What is Engagement?

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a really good conversation hosted by Decode, a consultancy in the innovation and strategy space. They convened a conversation about “engagement” of the market segment that is between the institutions of school and family, ie. the 23-30 age group. It was a really diverse group of people ranging from post-secondary administrators to arts and culture evangelists to a Toronto city councilor. The conversation was held at the Centre for Social Innovation, which is a great place to hold conversations of any type.

I came into the conversation with very little context so when Eric, the convener of the circle, asked an open question of how we could define “engagement” my first reaction (which subsequently came pouring out of my mouth) was imagining a marketing person deciding to use the word as a euphemism for “sell to”. I’m sure you’ve heard some disingenuous person shift their verbiage to “engage” as a result of a consultant telling them that it’s no longer about selling, it’s about “engaging in a conversation with your customers.” I said this knowing that nobody in the conversation actually represented this view, but it got me thinking about the bigger definition of engagement.

Some of the people who were in the room work for large not for profits who rely on the generosity of the community to keep their programs going, so I decided to be a little more provocative by suggesting that looking to “engage” young people still had a hint of “selling” in that engagement to them meant convincing young people to donate their time or money to that particular organization. This “problem” of a lack of engagement is partly what led to this conversation being convened.

I would suggest that volunteering time and money with a large not for profit is a great example of engagement, it’s not the only one. For example, I feel as though spending time with my fellow “free agents”, attending their events, mutual problem solving and working together is an important example of engagement. It’s not within the context of any particular institution but I feel as though it makes my neighbourhood, my city, my community a stronger place.

What does engagement mean to you? Are you engaged? How could you be more engaged?

Violins, Patterns and Context

The Washington Post recently published an article on a little social experiment they did. In short, they asked a violin player to stand at a DC subway station and play for 45 minutes during the morning rush. They wanted to see how many people would stop and listen and/or throw some money into the open violin case. The catch is that the player was Joshua Bell, arguably the finest classical violin player in the world, playing one of the most difficult compositions ever created, on a $3 million violin wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Seats at his concert will routinely fetch well into the hundreds of $$$.

The results of the experiment are in the article, but the upshot is that very few people stopped, fewer gave money and only 1 person recognized him. The discussion in the article focuses quite a bit on context. Does context matter when experiencing a work of art? Is it genius if nobody notices? In further questioning, some people didn’t even notice a violinist on their way from the train.

Why do I care about this experiment? It’s all about patterns. The brain is a pattern making machine, for better and for worse. It absorbs data and categorizes it according to previous experience. All of this happens at a pre-cognition level so we don’t even know it’s happening. This is a good thing because it means we don’t have to evaluate every piece of data we encounter in our day to day lives. The over-stimulation would render us practically useless.

The flip side of this amazing phenomenon known as the human brain is that it becomes difficult to absorb new information when we are engaged in a familiar pattern. That’s why some people didn’t even notice the genius of Josh Bell as they went past.

That’s why it’s so difficult to think creatively when engaged in familar patterns. It’s important to put people in unfamiliar surroundings with fresh stimulation in order to get them to come up with new stuff, make new connections and break out of old patterns. The old phrase, “we tried that two years ago and it didn’t work” is partly borne from the fact that the person saying that is sitting in the same physical location when it didn’t work two years ago. Put that person in a fresh environment and it is more likely for that person to pick up on a new piece of information that will encourage them to say, “even though it didn’t work two years ago, here’s why I think it’ll work now…”

I’ll let the philosophy majors flesh out the debates of Leibniz, Hume and Kant about the nature of beauty but I can tell you that if you want creativity, innovation and new direction people have to be physically and cognitively moved out of comfort zones that reinforce old patterns and power structures. In events that I design I will often introduce elements that are meant to do both. Holding collaborative events at art galleries, zoos or patios overlooking Whistler Mountain are all designed to remove people from their typical patterns. Playing punk music to indicate the end of an activity is designed to disrupt patterns and highten observational powers. It’s all part of the experience.

Phrase of the Year so far: Back Up

I wish I had a deeply insightful post to kick off the New Year, but I don’t. Two weeks in Hawaii followed immediately by two weeks of a holiday/food/cottage/single malt coma has resulted in a dearth of quality posts from me despite all the good stuff going on right now. I’ll get to something good soon.

In the mean time, this post is very tactical. While I was away my computer was stolen and if weren’t for my automatic, hourly backups to an external drive I would be in serious trouble. Thankfully this whole experience will only cost me a few hundred dollars and a few hours of my time.

