SXSW Scene: Who’s the dude playing four square?

Koz and I were leaving the Austin Convention Center tonight and saw these guys playing four square right outside the doors. We stopped to watch and take a few pictures.

While other up-and-coming brands are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their buzz on at South by Southwest Interactive, this simple game (which cost about $5.99 in sidewalk chalk) had people lined up to play.

Pain Free Design Sign Off

Presenter, Paul Boag, Headscape,writer of The Website Owners Manual

Pain free for the clients – not for you, but if your client is happy, then you are happy. What do clients want to be happy:

• To understand the process
• Reassurance about decisions
• To feel in control
• To be confident in the end result
• To personally like the design

It’s about collaboration, not confrontation

6 Principles of Collaboration

1. Ensure the client understands their role in the project – if they understand their role, they understand the process and feel in control.  Make it clear to the client that it’s their job to find problems and it’s the designer’s job to find solutions.  The challenge of most situations is that the clients come back with solutions (make the logo bigger), not the problem.  If they offer solutions, ask them what problem they hope it solves.

2. Have a strong methodology.  Show them your process – how everything on your end works.  It gives them confidence in you and your work.

3. Include the client early and often.  It makes them feel in control and more engaged with the project.  If they feel like they’ve shaped the final result, they’re more invested in it.

4. Educated the client about the decisions being made.  They need to understand how things work – color theory, why things are done the way they are, etc.  You’re giving them ammunition to defend the work.

5.  Ask for specific types of feedback from the client.  Don’t ask them what they “think” – be specific.  Ask them if it meets their business objectives or how they feel their customers/audience will respond.  Asking them what they think puts them into an uncomfortable situation because they’re not design people.  Ask them questions relating to their comfort zone – audience, business goals, etc.

6. Avoid saying no.  Always say yes, but help them think through the process and the consequences of the decision they’re making.  It puts them in control, and helps them weigh the decision they’re making.

Real world practice

1. Kickoff meeting – The client discusses goals and ideas, and you should make them feel passionate about it.  Give them the freedom to feel included.  Ask if there are any other stakeholders – let’s get everyone together and get them excited about the process.  Be sure to get everyone in from the beginning to brainstorm the challenge.  Make it clear how the process will work.  Emphasize that it’s collaborative and what you need from them in terms of involvement and decisions as far as when and how that will happen.  Ask them for words to describe what they hope it will turn out like.

2. Inspiration – Provide look and feel of designs you are aware of that you think they’re looking for.  Explain why you think these example designs have a look and feel that meets their objectives.

3. Moodboards – Quick and easy, spend about an hour per board.  Equivalent to multiple comps.  Show them how the approaches could work – typography, images, style, etc.  Do a few versions until you’re pretty close to what they’re looking for, but make sure you differentiate between their personal likes and what is effective for the audience.

4. Wireframes – Quick drawing of what it would look like – nothing developed too far along.  Work together with them – pencil on paper – and design along with them.  Discuss the organization and content.  Give them time to think it over.

5. Design Mockup – Present only to the key contact at this stage.  Others who haven’t been part of this process won’t have the background.  Give the contact the ammunition they need to defend it when they show others – for his agency that means a video with a full description of what they went through to get there along with explanations so that’s what they can use to present it to others.  When they offer changes, ask why – get to the problem, not what they think the solution is.

6. Design Testing – Test the site for both design and usability to make sure it works.

7. Iterations – Should only be minimal because of the process.

Ways to Deal with Bastards

Panel: Lori McLeese, Jason Shellen, Karen Walrond, Brian Mason

The panel consisted of a diverse group of techy folks who’ve bounced around in the business.  It was basically a discussion covering how to deal with four types of difficult people and offered tips for each:

Staff

• If it’s obvious it won’t work out… don’t be passive agressive or wait… deal with it now.
• You can’t fire someone simply for being an asshole, but get them to agree it’s not working out.
• Document by email to make sure you don’t get into trouble.
• Dealing with difficult staff – TIPS – Timely (deal with it soon), Impact (make sure your message gets across), Private, Specific (be specific about the change you want to see)

Peers

• Dealing with competitors in a high performing environment – it’s OK to be competitive, but don’t let it get emotional – emotions get in the way.
• When someone is being a difficult, it’s usually because they are incompetent and you shouldn’t engage someone below your level. It’s actually a defense mechanism that they’ll only dig their heels in further.

