Viaspire - Define.Innovate.Maximize.

Creativity is not a luxury, but a necessity

The exploration of new ideas, the expression of different ways to present those ideas, and most of all the unique nature of communicating complex ideas simply or provocatively -- all require time and an open opportunity to explore, test, and try again. Creativity is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Reading through my feeds, I came across this great "tongue-in-cheek" article by Paul Sloane, author and speaker on leadership, innovation and lateral thinking, entitled - Ten Great Ways to Crush Creativity. 

Sloane says, "Leaders have more power than they realize. They can patiently create a climate of creativity or they can crush it in a series of subtle comments and gestures. Their actions send powerful signals. Their responses to suggestions and ideas are deciphered by staff as encouragement or rejection."

Here's how Sloane sees a top 10 list to "crush creativity" in an organization:

1. Criticize new ideas
2. Discourage brainstorming or collaboration to explore new ideas or creative solutions
3. Hoard problems - don't seek ideas to create innovative solutions
4. Focus on efficiencies not innovation
5. Overwork - "hard work alone will solve the problem"
6. Adhere to the plan at all costs
7. Punish for mistakes, reduce taking any risk
8. Don't look outside (the organization, the processes used, the existing solution in place)
9. Promote only those who think and manage like you
10. Don't waste money on training - just learn as you go

For the full article, read on >>

See Paul Sloane's latest book, The Innovative Leader: How to Inspire Your Team and Drive Creativity.

Change Manifestos Worth Reading from ChangeThis

There are always great manifestos published on ChangeThis and some of the latest I wanted to share with you. If you are a manager in today's Organization 2.0, the following manifestos are an excellent read. These ideas and concepts are worth sharing. Check them out!

Change Master: Why Adapting is the Most Crucial Skill You’ll Ever Need
By: M.J. Ryan Web | PDF
“In order to not merely to survive, but to thrive during the greatest period of transformation humans have ever experienced, we are all being called on to stretch mentally, emotionally, and spiritually into the future. It’s my hope that this manifesto offers you both comfort and practical support as you take on this challenge and become a Master of Change.”

See M.J. Ryan's latest book, AdaptAbility: How to Survive Change You Didn't Ask For

What’s Your CQ and Why Should You Care?
By: David Livermore Web | PDF

“You’ve heard about IQ and EQ. But what’s your CQ? CQ, or cultural intelligence, is more than just a kitschy catch phrase for cultural competence. It’s a fresh, new approach to leading in our multicultural, globalized world. Cultural intelligence is defined as the capability to function effectively across national, ethnic, and organizational cultures. And research demonstrates a leader’s CQ may easily be the single greatest difference between thriving in the 21st century world and becoming obsolete.”

See David Livermore's latest book, Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World (Youth, Family, and Culture)

Below C-Level Strategy
By: John Spence Web | PDF

“Whereas C- level strategic planning is for people that ‘make’ budgets; below C-level strategic planning is for those of us that are given a budget. Folks at the C-level make broad reaching decisions that direct people and departments across the entire organization, while those of us below C-level often have to focus on the few places within the organization where we do have impact, influence and some level of control. Luckily, the most important strategies for creating a highly successful organization fall into a handful of key result areas, most of which are completely within your control.”

See John Spence's latest book, Awesomely Simple - Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas into Action

Quit Managing Your Time… and Start Managing Your Attention
By: Lee J. Colan, Ph.D. Web

“The myth of time management never dies. Many people enroll in 'time management' classes and learn techniques like making to-do lists. That’s fine. Lists can be useful, even satisfying. It’s great to experience that rush—Ahhhh!—as we check something off the list. However, by the end of the day, or the week, or the month, most people discover projects that are still not checked off and some projects they haven’t even started. That’s when frustration begins to set in. The time is gone, and there’s no way to get it back.

You can’t manufacture time, you can’t reproduce time, you can’t slow time down or turn it around and make it run in the other direction.

You can’t trade bad hours for good ones, either. About all the time management you can do is to cram as much productive work as pos¬sible into each day.

What you can manage, however, is your attention..."