The message to my legions of loyal followers is this: Get an external drive if you don’t have one and set it to AUTOMATICALLY back up your data. No DVD’s, no plug in hard drives every 6 weeks when you remember. Dedicated disk, automatic backups. It’s the only way to go.

The other only way to go is online backups. I’m just lucky my backup drive wasn’t stolen too. I’ll be adding an online backup solution, such as mozy.com to be doubly safe.

Let me ask you this: If all of your data was stolen and I said to you, “Would you pay $150 to have all of your stuff magically re-appear?” you would probably nod enthusiastically. That’s what it costs to buy a network drive with the right software.

So that’s my first message for ’09…back up your stuff!

The Government is Watching AND Big Business is Watching

Last week I posted about how the various government agencies are sending info. back and forth to each other to the point where the Customs and Border people tell the EI people when people are out of the country and therefore unable to secure employment. (Note on that: I referred to the EI people as UI people for which I was corrected, but I argued that you aren’t paying to insure against Employment, you’re paying to insure against UNemployment. It should therefore be UI, not EI.)

Anyway, I had an experience yesterday that led me to believe that business intelligence at Amazon is TOO good.

I’ve been doing a lot of photography recently and have outgrown the functionality of iPhoto so I decided to invest in Aperture, a more highly functional photo organizer and RAW converter. I left Omakase HQ to head down to Ye Olde Computerre Shoppe to pick up the disk and returned to find an email waiting for me from Amazon. It was a recommendation email. It read:

For those who purchased “Back of the Napkin” by Dan Roam..

So I’m interested at this point because I’ve purchased Back of the Napkin and it was pretty good so I’ll open that email….

…we recommend “Aperture 2: A Workflow Guide for Photographers”

Talk about a timely recommendation. There isn’t even a purely logical connection between those books. It’s not as though it was recommending Harry Potter 2 after I just bought Harry Potter 1. I felt as though Amazon had an invisible person watching my every move and then sending recommendations to me before I get home. Now that would be (creepy) service.

The Government is Watching. No, Really.

It seems as though the government of Canada has actually started to get their systems and people talking to one another. Check out this little story that my dad told me.

My dad was out of work at the beginning of the year and started taking Unemployment Insurance. He was looking for a new gig but decided to take a little break from the job hunt and visit my sister in Israel because she had just had her first kid. He was out of the country for two weeks. A few weeks after his return he found a job.

Last week he got a letter from the UI people saying that Customs and Border Control indicates that he was out of the country for two weeks thus violating the terms of UI, namely that he be “ready, willing and able to work.” Obviously if he was in Israel he was unable to be able and he owed two weeks of UI back to the government.

I have to give the government a big round of applause for getting the business intelligence, systems and process together to mine that information share it among departments and take action on it.

Of course, my father doesn’t see it that way.

Quick reflections and a departure

On August 21st I ended my career at Bell Canada. Having sensed that the new owners of the company would be looking to make drastic cost reductions, I figured that it would be a good time to ask for a severance package and use the opportunity to start my own company. It took awhile for everything to fall into place (about 9 months) but it was worth it.

It has been an incredibly busy week since leaving Bell. Lots of administration stuff in getting a business launched and I’ve been fortunate enough to have lots of interest in my services so I’ve had a few meetings regarding potential work. As a result I’ve barely had time to process all of this new information and my new status in this world. And now I’m heading out for a previously planned vacation for two weeks. But I wanted to get something down on “paper” before I go.

It’s easy to slag large corporations for being soul sucking institutions that crush human spirit, especially Bell Canada, but the six years I spent at Bell Canada was a life changing experience that put me on a path to discover the work that I love to do. We had the permission to learn a method of collaborative work and build a centre around that methodology. Most companies wouldn’t invest in their space and employees like that. Most importantly, I met people who have since become some of my best friends, mentors and sources of inspiration.

The relationship was mutually beneficial, I would argue. We did some great work for the company and I’d like to think we’ll be missed, at least a little bit.

So now it’s off to Croatia for two weeks of R&R before returning to the real world and getting this business off the ground. More to come about a new company name, website and blog.

Cool Japanese Life Philosophies

One of the fun parts of my work is looking for new types of life approaches and philosophies and then incorporating them into my own collaborative methodology. I’ll even introduce them to clients and let the clients play with those philosophies within the context of their own organization.

