In the London office of ad giant Wieden + Kennedy, folks are greeted by an unusual doorman: a mannequin in a pin-stripped business suit carrying a briefcase. Two key oddities are immediately recognized within the manly figure. First, his head has been replaced by a blender. Second, his black leather briefcase is emblazoned with bright pink letters, formed into an easy-to-say-but-hard-to-do encouragement to those who call these creativity-laced hallways their home: Walk in stupid every morning.

The directive’s genesis can be found in Dan Wieden’s own philosophy about innovation and culture, “Sometimes it seems that if you’re never lost you’re never going to wind up any place new.” The phenomenon that Wieden is referencing here is what I like to call Creative Cluelessness, that endearing quality that emerges when folks undertake a creative challenge that they simply have no process to define. It’s a wonderful experience, one full of innocence and joy. But it’s also full of education, which makes it so hard to repeat.

Ad man David Gray refers to this Creative Cluelessness as “ignorance” but in the most positive way. He says, “Knowledge can stand in the way of innovation. Solved problems tend to stay solved – sometimes disastrously so.” We know creativity at its core is problem solving, so as creatives, how do we force ourselves to selectively use the education we’ve gained from past experiences in an effort to ‘walk in stupid’ on our next project?

Assume Nothing
When you’re starting a new project, take the time to write down everything you think you know about the project, the audience and the client. Do it from memory, without the help of a creative brief or client communications. Doing it from memory will force you to do what you instinctively do when you create, fill in the holes of what you know with what you feel. These information fillers often guide our creative decisions but aren’t always founded in relevance or even truth.

When you’ve documented your “Know Bucket,” go through the list and begin to question if what you thought you knew was born from fact or prejudice. By documenting what you think you know, you identify areas that may lead you to solve a problem expectedly.

Seek Novelty
There is something new about every project you undertake. You may think that it’s the same problem as you have solved previously, but a detailed inspection will always turn up something new within the problem. Document what part of this project is different than anything else you’ve encountered. If you honestly can’t find anything novel about it, create something novel. Add in something that requires you to treat it differently, as small as that may be.

Once you’ve identified a part of the project that presents something new, use that as your innovation guide. Actively seeking something novel within every project will open your eyes to what other opportunities may arise.

Retool Knowledge
There’s a difference between education and understanding. To often, education prematurely leads to process, and those processes tend to be mindless actions, inserting rogue memorization for critical analysis. Instead of dropping a project into a pre-defined process, re-evaluate the process itself each time you start something new.

Say, for instance, the beginning of your process starts with research. Your process involves delving into online data, user interaction metrics and audience demographics. Is this process leading to insight or limiting you to only what the data holds? What if you altered your research phase to include one-on-one interviews with audience members, immersive trips to the client’s environment or good, old-fashioned people-watching? Its not ditching the research phase of your process, its simply re-tooling it for this project’s specific needs.

In The Pixar Story, Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton was being asked about the transition from Pixar’s first movie Toy Story, and its incredible success, to their next film, Bug’s Life. Stanton said, “You realize very quickly that you have to actually work now at making yourself as naive as you were the first time without any effort.” Creativity requires us to work to find that naivety as well. If we truly want to be creatively clueless, we have to take the time and make the effort to walk in stupid every morning.

The black briefcase with the above message being held by a mannequin in the London offices of Wieden + Kennedy forces people to leave their assumptions at the door and challenges them to take a novel approach to idea development.

Quick Tips

1. Don’t assume what you think you know is relevant and true. Question everything.

2. Every project has something unique to it. Find that uniqueness and make it the centerpiece of how you solve the problem.

3. Question your own creative process. Is it designed to evolve with each problem or designed to make solving problems simply easier?

Dig Deeper!
1. Read The Independent’s 2007 interview with Wieden + Kennedy Creative Director Dan Wieden

2. Read David Gray’s 2003 Harvard Business Review article “Wanted: Chief Ignorance Officer”

3. Looking for an in-depth evaluation tool of your creative process? Check out Todd Henry’s book The Accidental Creative

4. Design TV: Stefan Mumaw weighs in on the creative process.

The intersection of entrepreneurship and design—especially communication design—is a particularly lonely place. With a few remarkable exceptions, designers have steered clear of this risky and volatile, yet potentially rewarding territory, preferring instead to stick to the well-worn path of the traditional models of design studio, in-house graphics department, or freelance practice.

In an industry filled with an abundance of extraordinarily creative minds, why have so few chosen to challenge this convention and venture into entrepreneurship by bringing their own ideas directly to the marketplace?

First and foremost is money (a very valid concern!). The fact is, most entrepreneurial ventures require some sort of capital investment in order to launch, and most design businesses run on a fairly tight margin—especially in a slumping economy—so extra cash for side projects is hard to come by. This means that designers need to get smart about where the money is and how to access it. Traditional sources of business funding, such as venture capitalists, angel investors, small business bank loans, or government grants continue to be options, especially when are seeking higher amounts. In addition, an emerging category of alternative funding options is becoming more accessible for creative businesses looking for smaller amounts of seed funding. This includes so called micro-lending operations such as Kiva and Kickstarter, along with social innovation projects like the Pepsi Refresh Project, and any number of business competitions, which are often sponsored by universities.

Secondly, designers tend to have very strong professional networks within the creative world. When we attend a professional conference, it’s usually a design conference. When we look for inspiration, it’s often other designers whom we turn to. But becoming successful entrepreneurs requires us to work in a more interdisciplinary way—to form partnerships with lawyers, accountants, other entrepreneurs, and specialists from an array of backgrounds, in addition to the writers, photographers and other designers who currently fill our contact lists. These new professional alliances will allow us to expand our understanding of the complicated process of launching a startup and to more effectively plan for this process.

Finally, we need to get comfortable with a new definition of risk. The last two years of economic crisis have taught us that there is no such thing as a risk-free business, that even the safest possible business situations can disintegrate in shocking fashion, even the most solid and fruitful client relationships can fade. Yes, entrepreneurial ventures involve an element of risk, but if they are well planned, that risk is manageable—we decide how much risk to take and when to take it.

