Our Public Private Lives

Recently, a blog post about a Yelp comment gone wrong circulated through the office. Despite being fictitious, this isn’t something to be written off. One doesn’t have to look far to find legitimate instances of social media blowback in our real-world lives.

What does this mean? Do we, as social media participants, need to craft all our posts to the lowest/most-agreeable common denominator, avoiding any possibility of offense (or individuality)? After all, it’s becoming a given that your online activity will be examined fairly early in the courting process, whether by a potential employer or partner. Or, will society mature, acknowledge the merging of personal and public, and evaluate people as a whole; on both their skillset and ability to conduct themselves as appropriate given the setting? If you put any stock in this CareerBuilder survey, it seems like Corporate America is at least a few years away from such an enlightened stance (and if you ask me, that’s being generous), so either get editing or get ready to defend your life.

While I like Kit Eaton’s take on the CareerBuilder survey and issue in general, I feel like he’s missing a fourth option: let it all hang out. Being a reader of this blog, I’m going to assume you’re an intelligent, well-rounded, and high-performing individual who contributes a lot to their organization and/or clients. Employers are lucky to have you and clients want to work with you. Do you think their opinions would change if they found your mullet-adorned, beer-swilling college photo? What about last week’s salty tweet about Mel’s, ahem…opinionated…voicemails? If so, maybe that fit wasn’t as good as you thought. However, if truly putting yourself out there means posting stuff that would turn off even the most open-minded of us, maybe you need to reexamine your life.

This seemed like a good idea at the time (on multiple levels)

That’s a tough stand to take in such tenuous economic times, but do you really think this whole social media thing is a fad? Me neither. So let’s be the ones to jump in with both feet and show the way. If we’re to do that, there’s definitely some reorienting of expectations needed by all players.

Users: Expect everything you post will be discovered. By everyone. Forever.
Employers: Learn and embrace the new sharing. Focus on the whole person and their ability to be a professional in professional situations.
Parents/Educators: Orient your charges to the impact/permanence of online posts. Help give them the perspective they inherently lack.
Creators: Manage participation, but don’t suppress opposition. Use your power to build communities.

Nobody’s going to argue that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook sure have some things to learn in the PR department. And while what the Facebook creator said in January about privacy no longer being a social norm could have been phrased a bit better, I think the idea behind it is right on. People are sharing more and more of their private lives online for the world to see and despite threats to the contrary, nobody’s leaving because of privacy controls (especially Phil). We like the idea of privacy, but when push comes to shove, we’re pot-committed to our social media lives even if we’re not ready to admit it.

Social Media: No Spectators Allowed

How many times have you heard a key stakeholder in a digital initiative throw out a broad statement like “we need to include some social media in this”?

“Well Duh” Statement #1: Many folks who say these kinds of things can’t really quantify what they mean or what the value proposition might be.

“Well Duh” Statement #2: Many folks who say these kinds of things do so in the same manner that they might say “what the heck, let’s super size it too” or “can we throw some racing stripes on there too? That’d be cool, right?” Obviously, they don’t get that there’s a whole discipline of business strategy emerging around the phenomenon. It’s not nearly as simple as “turning it on” – especially because with social media there’s not simply the potential for great uptake vs. no uptake, but also for self-destruction. You need to curate and shape your social presence, not just “set it and forget it”.

Illustration by Mike Colibraro

But there’s also something more subtle going on that I’ve recently come to see as a trend: too often we hear these folks (particularly those in higher positions at larger organizations) talk about social media as if it’s something that will occur at ground level and they’ll watch it unfold from above. They talk about it as if it’s something to delegate to others. They talk about it as something that might perhaps be good for some other class of folks but not for themselves.

If social media is good for your business, it’s good for you. It is not good enough to read articles about how social media is influencing the business landscape and to know some of the buzzwords. If you don’t have accounts in the various types of outlets and you’re not actively using them, then no, you don’t get it. Period.

I’m not saying that all executives should be engaging in social media on behalf of their brand, per se (though when done right, there are benefits to be derived). But they should be engaging at least on their own, and here’s why – if you’re not in the thick of it, you simply can’t understand the dynamics of the interaction, the manner in which things trend, the way news breaks, the way brands are made or destroyed, and the real dynamics behind things like crowd-sourcing and cyber-bullying (of people, brands, or otherwise). That’s important because, “duh” again, if you’re a decision-maker for initiatives that may have social components, you need to be familiar with how these things work in order to effectively manage, direct, and lead in this space.

