why would we ever subject a user to incomplete work? If we are doing our jobs and focusing on how to solve real problems, we should forget about the idea of an MVP. There are a myriad of ways to test a product before going live that will allow you to build and validate ideas. Sure, work on the core features first, but keep going. If you push the product out too soon, know there can be material damage from an incomplete experience. And we should be striving for nothing less than a great experience.

Land of Confusion

 

Have you ever been told your design is confusing? Personally, I hear that from time to time. Someone reviews your work, and since they didn’t understand it for whatever reason, they think no other human could possibly understand it. It’s imprecise feedback, but they are entitled to their own opinion, and opinions aren’t wrong. Or are they? To begin, it’s more judgment than opinion. I often wonder what the process is for judging design when coming from someone who’s never designed an experience. Regardless of whom it’s coming from, design is easily misjudged. Sadly, it leads to misdirection, poorly designed experiences and, at best, wasted time. You have to know what the situation is before easing the problem. The first step is to understand what the word “confusion” means.

As a word, “confusion” seems to stand in for a lot of other issues. For me, though, I see confusion on a scale of difficulty in cognition ranging from minor hesitation to a fully broken experience. Walking into a closed door because you thought it was open would be confusion. Jiggling the handle because you don’t know if the door is locked is a lack of clarity. Fixing an unclear experience can be as easy as changing a word in a label. Fixing a confusing experience could have you scrapping your design altogether. Still, you’ll hear the word as a catch-all for any friction in the user experience. Your work could very well be confusing, but it could also be a matter of perspective.

How is the critic viewing your work? More than once, I have had someone look over my shoulder at a design and tell me what’s not working. Being told a button is too small from someone standing six feet away from my screen is undoubtedly an incorrect judgment. I once had a VP who refused to view any mobile design unless it was on a mobile device. Seems obvious, but I have been in meetings where mobile designs were being judged while projected on a wall at 20X their actual size.

Now consider the difference between the process of design versus an actual experience. In the design process, we sometimes look at printouts of different screens that are tacked up on the wall. This is not the user experience. It’s a replica, an approximation of what the user will experience. Some things are lost in translation. Compare an architectural drawing to what it’s like walking though a real structure. The user experience is nothing short of what the user is doing while interacting with your actual site or application. We have certain tools to create a vision. We use static mocks, wireframes, and prototypes. Occasionally with these tools, the context and continuity are misread. That confusion is a result of the inherit inadequacies of the tools we use.

I have seen people perplexed by how to navigate a four-way stop. Does that mean a four-way stop is confusing? More likely, the confusion is the result of a distracted driver, one that isn’t in the mindset to navigate it properly. A user can be in the wrong mindset, as can the person judging the experience. But when designing, you have to assume some level of focus from the user. You cannot account for when they are off in dreamland. Designers attempt to remove as much friction from an experience as possible, but nothing is truly effortless. A user has a task. They are attempting to accomplish that task. I have been told a design was questionable because it took a couple seconds for someone to find the thing they wanted to click on. In this case, it was a tertiary action, something most would do infrequently. To ensure that action would have more immediate discoverability, it would have to compete with the primary action that most used frequently. What’s funny is, they complained about a task they were still able to complete in a reasonable amount of time.

The hardest issues to deal with are cognitive biases. This is the curve-ball judgment I fear the most. A cognitive bias can easily lead to an error in judgment based on one’s own perception. To illustrate a bias of my own, I can tell you about the video of the twirling models that plays automatically when a customer clicks a garment on Myhabit.com. Having been a Flash animator in the advertising industry, I was drawing on an experience that proved to be bad for the user. Principally, it was having unexpected movement on a page when the user first landed on it. On Myhabit.com, I argued against having video automatically play. I thought it should be user-initiated, allowing them to acclimate to the page layout first. The counter argument was that the video was a key differentiator, and that we should lead with a “delighter” feature. But based on my heuristic, it wasn’t going to do well. Fortunately, we agreed to test it with a large internal audience. We lead with the auto play video and waited for negative feedback. No one voiced a concern. Then we released the product and waited again for negative feedback. Nothing. I was happy we tested it first, and happy I was proven wrong, because I learned a very tricky lesson about how your own experiences can mislead you. My perception of a confusing experience was proven false. Unless all factors are exactly the same, you cannot predict with a high level of certainty what will be successful. Your biases may lead you in the right direction, but can just as easily distort rational thinking. The process for good judgment should lead us away from our own biases. Getting past them requires listening to other people’s concerns, seriously questioning yourself and, above all, user testing.