In the end, designers must find a way to do all of this, and more, without losing that essential spark of creativity that makes us unique business people.

Above:
Many designers stick to traditional models of design practice even though entrepreneurial efforts could lead them to more potentially rewarding opportunities.

Quick Tips
Many academic institutions have incubator programs designed to foster entrepreneurial growth. Find out what’s available in your region by reviewing offerings from the most vibrant local business schools.

Social media is a great tool for expanding your professional network. Try searching for terms like “entrepreneur,” “small business,” or “start up” on Twitter to tap into new areas of expertise.

Dig Deeper!
There are an infinite number of business how-to books. The trick is to find the ones that are most relevant. Here are a few to get you started:

1. The Art Of The Start by Guy Kawasaki is the bible for creative startups. It’s a quick, easy read, and a great primer on the entrepreneurial process (and Kawasaki is also a prolific Tweeter: @GuyKawasaki).

2. Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky is written on the premise that the creative spark is really only 1% of what it takes to build a business. Belsky covers the other 99%.

3. Good To Great by Jim Collins is the latest from this entrepreneurial guru. Even though most of us are dealing with a much smaller scale, there are essential lessons to be learned here about planning for growth.

4. BizPlancompetitions.com is a listing of business plan competitions, both regional and national.

5. Check out Merge for thoughts on the convergence of design and entrepreneurship.

It’s funny that I’m writing about this right now, because while beginning this post, without realizing it, I’ve been on my two Twitter accounts, played a word game on my iPhone, responded to a Facebook message, made a connection on LinkedIn, and texted someone a picture of where I’m writing. No wonder I’m surprised that time has flown by.

I love social media. I pretty much have accounts on every platform just because I find it profoundly interesting. At my company, we consult with our clients about the best social opportunities out there, so some of my interest is work-related, but the rest is just gadgety-social-nerdiness.

But here is the problem: This ever-increasing, engaging, and addicting social lifestyle pulls us further and further away from much-needed focus on ourselves and our work and toward intermittent breaks for real social interaction. It prevents us from having that sacred downtime that can help us feel “normal” again and not as though we’re flying at a million miles per hour. Online and mobile engagement is both beneficial and enjoyable, but we all need to habitually unplug.

The more you engage, the more prone you become to constantly checking your accounts for communications you need to respond to. Soon time has gone by—in many cases, time that was just frittered away . The things you intended to accomplish may be partially delayed, or you ran out of time because you were posting an update to your Facebook account and responding to comments rather than focusing on the task at hand.

It can be vital to use technology to help you manage things in your life where appropriate. But when you want to be more efficient at work or have more time, you need to look at the big picture.

One option is to regularly schedule parts of the day when you are unplugged. For you, that may mean forgoing phone, laptop, or tablet. For all of its advantages, overly accessible technology has affected us socially. The watercooler talk happens more often online now—unless of course you change that. Take time to handwrite notes, meet someone face-to-face, turn the phone off during a meeting, and concentrate on the moment. Being present makes us feel better connected than our latest status post. Start with any of the preceding ideas, especially regularly unplugging parts of your day.

This accomplishes a couple of things. For example, it has helped me to pay better attention to conversations going on in my house. You will be more fully aware of what is going on if you are not having conversions in your head with other people. Make sure you are fully engaged when you need to be. Learning to turn off technology is difficult, especially considering how accessible we all are now with the various mediums.

To see whether your focus and productivity increase, start a campaign for regular antisocial rallies. These can be attended just by you, or you can unionize your workmates—or your family at home. Either way, make a concerted effort to unplug and do something else. You might take a nap, exercise, work on your novel, or enjoy an uninterrupted meal for 30 minutes; any of these is a great start. Try hanging out with yourself, surrounded by pure quiet. When was the last time you did that?

What’s interesting is that, when you do plug back in, you realize that maybe you are a little late to some of the conversations but that nothing happened is preventing you from still participating. The more time you take to return to the physical world around you and engage there, the richer your days actually become.

Taking time to unplug from social media allows for renewed focus on creative work or other tasks at hand.

Image courtesy of Rule29

Quick Tips
Here’s how to start your antisocial campaign:
1. What times of the day are you most productive and tuned in? Choose those times to focus on the items you want to accomplish, whether it’s at work or after hours. Unplug before you start.

2. Read something—not on a phone or tablet. Play a board game or a card game. Draw. Paint. Do something that does not entail an electronic device. Dust off the Etch A Sketch?

3. Work-out and don’t check Facebook, talk on the phone, or tweet. Seriously.

4. If your phone or tablet is just too tempting, give it to a coworker or family member for a period of time. You can set aside regular, fixed times to have a no-device zone. This could be at morning meetings, at the dinner table, wherever. You might actually have some meaningful conversation!

Dig Deeper!
Check out Life Kerning, available October 25th.

There’s a difference between a passion and a pursuit, and that difference defines us as creatives. Many of us love design, we love writing, we love illustration. But few of us pursue these crafts with the verve required to truly master them.

Passions waiver, they falter and change abruptly. Pursuits change as well, but only after we’ve exhausted their totality, which rarely ever comes. If we value creativity and the novelty it provides in our life, we owe it to ourselves to make creativity more than a passion. We need to pursue it.

While there’s no stock process for creative pursuit, here are three conceptual steps we can make to help turn our passion for creativity into a pursuit:

Recognize That Creativity Means Solving Problems, So Solve a Ton
Regardless of your medium of choice, creativity in and of itself is about solving problems. We cannot be creative without a problem to solve, so start solving. Creativity can be trained, it’s a muscle that we can strengthen. We can get better creatively. It requires what any pursuit requires, practice and repetition. That doesn’t mean solving the same problem over and over, but that does mean engaging in the act of solving over and over. Find the medium you are passionate about, be it design, illustration, photography, typography… whatever. Then create challenges for yourself that require you to solve small problems. Don’t try to solve the big stuff, you’ll burn out before completing the challenge. Solve small problems regularly and you’ll begin to train yourself to seek out creative solutions more frequently.