See Lee Colan's latest book, Winners Always Quit

US Now | Mass Collaboration Online Can Transform

There is an exciting new British documentary that just debuted in London on December 3, 2008 at the RSA. The film, US Now explores how mass collaboration, the internet and its power to transform society has extraordinary potential to transform institutional structures, like government, broaden citizen participation and, "deepen" democracy. Each perspective included in this film constructively looks at simply, "the potential" of what lies ahead. With that, includes the challenges and some of the structural barriers to date, but given the timeliness of this documentary, there is also the sense, that the time is now to leverage and utilize what we have used, learned, built, and participate in to take such institutions like "government," go beyond "e-government" and create a richer, more interactive, participatory democratic government. The film looks at the potential and the opportunity to "unbundling and reconstituting" the institutional ways to create greater access and broaden the participatory role of the citizen. It's an interesting and extremely timely exploration in these new time ahead.

Us Now tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the existing notion of hierarchy, such as Wikipedia, Facebook and others.  For the first time, this film brings together leading-edge visionaries in the field of participative governance to describe the future of government. Us Now follows the stories of the people that are redefining what is an institution. The film explores common organizational structures plotting the fate of a football club owned and run by its fans, a bank in which everyone is the manager, a global network whose members share their homes with strangers and asks politicians and thinkers what all this means for society.

"There's a whole new model emerging where we become part of the government," says film contributor, Don Tapscott.

There are great clips available online now and will culminate in an hour long documentary to be released publicly in January 2009.

View some of these clips now to see how exciting the dialogue and critical thinking is.

Governments Getting with the Internet

Social Networking

Organizations & Democracy

Models For Government

Economist: Companies & Social Networks - Losing Face

The Economist tells a cautionary tale of companies who find out after the fact that their employees are revealing or misrepresenting their employers' brand online with their own posted indiscretions, gossip or exchanges on community sites like myspace, Facebook and Twitter.

It's a must read for organizations who currently have not addressed social networks usage policies - not only "at work" usage policies, but also "general usage guidelines" that are highly recommended to manage your brand and online reputation.  The article has three important recommendations to consider:

• [Create] and reiterate online guidelines frequently
• Monitor online activity closely to ensure that rules are respected
• Frequent “online watering holes” where people exchange gossip and views [to be fully aware of what is being posted directly by employees or through their affiliation with the organization].

Read on>>

Timeless Perspective & Wisdom on Web Development & Information Technology

We find there is a continuous challenge in the workplace as Organization 2.0 continues to impact, morph and mashup disciplines that were without question very clearly defined. Take the evolution of the I.T. department, for example. I just came across Steve Smith's 2006 post, Web Development and Information Technology that posed the question: Should Web development be housed under I.T.? I recognize tremors can be felt along much of the organizational fault lines by even posing such a question in many structured organizations, but it's interesting to consider, particularly as new lines are drawn and cross-functional teams are formed in today's Web 2.0 organizational structure.

The essence of Smith's post notes that each discipline within the Web development lifecycle contributes to the process and that contributors must work "hand in hand" to fully create a successful online experience. The post breaks down the territorial stance of where "Web development" lies within the organization. It also clarifies, which is refreshing, the difference between "Web development" and "Information Technology," which seems to be a common identity crisis in many evolving IT organizations.

So, in 2008, is this question, "What does Web Development have to do with Information Technology?" still relevant, important, even controversial? Are organizations shifting and changing to create more cross-functional "interaction" teams or standing firm as independent skill-based silos?

What I love most in this post is Smith's take up front about Web development:

"IT is a necessary part of keeping the web alive, but one that is so separate from the creation of a website that it makes me laugh every time I think about it. Information Technology is, and always should be, concerned with the reliability, stability, and effectiveness of serving a website. Those creating websites should focus their complete attention on the effectiveness of the message, the design, the interface and the content."

What's your thought? How do you define today's Web Team? Does it reside in one camp or another other? Is the modern enterprise ready for dynamic, non-traditional organizational structure that is collaborative and multi-disciplinary lead by specialists and championed by "customer evangelists?" How far have we come?