The perception of a confusing experience needs to be dissected. There may be a legitimate concern. Take it seriously, but question it. Often, it’s less of an issue than what someone believes. As a designer, you control how a design is viewed and how it is communicated. If you take the time to appropriately frame the experience with the right amount of context, there are a lot of problems you can avoid. For the issues that communication can’t handle, do user testing. Get a broader perspective, and base your decisions on broad and deep information. Be aware that the one person you prove wrong may be yourself.

Requiem for a Metaphor

We use metaphors when what we have to explain may not be obvious. Given the complex nature of software, metaphors are used regularly. Every time you jump on your computer you are looking at different metaphors which come in the form of the icon. If you click on a folder icon, it’s not taking you to a folder; it’s taking you to a set of information. The folder icon is a metaphor for the organization of your documents. It is both a graphic element and a tool of information architecture used for better understanding. But, there is a problem sneaking up on us. Most of our metaphors are based in analog.

Many things no longer need to look like what they do. A television used to need a giant tube, which dictated its size and shape. Over time it got flatter. And then a lot flatter. Now a television has become a slim black box with a screen. Telephones have had a similar evolution. Once they were large devices that had a distinct look that was dictated by its analog nature. Now they’ve changed.

The convergence of devices on your average smart phone breaks metaphors like never before. It’s a phone, but looks nothing like the phones we grew up with. It’s a camera, but looks nothing like the cameras we grew up with. It runs applications, but looks nothing like the computer you grew up with. Given the newer technologies in development, your phone will soon become your wallet too. And for all it does, what does it look like? A slim black box with a screen. With this evolution we have lost inherit visual cues that analog gave us. This effects how we communicate in the digital space.

We are comfortable with using icons as a base metaphor for information on Web sites and operating systems. Look at the Windows OS. Your information and documents are subdivided into folders. But, if you look at how documents are increasingly digital, at one point you realize the metaphor of a folder may no longer be a logical reference.

If there are no paper documents, then there is no need for folders to place them in. At some point in the future, this will happen. With smart phones and digital readers, it may not be as far off as you think. The folder metaphor as we now know it will become an antiquated reference to how we used to do things.

The number of cell phone subscriptions will hit 5 billion this year. I would also argue the average icon used to represent a phone is outdated. If you do a Google search on phone icons you will see an overwhelmingly large number of images that have little to do with your average phone experience.

Holding on to these analog references makes little sense. Sometimes it’s the language that doesn’t add up. Tapes and VCRs have a rewind button, but so does you’re DVD player and DVR. It was called rewind because you were physically winding tape back to the first reel. The term fast forward is still relevant, but we should ditch rewind and call it fast back. Other analog references are less innocuous.

The accepted QWERTY keyboard layout is rooted in analog. It’s been arguably shown that other keyboard layouts are more efficient. But with the invention of the keyboard, they wanted to create something that was familiar and easy for those using mechanical typewriters. Now we’re stuck with it.

I am certainly not being nostalgic. I don’t want to be stuck with the old. I don’t want to cater to analog. I say good riddance, but it forces new questions to be asked. Abstraction is the removal of details. Digital has hastened the abstraction of these objects we create for ourselves. Fundamentally, it becomes a communication challenge. I see it as an opportunity for new language and new metaphors, but digital metaphors.

Ballpark Figures Are Like Predicting the Weather

If we could only be like the weatherman. Making predictions about the future, talking about the chance of something happening, and never being held accountable for being inaccurate. Ruin someone’s outing because you failed to predict rain? No big deal, the weather gets blamed, not the person who told you what it was going to do. We cut the weatherman slack because he can’t nail down all the factors involved. If he could, we’d have a legitimate reason not to like him when our supposed-to-be blue skies are gray. Too bad a programmer’s ballpark estimate doesn’t get the same leniency. An application build is just not one of those things that is easy to predict.