Medium Doesn’t Matter
Your brain doesn’t know the difference between solving a photography problem or solving a design problem. All it knows is that you are solving and the more you solve, the stronger you get. If you’re a designer, don’t just solve problems that use the design process as the primary solution, step outside of your medium and try challenging yourself with writing a story, illustrating a picture, molding a figure. The further away you get from the routine you regularly employ, the more aware you will be of the problem’s specificity, and the more focused you’ll be on the solving part and not the executing part.

Look For Opportunities To Pursue Creativity In “Real Life”
We’re ‘Creatives’ by title but we’re creative by nature. We are confronted with innumerable opportunities throughout our day to practice creative thought, to pursue novel solutions. That pantry at home, with it’s mish-mash of cans and boxes… whatcha gonna do for dinner? Here’s your chance to pursue creativity. Make something you’ve never made, something no one’s ever made. Teaching a Sunday School class at church? Who better to get creative with than kids? Trying to decide what to put on that big, blank wall in the family room? Anyone can frame a painting, what do you have in the garage you could build to hang in that spot? And who says it has to be one thing, how about a rotating canvas where you try something new every month, something made entirely from the contents in your garage or basement? Learn to see the opportunities right in front of you and you’ll never want for creative windows.

Pursuing creativity means obsessing, it means constantly looking for the novelty available in every situation and embracing the failure as much as the success. Creativity can’t be mastered but no worthy pursuit can. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth the ride.

Creativity takes practice.

Illustration courtesy of Craig Winzer

Quick Tips
Creativity means solving problems, so solve small problems regularly by limiting the time of engagement and the consequence of failure.

Step outside of the mediums you regularly practice and solve problems from other disciplines. Don’t worry about execution, focus on the act of solving.

Creativity isn’t just an occupational characteristic; there are chances for us to solve problems creatively within our everyday lives if we’ll look for them.

Dig Deeper
Don’t miss Design TV’s newest video from Author of Caffeine for the Creative Mind and Caffeine for the Creative Team Stefan Mumaw. Full of creativity advice, watch this video and find out how to make the creative process part of your everyday life. Viewers will gain knowledge from Stefan as he provides examples of how he has accomplished this in his own life and at this own company.

Want to know more about learning to spot great ideas? Pick up a copy of Sam Harrison’s Ideaspotting.

August Turak, Forbes Magazine contributor, asks the simple question, “Can Creativity Be Taught?”

Need some inspiration for the types of challenges you may want to undertake in your pursuit of creativity? Pick up a copy of Caffeine for the Creative Mind and Caffeine for the Creative Team

We spend an inordinate amount of time avoiding failure, but the truth is, avoiding failure means taking trusted approaches to solving problems, and trusted approaches rarely lead to monster ideas.

One of the hallmarks of a monster idea is the presence of novelty in some form, and when we take trusted approaches to solving problems, we are sequestering novelty to limit risk. If we solve a problem the exact same way everyone else has, we don’t risk failure but we also don’t risk success. We often live our creative lives generating ideas that won’t fail instead of generating ideas that have a chance to succeed.

If failure isn’t an accepted, integrated part of your creative process, you probably have had few monster ideas see the light of day. Often, it’s not failure that is fundamentally needed, though. It’s the freedom to fail within our creative process that yields the most monstrous of concepts. If we work into our ideation both the chance and acceptance of failure, we give ourselves the greatest opportunity to generate monster ideas because we’re inviting novelty to the party, and we’re opening ourselves to explore new paths.

Here are three factors to consider when opening your ideas to epic failure in hopes of finding sleeping monsters:

Fail Early
There are always consequences when you fail, even if those failures are meant for good. Most of us aren’t in situations that easily absorb failure, but there’s a way we can mitigate the consequences of failure: fail early. With new paths come new challenges, aspects of our ideas that we don’t know how to achieve. When you generate ideas that have an unknown coming somewhere in the process, start with the unknown and prototype. Prototyping is making a mockup of the function, the thing it needs to do. If you wait until the end to tackle the unknown and that unknown blows up, the consequences are far more severe than if it blows up early in the process.

Fail Often
There’s a stigma to failure that comes from a very human need to succeed and be accepted. Very few people celebrate failures and the people that create them. The only way to integrate failure into your creative process and learn to accept it is to partake in it often. Failing often means limiting the size of your potential failures by taking small risks throughout your initial processes until you get accustomed to the consequences and can have a few successes to offset the stigma. If we initially take smaller risks, absorb smaller failures and see smaller successes, we’ll work our way up to absorb larger failures and reap larger successes.

Fail Fearlessly
Close your eyes and think of your worst creative failure, the idea that’s been your biggest unmitigated disaster. Now ask yourself this question: did it break you? I’m guessing most of us would say ‘no’. We are actually stronger for it, we learned valuable lessons that we take with us throughout our professional career and we have a great story to tell at design conferences. The true question, though, is this: did it make you gun-shy? Are you afraid to step out with a potential monster because that failure scarred you? All of us have creative scars, but monster hunters are able to see them as badges of honor rather than reminders of pain. If we can accept that what we do brings the potential of hurt, that every time we generate ideas we’re putting ourselves on a wall for the criticism of others, if our egos can take the failures in search of the monsters, there’s a far greater chance at finding them.

Stefan Mumaw is the Creative Director and Provider of All That Rocks at Reign, a Kansas City-based ad agency. He has authored several books, the most recent being Chasing the Monster Idea.

To find monster ideas, we have to be willing to take a few faceplants.
Photo by: Margo Harrison

Quick Tips
1. Fail early in the process to ease the consequence and provide time to adjust.

2. Learn to fail often by taking small risks throughout the process. Success in these small risks will ease you into taking larger, more strategic risks as you become accustomed to the consequence and reaction.

3. Fearlessness is an acquired taste but one that leads to more monster ideas. Learn to become fearless by putting your pride aside for the cause of chasing the monster.

