Design with context and memory. Present with context and memory. Develop with context and memory.

In a recent blog post by Shiv Singh about the New York Times‘ iPhone app, he is disappointed by certain aspects of functionality he feels was left out. He wonders why location-awareness for locally relevant news isn’t built in. He is unhappy that he can’t make and read comments on articles. He wants to know what articles others in his social circle are reading. In short, he wants the analog, pre-digital experience of the Times available on the iPhone application, but he doesn’t say it that way. Perhaps he doesn’t remember the experience of reading the New York Times before there was a digital environment, so let me talk about “the way it used to be”.

Image by JcOlivera.com via Flickr

A morning subway ride to work with the broadsheet version of the New York Times might begin with a paper carefully folded to display an article that fit into a few columns; easy enough to read and hold while standing and holding onto a strap in a crowded subway car. Reading time: about 3-5 minutes per article, written with major information in the first paragraph, and more and more detail added as you read down through the story. If you didn’t finish it, at least you had the core content.

Sometimes I’d find an article I really thought a friend should read. So, I had two ways of getting that message across, first by asking, “Did you read the article about _____________ in the Times’ today?”. Or, if I really felt strongly about it, and wanted to make sure my friend knew all of the details, I’d rip it out of the paper, or clip it, and give it to them.

Next step: the crossword puzzle. My first introduction to crossword puzzles was on Sunday’s, when childhood weekend visits with my grandparents included an overwhelming hour or so working the New York Times’ fiendish Sunday crossword with my grandfather—never to completion. Later there was a period when a group of four of us at work would spend lunch hour solving the weekday NY Times’ crossword together.

Image by Listen Missy! from Flickr

I never wrote a letter to the Times, but I have to other newspapers, including a rather lengthy one to the San Juan Star which prompted an feature article about three months later. But letter writing was a venue for interaction that could potentially be shared with the entire reading audience, even though the bottleneck was much tighter to get through when print and paper costs (not to mention the manditory editorial curation) kept “Letters to the Editor” short and strictly controlled.

The Times’ Metro section could be tunneled down into if I wanted to know what tidbits were happening in my Borough of choice. I grew up in Queens, but Manhattan, my current home, was far more alluring. The Metro section fueled the imagination of goings on in the glamorous neighborhoods, the “real” New York.

It was all there. The things Shiv want’s aren’t new. So, I agree with him: if the New York Times will review the history of the user experience of their paper, they will find plenty of features to add to an iPhone app, an iPad app, a Kindle app, an anykind of portable digital version that will come down the pike.

People tend to want the same things over and over. It’s not a bad thing, it comes from certain patterns, desires and needs that come from the human experience. As designers, developers, storytellers, we just need to uncover that common story, that familiar experience, and figure out how to recreate it with new tools. Put a successful experience into place, regardless of the tool, and you will have an engaged audience.

And to that point, Shiv, I too, would pay for a subscription to the New York Times if they would give me those capabilities as well. And I might even read some of the ads too.

Post image: Subway, 1934, oil on canvas by Lily Furedi; from Flikr collection of cliff1066™

When I was a kid, and into my early adulthood, there were still many great storytellers on radio in the US. Jean Shepherd, most famous for his “A Christmas Story”, was on the air every night with his stories when I was a teenager. Paul Harvey would tell us “The Rest of The Story” which I would listen to midday, usually  in my car while on the road as a sales representative for that computer company named after a fruit. I thought these guys were amazing craftsmen, keeping me riveted and my mind whirling as they’d get to that final finish. What satisfaction, to be immersed in this story for 10 or 15 minutes, forgetting about my homework or, as an adult, sitting in horrible traffic jams.

As much credit I give these storytellers for using their creative imagination and their voices to spin great tales, I realize that the stories were created in partnership: as a listener, it was up to me to create the visuals in my mind, to fill in the gaps where the storyteller would jump over details, or to decide who was a hero and who was a villain. Listening to those storytellers over the radio was an active process, and now I’m engaged in even more active storytelling by following a stream of tweets about a handful of characters wrapped up in a story about getting married, breaking up, having a baby, falling in love.