With programming, an accurate estimate is created from a list of what the software is supposed to do. Usually, even the most custom application is still going to be composed mostly of things that an experienced programmer has done before. If a programmer has 10 specifications, they will break each item down by the time it takes to do them and add them all up to reveal the cost. Then there are the “X” factors, or the things we are asked to do that either have never been done before, or are so unusual that it’s going to take a little extra effort to figure them out. The best course of action is to relate the task to a similar activity and go from there.

Accurate estimates are made from realistic expectations. Not surprisingly, the ballpark figure is the mother of all false expectations. A ballpark figure is a generalized price range that you give to clients to help them understand if a project is within their budget. True, you can’t sell something without a price. But a ballpark figure is always a bad idea because you are taking something that is mostly not subjective and making it entirely subjective. Now everyone is guessing what they can and can’t get for a price. When things go bad and profit margins erode, you can usually trace it back to false expectations set by a ballpark figure. So how do you fix it?

The first step is using an interaction designer. This is integral to the process of an accurate estimate. The interaction designer communicates with account, creative and the programmers to understand what the software is supposed to do. Next, the interaction designer will document a flow of how the application should work by producing a series of pictures. That way, no one will be left interpreting a Word document, which most people don’t read anyway.

Now you have a visual document that sets expectations for the designers, programmers, account, project management and the client. These are your documented specifications. Now the programmer has as much information as everyone else and can better gauge how long it will take to produce.

At this point, you can circle back to the client and say, “This is what you asked for and this is what it costs. Anything else is extra.” You can start small and build up from there, but the important thing is that you only ever estimate on known specifications.

When you generalize, programmers have to guess at specifications and sometimes don’t factor them all in because, quite simply, they aren’t mind readers. Under the most ideal circumstances, it can be tricky to nail down exactly how long something takes to produce. If you don’t provide all the details, however, your programmers should be held no more accountable for inaccurate predictions than your local weatherman.

Ideas Are Meaningless

A good idea can come from anywhere. People say it all the time because it is true. But, an idea by itself is utterly worthless without someone who knows how to take that idea from dream to reality.

Ever watch the television show House? Each week, Dr. House solves the latest medical mystery though an obscure idea that seems to approach him from anywhere or anyone. The “a-ha” moment that reveals itself does nothing more than point the way. It takes the doctor’s creative genius to recognize the idea when he sees it. And it takes his experience to make the idea a reality and actually solve the problem. Understanding the value of an idea is the first part of good creative direction. The second part is having the know-how to make it a reality. We are surrounded by ideas all the time. Recognizing value in a single thought floating in a sea of ideas takes not only creative intelligence, but experience.

Benjamin Franklin said, “At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.” As a young designer, I came about good ideas by spawning hundreds of bad ideas. I would push myself like I was at the gym. Just 4 more ideas, just 3 more ideas, 2 more, okay last ooonnne. Done.  Now in my thirties, I feel like good ideas happen more quickly. By comparison, they are certainly more clever. The difference is, I now see ideas through the scope of my experiences.

We see a lot of good ideas with poor execution on the internet. Actually, some studies have shown that people watching YouTube are turned off by high production value. I don’t know. Maybe free content needs to look like it’s free. I always ask, “could it be better?” How would you improve it? How could you make it more meaningful? In looking back at my blog, it’s no big surprise to me why some entries do better than others. It’s not only the quality of the idea, but the quality of the execution that counts.

Crowd sourcing uses submissions from an online community to solve a particular problem. This is probably the most literal interpretation of how a good idea comes from anywhere. The Pepsi Refresh project is one of the most popular expressions of crowd sourcing. This project not only outsources the generation of the idea, but the judgment of the idea too, through online voting. I feel like crowd sourcing is an interesting way to generate ideas. I am always willing to listen to anyone, but it’s the judgment aspect that I have trouble with. In the end, I feel like average judgment equals average success.

A lot of CEOs make unpopular decisions, only to become wildly successful. Sure, they could have done what everyone expected them to do. And that would have sufficed. But recognizing the value of a good idea, even when everyone else doesn’t, is a hard road to follow. You’re stamped with a lot of nasty labels until you prove your detractors wrong. The flip side is that, sometimes, unpopular decisions are just bad decisions. But that’s what makes it interesting.