Dig Deeper!
1. For stories of design’s elite and the failures that shaped them, pick up a copy of Steven Heller’s book Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failure, and Lessons Learned

2. Watch and listen to the great Milton Glaser describe fear in the creative process in this intimate and telling video

3. Read all about the 7 characteristics of monster ideas in Stefan Mumaw’s book Chasing the Monster Idea: The Marketer’s Almanac for Predicting Idea Epicness

4. More books from Stefan Mumaw: Caffeine for the Creative Mind and Caffeine for the Creative Team

We love to do good. The design community is increasingly engaged with doing work for good and embracing do-goodery. This is manifesting is several ways: following sustainable practices, supporting communities and organizations that need assistance, raising awareness about the benefits of socially minded design, etc. In tough economic times, our well intentions may move to the back-burner as we struggle to make ends meet, but how can we continue to do good?

Make It A Priority
Making do-goodery a priority for your business will have long-term payoff. Obviously, it will leave the earth in better shape, but it will also position you as part of a thoughtful, forward thinking group. If you strive to be an example to your clients by the way you respect the world, they will begin to respect you for your leadership and commitment.

The Basics
We should all be doing the basics in our design practice. Using soy based inks and recycled paper, supporting paper mills that make sustainable practices a priority, and articulating the value of these choices to our clients. Recycling all studio materials should be second nature by now, but making this process visible in your studio can make you an advocate. Use your experts; work with your printers and paper reps to stay up on the new innovations in sustainable practices.

Pro-Bono means ‘for good’
Ric Grefe, the executive director for AIGA, recently stated that pro-bono doesn’t have to mean for free; it can mean for good. Strive to do work worth doing. Think of this broadly; it shouldn’t be limited to the equivalent of the ‘save the rainforest’ poster. Step outside of your normal client zone and seek out organizations that could use your design thinking skills for good. On a large scale, we’ve seen this through projects like Design for Democracy, and on a smaller scale, organizations like Design Ignites Change seek to financially support projects. The design world is rewarding, and recognizing, work worth doing via competitions like cause/affect and AIGA (re)design. The support from our community is there, so take advantage of it.

When should you just say no?
So, you’ve covered the basics and strive to supplement your practice with socially minded projects. What more can you do? Ask yourself if an artifact is appropriate or if you should you just say no. The Audience Receptivity Gradient, created by David Rose, is a great tool for making sure you are appropriately targeting audiences. There is nothing more wasteful than creating an artifact that is incorrectly tailored and distributed via a misaligned channel. Ask the critical question: is your client’s message appropriate to their audience? In the Audience Receptivity Gradient, audiences are plotted in one of five places: not ready to know, ready to know, ready to hold and opinion, ready to act and ready to advocate. When devising a communication plan, the goal is typically to move audiences forward one or two steps, but no more. Realizing this, and articulating it to your client, can result in smaller, more targeted communication strategies. For example, if your client wants to notify consumers about a new service, is a printed brochure the best approach or would a viral campaign be more appropriate? While it may be hard to turn away work, especially in an economic downturn, you are doing your clients a disservice, and wasting resources, by letting them pursue a communication plan that isn’t going to succeed. Clients may continue to request traditional/expected design solutions (ie: we need a poster! A billboard! 100,000 brochures!), but it is the domain and the responsibility of the designer to determine the best vehicle for the client’s message. The mindful designer may then possibly suggest an interaction or service design solution with a lighter environmental impact and a more direct appeal to the audience.

In the Audience Receptivity Gradient, audiences are plotted in one of five places: not ready to know, ready to know, ready to hold and opinion, ready to act and ready to advocate. When devising a communication plan, the goal is typically to move audiences forward one or two steps, but no more. Realizing this, and articulating it to your client, can result in smaller, more targeted communication strategies.

Quick Tips
1. Must do the basics: recycle, use recycled materials, support vendors with sustainable efforts.

2. Be an example to your clients by the way you respect the world.

3. Ask the right questions and be prepared to just say no.

4. Push yourself to do better. Do one new thing to help our planet and communities every day or week or month or year. Whatever works for you.

Dig Deeper!
1. AIGA’s Living Principles

2. AIGA’s Design for Good Initiative

3. Design for Democracy

4. Design Ignites Change

5. Cause/Affect

6. (re)designAwards

7. SustainableAble: A Handbook of Materials and Applications for Graphic Designers and Their Clients

Collaboration within creative teams requires enthusiasm, optimism, and an openness to joining others in developing new ideas. A critical step in any collaborative effort is cultivating the appearance of willingness to engage in creative work with others. However, this first step is where many collaborative endeavors break down before they ever really begin.

After working hard to successfully present themselves as good potential partners, many would-be collaborators fear the implications of saying “no.” How might that response affect the likelihood of future invitations? As a result many deliver a soft or ambiguous “yes” when the best word for collaboration might be just the opposite.

For collaborative teams to work effectively there needs to be clear understanding about the level of participation and responsibilities of each member. Clear communication is the basis of that understanding, and ambiguity on these fronts can affect relationships, deadlines, and outcomes. While it may initially seem like a risky move, in the proper context a definitive “no” may be more conducive to effective collaboration than it first appears. An appropriately delivered “no” sends a clear signal about capacity to engage at a given moment, and can help establish trust between partners to give honest appraisals of the situation at hand.

Senior team members and those with multiple project or administrative commitments may be inclined to vague terms of collaboration. While complex or unpredictable scheduling demands may require a certain degree of flexibility in planning (for example working an unspecified 6 hours a week on a project), that same flexibility may ultimately make them a liability to the success of teams because it doesn’t reflect the ebb and flow of others’ productivity. As an alternative it may be more productive for these senior members to commit to engaging the team at specific time and date, or to produce a specific deliverable at a defined moment. In both cases other team members are able to anticipate and prepare for working together to maximize team productivity.

