Managing Creatives Creatively

The Harvard Business Review blog posted recently on how to manage creative types. They make some good points (in a Thurston Howell III kind of way).

I think it's great that there's recognition that structure and uniformity can be at odds with innovation and experimentation; and particularly that the piece acknowledges that there is a cost incurred when a company decides it wants to get out front and really be creative instead of playing it safe.

I'm not thrilled with the part about paying creatives poorly, though. Starving artists are only more motivated than well-fed ones when they're actively seeking a better job.

Seven Rules for Managing Creative People.


But HBR's points did not go unchallenged.Our friends at Despair.com respond with the following: 

How to REALLY Manage Creative People.

Questions and Answers

You might never know all the answers, but it's good to know the questions.

I've always been impatient with high-sounding mission statements that often state nothing at all. This piece from Warren Berger in Fast Company suggests another approach to stating your purpose.

 Forget The Mission Statement. What’s Your Mission Question?

Plans Laid Best

Dominoes will refuse to fall according to plan. Expect to improvise.

Visual.ly is an infographics clearinghouse. They're set up as a marketplace - where people who need infographics can connect with people who make them. Even if you're not shopping, it's a great stop for inspiration.

LEGO Minifigs infographic by Hot Butter Studio.

What I get from browsing this kind of material, apart from seeing good work from good designers, is an appreciation of the many different ways to clearly present data.

Design Philosophy Shapes a Nation

In his November 29th Per Square Mile piece, Tim De Chant tells us about looking down from a flight between Boston and Chicago to see the ribbon farms in what used to be Nouvelle-France.

The idea is that long, thin farms were established along an existing transportation route, in this case the St. Lawrence River (but the concept applies equally well to roads), this maximized efficiency in getting good from many farms to market (more access to transportation for more farms), and provided other benefits that he describes much better than I can.

The ribbon farms arrayed to share river frontage more compactly were a French tradition, and are uncommon in North America.  Square farms -- parcels plotted out and transportation figured out later -- became the standard.  That led to lots of road building and shaped the landscape we see in the US and Canada today.

Don't Get Struck in Analysis

Michael Allen's Leaving ADDIE for SAM, reviewed at  http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1012/, looks worth a read. The preface is available as a free download from Allen Interactions (yes, they will want your contact info).

The point is that the time-honored ADDIE model (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate) used in instructional design is not exactly, shall we say, nimble. It's slow, cumbersome, and does not always lead to a good, finished product. It's too easy to get sucked into endless trips back to the drawing board. 

He says "The foundation of any traditional process is an accurate analysis. You can’t move forward until the analysis is complete and flawless – the problem with that is no analysis can ever be complete and certainly not flawless. So, training departments get stuck in the Analysis Paralysis – and the schedule slips and keeps slipping."

Allen suggests SAM --the Successive Approximation Model -- as a replacement.  Sketch a broad picture of the product you're designing, then go into depth, then iterate/refine -- but only a few times. I've worked on too many project that are in revision as soon as they launch -- I think he's onto something here.


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Form and Function

Form has to support and follow function. Pretty things that don't work...don't work.

The image posted below - I still see it as taking an elegant shot at  integrating aesthetics with accessibility -  drew a Facebook comment from Jonathan David Post, and he's right.

And Mr. Post's comment:
"This is a cool solution visually but maybe not the most functional. A few problems: Too steep. Too long. No railing (If you slip what happens? Tumble to your death?). What if there's a crowd of people going up/down? Roll through them?

My mother's been disabled my whole life so I tend to notice poorly designed ramps and doors..."

The original image came from DoSomething's page, the post was on October 4, and you can read more good comments, both supportive and critical, there.

Just goes to show - there's always more to think about.