Toronto-based screen-writer/author Jill Golick decided to use the tools of the Social Web to tell the story “Crushing It! A Social Media Love Story”. It’s a comic soap opera, that takes place over the course of five days, specifically during Social Media Week,  with a cast of characters that would most believably use Twitter, Facebook, blogging and YouTube in their everyday life. She hasn’t made the story strictly about social media either: the focus is on a couple about to get married, and there are no Social Media Gurus directly involved (although the title is a tribute to Gary Vaynerchuk, an early adopter of marketing his wine store through the Internet via his Wine Library webcast, and has since become an author of the book Crush It!, to inspire others). There is the best friend of the groom, co-workers, an extremely-pregnant best friend of the bride, a mom trying to figure Twitter out to keep up with her son…and intrigue! A “secret” twitter account, a spilt cup of coffee that leads to romance…and you, the audience, following on Twitter using the hashtag #cistory, gets to decide the ending.

The core story line is a work in progress, influenced by audience participation. It’s told in short bursts over the course of the day on Twitter, with additional entries to blogs and YouTube that fill out the background, enriching the experience. This is truly what transmedia is about, where many forms of media are used to tell this story, and real people interact directly with the story, affecting characters and outcome. Even Gary Vaynerchuk has started to follow some of the characters—who knows if he’ll offer some advice or get into the action?

What I find most interesting about the process is how the audience will mold and move the story. Much as Scott McCloud would say concerning cartoon/comic or sequential art stories, it’s about what happens between the panels that moves the story along.

I invite you to watch via twitter: http://www.twitter.com/crushingitstory/lists/crushing-it-story or following the hashtag #cistory. You can go on the website http://www.crushingitstory.com for more background on the story, the characters and credits as well.

Here’s the first video from the character Barbara Marks’ YouTube account, talking about how she’s about to get married (or so she thinks):

The story will take place from Monday, February 1, 2010 through Friday, February 5, 2010. Keep me posted on what you think by adding your comments here or on the website.

In the spirit of giving full disclosure about my involvement (and enthusiasm) with this story, I created the web site and am functioning as the administrator of the site. Although I’m not writing a character directly, I do play a part in providing the framework for the action to play out, and I’d like to hear what you think about the whole experience.

Recently, I sat mesmerized while listening to an executive’s explanation of how he prepares to give a quarterly report to his board of directors. After listing the facts and figures that the board “most definitely wants to hear”, he finished by glancing around the room nervously and becoming silent. Eight other smart executives were there as well, looking at him, or through him: it was hard for me to tell. I don’t however, think they were as fascinated. Now, I have to tell you, I was not interested in the actual list of numbers he droned through. I was taken by how this intelligent, interesting guy, who had a lot to say about sports, family, and the current economy’s effect on business while chatting informally with his colleagues just 1o minutes before, had turned into a soft-spoken and perhaps inconsequential bore. No passion, no information analysis, and no indication of just how smart he is and why he’s good at his job. And I wondered; why I would ever want to friend him on Facebook, or connect with him on LinkedIn, or, worst of all, follow his tweets on Twitter? Who would this fellow be if he is representing his company in the social media environment?

As smart and engaging as he is personally, once he stood up to talk as a corporate executive (and, I would assume, if he had to speak to others as a “businessperson”), he lapsed into a dialect of thick corporate speak; a concoction of numbers, catch phrases and acronyms. In the 5 minutes he spoke, he never told us what course of action to take based on the numbers he disclosed nor did he reveal the consequences of what might happen if nothing changed. Sadder still, I doubt the board would have gained anything from his report, even though they really want to know what matters and what he would recommend.

So, with everyone rushing to get companies on the bandwagon of Social Media, I am concerned that there can be a wall that keeps content of value safely locked behind boring, undigested informational blather. The idea of  “safety in numbers” has an ironic twist in meaning when executives and professionals do not offer insight or comprehension to the conversation, hiding behind the less-risky method of offering volumes of content with little depth. Data gathering is not enough, it needs to be pressed into service and given meaning.

So, please do not ask a C-level executive or, for that matter, anyone in the company, to jump into social media if that person isn’t willing or able to have a forthright conversation. If the person communicating from the company’s desk cannot speak clearly, with depth and presence, and project some real saavy about what’s going on, that conversation will end more quickly than someone can leave the room if they were there in person. Actually, we’re normally far too polite to just walk out of a room when we’re bored, but the online world is a cruel place, and being “unfollowed” is just a click away.

I’m not asking for flip personal conversation or chatty filler to seem “human” or that even more abused buzzword, “authentic”. Corporate communication cannot afford to be jargon-filled and rote or superficial; it must be active and authorities should speak, authoritatively and with purpose when speaking from a corporate setting.

Otherwise, whether it’s 140 characters or 140 pages, there is no reason for anyone to listen, much less be mesmerized, engaged, or even interested.