Bridging the Gap - Shopping Made Simple

Gap is one of those great brands and retail experiences that has taken some blows financially over the recent years. When you think of great, inspiring lifestyle brands, building extraordinary brand loyalty, the Gap is on par with Apple, Volkswagen, IKEA and now Target (of all brands), in my opinion.

But, the Gap has struggled financially as well in its classic identity. Today, I read a great article in Business Week about "A Fashion Guy Gets Gap Back to Basics." While Design chief Patrick Robinson is taking the Gap back to the quality of the basic, classic styles the Gap is known (and loved for), he also quotes he can "design the best T-shirt,...but if we don't put it in the right stores in the right amount of sizes," then it is out of his hands. Robinson says, "It's going to take this whole company to [succeed]."

From my morning read about the Gap to an email this afternoon, I received word that the Gap and its affiliate brands, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Piperlime, have launched Shopping Made Simple an integrated online shopping experience that allows online consumers to browse and buy from all four stores adding to one shopping bag with integrated check out. Additionally, another convenience built into the online shopping experience is one seven dollar flat shipping rate* and free returns.

The Gap and its affiliate brands are aggregating to create an experience much like what many consumers have come to expect by shopping online at Amazon.

As mentioned in earlier posts, Tis the Season to Redesign, which means we will be seeing more innovation in e-commerce and enhanced user experience models to optimize convenience, increase satisaction and build loyalty for the upcoming shopping season. This new 4-in-1 shopping experience by Gap is a competitive way to streamline the shopping experience around the consumer -- making it "simple" and convenient to shop with the Gap online.

Looks like the Gap is bridging the "gaps" of past challenges and unifying the brand experience to benefit the consumer.

Go Gap!

*Exception: Piperlime orders ship free.

Is Your Web Experience Accessible? WCAG 2.0 at a Glance

Accessibility is important to user experience design
Let me say this up front... making your Web site accessible adds another layer of optimization to your user experience design. Making your website accessible not only removes the barriers of access to certain groups of individuals, but by design, it has inherent benefits and techniques to improve usability and interaction overall.

Good user-centered design means accessible design
Often in our consultation, we see fear, confusion and sometimes even indifference ("Our website doesn't necessitate accessibility compliance. Our users want more, not less.") when it comes to Web accessibility compliance. Such resistance is easily overcome when "compliance" can be understood first as a fundamental commitment embedded within your website strategy and secondly, as a continuous process improvement, thereafter.

What you resist, persists.
I am a true believer that if you create a holistic user experience, your website will include accessibility methods in design and development to maximize your functionality, features, design and content. I also believe, and have seen it time and time again, if the design and development does not facilitate varying degrees of accessibility compliance (based upon user expectations and interaction design) the Web experience will remain compromised and reveal itself in user satisfaction ratings, traffic metrics, online reputation, etc.

Most Web strategies get teams excited when measurable tactics are taken in SEO or even multivariate testing, for example. But, today, with "engagement" as the key metric, we challenge our client teams to include accessibility as part of the equation. If everyone can use a website more efficiently (minimizing barriers), can you imagine how all measurements will improve!?

Often, the biggest challenge we see our client teams face regarding compliance starts with the questions, like:

• Who needs to play a role in Web accessibility on our Web team?
• Where do we begin?
• How do we make our website more accessible?
• How do we manage our Web site to remain accessible?

For years, the W3C has worked to define important guidelines to establish a structure for compliance. Unfortunately, the Web Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), while comprehensive, have tended to be complex and quite frankly, a little overwhelming to most business users who are trying to guide Web initiatives that include accessibility.

Today, Andrea Hill, Social Interaction Designer/Developer and blogger, explores the WCAG and addresses the question What’s the deal with… Web Accessibility and WCAG? It's a great post noting the basis for WCAG and the evolving improvements in WCAG 2.0. Her post inspired me today to add to this conversation.