Even designers with fewer commitments may be prone to answering invitations with a different type of “soft yes” for a different set of reasons. In environments where willingness carries social currency designers looking to make a positive impression may be inclined to accept a request they don’t have the ability accommodate. Enthusiasm or desire to elevate standing within the workplace can encourage commitment to responsibilities they don’t fully understand and actually jeopardize their standing as a result. In such cases it’s helpful to consider whether the learning curve for these members can be accommodated within the project timeframe, or if other team members have complementary skills to provide support and ensure success if needed.

Of course the working conditions and existing relationships between collaborators will have an impact on the the success of the engagement and the need for clear terms of collaboration. Open or less structured environments, and new working relationships have a greater need for defined terms of participation and explicit agreements. In structured or hierarchical environments, with more defined roles and relationships, the need is greater for collaborative invitations—especially those from senior members—to be positioned as “opt in” and not a as a benchmark for opportunities in the future.

Many would-be collaborators fear the implications of saying “no.”

Quick Tips
1. Craft invitations ahead of time, make requests and invitations as explicit as possible, rather than asking whether someone would like to “work together” or “help on a project” ask for “help with finishing “x”, by “y date”.

2. Looking to make a good impression but stretched for time? Say “no, thanks” and provide an alternative, suggest a colleague who may have more availability or is better suited to the job and develop a reputation as a knowledgeable resource and team player in another way.

3. Fielding lots of requests for participation? Offer low volume participation in higher definition and stick to your agreements, or say, “no, I’m sorry I have other commitments” as early as you can and give teams time to find or create other solutions.

Dig Deeper!
1. The Corporate Executive Board writes about the Technology-Collaboration Disconnect and behavioral/social factors at Bloomberg Businessweek.

2. Evan Rosen at BusinessWeek says collaboration needs more than technology.

3. Get the guide to knowing and understanding your clients’ needs.

The best designers seem to thrive on change. They embrace risk. They are forward thinking, trend setting, and early adopting. Design as a culture embraces, preaches and praises these qualities. We hone them as students and admire them in our heroes.

Yet inevitably the by-product of such skills lead us to not only question traditional design and business conventions, but also ourselves. Constantly plaguing us with a single, recurring question: “What’s Next?”

In context of your career, we suspect you’ve been hearing those same nagging whispers.

Most designers split their skills between Type A tendencies like analysis, systems thinking, adherence to production schedules, and Non-Conformist tendencies that lead us to sketch instead of type, question authority, and take the occasional blind leap. Sometimes that’s a confusing mix. In our years of experience with students and professional creatives alike, we’ve noticed a couple of other common themes: we want to like what we do (Love over money. Not that we don’t like money too…), and we’re insatiably curious. It’s no wonder What’s Next is always on our mind.

This past weekend at the HOW Design Live Conference in Chicago, What’s Next manifested an almost physical presence in our lives. What we’ve recognized is how invaluable community can be to answering those internal questions. Our community, in this instance, was an awesome 3000-strong pack of creatives crammed into one gigantic hotel conference center. Some were talking, some typing, some sketching, plenty tweeting, but almost every single one of us was internally processing “What’s Next” And there’s something kind of magic about being crammed together while doing so. Part of it is simply the time. How often do you get three days full of time to think about nothing but your own professional development (sometimes with a free cocktail)? Part of it is the exposure. How often do you force yourself to look at the best your field has to offer and compare your own efforts? Not just aesthetically, but from business perspectives, social relevance, satisfaction levels, creative joy?

We’ve discovered that we don’t have to approach each Next from scratch. It’s okay to borrow from the lessons your community has collected. (The blind leap creative will make those lessons your own, and the inner analyzing neurotic will ensure that you’re not infringing on copyright.) And better than the borrowing is the building. It’s hard to be an island at a conference. Even the wallflowers mingle. So whether you head home with a stack of business cards or an upped “friend” count, what you’ve really left with is a community—one that you can lean on, but more importantly, one that you’re responsible to.

At Parse, we’re taking the next two weeks to grow, but promise to return to you with a bright shiny batch of What’s Next in short order. Cheers to your own efforts mulling that question. May you do so with with friends new and old, and perhaps a bit of sunburn on your nose.

Quick Tips
1. Find a conference buddy. It’s easier to navigate social situations when you have one point of contact.That being said, Don’t Be Clingy. Attend different sessions. Meet new people and share your discoveries.

2. We know it sounds silly, but bring something to write with. In this age of smart phones, iPads and laptops, nothing beats a pencil and paper for rapid capture.

3. Come open. You’re here because you can’t know everything.

4. Can’t afford the conference? Get involved with professional organizations like AIGA and RGD and start by volunteering at local events. Consider it conference practice.

5. Follow-up on professional crushes. Do more than collect business cards. Use them. Create a conference peer group and bounce your What’s Next ideas off of them throughout the year.

Dig Deeper!
1. Save the date for HOW Design Live in Boston, June 20th-25th, 2012.

2. Mark your calendar for the first HOW Interactive conference in San Francisco November 2-4 2011.

3. Check out AIGA’s Pivot conference in Phoenix this October!

4. Expand your peer group across the border at RGD Ontario’s DesignThinkers conference in Toronto, Canada this November.

My friend Bob shared a quote from Henry David Thoreau that really challenged me: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

This nagged at me—maybe because in my life and work I sometimes feel things getting rote, or expected. I turn too quickly to the proverbial “bag of tricks.” We all seek a certain level of comfort. We like routine. But we also get busy, self-focused, distracted, find ourselves going at warp speed.

I decided to review some definitions of “look” and “see”—and I was even more challenged:
Look: to view something for a reason, with an intention.
See: to notice something that you weren’t looking for.

The definition of “see” is what I want more of in my life, in my day-to-day, and ultimately in my work and conversation. So what to do? That, my friends, is the magic question. The good news is that there are so many roads to “seeing.” Ask yourself the following questions: Do you want to “see” things you weren’t expecting? Do you want to see the world and all it’s beauty, pain, challenges, hypocrisy, and the hope that it holds? Do you want these things to affect you and motivate you? Or do you like just “looking” as you go through your day? Really, your answer to this last question is the key.