If you have the dreaded job of delivering reports on some kind of regular basis, I’d suggest first spending the time to create conclusions that make numbers, facts and calculations have relevance and meaning. Then, whether you share them in face-to-face meetings or use a blog or any other kind of media  to present them, you’ll have engaged listeners.

Whether it’s “We have a problem, Houston” or “We’re good to go”, putting thoughtful perspective on even the most routine information-sharing will be the strongest way to create respect and engagement.

This post contains a MindMap summarizing takeaways from Social Media Chat from October 28, 2009.

In the song, “The Rainbow Connection,” Kermit the Frog refers to “the lovers, the dreamers, and me”. I think many of us empathize with the “me” the someplace-in-the-middle.

There’s often talk about opposites in personality and thinking; the “left-brained” (analytic) or “right brained” (creative) types, the linear or holistic types, generalizers or detail-oriented types, or even broader generalizations of people being “thinkers or doers”.  While one style or approach may dominate in each of us, there are tools and methods of exploring idea development and management that can be used by anyone.

Mind mapping, as created by Tony Buzan, is a visual tool using association through lines and proximity as the primary method of displaying relationships between ideas, concepts, objects or processes, radiating out from a centrally-located focal point.

The mind map, and variations on mind mapping (concept maps and collective brainstorming) can be a great tool to generate ideas, bridge the gaps while exploring processes, and make connections appear through “wise wanderings”. If you are willing to allow your mind to associate freely, you can make a mind map.

There is a great deal of software available to create mind maps, from educational packages through online freeware and collaborative tools, but for this example I went the route of paper, color markers and a Flair pen. I like to work this way because it’s quick and easy, particularly in adding quick doodles if an image or visual metaphor comes to mind from the conversation. If you think you can’t draw, you can do the same without adding any pictures but using colored pens to add highlights, make boxes around key points, or adding arrows to show where one thing leads to another.

Here’s my first mind map of the Twitter #SMCHAT from October 28, 2009, where the group discussed “Demystifying Mind Mapping“, hosted by Chris Jones (@sourcePOV) and mind-mapping expert Chuck Frey (@chuckfrey). For the original framing of the Q25 discussion, please read Chris Jones’ original post on mindmapping 101 or http://smchat.ning.com/forum/topics/q25-mind-maps-101 .

While participating and then rereading the transcript, four themes emerged to me: Theory, Practice, Tools and Methods. I placed  Theory on top, floating ideas and concepts (the abstract or ethereal), and Practice below (with concrete, “down to earth” examples of other forms of mind mapping, using real objects). Methods and Tools seem to straddle both theory and practice, so they sit on an invisible horizon line. This divides the map into a Top/Bottom configuration, or Head and Body.

I also used more of a personal visual shorthand to move quickly, eliminating the branching lines that associate ideas while counting on proximity to define the relationship between the short phrases, doodles and symbols.

In this first version, I used the Twitter identities of chat participants to create top and bottom borders. If you were there and I didn’t list you, please know that I added the names somewhat chronologically as people entered the conversation and I let space constraints determine who was listed.

Refining the map

One question that I’ve heard raised about mind maps (and infographics in general) is whether or not they are clear, useful and convey real information to those who didn’t create the image. In many cases, yes, a mind map can easily be as clear as an outline or summary using just words; in the best cases, the addition information gleaned from visual data (including pictures, symbols, color, placement and size) can generate a completely fresh instance of ideas, add additional content with fewer words, or place emphasis, impact and  flow to direct the reader through the map.

I created a second map to make the navigation easier and to prompt additional discussion:

#SMCHAT - Mindmapping 101

The four large branches titles are enlarged and emphasized, but I’ve filtered the content in each branch. It is a selective filter, certainly, but the point of creating this map was not only to summarize the previous discussion but to stimulate a second conversation. Chuck Frey remarked, “being able to see info represented visually helps you see “white space” opportunities – between existing ideas.” I hope you can find these through this map, and they become rainbow connections for you.

With that in mind, please join us for the next #SMCHAT  on Twitter on December 9, 2009 at 1pET : Q25R Mind Maps, the Remix. I will be moderating the chat and I hope to see you there.

Next Tuesday, I will be speaking at Jeff Pulver’s #140 Conf: The State of Now , in London. Dean Landsman (@deanland on Twitter) and I will talk about “Digital Presence: Now and Beyond”, and we’re planning on presenting using a combination of  pre-made visuals while I will sketch notes over them, on screen, as we talk. How does this hybrid concept work? And why would I do something so risky as expose myself by drawing live as we speak, while people tweet about the conference in real time and I might also be potentially on camera?