For example, today I suggested that my group of 30 clients take a “Slow Food” approach to the activities they had been assigned. I was inspired by a conversation I had with Michael Dila around “Slow Biz” and what that could mean to how people go about their work in a more mindful and deliberate way.

I’ve come across enough cool Japanese philosophies that I figured it was worthy of starting a conversation around and I’m hoping there will be some contributions. Here are a few that I quite like and I feel map well to business and collaborative approaches:

Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It is more than simply putting flowers in a container. Ikebana is a disciplined art form in which nature and humanity are brought together. It is the philosophy of developing closeness with nature. Ikebana is a creative expression with certain rules of construction. (From Wikipedia and thanks to Mr. Dila and Chris Finlay.)

One of the key principles of Ikebana is the mindfulness of the approach. It is typically done in silence. There is also an appreciation for simplicity and empty space which are two principles that don’t get utilized nearly enough in business, process or product design these days.

Wabi-sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The phrase comes from the two words wabi and sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”. (From Wikipedia)

As much as I try to plan events down to the most minute details, I also balance the planning with the belief that people will take conversations in unpredictable and necessary ways. The collaborative sessions do have a degree of improvisation and “roughness” to them that makes each one unique and “imperfect”.

One of the very cool characteristics to the wabi-sabi aesthetic is that pieces aren’t designed to maintain their original qualities but are designed to stain, chip and crack so the pieces become an ongoing record of their existence. Examples of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include agile development methodologies, wikis and the “perpetual beta” mindset.

Omakase is the Japanese word meaning “entrust” or “protect”. It is most commonly encountered at sushi bars, where the customer may request omakase onegaishimasu (onegaishimasu meaning “please do me the favor”) to give the chef authority to prepare what the chef wants to make for you at the price that the chef sets.

One of the things that I like about this concept is the interplay between sushi chef and patron. The customer is an active part of the experience as they provide verbal and non-verbal feedback on each dish and the chef reacts accordingly in preparing the next dish. I actually have a lot more to say on this ritual and will elaborate further in the near future.

Do you know of any other philosophies or approaches in Japanese culture that can be incorporated into a design and/or collaborative methodology? I would love to keep this conversation going.

Powerpoint doesn’t equal Presentation

I had the opportunity to attend a webinar by Nancy Duarte of Duarte Design (Thanks to VizThink for arranging.) Her firm is responsible for the design and updates to Al Gore’s presentation for An Inconvenient Truth, among other high profile projects.  The topic of the webinar was around the design of PowerPoint presentations.

One really important point that she made is that Powerpoint equals Presentation and she likened PowerPoint slides to the set design of a play. The design of the set is very important for setting mood and tone and adding to the narrative, but it’s the actors, props, lighting, sound and writing that makes the complete play.  Without all of those components working together it’s not much of a play.

That analogy was a real insight for me and I think it’s a great way to consider the use of PowerPoint. Too many presentations try to jam tons of data, bullets (paragraphs even) into the slides and the “thing” becomes a “slideument”. Not a good slideshow and not a good document. Presenters should have a story to tell. They should have passion for their story and use that passion to help motivate the audience towards action with PowerPoint as one of the tools to help.

Global Cue Card Project Additions

With some contribution from Lori G., I’ve added another 50 or so items to the Flickr group. (Thanks Lori!) I don’t think I’ll make any more “announcements” about mere additions to the site until I actually have something useful to say about the images. Keep in mind, I’m no more qualified to make conclusions about these cards than you are, so if you see some themes or interesting observations, please post. I might actually suffer from the “Curse of Knowledge” on this one so any and all comments are welcome.

Here’s a link to the original post about the introduction to the project.

PowerPoint – Good or Bad?

Neither. It just is.

In response to a question posed to the VizThink Community:

Is PowerPoint a powerful tool poorly used or a poor tool overused? 

Let me offer this quote because quotes make me look smart:

Everything is best for something and worst for something else.  The trick is knowing what is what, for what, when, for whom, where, and most importantly, why. 
- Bill Buxton, Designer, Musician, Gallery owner

One thing that I’ve noticed recently is that there is a movement towards using stories and visuals as a way of driving home points in a presentation. PowerPoint is a great tool for supporting this movement. It’s also a great tool for putting up bullet list after bullet list. (I have Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath on my mind these days.)

 If the presenter doesn’t have skills at engaging the audience, PowerPoint isn’t going to help or hurt. It just is.

Next Page »