If you answered yes, then you’ll want some activities built into your day to help remind you to see. Let’s focus on one: creating space. The concept is simple: Plan a time every day, once a week, once a month, whatever you can spare, and just do something different. It can be for five, ten, fifteen minutes or more. Find a place that works for you—ideally one that is inspiring but not distracting. When was the last time you were all alone and able to just dream? Dreaming about you? When was the last time you were just still, silent, and focused? When we are alone, we can really take time to be honest and tune in to what we have been doing well or what we’ve neglecting at work and at home. Take the time, and take notes.

I think we “look” during the majority of our day—I know I do. But now it’s time for me to “see” more. To create space to see. Do you want to join me?

We “look” during the majority of our day. But now it’s time to “see” more.

Image courtesy of Rule29

2. Get out of your comfort zone. Submerge yourself in a different culture, or volunteer somewhere. The key is to do something outside of your normal.

2. Make a list of the things that bother you in this world. Right now, just make a list. When you are done, put it away. Tomorrow, take a look at the list, and then spend sometime learning more about one of those things.

Interaction designers are not web developers and should not be expected to take on the role of development. Developers are experts in what they do, which allows us to be experts in what we do: creating the conditions for meaningful user experiences.

While the proposition of a clear division of roles may be controversial with some, it is becoming increasingly unrealistic for designers to execute all aspects of a project. There is just too much complexity. Interaction design projects can encompass content management systems, multiple platforms and user contributed content, among other factors. Developers know how to build support systems and execute a designer’s vision, much like an offset printer brings life to a printed artifact. In order for the relationship between designer and developer to function and flourish, we must know how to communicate our vision and be experts in designing online experiences.

Expert Coder ≠ Interactive Designer
You do not need to be an expert coder to be a great interactive designer. This is particularly important to understand if you desire a transition from designing primarily for print, to designing for screen based experiences. Focus on understanding how to create meaningful non-linear user experiences. This understanding hinges on audience research, applying typography and form appropriate for the screen, considering multiple platforms (i.e. mobile, tablet, desktop hub) and creating refined clear hi-content wireframes.

Know The Conventions & Then Push
While we don’t need to know extensive coding language, we do need to have a basic understanding of the means of production. When we design for print, we know what industry conventions and standards to follow. When designing for the screen it’s equally important to be aware of industry conventions. Designers often push printers and developers beyond what they think is realistic or possible. This may result in a challenging production planning phase, but the testing of such boundaries is a critical part of innovation. When designing screen based experiences, push up against one or two conventions at a time, and observe key industry standards to preserve credibility with your developers and clarity with your user.

Convey Your Concept
In addition to creating comprehensive static wireframes, animated prototypes allow designers to convey interactive concepts to clients and developers. iWork’s Keynote is a robust and easy to use software tool for demonstrating the role motion and interaction play in interaction design. Simulating motion (whether roll over states or transitions) may help identify moments you’ve overlooked, but that are critical to the user experience. Animated prototypes can provide the foundation for a richer conversation between designer and developer.

While we don’t need to know extensive coding language, we do need to have a basic understanding of the means of production. When we design for print, we know what industry conventions and standards to follow. When designing for the screen it’s equally important to be aware of industry conventions.

Images courtesy of Marty Maxwell Lane.

2. Learn the industry vocabulary in order to communicate concepts.

3. Be aware of industry conventions in order to plan a successful project.

2. For more on communicating interaction design concepts read this Parse post: “Strengthen Your Design Process With Narratives.”

Rough existence, huh? But with all of that, you feel the pull to leave from time to time. And for what? A hard chair and small table at a crowded coffee vendor who offers free wifi—but is kind of on edge about the prospect of how long you’ll be taking their largest table. Yep! Sounds about right, and we’re breaking for the door like we just pulled a heist on our own home-office. Why is that?

To venture a guess; there is something to be said for a change of place. You can have the best home-office setup—nothing short of an ad for IKEA and a feature in your local business journal—yet wanderlust nags. Waking up and feeling that desire to embark on a getting-things-done mission actually counts for something. Grooming is refreshing. Picking garments and primping (add in the prospect of being seen) is confidence boosting. The drive is mentally stimulating. Even the sunlight is something that you can’t get stationary indoors. And the aforementioned coffee shop sets you awash in interpersonal communication, taking on incoming new visual and auditory information. A wealth of momentum, grown from “going mobile.”

With typical 9-to-5 gigs, many creatives balk at imposed structure and stagnant parameters—which arguably have very little to do with output or productivity. It’s safe to say many traditional ideals surrounding workplace productivity are being poked full of holes in this modern career climate. There is something inherently right about the process of attempting to, as Outkast so keenly put it, “get up, get out and get something!” In the moments when you stand in the mirror for the final “how do I look?” once over, leave to board your transportation of choice, get your mitts on a cup or can of your favorite A.M. wake-up juice, and stroll through the doors of whatever location you call ‘Work,’ it’s a safe bet that you have more energy than you will the rest of the day. To the point—you have an accountable beginning to your career excursions for that day. Blurring of the work/life balance is a good thing at times and works very well for many creative pros, but some days it’s just necessary to have a definitive “I went to work at this time, and I came home at this time” framework.

You don’t have to go free-range on a regular basis. But when the urge hits, try not to fight it too hard. Your mind & body could be giving you the signal that you need something new. Embrace it! Leave the office and head to work.

2. Don’t limit yourself to coffee shops! Look for co-working spaces in your area. Dedicated places are springing up everywhere, specifically designed for the independent (and mobile) professional in need of officing solutions.

3. Check in with a contact who has space of their own. Many of us know people who have full-time—but largely unused—offices. Chances are they would gladly share a few hours of space with you. You may even find work in situations like this. Bonus!

4. Get into it. Do this regularly and begin to make contacts. You might find that places where you’ve become a “regular” are looking out for you and you’ll become a welcome and legit fixture around their establishments.

2. The rest is legwork… these interwebs can’t save you. Travel, look, search, connect… Go mobile!

If you are having a crazy day (or even a bad one), YOU are in control of how that affects your interactions, whether with coworkers, clients, strangers, family, or the FedEx guy. Does it really take that much extra energy to smile, write a simple greeting with your message, take a breath, or be cordial? On the flip side, if you don’t take the time to be polite, the damage control could be way harder to deal with.

We seem to have plenty of time these days to tweet or update our status on our social media of choice. We need to be careful to not vent on those outlets as well. Clients and potential clients pay attention, so if you want to use that medium as a way to garner new business relationships, remember these are extensions of you and your company. I’ve entered a meeting where a client has said, “Hey, I hope your day has gotten better.” After some further conversation, that client read one of my tweets and thought my day was perhaps a bummer because I was meeting with them. Attitude adjustment! Luckily no damage was done, but it could have been an expensive lesson. I often reflect on this Winston Churchill quote, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”

We are all guilty from time to time, so here are some things to think about:

1. At work, tell your coworkers if you are stressed out or having a bad day, mainly so your bad juju doesn’t mess with the environment, and people know you’re aware of your ’tude. Often, letting people know helps you relax and get over what’s bugging you.

2. Even if you are in a hurry, you have time to add a friendly greeting or signature to your emails. In fact, you could make a couple of templates with greetings or signatures to help you stay in the green.

3. Smile. Look at someone in the eyes. Put your iPhone away. Take a minute to really listen, hear, and cordially respond back.

4. Before you say how crappy your day is on Twitter or how much the last conference call made you want to poke your eyes out on LinkedIn, remember you don’t know who is reading your statuses.

I’m not saying you can’t have a bad day or be honest, but treating others with respect is always the right thing to do.

If you are having a crazy day (or even a bad one), YOU are in control of how that affects your interactions, whether with coworkers, clients, strangers, family, or the FedEx guy.
Image courtesy of Rule29

2. Set aside some time to just be still—this will help you slow down, pause, and tweak your attitude. Whether you meditate, take a walk around the block, or just go somewhere you can relax for ten to fifteen minutes, it can make the shift you require.

3. Grab a nap. Use your lunch break for some quick slumber. In your car, in your office, or under your desk George-Costanza style, maybe you just need a quick cat nap to recharge and refocus.

2. A good book on learning when to say yes and how to say no: Boundaries by Cloud & Townsend

3. Plenty of other people are having a bad day as well—here’s an outlet to relate: http://www.wefeelfine.org/

The starting point for Apple products isn’t a powerful chip or clever design, says Steve Jobs. Product development starts with questions, he says, and the kickoff question is usually: “What’s the user experience?”

“A major stimulant to creative thinking is focused questioning,” says marketing guru Brian Tracy. “A well-worded question penetrates to the heart of the matter and triggers new ideas.”

The good news is designers typically have lots of questions racing around their brains. After all, highly creative people are passionately curious people. But the bad news is we sometimes fail to ask those questions out loud. Or perhaps we don’t ask the right questions at the right time. Or maybe we don’t ask them to the right people.

Here are a few ways to polish your questioning:

Ask Yourself Questions Before You Question Others.
Start by looking at your core problem and framing it as a question. Keep focusing on this central question when preparing related questions to ask clients, end users and others. And don’t make people you’re questioning do your homework—only ask them questions that can’t be discovered through fundamental research.

Ask The Right People.
Sometimes we ask the right questions—but we ask the wrong people. Working to reduce malnutrition in Southeast Asia, most nutritionists questioned Vietnam villagers who had undernourished children on what they were doing wrong. But Jerry and Monique Sternin took a different approach. They questioned villagers with the best-nourished children on what they were doing right. It turned out those parents added sweet potato greens to rice and gave their kids several small feedings per day instead of two large ones. The Sternins spread the ideas, and malnutrition dropped by more than 65 percent.

Ask Open-Ended Questions.
Open-ended questions solicit thoughtful replies rather than one-word responses. They usually begin with words like “how” and “why.” Or they may sound like statements rather than questions, with phrases such as “walk me through…” or “tell me more about….”

Keep Digging.
Don’t stop with surface answers. Dig down with follow-up questions so people go deeper into the topic or problem. That’s where creative insights are buried. Avoid, of course, rapid-fire inquiries that make you sound like a prosecuting attorney. Make a few statements of your own between questions and sprinkle in a several closed-ended questions that allow short responses.

Ask Visceral Questions.
Ask questions that plunge into the heart. In 1982, toy-maker Hasbro interviewed young girls and asked them what they saw when they closed their eyes at night. “Horses!” was the overwhelming reply, so the next year Hasbro introduced My Little Pony, a toy that has delighted generations of girls.

Listen Closely.
Sometimes we’re so busy preparing to ask our next question that we don’t listen to the answer being given. Stay focused. Take notes. Pause between questions. Acknowledge answers—sometimes with a simple nod, sometimes with a few words.

Don’t stop with surface answers. Dig down with follow-up questions so people go deeper into the topic or problem. That’s where creative insights are buried.

Image by Jason Bacher

2. Wrap-up with a magical question. Whether I’m discussing ideas with clients or interviewing people, I almost always end with: “What other questions should I be asking you?” It works like magic to deliver added insights. Sometimes the person says, “Well, you might ask me how I really feel about…” or “You might want to know why I’ve always been reluctant to try projects like this…” No matter how strong our line of questioning, we never uncover everything we need to know. Give the other person a chance to help out.

2. Study questioning techniques of pro interviewers like Charlie Rose and Diane Sawyer. Notice how they elicit strong, conversational answers by asking open-ended questions, soliciting visceral responses and displaying passion about the topic.

3. Practice your questioning techniques with friends, family, co-workers. And use open-ended questions to help you network and learn at HOW Design Live (where you can also catch Sam Harrison’s session “Galumphing, Goats on the Roof and Other Revelations for Inspiration”).

4. Read Sam Harrison’s books for more inspiration on creativity-related topics: IdeaSelling: Successfully pitch your creative ideas to bosses, clients and other decision makers, IdeaSpotting: How to find your next great idea, and Zing!: Five steps and 101 tips for creativity on command.

You’re creative. And you know that creative people have a gazillion ideas bounding into their brains at all times. Call it the creative curse, the “bright shiny object” syndrome, or your own funny quirks, the fact is, your mind does wander off task whenever something interesting floats by.

This isn’t helpful if you’re overwhelmed, stressed with deadlines, and trying to get stuff done.

Here’s my favorite tip for getting and staying focused:
Up the ante on your accountability.

If you work for someone, you already have built-in accountability—your boss expects you to get your part of the project done, and you may have team members depending on you as well. But you still may need a boost to keep your mind focused and on task.

If you’re your own boss, and there’s no one directing you and setting expectations, it can be crippling if you find yourself getting stuck in the weeds often.

Here are some easy ways to get more accountable:

Get An Accountability Buddy
Find someone else who needs accountability and check up on each other. Meet regularly, share your goals, and encourage each other to accomplish them. I know about two writers who are writing their books this way, in different cities: they chat for five minutes daily, early in the morning, just to make sure they’re both at their computers and ready to write for the agreed-upon length of time. Without that accountability, one of them told me she’s sure she’d sleep in.

Join A Peer Group Or Mastermind Group
These groups, which meet regularly in person or by phone, encourage each other to work towards objectives, and it can be embarrassing to show up without having made progress. Many creatives find these groups very inspiring, motivating, and challenging, especially if the other members are committed, too. If you can’t find a group to fit you, start your own.

Make A Public Announcement
If you can’t focus on a particular client project, announce to your team members (or a few friends) that you’d love their input, and you’ll have roughs to run by them in a few hours. If you can’t focus on doing research on a topic you need to write about, send an email blast to your mailing list announcing a free teleseminar on the topic, and schedule it. If you can’t focus on getting your office organized, set a date and invite clients and colleagues an open house in your newly organized office.

Hire A Coach Or Consultant
There’s nothing like investing in yourself to get unstuck. Choose this person correctly, and you’ll get valuable insight into yourself and your business as well as ongoing direction, encouragement, and accountability. For every public person who wants to be at the top of their game, whether they’re an athlete, entertainer, or politician, you’ll find a coach (or two, or three) supporting and providing accountability from the sidelines.

One of these ideas for getting accountability should help you get and stay focused. What are you waiting for?

2. Sometimes a “public announcement” can be as simple as standing up and announcing something out loud, even if there’s no one around to hear it. If you find your mind wandering, stand up, shake your arms, and declare out loud, “I am going to make client phone calls for the next hour.” Even if you’re the only one who hears it, there’s something about making the announcement that tricks your brain into focus.

2. Network at the upcoming HOW Design Live for mastermind or accountability buddies.

3. Check out paid coaches and consultants. The momentum generated in your business can propel you far beyond the investment. Register for a complimentary Laser Coaching session with me for a taste, or look into one of the many other excellent consultants serving the design industry.

4. Learn tips from Marcia Hoeck on how to strengthen your business.

A recent trip to the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas illuminated for me some lessons designers can learn from the world of indie rock (loosely defined as musicians and bands who do not have a deal with a major recording label). For instance, I was impressed to hear veteran indie rocker, Freedy Johnston, announce during one SXSW gig that one of his side projects is using Kickstarter.com for funding. Like design, the music industry has undergone colossal changes in the last decade enabled by a rapid technological evolution and sharply increased use of online social networks. Indie artists have led the way in using these new opportunities to transform their business.

Andy Thompson, a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer based in Minneapolis points out one of the ways emerging artists are getting their music in front of new audiences: “Licensing songs to film and television shows has become a major opportunity for musicians. This has been around for a long time, but now it’s become a big way these shows are marketing themselves,“ says Thompson. “A lot of bands have come to count on licensing in order to pay the bills, fund future recordings, or underwrite a tour.” Product licensing has also become a viable way for designers to bring their ideas directly to market.

Distribution can be a major barrier for designers looking to bring a product or service directly to market. Likewise, musicians have historically been dependent on a record label to promote and distribute their work. “Now, oftentimes a distribution deal is not even on our radar—the internet is our distribution deal,” says Thompson, “we can easily promote our music through social media like Facebook and Twitter, and sell through online stores, like Bandcamp and iTunes. This has cut out entire armies of middlemen and transformed the industry.” Designers can draw parallels with online marketplaces such as Etsy, Felt & Wire, and even Amazon, which bring an international customer base to our doorstep (and laptop).

Social media has also redefined how musicians collaborate with each other. Andy Thompson elaborates, “I keep in touch with all kinds of folks around the country who might be looking to hire me for my many services, such as bands, film editors, other producers and engineers, a singer-songwriter looking for a kick ass accordionist (it’s not me, but I can give them the name of a guy).” Some of the most exciting music industry innovations involve connecting artists directly to their fans. New online platforms like PledgeMusic, allow fans to help fund their favorite acts. LiveMusicMachine provides fans with the opportunity to book gigs directly with a band…completely sidestepping the booking agents, ticket sales services, and venues. These examples present a really interesting template for designers to follow as a way to connect directly with our audiences, without the intermediary of a client.

Innovation is happening in every corner of the business world, whether it’s creative industries like music, film, and theater, or more traditional business disciplines like healthcare or financial services. The important idea for designers is that these other fields hold clues for how we can transform our own businesses.

Like design, the music industry has undergone colossal changes in the last decade enabled by a rapid technological evolution and sharply increased use of online social networks. Indie artists have led the way, using these new opportunities to amplify their business.

2. Check out Doug Powell’s earlier Parse post about product licensing…or his Parse post on alternative funding, including Kickstarter.

3. Andy Thompson has played with Dan Wilson, Mike Doughty, and Jeremy Messersmith. Check out his website here: www.andywho.com