My answer is that this way of presenting is truly “The State of Now” – just as much as typing in Google’s Wave, where you can currently see each key stroke and erasure, or watch a webinar with someone fumbling through notes, or speaking live; it is the antidote to the perfectly buttoned-up and mistake-free studio version; it is the energy of a live concert where you don’t know how the singer will sound, it is the excitement of the promise of reality TV (although currently it has become a situationally scripted affair to ensure a story line with an arc). It’s inherent in the rhythm of 140 characters, where the story unfolds in short and often candid bursts.

So, I will draw, sketch, and doodle in plain sight as Dean L.  and I speak. I may erase lines or even start over; there will be very few if any perfectly straight lines, or circles that close exactly where they started; that is the state of now.

I do expect interest, I hope for excitement, and even more than that, I hope that exposing the stream of visualization that emerges will offer a better definition of who I am and how I think. The efficiency of a powerful image cannot be beat, and the process of watching my thinking unfold has no parallel. Tying this to the twitter stream, adding these images to my flickr library, or streaming the video of the presentation will strengthen my unique digital presence.

A digital presence, now and beyond, whether for a brand, an organization, or an individual, will and should have a strong visual anchor, and I don’t mean a logo or just one symbol. A digital presence can be associated with a visual style, such as the Matrix movies’ association with the slow motion action scene; Dave Gray’s company, Xplane, associated with information graphics that explain processes and methods through visual storytelling; or President Obama’s visual presence,where he is commonly viewed as looking up and forward, off  towards some greater goal, or smiling through adversity. We see this image projected routinely on television or, more to his digital presence, in his weekly YouTube broadcasts. A visual digital presence is a multi-layered thing, because we see, think and remember in images and words that combine sequentially to tell stories.

Avatars, photographs,  color choices, diagrams,  symbols, typographic choices, drawings, or video displayed on your blog, your facebook page, your twitter background, your YouTube and Flickr accounts ; there are so many ways to create a strong, memorable digital presence. If you remember the dream of the picture phone made popular in the sixties, that era is here.

Returning to why talk about visual concepts at a Twitter conference; if you have used TwitPic even once you have used Twitter to add a visual component to your digital presence. No airbrushing necessary. More to the point, why did you pick whatever you have chosen to represent you as your avatar? Do you get the reaction you expect when people talk to you about how you look on twitter? Your digital presence will be discerned by others not just through your words but the visual way you present yourself as well.

So, as the Clash said back in 1979,

London calling at the top of the dial
After all this, won’t you give me a smile?

(Photos in article by Dean Meyers)

Housing Works' Design on a Dime Benefit

Last Thursday evening I had the opportunity to peek into over 20 stranger’s bedrooms and other living spaces. Actually, I was invited to not only peruse, but to purchase the lamps, tables, beds….anything with a price tag on it. There were plenty of nice items to choose from, and it wasn’t just a shabby chic auction or a fire sale going on, it was Housing Works’ “Design on a Dime” Benefit show, held at The Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street in Manhattan. Is New York in a spring cleaning/home design frenzy? I ask because as the Benefit opened its doors the May 11, 2009  issue of New York Magazine cover article was Design Liberation: The 2009 Home Design Issue.

I don’t have an answer why home design is on the mind of New Yorkers right now, and you can just look at my pics below from the Design on a Dime Benefit show and not read anymore of this post. But it is a good time to think about design as something that isn’t just in the minds and hands of experts.

An Obama-inspired bedroom

We all design (by accident as well as on purpose), starting with our home and work spaces. Rather than being just an unconscious reflection of who we are (messy or neat, bright or somber), it can be what we want it to be by applying thought about how the contents of the room affects us, choosing colors that dominate the setting for each room, and displaying a few choice items that make a statement.  This is where visiting a show like this or reading the New York Magazine article can stimulate our creativity and inspire us.

Enjoy the picture show below. Look for color, shapes, organization. See what you like, and think about how it sets a mood. Imagine why you’d like to spend time in that room or why you wouldn’t even walk into a room like that. Design is proactive, and after you’ve looked at what other people have done to create an environment, think about what you might do to change yours.