Business Partners

• Set expectations up front, in detail, vocalized, and documented repeatedly.
• Look at choices – can you or can’t you work with them.
• Partnership is a 2 way street. If they violate your core values, abandon the partnership.

The Boss

• Deal with it, or look for a way out.

Organizational Pitfalls on the Path to Multichannel Experience

Discussion lead: Zachary Jean Paradis, from Sapient

Despite the complex title, it was really about the challenges of making sure your marketing message is consistent across a lot of different media outlets. The primary challenges involved “traditional” organization structures which focus on siloed bits of information or roles. Even with the best communication, it is quite a struggle to get these messages spread from the top-down. Adding to the challenge are the use of multiple agencies and multiple countries/locations.

In the realm of changing organization structure, someone from Walmart mentioned that they had recently combined all of their e-commerce efforts under a “global e-commerce” area to ensure they were consistent. Several groups talked about fluid environments – involving folks from many different areas – and creating “execution teams” or groups charged with implementing a particular campaign/messaging effort. These groups are incentivised based on their success at accomplishing a common goal, which, in theory, creates a multi-channel effort. While focusing on the overall success of the communications goal, it is still tremendously important to focus on channel revenue attribution (a fancy way of saying, “take a look at how much each media contributes to sales”). By doing this, you’ll be able to track how successful each channel is and provide the best ROI for your efforts. It’s important to keep the customer service/front line folks in the loop, as they’ll be key to letting you know what is really working – even helping to measure by asking the simple, “how did you hear about us,” or “what made you call.”

There were several groups – both on the agency side and the brand side – which talked a trend toward “customer experience” consultants.  Folks from Mother and Naked Communications,talked about a focus on understanding the needs of the customer and delivering a story and promise no matter what form this may take.  Someone from USAA reinforced this point, stating that they didn’t set forth to build the first iPhone app that lets customers deposit checks simply by taking a picture of it, but it came out of ideas to make the customer experience easier (How do they let military men/women who move around alot and may have limited access to the internet while on duty do business easier/better).  Brands need to closely monitor customer needs and deliver on their brand promise.  New tools, like Twitter, Yelp, etc. make it easier to find our what their frustrations are and where your brand may not be delivering consistently on its promise.

Finally, there’s a fine line between delivering your message across multiple channels and “spam.”  Be sure you’re not saturating the market with your message.

Friday night fire drill at SXSW. Fun.

You don’t need a Twitter account to follow SXSW sessions.

SXSW Scene: In downtown Austin today.

Check out what was going at the Austin Convention Center.

Location Based Wars Heating Up

Unfortunately, I’m still sitting here in Bloomington waiting for my flight.  It’s now been delayed 2 hours and 15 minutes.  It’s given me time to double check things (although I’ll still probably forget something) and update my iPhone.

I’ve already mentioned that the location based wars were heating up before SXSW, but I was shocked when I went to update my iPhone today and had app updates from Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, and Whrrl.  And these are just the location based apps I have on my phone (along with Brightkite).

It should certainly be interesting to watch as things progress this weekend as each are running plenty of promotions.  Gowalla is even throwing a party, and the only way to get in is to “find” a virtual VIP wristband by checking in around Austin.  They’re also having a contest giving away some real items if you find them virtually.

SXSW Bound: Chevy’s Recharge Lounge & High-Tech Marketing

SXSW Bound: Can I scan you?

SXSW Bound: The Startup Bus.

SXSW Flashback: Remember three things, Koz.