Sometimes in life, experiences are really a matter of perception. One day, you might see nothing but pink clouds and blue skies in a situation. The next, you might see storm clouds and leaking roofs. As managers (or, in my case, as an advocate), sometimes we are called upon to help our co-workers see through their own fog and glimpse the sunshine.

But how? I don’t know about you, but I’m no therapist. I’m a designer and a strategist so I use the tools I have.

A few weeks ago, one of my advocat-ees (we have an advocate system rather than a management system) was struggling with a project. It was actually a really cool project but it had been going for a long time. There was no end in sight. She was having trouble keeping perspective, feeling buried under it.

She needed, and asked for, an attitude adjustment.

Here’s what I did. I took three large stickies and on each one I wrote one of these questions:
a) What excited you about this project when you first started it?
b) When this project is finished, it will…
c) When this project is finished, I will…

I gave her a stack of small stickies and a sharpie. I handed one question to her at a time. I asked her to take three sheets from her sticky pad and on each, write one answer to the question. As she completed each set, I handed her a new question and posted the previous question and her answers on the wall.

Once she finished all of them—about five minutes later—we stood back and reviewed her answers. I had her talk through each set. We discussed her answers and I asked loads of questions. I pointed out things that seemed to be really important to her and asked her about things that seemed to be contradictory. Mostly, though, I just let her talk. She was able to remember the things that excited her about the project in the first place and remind herself how both she, the client, and our company would be affected by its outcome.

It didn’t change the nature of the project or its timeline but it changed the way she felt about it. When we were done, she was visibly refreshed, and ready to move forward.

I was speaking to a friend this morning, a musician and songwriter who has been experiencing some depression. For her, this type of depression has been a long-time burden and she is taking some steps to get better. But, she pointed out, she is deeply afraid of losing her creativity to happiness. I knew exactly what she meant.

Do you have to be unhappy to be creative?

A few nights ago, Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show asked Ben Kingsley the same question. Kingsley responded:

“I think we all accommodate to what we have. We all go through periods of wilderness and I’ve been through mine. I think most men and women, when they are adults, have earned their adulthood, have earned their humanity. It does involve some bleak times. I do think we create better when we are happy. I honestly do.” — Ben Kingsley

Right now Kingsley says he is really happy. Recently married, raising a chicken, building a life in rural England. And, according to IMDB, he has something like four movies to be released this year and five more in production or recently completed. So I believe he knows something about it.

For me, I’ve learned that happiness, like creativity, isn’t a destination. It’s more of a process. So I just show up every day, do the best that I can, make something, try to be helpful to other people, and use the gifts I was given.

My co-worked Bryan Mason and I will be speaking at SXSW on Monday, March 11 at 3:30pm.

The focus of our talk is on tools and techniques creative professionals from other disciplines use to keep the juices flowing. We’ve talked to a number of people in different areas (theater, classical music, comedic writing, restaurants) and drawn on our own experience in theater and music. It’s been a super fun process and we are excited to share the results.

When I go to Amsterdam, I like to hit Nijhof & Lee, a great little design book store located near Waterlooplein (and while I’m at it, I hit De Beesten Winkel for stuffed dinosaurs and creepy crawly bugs for my nephews). For the size of the store, they have a great selection of both US and European design books. I almost always find something I haven’t seen before anywhere else.

This time I found “Design Management” by Kathryn Best. This book is a great survey of skills, tools, and methods for designers and managers a like. She covers managing the design strategy, the design process, and implementation. It has a strong graphic design emphasis but many of the examples and methods can be adapted to other forms of design.

I’ve been lots of places, which has unfortunately disrupted the nice writing routine I got going over the summer and early fall.

For instance, I:

1. spoke at Oredev, a conference for desktop developers in Sweden in November
2. gave a talk at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco
3. gave a talk with Sharon Greene from the Neo-Futurists at MX East in October
4. conducted a 20 person user research study in Phoenix, Sacramento, and San Francisco

And, in addition, I spent some time with my sister and her kids in St. Louis and Luxembourg.

No wonder I was so tired when Christmas came around.

This week I am facilitating a series of visioning workshops for a super sweet client. I’m hoping for some good posts to come out of that.

If graphic designers can learn anything from their past, it should be that the best graphic design doesn’t use the past to solve the complex problems of the present: it uses the present to reveal the possibilities of the future. —Jeffrey Keedy, Designer and CalArts instructor

I recently stumbled across a book of design meditations and have added a review of one each day to my morning routine. Some of the meditations are more platitudes, but some have some meat to them, like this one.

Imagine W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee holed up in an old boarding house in Brooklyn, working as hard and fast as they can to create as much new work as possible before the US enters World War II. Can you imagine the discussions? The arguments? The parties?

You will probably hear more from me over the next few weeks on Sherill Tippens book, The February House, an excellently written and researched account of this experiment in communal living. Many of the artists’ most iconic works were created during this period.

Here’s the bit I found really interesting while reading last night: W.H. Auden, upon moving into the house, found it to be a less satisfactory creative environment than what he had hoped for. He took it upon himself to set up a more conducive structure to the house. After years of alternately living the bohemian life and that of the nurtured artist, Auden came to the conclusion that the optimum environment for artists included both order and unexpected disruption.