Moving from 3-D to the flat spaces we design all the time as well, apply the same criteria: is this slide or page or web site inviting, welcoming, cold, formal, funky? Would I want to spend time here or just go past it quickly because it’s too messy and unorganized? Take a stroll through a presentation on Slideshare and see what others are designing that make you feel at home, and use it as an example. Hopefully a light bulb with a pretty lampshade will turn on in your mind.

Click here to see the slide show from the Design on a Dime Benefit

20 seconds. It took 20 seconds, from hitting the “play” button on the recording to start the song for Susan Boyle to convince 3 skeptical judges and a doubting audience that she did, in fact, have a voice, and could dream a dream. There are now millions who have watched the clip on television and the Internet, who have cried and laughed and felt good seeing this plain-spoken woman astound the venerable Simon Cowell—and us.

What’s the attraction? And why am I and you just like her..or how can we be? Saying she’s authentic, well, it sounds right, but what does that mean, really? I think it’s more valuable to look at the symbolic reference, or what Susan Boyle is as an archetype: she is “everyman“, a person who wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, has no great distinguishing physical characteristics (by outward appearance), rather “ordinary” or “plain”. Her life story seems to be an unremarkable tale: a single woman, close to her parents, never married, in fact never has been kissed. Doen’t that already set us up for a great story, either way? She could be something wonderful we are about to discover, or a complete loser who we take into our hearts (remember William Hung on American Idol?) Didn’t we give him just as much attention for his hopelessly naive performance of “She Bang“?

So there’s a larger story, and it’s not just about those who are successful despite all odds, or surprise by being good at something they shouldn’t be able to do, or even by being as awful as we expected. It is when we see ourselves in them, our frailty, our commonness, the things that make us so LIKE each other, that makes us interested in hearing what they have to say.  When our  defensive wall is down, when our genuine enthusiasm is on display, and when we fervently believe we have something to give, we are interesting to others. Show your enthusiasm, your passion, your belief in your work, your products, whatever you want the world to see that you create, and you’ll be memorable. This is the lesson of Susan Boyle, and she has inspired me to “dream a dream” too.

Thanks to Howard Greenstein, I was able to get into the the Social Media Club meeting in New York City last week on short notice. The details about the meeting, along with video, is posted here: http://www.socialmediaclub.org/author/howard/

I didn’t want to tweet about it, which I am finding is now a great way of making notes, but I did bring pencil and pad to write down things that might interest me. The first speaker, Fraser Kelton (@fraser) spoke about Glue, and the issue of “walled gardens” keeping data from transferring between applications.  My pad and pencil responded with this:

The second speaker was Tina Alexander, talking about the community sites currently in beta on The Wall Street Journal’s site.I was struck by the idea of “Curated content”, a phrase she used, and drew this:

The images come from the talks, and they serve as reminders of the talks. Sometimes from listening, pictures are created in the mind that are more striking than anything projected on the screen. Sometimes, you have to close your eyes to see.

Good storytelling sometimes has nothing to do with the story itself, particularly if it’s a story so familiar we can tell it to ourselves. Here’s an example of great storytelling that isn’t about the story, a familiar chestnut of a fairy tale, but the way it’s told: with humor, simplicity, and a surprising amount of data visualization that might hang around in your mind even after the story is done.

Slagsmålsklubben – Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

“What’s coming next?”

That’s the question you want every listener and every viewer to ask. You want edge-of-the-seat, gripping-the-chair attention. You want silence in the room as every eye is on you. If you’re using a whiteboard to make a presentation, you want everyone to get excited as you go to the board to draw the next chart, write the next big keyword, flip the page to make a point.

Beyond interest lies curiosity. That’s what drove humans to find better ways to hunt, explore new lands,  create art.

Examining your presentation, your graphic design, your next blog post, what evokes curiosity? Here are some tips:

1) Build the story. Give a setup: “here’s the situation, the problem”.

2) Describe the outcome that is hoped for.

3) Describe how you propose to make that happen.

Simple, right? So why do so many presentation go down the rabbit hole of too much detail and no end in sight? Good stories are about action. Create energy with action…what are the actions that will make your outcome happen?

Visual tips: cut down the bullet points and write action words. Use a picture instead of a word if you can find one.

And, perhaps my favorite suggestion, when you’re giving a talk or presenting with slides:

Take a breath and pause after you’ve hit a key point. Give it time to sink in. Create suspense by not rushing from slide to slide, from point to point, spewing out facts or running down a list.

Control the pace of your story, and you’ll create a lot of interest not only in the story you’re telling but in you, the storyteller.