Everyone has the right to their own opinions and ideas. In a professional setting, they have the right to express those ideas, or at least should be able to express them without fear of reprisal. But who makes the final call? There always seems to be some confusion surrounding opinions.

In the mind of a creative professional, there is a real separation between professional creative evaluation and personal opinion. Having an opinion does not qualify your average person for anything more than having an opinion. A creative director’s opinion reflects years of training. Sometimes it’s based on intuition, other times it’s easier to explain. They push to understand both failures and successes. This becomes the basis of a trained professional’s decision. A personal opinion is about what you like; a professional opinion is about what an audience will like. Sometimes it’s the same, other times it isn’t.

Creative evaluation does not come from having an idea or two. It’s about having thousands of ideas, and executing hundreds of them over years. A creative professional at an advanced level knows how to prioritize, evaluate and judge what is better. The process of raising an idea can sometimes be anything but lucid. It’s tricky to know when you’ve arrived at the right solution, but experience teaches you judgment. And that judgment is what gives meaning to an idea.

Free Work for Sale

It doesn’t matter if they are selling paper or pixels. Every salesperson says the same thing. Personally, I have heard it many times and now I am hearing it from other people too. They all say prices are too high. It’s their knee jerk response to new work. This conversation kicks in when the people selling the work get their hands on the estimate for doing the work. Sales or account service then call a meeting to discuss, but what they are really doing is challenging the estimate because they feel the cost is too high. That’s if you’re lucky. Sometimes they adjust the numbers on their own.

From an earlier post you may be familiar with this story, but I didn’t fully disclose how bad the circumstances were. My team was about halfway through a small phase of a large project that had a solid estimate in place. Out of the blue, account service started freaking out. At a status meeting we were being called out for causing the project to run over budget. We shouldn’t have been anywhere close. After some investigation it was learned sales and account service adjusted our estimate without telling us. Only because they had the audacity to point fingers did we find out. The sad thing is it was just one of many times the estimate was adjusted. Later on we discovered our agency had billed around $600,000 for over $1,000,000 of work. The girl that made the mistake of calling us out was let go. Her boss who actually made the adjustment remains employed.

What happens to a client that gets free work? They expect free work. One of the first rules of negotiating is to never give something up without getting something in return. The client asked and we gave. We took nothing in return and so that’s what we ended up with. After that agency tried to fix the error of their ways and enforce some level of profitability, the client pulled the project and handed it off to their internal IT team. I am sure that turned out to be a rude awakening for the client, but for that agency, it was long drawn out process that cost $400,000 and made enemies out of its coworkers.

A salesperson’s job is to show value. If they can’t do that one thing, I don’t know what purpose they serve. Stroll into any automotive showroom and a salesperson will start walking you through the features of the car you’re interested in. It’s preemptive price justification. Infomercials do a good job at this as well. Regardless if the customer is paying just $19.95 or an affordable $19,500.00, there is healthy amount of value statements and enthusiasm built into the pitch.

I respect good salesmen. They take the time to understand the work they are selling. They know the product inside and out. They understand exactly how it will benefit their clients and how to go about communicating that. Certainly, they know a pitch has to be informative and entertaining. It’s the art of showing value.

When salesmen are bad it sometimes comes from laziness, but other times it is gullibility or the lack of a backbone. I have had enough client interaction to know how they can push. You learn anything not in writing doesn’t exist. If you’ve been in business long enough, client requests go something like this. If you do this for me now, I will give you more work later. Or, this project will get you great exposure. Well, the promise of exposure is not worth a check in the bank. The promise for more work later on is fine if they want to sign a contract. If they don’t put it in writing, we call that a lie despite it being intentional or not.

I can think of a client I also knew personally. I used to do software development for him. No matter what he was doing, he was negotiating price. Always looking for an angle on how to get something for free, didn’t matter if it was fundamentally unethical. The way he saw it, if you could exploit the system, there was a problem with the system. He was just being smart. He may not have been honest all the time, but he certainly wasn’t breaking any laws.

So yes, clients push to get the best prices for products and services, big surprise. Sometimes they cross a line. Sometimes they don’t. Like any relationships, they might just keep pushing to see how far they can take it. If you don’t know how to effectively stand your ground, you’ll get bullied. There are a lot of industries that wrestle with this.