First, the problem with chaotic environments:

“…he had discarded the romantic idea that unbridled bohemianism was likely to lead to the creation of anything work reading, looking at, or listening to. The fundamental premise on which bohemianism was based—the idea that “‘good’ equals what the bourgeoisie do not do’”—was self-evidently false. Regular meals and quite work hours were required for efficiency in every realm, and just because factory owners relied on them should not prevent artists from doing so as well.”
Tippens, p. 67

Then, the problem with nurturing environments:

“…he had explored the idea that such highly nurturing environments could also harm the artist because they were essentially closed. By limiting the possibility of change and access to the unknown, they prevented the artist from encountering the ambiguous or difficult elements that would spur him toward true creativity and expression. Without the random interloper that interferes with his perfect vision, Auden suggested, an artist becomes stagnant and only repeats himself in a cosseted, self-reflecting cycle.”
Tippens, p. 68

So, for Auden (and I have certainly found this myself), this balance of chaos and order was critical. Tippens writes:

“One could even say that at times the Devil himself served God’s purpose, then, by luring the artist towards inauthentic paths and thus revealing to him, by contrast, what his true path had always been.” Tippens, p. 68.

In practice, this turned into regular meal times, set times for work (and silence in the house) and set times for socializing.

So far, it seems like the criteria for success Auden laid out include:

• Good humor
• Work time
• Play time
• Nutrition and hot water
• Agreement in the house on the above
• Someone to facilitate the above structure
• Someone to manage the details, like bills, repairs, and rent

More to follow…

It seems like I just got back from UX Week and will soon be off to MX East. My session will be a conversation with Sharon Greene, artistic director of the Neo-Futurists, a theater group based in Chicago, known for their long-running show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.  We’ll be talking about how you can set up a work environment that encourages continuous, collaborative creativity. If you are interested in learning more about them, I have both a paper and presentation.

Here’s some more information on the conference:

The MX East conference will blaze a trail this October 21 – 23 into the new frontier of innovation and design management. MX East takes a strategic look at the business value of design, and how design drives success in product development and the service industries. The loyalty and trust of today’s consumer is best earned when they remember their experience with a product or service as not only positive but potentially life-changing or empowering; the businesses that respond to this consumer demand are the ones that will succeed.

Read the entire program at http://adaptivepath.com/events/2007/oct

Ideally suited for design, product, and creative managers, MX East bridges the gap between conferences that address the big vision of design and strategy, and conferences that focus on form-making and methods.

MX East brings together a top business and design professionals who have listened and responded to their target customers’ needs. This year’s speakers include thought leaders from a variety of sectors who are using the influence of smart design to win customers and deliver exceptional user experiences, whether through print media, retail stores, consumer products or customer service. Join Adaptive Path hosts Jesse James Garrett and Peter Merholz in welcoming these speakers as they share their stories of innovation and offer a deeper look into what it takes to overcome some of the design challenges that face creative leaders in business today:

- Joshua Wesson, CEO, wine retailer Best Cellars
- Lou Carbone, Experience Engineering
- Mark Jones, Service Design Director, IDEO
- Irene Au, Director of User Experience, Google
- Khoi Vinh, Design Director, The New York Times
- Scott Berkun, industry analyst and author of _The Myths of Innovation_
- and more!

The conference will address topics such as:
- Embedding design practices throughout your company
- Overcoming organizational inertia
- Bringing emotional resonance to the experiences you deliver
- The secrets of innovation, and how to apply them to your work
- Metrics and measurement of design success

Use promotional code FOSN and you’ll get 15% off the registration price, including lodging (saving up to $250).

UX Week starts Monday - it’s going to be a great program. This entire event is one huge collaboration. From content to catering, over a hundred people will make this event possible and 250 people will come to participate.

So, this is where I get teary. Events like UX Week aren’t about a single person or idea. They are about conversation and inspiration, about creating a space where passionate people can share their hard-won experience and great ideas. Fantastic.

Right on time… Scott Berkun has shared yet another great essay, this time on Creative Thinking Hacks.

Out of this essay, come to critical point:

an idea is a combination of other ideas.

I love the simplicity of this description. But there’s a catch:  you must both be open to ideas then fearless about using them. Ah, the rub.

In a recent series of client workshops on a future visioning project, the goal was to exactly this: take existing ideas and combine them in new and unique ways to arrive at a new, multi-channel offering. In the first workshop, we got as many of these ideas out on paper as possible, using a structured ideation process. In the second workshop, we took these point ideas and sought ways to combine them into collections of cohesive ideas.

The challenges we faced, though, with the participants were two-fold. First, we had to convince them that they already had the ideas, right there in the room, in their heads. We had learned this early on in our work with them. As an organization, they were knowledgeable and had loads of interesting ideas but no way to hang them together in a cohesive way. We just kept reminding them of this every chance we got.

Then, we had to help them to take all those ideas and shed their preconceptions about what was possible. This proved tricky. Combining ideas requires experience and practice. While the group got much better at combining ideas over time, the design team–relatively free from politics and willing to take more risks–ultimately synthesized the point ideas and initial grouped ideas into platform recommendations.