Related Sources:

• Web Accessibility: WCAG 2.0 at a Glance
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

It Was the E-Team in the 90's, Now It's Org 2.0

I had the privilege of working at Packard Bell NEC in the late 90's when e-commerce and "going direct" was all the rage. As a traditional PC manufacturing company was coming to grips with how to organize around the new supply chain dynamics of manufacturing and how to fulfill orders online, it was both fascinating and exciting to be a part of it.

Being a marketing communications type and holding a unique position in user experience in an IS department, I was fortunate to be on a somewhat stealth Web Team, which at the right time, had the golden opportunity to make major changes and expand the capacity as owners/operators of the small, but growing online channel with a multi-disciplinary, cross-functional team.

As a result, we merged, melded and formed an E-Team, which was a hand-selected team of people, who excelled in their positions across the enterprise and wanted to work together without divisional boundaries. It was by all accounts a very big success organizationally and it was an amazing time to be a part of the leadership of that new organizational unit.

Now, today, there is an article, Org Chart 2.0: Built for User Experience Systems on CNET conveying much of what we experienced as a result of forming the E-Team, but this time puts User Experience as a core organizational axis of this multi-disciplinary cadre.

The article says, we are about to see "the birth of a new business organization - one that is optimized for complex systems of problems and solutions, rather than based on silos focused on specific functions, and which treats user experience as a core organizational axis rather than a meddlesome add-on."

I'm not sure if this is the "birth" or "re-birth" of this concept, but it is great to know Org 2.0 folds in user experience as a critical and necessary element to the successful output and structure of today's cross-functional teams.

Long live the E-Team!

Obama Maximizes the Online Experience, Part I of II

Today is a monumental day. It's Super Tuesday and for the candidates who have been tirelessly campaigning, today is a very big day. I like to keep politics out of our business blog, but I have been smitten with how Barack Obama really gets "user experience" online.

In somewhat of a pictorial blog post today, I leave you with this... If you want to understand what an exceptionally executed user experience looks like today... use Obama for President's website as a roadmap for success.

From the emotive visual presentation of the human experience of this man, his family, his vision for America, you get...

Obama for President

 

From the elemental navigation, providing multiple paths to answers or action opportunities, you get inspiration and direction on how to engage...

From the well organized issue-based verticals of information, you get answers on topics to help you decide on matters important to you as a citizen...

To find video as your first opportunity to see, hear, and learn more. To have "Yes, We Can" looping in your mind hours after your visit, you get impact...

Next, you have the opportunity to read current updates and make comments on the Obama Blog to keep the conversation going...

To fully engage and retain your most loyal followers, Obama for President offers a way to stay connected, to personalize the experience, to store, share and stay completely connected with my.obama.com.

Obama for President puts every best practice in to play here. It is a website, which excels in everything fundamental and simplifies the progressive tactics to make engagement easy and compelling.

Obama for President is a checklist for all things in good user design. In Part II, we'll continue this post to show you how Obama leverages "free media" and understands the value of the Social Web.

Additional Resources:

• Obama Maximizes Reach on the Social Web, Part II of II

A Sign of the Times

Last year, we attended many conferences and events where publishers revealed and discussed their challenges and strategies for effective distribution in print and online. As the WSJ recently redesigned its layout and our own local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, celebrates its 150 year anniversary, this AP report, World's Oldest Paper Goes Paperless, is a timely milestone in the history of newspaper publishing.

How Will Print Media Evolve
Industry experts may say, this is another fissure in the iceberg -- cracking away at news print media.  Traditional subscribers may argue that there is nothing that can replace the experience of reading the newspaper as is in its traditional paper form. The reality, though, is that we are in the Information Age. Just like the transformation brought about by the printing press in the Industrial Revolution, delivering news digitally is this era's method of delivery, reach and consumption.  As GenerationNext has predominntaly "online" experiences (including mobile/wireless) with many traditional forms of information, the future shows this type of transformation is inevitable.

Evolve or Die
What I find interesting in this small, but historically significant publication, is that their history as the oldest publication in circulation, didn't hold them back from adapting. In my opinion, this publication avoids extinction and adapts to today's environment, extending its legacy into a whole new era of publishing.

Lycka till, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar!