Andrea Boff Sutton

Breathtaking Collections of Images - and implications for the future

2010-08-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

Get Ready to Throw Your Apps Away

2010-08-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

We think of them as "permanent" and that's gotta stop. Mini applications don't have to live longer than any given event and there are lots of great news ways to think about event apps. We are in a creative space now where we apps can be thought of as "experience support systems" - or ESS. Think of using apps to embellish the virtual worlds for your customers.

- Imagine going to a restaurant and using their iphone app to order, read reviews, and get wine recommendations (just for that night).

- Imagine going shopping and downloading the "SALE" of the week app, with special pricing just for you.

- Imagine watching American Idol and voting from your Android with special incentives.

- Imagine going to a ball game and using an app to anticipate the plays and win tickets, and maybe even get your name on the big board in the 9th inning.

Apps don't have to be permanent anymore. We've got to learn how to integrate them into our content strategies, marketing and curation plans. We've got to throw out the ones that don't work and build app strategies that enhance our customer's experiences. I'm ready. Are you?

My New Job Description: Value Designer

2010-07-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

We've said the word "Website" too much now ... and it's lost it's meaning. Website Website Website Website I make websites get up a website we need a website website website.

Let's take a fresh look at what we are really doing? When we design and build websites, we open up a very public place where people can visit and make a personal determination of value. Are you offering value for your people? Maybe instead of calling ourselve "website designers" we should call ourselves "value designers". Every once in a while we have to shake up our language so we can see our failure points.

What would a "value designer" do?

Here's my new job description:

WANTED - proactive designer who uses their skills to add value for customers by:

-- rethinking ways to meet customer goals

-- inventing new ways to get customers speedy access to what they want

-- adapting old ideas in new ways to make information more powerful

-- asking questions constantly that challenge "web" ideas we take for granted.

I want to think more clearly about the people we serve on that "website" and I want designers to help me do it. Value Designer. We might just put that on our business cards.

What is a browser?

2010-07-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

Next time you design a website, or any other kind of online property, remember what you see here in this video. We live a life of internet specialty. Regular customers are in another place.

What does it take to run a UX Team?

2010-07-10T02:50:00.000-07:00

What kind of leadership does it take to have positive impact on business? It's important for me to know because my team designs a $multi-million web property and I have to keep them interested, and engaged. I need their brainpower. I need their talent. There's a lot of revenue that sits squarely on their UX design. The adoption of my product line is in their hands to a large degree.

The fact is that there's a 40% swing in productivity from effective leaders to low-impact bosses.

Here are some of the dimensions that the leadership experts rate:

Emotional Intelligence
Crisis Handling
Change Initiatives
Skills to Manage and Inspire
Self-Control
Social Skills
Levels of Empathy
Social Awareness
Self Awareness
Pace setting

Book Review: ‘Stitches’ a groundbreaking memoir in graphic novel format | INDenverTimes.com

2010-07-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

Book Review: ‘Stitches’ a groundbreaking memoir in graphic novel format | INDenverTimes.com

I have a belief that with the advent of the iPad, there will be great pressure for all novels to become "graphic novels" and "film like" experiences. One of the best graphic novels ever is "Stitches" by David Small. You can read more about it here.

The iPad will demand skills of a "story architect" - an Information Architect/Film maker hybrid who can unfold a drama using every available interaction the iPad affords. This is a brave new world for designers... and a big opportunity. I'll be writing more about this through the year as I struggle with my own graphic novel, "The Mad Man's Circus".

Your Big Fat Stupid Power Point Makes Me Catatonic

2010-07-03T17:08:00.001-07:00

I'm not really as harsh as that title would imply, but geeze folks, "powerpoint" is a language that hypnotizes people. There has been a lot written about "presentation style" and there are experts out there who can really teach you how to present. I am not one of those experts, but I am ranting based on my life as a Creative Director and User Experience Designer. If 99% of Powerpoints are lousy experiences then my design team must operate in the 1%.

Presentations are meant to awaken, challenge, and inform. Powerpoints tend to sedate, obfuscate and confuse. After exposure to nearly millions of them here are a few observations.

Observation #1: There's a lack of clarity of purpose. Clear points are rare. If you missed the memo that said you should have clear goals for a meeting check out the tatoo above. I'm using that tatoo to make a memorable point. Meetings are distribution points where information is shared and actions are planned. Be clear about the information you are sharing in your Powerpoint or your audience will be confused. Tatoo this on yourself.

Observation #2: The audience looks at the screen, but no one looks at the audience. Does anybody stand up in front of a room anymore? Our new, slick meeting rooms force us all around a table and enable us to focus toward a screen. Very few folks stand up with the screen and look back at the audience. Instead, there is a "narration" of slides. By simply standing to the side of the slide projection, you get a chance to "read" the faces of your audience. If you read their faces you have a shot at understanding how they are responding. You have no chance if you watch the wall.

Observation #3: The language on the slides is "corporate speak". I've seen at least 10,000 slides this year that are so copy dense they look like rotating shades of grey up on the screen. Topping off the density issue is the remarkable, obtuse language style used: corporate speak. (Wikipedia can help me here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_speak )

SAMPLE OF "Corporate Speak"

At SampleCo, we have proven we know how to seize iteravely. We will architect the term "enterprise". We think that most visionary web applications use far too much XHTML, and not enough Unix. We will harness the commonly-used term "cross-platform, efficient". What does the term "bleeding-edge, global" really mean? Is it more important for something to be bricks-and-clicks or to be holistic?

Observation #4: Most presenters read the slides as if they were recipes. Now, read that "corporate speak" to me like it was a bedtime story... or a recipe.

Observation #5: 5,000 slides in 30 minutes, or camping on 1 slide too long - Lots of presenters think millions of dense grey slides is a good idea. Lots think that they have one super slide that they must drill into our heads.

Here's my big thought: If you can't engage your co-workers, you can't engage your customers.

Antidote for PowerPoint Sedation:

Set up room ahead of time - consider setting the stage with music before folks enter to give them the sense that what is coming is planned and important
Set clear goals for the meeting
Limit slides to 10
Stand in front of your audience and look them in the eye
Make your points memorable
Never use more than ONE WORD on a slide
Speak your "benefits", "rationales", "big ideas"
Call on colleagues to enhance the communication
Practice the presentation with colleagues to make sure the point gets across
Have clear next steps and action items at the end of the meeting

How to take a middle-class brand to a new hip place:

2010-07-03T03:52:00.000-07:00

Michael Graves, the famous architect and his firm, designed a series of wine glasses for Yellowtail as a way to underscore the Yellowtail Winetail (wine cocktail) campaign. His designs for the glasses took the traditional idea of wine and wine tasting and stitched it together with the idea of the wine cocktail to create a new take on drinking wine. These design kick the brand in the pants and take Yellowtail wine from an elbow-in-the-ribs middle-class brand to a very cool, hip new place.

3 Quick Ways to Cheat Your Online Customers

2010-07-02T04:42:00.000-07:00

1. Lure customers into your site with something specific and don't let them find it when they get there. That really works well. All the satisfaction surveys prove that customers who don't find what they want at your site will not be first in line to return.

2. Hide all the good stuff behind a convoluted sign-up process. This is an even better tactic to push them away. The more difficult you make it for your customer to find interesting things the more likely it is that they will leave you alone. Put one in the win column!

3. "Throw Up" Pages. I put the word "throw up" in quotes here because that's a good way to handle the content on your site; just regurgitate things that your customer can get somewhere else. It's a sure fire technique to get a smaller customer base. Do not attempt curation or differentiation of content.

(Not.)

5 ways to score big points when you interview with me...

2010-06-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

1. Show you are interested and proactive. I want you to hear this, when you sit in front of me. Please do your homework about "my" company. Don't be "here" on a whim. I want to know that you WANT this company of mine for specific reasons. Show me that you have researched what we do "here". Ask me insightful questions regarding our way of working, our culture and show me that my answer are meaningful to your considerations.

2. Don't tell me you can't show your stuff because you are under NDA. Find a way to show me things you can't show. "Cleanse" them - take out the logos - show me "live" online, but if all your stuff is "unseeable" - so are you.

3. I assume you have designed your brand. The way you sit, move, dress, and engage are visual cues that transmit a brand message. I'm assuming, because you are a designer, that you have "designed" your brand. Look me in the eye. Shake my hand like you value our meeting. Ask me more questions than I ask you. I'm looking at you thinking, "Hmmm... Do I want my SVP to interact with this brand?" Treat our meeting like it's important to you, and I'll pick that up.

4. Think ahead, and have something of substance to leave behind. Chances are I will be seeing 4 or 5 candidates in a week. How are you going to stand out for me in my high speed, busy life? What can you leave with me? Does it sit on my desk? Is it a memorable question? Is it a depth of conversation? It is a helium baloon with your logo on it? Think. Of something. Because I've interviewed a million people and I am looking always to raise the bar.

5. What can you do for me? So many designers don't get the fact that I need help. To often the approach is "See how good I am? Please hire me..." when it should be "Here are the big ways I can help you in your work in this company..." See the difference?

The 10 Ft. Wall Game

2010-06-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

There is a game in life called, "10 Ft. Walls". Here's how you play:

Clear the center of the floor.
On the left side of the floor, put all your bad traits - you know - things like bad temper, being late, always wanting to please, getting distracted.
On the right side of the floor, put all your good traits; intelligence, sense of humor, ability to negotiate, ability to speak with concision.
If you are like most humans, the pile on the left is about 10 ft. high.
The object of the game is to get over it.

Every body has liabilities. Don't make excuses for yourself - discipline yourself, use your brain power, and find strategies that help compensate for the things you don't do very well.

I meet a lot of good designers who expect me to make excuses for them. I hear a lot of "I have dyslexia so I can't read that book" or "I just ran out of time and couldn't get that job done on time". Young designers, I can't go to my Senior Vice President and say "Hey big guy, the team couldn't read that email, so can you come down and read it to them?" or "Sorry that's late, but we just ran out of hours." So if I can't get away with that, you can't either.

Please find some core strengths inside of yourselves and get over your 10 ft. walls because I'm not in the business of carrying you to the top and tucking you in.

The best place to compete is with yourself.

Pretend I'm Dead... 10 Things I Can Leave You

2010-06-27T05:31:00.000-07:00

I have the pleasure of working with highly intelligent, out-of-the-box thinkers who make it a pleasure for me to go to work every day. They are "my team" of creatives and I am challenged by them often. They help me grow. As I watch their careers take shape I asked myself, "What do I know for sure about business and creativity that I would want them to know?"

So I am pretending that I am dead, and leaving my team with these 10 important things to remember as they move their careers ahead;

Adapt. Business is ever-changing and it rewards those who bend with it.
Manage your career. Your career is a "thing" and you need to care for it. Envision a plan on where you want to be in the future and refine that plan against the backdrop of the larger design community.
Learn to Promote Yourself. Now, some people hear this and they think right away, "I'm not the kind of person who brags", or "My work should stand on its own - people should just know". Get real. Truth is, neither of these concepts is helpful to your career. The attitude you want to display is this, "I can solve this challenge for you because ...". If you proactively seek out your boss and let him know how you can help make her/his job easier, then you have self-promoted. This takes confidence, and proaction. Do it. Think beyond the work at your desk and project out into your boss' world. Be valuable everyday. That's self-promotion.
Build on a Good Reputation. This is easy. I have a creative genius who works for me, but he was always late. I asked him one day, "Do you want to eclipse all your brilliant work because all people can see is your missed deadlines?". He's never been late since. Build your career on a good reputation. Do what you say you will do, and discipline yourself to conquer the small, seemingly insignificant stuff. The respect you gain will enable people to focus on your talents.
Keep an even keel... Generally speaking, Prima Donnas are not welcomed. At one time, egotistical creatives were tolerated because creative work stood on its own merits. Today, when data trumps creative in the eyes of many businesses, even-keeled creative solution providers are prized employees. Find a place in your inner-sanctum to rant, scream and curse, but don't do it in the office. Keep a cool head and show your brain-power not your outrage.
Good Design Takes Time... and business is pushing for shorter and shorter turn-a-round. So? How do you balance in this crazy world? Unrealistic deadlines are a challenge. Narrow the scope of your work and learn the art of persuasion. Good design is iterative, so shorten the iterations with a plan to get to where you want to be.
Learn to take a punch. No doubt, somebody with 1/2 your experience is going to negate your designs and your ideas. This will happen often, so prepare for it. You much learn to rationalize every decision you make as a designer. There is soft logic that can prevail against hard data. Learn about how to frame your ideas inside a rationale. You can base your design on data too, and when the punch comes, stand up to it.
Discipline yourself to understand business. Learn to "frame" your thinking in ways that go beyond "aesthetics" and "pixels". Young designers are pixel-focused. If you want to succeed, you have to swim up to the surface and understand the business around you and how your pixels impact it all. Discipline yourself to think this way and you will be a double threat, because I promise you this, very few business people will take the time to think like you do.
The Body of Your Work. What will the retrospective of your work look like? The only way to know is to plan for that now. Fail to plan, and you plan to fail. Every thing you do as a designer is a stepping stone to more. Will that more be better and better? Will you trend up? I advise you to make sure that you do.
Pride in your work. Take a 50,000 ft. view of your career. Can you see yourself floundering around, or are you looking at a happy person who can't wait to get to work? For most designers, the rule of thumb is the ability to have their work add impact to the larger effort. I say if you get 60% of your ideas into the work you do then you are doing great and should have a lot of satisfaction. No body gets it all. But you have to be able to look in the mirror and say, "I did a great job and I'm really proud of it." That's the litmus test.

Sir Ken Robinson on Creativity

2010-06-22T19:08:00.001-07:00

What is creative vision?

2010-06-20T04:31:00.000-07:00

By most accounts, Ansel Adams was a great photographer. He would stand in a spot and look over a landscape and see things other did not see. One of the abilities he had is summed up in the word "prevision". It's his own word. He used it to describe the way he could "foresee" an image. He understood how to coordinate the timing, the light, and the composition with his own pre-established expectations for the image.

Here's an example of "Half Dome", a well-photographed site in Yosemite. Next to "Old Faithful, this is arguably the most famous site in the park. Nearly 4 million visitors come each year and there are likely a million pictures taken.

Below, just a few:

(Half Dome by "Walt Benn" on Flckr)

(Half Dome by "moonjazz" on Flckr)

Half Dome by "wisconsinhiker" on Flckr

There are lots of fantastic photographers out there. But Ansel Adams standout ability is in his "pre-vision". He predicts the outcome of his work before he creates it. Look at his famous "Half Dome". There is a sense of intimacy with the subject that the other photos lack. Adams "knew" this place as if he built it himself. Adams is so knowledgable about his subject that it feels sculpted and in a way, it is. He knows the time of day, the quality of light, the sense of space, and uses the chemistry, paper, lens, and eye to orchestrate it all into a masterpiece. He shoots alot of film til he gets it right.

"Half Dome" by Ansel Adams

When I take a lesson from Ansel Adams and apply it to all creative endeavors I get this very actionable definition for "Creative Vision".

People with creative vision are able to:

Become intimate and knowledgable with all aspect of the challenge.
Orchestrate all the forces at play (internal and external).
Anticipate solutions and persevere till the results matches the expectation.

Make Change...

2010-06-19T05:08:00.000-07:00

Change is tough on people even as "routines" are comforting. We have just implemented "AGILE" into our development process and it made for lots of changes. We did it in a "rip off the bandaid" style so we had to account for lots of pain.

When you change an organization structure, do these 3 key things:

Increase the frequency of communication with your people.
Set expectations with people that you will fail sometimes till you get it right.
Repeat the mantra, "Fail rapidly. Recover rapidly. Refine the approach. Move on."

Creating for The New Fire...

2010-06-14T17:51:00.001-07:00

Can’t help but notice some similarities between campfire behavior, watching TV, and cruising the net. Campfires do a few things really well. They extend the usefulness of the night. Without fire, humans didn’t have all that much to do (centuries ago) except be fruitful and multiply. But fire extends the social life inside a group. I remember many a campfire gathering where we all hung around to play guitar, tell spooky stories and postpone the agonies of curfew and being forced to go back to the bunk. Another thing that fire does brilliantly is capture attention. Light in the darkness. Moths to flames. The flicker, glow, and dance of fire keeps all eyes on it. It’s rare to look each other in the eye while we sit around the campfire. Fire has a way of being front and center.

So? All that description is a lot like TV. Until the web came along, TV single handedly extended the usefulness of night. It captured our full attention. We gathered tribally to hear the news of the day with through the eyewitnesses of our generation: Cronkite, Rather, Walters. It was the single place where we could all get back on the same page. Even today, we gather around the TV “fire” to get the scoop on who will be president, what stocks to buy, and what team will launch itself into the baseball hall of fame.

Welcome to the seismic shift. With the portability of all our electronics, and the every where anytime nature of the web, we carry the fire with us. We no longer make an appointment in space and time for the fire. The news is not at 6PM. The space is not a lounge chair. And we don’t have to yell at the ball field - we can post our disgust or joy online for all to see. Our needs are no longer by appointment - but now they are on-demand. The fire is everywhere and will never again be so contained.

A few things stay the same. We are still acting like moths to a flame. We are still using the fire as a place to tell our stories. The fire is still front and center. It still arrests our full attention. But now it is fast become the conduit for our conversation. TV has moved from the one-way conversation of the 50s to the dynamic 2 way conversation of the millennium.

And we are the keepers of the flame. We are the Shamans, the Chiefs, the Announcers, the Hosts. When we build our fire we are calling millions in from the fields to come sit and hear the tales. It’s an awesome undertaking. For some of us, there’s a business attached to how many sit at our campfire. Under that charge, there are 5 key things to keep in mind.

Extend Usefulness. Just like original fire, our work must fulfill the desire to be useful to those who sit around us. If the campfire is boring, they will go back to their tents or over to another fire.

Capture full attention. We must understand that our audiences come to us with expectation and that we have a few seconds to gain their trust and interest as the blue of our screens hits the glow in their eyes. To get their attention, we have to know them. If boy scouts are sitting at our fire, tell them ghost stories.

Extend the social life of groups. We are the campfires of the millennium. We must find ways to enable our audiences to converse - with us and with each other. There’s a lot of sharing around the fire.

Embrace portability. Our offerings must be useful everywhere. Small screens. Large screens.

Think of our offerings as appointments of need. Even though they are anytime and anywhere, when our customers call it is as if they have made an appointment with us to fill a desire. It’s a sacred bond. Tell the best stories.

18 Minutes, 2 teams, 20 Strands of Spaghetti

2010-06-12T10:57:00.001-07:00

The tallest structure wins...

From Concept to Consumer

2010-06-12T10:54:00.000-07:00

I talk to my teams about "crack cocaine" because I want us to create highly coveted interactive properties for this company. When it comes to television I am always wondering what "crack cocaine" is for our user base. I know it's a raw and unfortunate metaphor I use, but our customers have habits and I want to exploit them for everyone's sake. I want the tv listings to be habit forming. I want the hunting for news to be habit forming.

So, we start where the habits are. Who's hunting for what? And we find things like "TV Shows are watched more one weeknights" and "Movies are hunted on weekends". That's when it gets very interesting.

3 Tips for Leading Creatives

2010-06-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

As a Creative Director in a towering Fortune 100, one of my greatest challenges is to inspire brilliant creatives in light of stock price pressures, politics, and countless other internal forces that challenge the ability for creativity to see the light of day.

How do you keep top talent inspired in that environment? I think it takes 3 things:

Harness their own aspirations -
Set their expectations early that if they get 60% of what they want, it's a win.
Have them regularly and proactively rationalize the work they are proud of against the backdrop of the work inside the organization.

Creativity is Evolving

2010-06-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

As recently as 10 years ago, Creative Directors were overseers of all aspects of product design. They played in an arena of branding, vision, and team inspiration. They played most traditionally in print and tv, mastered the design languages of color, type, music, and motion. They had to have the pulse of the marketplace and the understanding of the audience.

User Experience designers were focusing on product design too, but they wore a different lens and tinkered under the hood arranging the flow of work and the unfolding of information.

Today, hybrid thinking for Creative Directors is a must, in a world where experience is truly the brand and structure and flow is more meaningful than many ad campaigns.

I am a Creative Director who comes from both disciplines. Here's why that's a good thing:

Products have structural and visual depth. Hybrids are intimate with both.
Creative is left. IA is center. Business is right. Hybrids cover two thirds of the span.

Got anymore?

Where I Come From...

2010-06-11T17:59:00.001-07:00