Advertising agencies are often asked to develop ideas first to see if clients want to buy. Could there be a worse way to do business? Your agency spends weeks on a pitch competing against four or more other agencies. The company you’re doing work for reviews all the pitches to select one agency that gets paid. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in resources are just wasted if you don’t get the win. It’s just another way giving away free work can be financially devastating.

We all do things at times without direct compensation. We invest thousands at college in hopes of landing a job that is more financially fit than flipping burgers. Maybe it’s a personal relationship that has you doing favors for someone who will return them at a later date. Too often in business though, someone tries to confuse indirect compensation with what they are really offering, which is nothing.

If you have a set bill rate and there is a set amount of time the work will take, accepting anything less is just giving it away. When offered less money, offer less work. If the sales team has a problem, you need to put your foot down. The client has a problem? Now, it’s a negotiation. Once forced to accept a concession, call it out and get something in return. Regardless of the situation never sell your work for free.

I will leave you with a video that sums up the experience well:

None of us is as stupid as all of us

We have trouble working together. Within our own groups we share a common language. Marketers, programmers, and designers, contain a dialog among themselves. They distinguish problems differently from one another, but all create with an eye towards a business solution. We sometimes fall short as a team when we try and share ideas across departments. Unfortunately, these three groups together can form a Bermuda triangle where good ideas vanish into thin air. The push and pull can be a real turf war, but each group offers more than just a narrow scope of responsibilities.

The designer is a visual problem solver. Programmers are engineers. Account service and sales focus on clients. But, we all focus on business. We have to keep our ears open to really listen to what other groups are saying to understand the different angles. I am not talking about the details of how we work, but ideas about what we doing and why. They are not the territory of any one group nor should they be.

Ideas have a life of their own. Ownership of an idea is like the relationship parents have with their children. You first conceive the idea. Next, you give it some time to let it grow and develop. You are the sole owner at this point, because you haven’t shared the idea with anyone. The day comes though when you have to let an idea stand on its own. You give it over to other people who push and pull it in different directions. They will form and influence the idea just as you have. As the originator you can be proud, but the idea doesn’t belong to just you anymore. Remember, the moment you speak about an idea is the moment you no longer own it.

I am strong believer in teamwork. A team is strongest when everyone plays their positions, but focuses on assisting each other. It can be a very positive and rewarding experience. My college design teacher liked to use the word synergy. Synergy happens when a group of people feed off each other’s input to create something that is better than any one person could have made. Conversations with true synergy are a thing of beauty. It’s how we jump from good to great. But, it’s not without its difficulties.

Opening yourself up to a creative dialog can be a bit like walking into a punch. It can really sting when people start jabbing at your work. But, if you leave your ego at the door, you can get through it. I’ve always tried to emotionally distance myself just a bit when I get into these situations. No one is attacking me, not usually anyway. I have had many successes in my career and I am not looking for validation, I am looking to improve my work. I accept what people say, valid or not. I try to listen to what they are getting at, even if they’re not communicating it very well. Some people mean well and say bad things. Other people just say bad things.

I spoke to manager once who told me that you want some level of competition between employees. I suppose that makes sense if the competition is healthy. The reality of it can be a cold smack in the face. I have seen just about every bad intention pursued.

There are the defenders of the status quo. Usually, their background has no training in creativity or problem solving. The head of the pack throws out a thought and everyone nods their heads in agreement. It’s silly. No creative dialog, just egos and assholes looking to be top dog. For them it’s not about leadership, it about control.

Sometimes you have ideas pissed on because someone just wants to mark their territory. They didn’t add anything relevant, didn’t make the work better, and in most cases watered it down with a full bladder to claim some level of ownership. And that’s what they do when they like the work.

If you are in a position where you can offer feedback, be careful. I was in a situation once where a business team put together a baffling presentation that accompanied a Web design I created. So I offered constructive criticism. In response, I received a demeaning e-mail letting me know I didn’t understand the first thing about presentations and they called out my design as “graphics” for their proposal. Having worked on dozens of proposals, I can say the response wasn’t valid. Criticism is not a personal attack, but when you are dealing with people who don’t understand creative dialog, they will fire back like angry children.

If we have an opinion that isn’t demeaning to other people and is purely intended to improve the work, we should take the time to articulate our thoughts and assert them. It does take some level of personal honestly. Are you criticizing the work because you don’t like the person who is came up with the idea? Do you not like how much attention other people are getting? I could go on and on about the wrong reasons to criticize. Personal egos can infuse dialogs with spiteful pettiness. Maybe, you are dealing with people who just don’t understand. Management should step in and help educate them. And if management doesn’t get it either, you’ve got quite a bit of work cut out for you.

We are in a people business. What happens if you don’t make an effort to respectfully listen? People won’t like you. And when we start to make enemies of our coworkers, it’s the work that suffers. They have their jobs, I have mine. I always ask people what they think, but I never tell them what to do.  I expect nothing less in return. We are educated professionals who have to trust one another. A creative dialog isn’t about forcing another person’s hand or dragging them down. It’s about opening yourself up to better possibilities, better work, and honest relationships.

Tell Them No, Just Never Use that Word

I was at an agency meeting some time back, when the head of the company addressed the sales team requesting they take programmers to client meetings as needed. It was at this point I witnessed a lead salesman turn to his colleague and say, “not a chance.” This event didn’t go unnoticed and got around the IT department fast which led to a few conversations. The one concern we got back from the sales team is that the IT people always say no. There is a solution to this, but we need to understand the problem first.

From the time we are little kids, we live in a world of no. No dessert until you finish your vegetables. No, you didn’t clean your room. There’s a lot of big frustration around such a little word. We all want to run around and do what we want. As children, the first part of being punished for misbehaving starts with your parents yelling the word no. It takes our heads out of the clouds and puts our feet back on the ground.

As adults, no gets internalized. We don’t kick and scream when we hear it, although that would be funny to see a board room full of executives “expressing” themselves. Under the calm veneer of professionalism, we are all emotional animals that get mad when we don’t get what we want. That’s not to say we are all boiling under an icy exterior, but telling someone no has real consequences.

No comes from the head, but goes straight to the heart. A programmer rationalizes why something can’t happen because of logically based perceptions. These opinions are not formed out of malice or petty dominance, but far too often are treated like they are.

Before you whip out the big N-O, remember it’s an emotionally charged and potentially damaging word. People are scared to hear it. In the world of business, you will be judged for using that word and the negativity will come right back at you. People will make up all kinds of reasons why you told them no without diving in to deeper issues. It can be a little ridiculous, but it’s the world we live in and we need to adapt.

There are ways to disagree without saying no.  And before you call me out on being manipulative, I am not advocating any level of political doublespeak and clever misdirection. Not because it doesn’t work, but because programmers are smarter than that and we don’t need to lie. So you take no out of your vocabulary, but what happens when you find yourself in a no situation?

The two situations I normally encounter are when requests are literally impossible to achieve and the other is when they makes no business sense whatsoever. Programmers are problem solvers. So use your talents and think about what can happen and what does make sense. Focus on the reasons why something won’t work and develop a solution that fixes those problems.

A common situation is being given an unrealistic deadline. So instead of saying no, tell them about what you can accomplish in that timeframe. Figure out how to stage multiple releases and let the client know that you will concentrate on getting the core functionality right. This helps the team focus on what’s important. If you come up with a better solution, everyone wins.

It’s an educational process that involves the programmers, account service, and the clients. Don’t be mad at them for not knowing. You have to educate them about what reasonable possibilities are and they will educate you about what their problems are. When you fully understand the problem, you should have the confidence to offer up an alternative if what they are asking for doesn’t make sense. And remember, you’re employment depends on your company’s ability to sell something. I would rather be coding than playing salesman, but a good team has to help each other out.

Sometimes a dumb request can be a smart one with a little work. And sometimes despite everyone’s best effort, our clients won’t be persuaded at all. Even if you fail, the best part is you learn what will and won’t work. In time you find ways to shelf the word no in favor of a conversation, at least that’s what works for me.

I love the responses I get from my posts. What I would like to do this week is for those of us out there who have had success in dealing with these situations to post how they handled themselves to help others who might be struggling. After a week, I will take my favorite top three and repost to the main blog as guest entries. Thanks!