1. Make powerful decisions and keep moving

Someone on the team needs to be empowered to make decisions. These decisions need to be at every level from is this a good, innovative project worth exploring to what should the name be. Outsourcing a decision to a group that doesn’t have responsibility for the success or failure of a project is going to take time and stunt momentum.

A powerful decision creates a sense of excitement and buy-in as well. Nothing like some team spirit and passion to keep innovation brewing.

Examples:

-At AT&T, during a fast-pitch session with small companies, there is literally 3-5 high level execs who, as soon as they step out of the room, give you a thumbs up or down

-Outsourcing a name to a 3rd party brand consultancy resulted in a bunch of names that the whole team thought were completely off. It created animosity and a sense of failure. What’s in a name? EVERYTHING

2. Always listen openly to emotions of fear and anxiety

When you get wrapped up in a great idea, vision or execution of a great idea, you can’t forget that not everyone has the same needs from an innovative project. Brand, marketing, engineering, business development and other related teams are going to view your project with their own filter. If they work on this project with you, they need it to help them succeed and look good inside of the company. Make sure they are fully onboard with the entire project, not just their section.

Examples: 

-Speaking with the now owner of a project I worked on, they were fearful of if this could ever make money. Looking deeper into the anxiety, it seemed a handful of other projects that were shorter, quicker wins had also recently been hitting really bumpy roads. She needed to make some money for the company soon, not in a year. This helps frame the conversations, support and milestones of the project.

-We need to work with this vendor. We do? Yea, they are smart, can bring insightful value and they have been working in this space for a long time…oh yea and they are a close friend of one of the high-up c-levels. Keep probing positively and openly if you aren’t convinced of a choice.

3. Have some fun

Innovation, creativity and value live inside of passion, excitement and fun. The minute you add too many metrics, responsible parties or process is the minute you sacrifice the BIG win.
Even if you are looking for incremental innovation, having fun with the idea helps put ideas on the plate for 5 years from now. Being able to see the larger future and expression of a project drives investment into a project.

Examples:

-If you are still talking about it when you get home, you know you are on the right path.

-Working on a new project around the goal of the next 2 months was cool, talking about what it means for the future of mobile communication, is way cooler.

-Giving a project a stage recently, took a forgotten initiative back to the most interesting conversation at the lunch table.

-When you sit to make a keynote deck, do it with a co-worker. See how the story develops and use the collaboration to create investment into the presentation.

“You know Danika, because I was good, I wasn’t discriminated against.”

Reading a recent NY times article, it refers to Sheryl Sandberg talking about women in tech:

“Specifically, how women, in her view, must take responsibility for their careers and not blame men for holding them back.”

If you are good, and you truly believe that, then you are the only one who can create the career you want. It isn’t going to just happen to you.

1. We can appear/be more approachable
2. We create stronger, more personal networks
3. We bring unique experiences to a conversation
4. When we do well, we are more memorable because we are women

• Be Confident
• Speak-up without Fear or Reason
• Share Relevant, Concise Stories
• Be Action-Oriented
• Be Willing to Bring-it in an Intense Conversation

Combining our natural characteristics with the strong skill sets needed to get ahead, there are no more excuses.

When you live, work and connect with the geeks of silicon valley you have to get excited that they actually think that talking about the finer points of open source cloud computing is great lunch conversation. I engage in the discussion about which key value storage is appropriate for rich health data and though it might be nice to know about if they have kids or what their life is like, I am thankful that these geeks are having this conversation.

Note that these aren’t boring discussions about bits and bytes; they are conversations about the future of technology and how it is going to shape society. The choices these geeks make are going to shape connected home, mobile health care and the ability of new technologies to reach your hands. They are the ones  making the decisions that can enable your experiences.

As consumers, we only really notice the end experience we get on our phones or computers. We don’t think about the fine design decisions going into what software is running on their cloud, choices they made on storage and what standards they used to reduced latency (lag) in your experience.

I’m proud to be here, as an engineer, as a designer, as a geek who is working with people who love technology so much that they will really dive into the little differences in cloud technologies over their lunch-time break to ensure that they are well informed to make the decision to give you the best experience technology can offer.

ConnectED 2010

It was a great reason to get my over seas with a purpose and a little bit of funding.

Highlight of the conference: Hearing the excitement, innovation and drive of the hundreds of educators who really care about teaching great Design.

They were doing great things like:
1. designing businesses within their schools to get students access to real world experiences (especially when internships are non-existent during a recession)
2. pushing the envelop of what collaboration means by teaming with new disciplines like performance art
3. constantly being surprised by the great work their students created and never settling for the notion of “what we have been teaching will work forever”

Design is a growing, changing field and these professors are in charge of teaching their students to  keep pushing the boundaries of the field. They prototype and fail, but they also prototype and are truly inspired by the creativity of how their students interpret a project.

This was a really intersting display of how one woman was looking at the different dimensions of her course so she could find what she needed to improve on and what she did well.

More design educators need to start pushing the envelope of what a design program needs and keep the cutting edge of design at the fingertips of their students to ensure their ability to get the best jobs when they leave.

Thanks to all the keynotes (especially Kees Doorst, Larry Leifer and Thomas Meier) for their risky but inspirational speeches, thanks to all the other educators who came to share and be inspired by other’s research and thanks to Pam Hinds for letting me write the paper and get this great opportunity.

I decided to just show up to a class one of my fellow Stanford Improvisers teaches on Monday because he had asked us to at some point and I felt like I wanted to. Not only did I get to play with a young group of excited improvisers, I also got to play with Patricia Madson herself. She was the guest teacher for the day doing a class on shared control.

It was a treat to play with her, see her excitement at creating and telling stories with the group, enjoy her passion as a teacher and her smile every time anything different came up.

I now have another source of inspiration when sharing improv with people. I absolutely love my teacher Dan Klein and have learned so much from his guidance on how to do improv. He has a natural ability to understand peoples actions and creates a safe space to be different. Patricia is wonderfully compassionate and caring as an improv teacher. She is different as she coaches improv as a way of life, not a theater experience. Both are creative and help craft the way we think (or don’t think) about what we should say next.

I find myself feeling lucky to have met these great improvisers and people on my journey here at Stanford. If any of you are ever so lucky…please take a class and embrace the improv as a way of life.

I believe improv can be a tool to help people experiment with tough interpersonal issues.

I am trying to apply improv games to specific situations to change a groups behavior and interactions.

I did my first prototype yesterday.

I got a really interesting reaction from a very “nice” team that has been neglecting strong emotions to drive their design process.

I had them do the “It’s Tuesday” exercise that allows them to have a huge reaction to a small thing with no relavence.

I watched as a very calm person yelled about a word…for no reason…and the reactions of his teammate who have never seen such a camotion from him.

He was moved by his own reaction to him raising his voice…

I can’t wait to inteview him about his reaction.

I want to help companies have a better culture that fosters innovation, collaboration and a more holistic view of the future.

I can’t think of a product or market I want to work in. It isn’t Apple, Google, GE, facebook, HP, or any other product or service industry. What I care about is that the people in there are being able to utilize their creativity, push the company and grow as humans that recognize the world as something larger than themselves.

That is what I care about. I can finally identify where I want to have impact. The question now is where can I go to do this…is it management consulting? design consutling? is there anyone out there doing what I want to do?

I failed,

but I still won the contest.

Social Movements are really complex to start. The points I have learned around how to/how not to start a social movement are more valuable than my social movement.

This is not the only guidelines but it should help get anyone started on a better foot.

1. Simplicity

You need to be able to pitch your idea in 30 seconds or less. The longer your pitch is the less impact you can have.

2. Urgency

If your movement isn’t urgent you can’t expect people to just start caring.

Urgent movements revolve around things like earthquake relief, trying to get a bill passed in an upcoming election, stopping removal of a large wooded area for development.

If your movement isn’t urgent there has to be other motivation. It has to be fun, enjoyable, easy, routine and provide feedback. Getting people interested and keeping interested needs something unique, catchy and viral.

3. Power of Groups

The reason you start a social movement is to get groups of people to make impact together. You can’t expect to get enough people to reach a critical mass when you invite people 1 at a time. Also a random group of people isn’t helpful, you need to get a group of people who know who is going to see their actions.

Get a group of people, who care like you do, to be in it together. Get a class of students, an existing organization, a meet-up group, people who take the same train. Whatever group is the most obvious to care about your movement is who you want to join, and you want to get them to join together.

4. Get Offline

Online platforms are a great place to get people organized and on the same page (literally). You probably aren’t making the next twitter though so don’t think your site is going to make the impact by itself.

Think about what you are asking people to do for your social movement. Think about actions and real world experiences then think of how to make that experience better. Be creative, think big and don’t be afraid to tackle complex social situations. People need to have a conversation started to talk about your movement, share it and help other be active. Give them that tool…

5. You aren’t Going to Get it Right the 1st Time

The worst thing you can do is become so attached to your movement you aren’t willing to change it, reshape it or refocus it. When things seem to be going poorly, step back, look at what is working and what is stopping you. If one little bit of it has gotten traction, focus on it! Make that little piece that stands out the starting point for the movement.

Be ready to fail, regroup and keep going.

Don’t give up. Perseverance trumps all.

Now…go change the world.

One does not have a right or a wrong answer but an endless set of choices that need to be justified and supported. Everything one does is a decision and it will affect the future of that object. Its materials (acrylic or masonite), realism (working or looks-like), texure (inviting or passive). All these decisions weighing in on the end our our tongue, hopeing we are making the correct one.

Decision paralysis has hit me hard today:

Racquetball…do i go right and give it a backhand or left and go for the forehand…WAM it hits me in the stomach.

If I can’t decide that…how can I decide something I want to make for personal statement? Do I go left, right, up, down, through the tunnel, do I warp to another level or do I just try and avoid the koopas?

no wonder I was never any good at video games…

Maybe a better question is what am I qualified to do? What job title can I have? What value add does my background have to a potential employee? What values do I have as a designer have around what I want to do?

Is potential enough?

I want to be Genevieve Bell .

My criteria:

• I do not want to spend 8 hours a day behind a desk doing CAD, but I wouldn’t mind doing it once in a while.
• I want to work somewhere that I can have impact.
• I want to help the customers as well as the employees I work along side to have better days.
• I want to work for a company that recognizes my talents, actually see them as talents, and then utilize them.
• I want to work alongside people I can learn from.

What do I want to do?

I want to work with organizations to improve process, help companies see the customer at the end of the tunnel, and give employees the power and respect they deserve… A company can only be as great as it’s employees and I want those people to go home as satisfied and proud as the customers should when they take home their products.

It is holistic but it is important to design, innovation and creation.