Not Even If You Dedicated All Day, Every Day

But, let’s put some parameters around this too – you should be familiar with the different flavors of social media, but being everywhere (see above) would be impossible even if it was your full time job. The key is to be informed and participate in a qualified subset and to leave their opinions and preconceptions about those channels at the door. It’s OK if you “don’t get why it’s so popular”, but it’s not OK to let that be an excuse for avoiding it. That’s the same as a 1940′s advertising executive saying, “this TV thing is a fad, newspapers aren’t going away – that’s where we should be focusing our business.”

The good news is that getting up to speed is free – it just requires some of your time and dedication. What it all boils down to is that you can’t effectively answer the question “how can we harness social media?” until you’ve answered “how can I?”

An Overlooked Enemy of Good Design

Today I did something I don’t get to do very often: I turned off my email. Aside from three pre-scheduled check-ins to make sure nothing was melting down, I was off-line almost the entire day and able to focus on a single design assignment. Toward the end of the day I reviewed my work with the client to collect their feedback and tomorrow we’ll start the review process with other stakeholders.

It later struck me that eight consecutive hours of focus is a rare thing. In this case I was making significant changes to two months worth of work due to a very wise decision made by a very wise executive. That is not sarcasm – a good decision was made, and to be successful we needed to take three steps back in order to take four steps forward. It was refreshing to do this kind of rework and feel like I was “doing the right thing” rather than diluting something as a result of design-by-committee.

I’m a huge fan of theoatmeal.com, but when Matt Inman vents over idiot clients or copycat design methods, I feel like he’s missing the point. In my experience, one of the greatest enemies of good design isn’t what we typically blame: clients, technology, time, money, or even nepotism. I’m calling out the turf war.

illustration by Mike Colibraro

We do a lot of work with pharmaceutical companies and much of my efforts focus on helping clients communicate important information to physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. I’m not talking about your typical marketing site for a new drug, but the volumes of clinical information that pharma companies provide to the medical community free of charge and without any marketing messaging. This information gives your healthcare providers the data they need to make informed decisions and, without question, it saves lives. The sad fact is that the medical industry doesn’t always trust information coming from “Big Pharma.” There are a lot of reasons that have contributed to this situation over the years. The pharma industry has been spending a lot of energy trying to remedy the situation, but fixing trust issues is a hard game.

I can’t meet physicians without grilling them about how they use technology in their practice. A while ago I ended up sitting next to an ER doc at a baseball game. We got to talking and I asked him about the electronic medical record systems at his hospital. I was not surprised by what I heard, but it’s a great example of how turf wars are the enemy: a series of battles between medical departments, vendors, healthcare systems, and their IT departments leaves many ERs with multiple systems. Sometimes they have multiple screens up for one patient: charts, radiology, labs, research, etc. Many of these systems don’t talk to each other because they’re built by competitors who want to dominate the market. None of these decisions were made to improve usability or achieve better patient outcomes; they were all made to “protect” someone’s group, market share, or position.

So…back to my entire day of focus: the reason why that’s so rare is due to the unfortunate reality that in my typical day, much of my time (and I suspect yours) is dedicated to dealing with the fallout from turf wars. Over time, those successful in these wars become unable to function any other way – they default to tactics of offense or defense. The wisest don’t contribute to the wars. Fueling that fire means you’re not doing what you do best: focusing on good design. Less time spent on design means less time collaborating with your friends and colleagues over in Content, Development, IT, and Testing. It also means missed opportunities reaching out to users and stakeholders for critical feedback.

David Maister wrote a book called “The Trusted Advisor” that every UX designer should read. Much of the book is dedicated to trust building. You don’t build trust by getting sucked into the turf war, you build it by doing the right thing.

Wharton UICONF 2010

Two weeks ago, I attended Wharton’s UICONF 2010, which focused on user experience design in the context of higher education. While a greater percentage of our work happens in other sectors, it was interesting to revisit how the concepts and principles we trade in are applied (or not) in academia.

Several themes emerged across the days, highlighted by the two keynotes: Don Norman’s “Living with Complexity” and Cory Ondrejka’s “Angry Dinosaurs.” These two speakers couldn’t have more divergent styles (Norman, the wise and respected mentor; Ondrejka, the double-caffeinated fast-talker who knows he’s right, but is just respectful enough to let you realize it yourself) but ultimately spoke on the same topic: Change.

The upshot of Norman’s talk (and upcoming book) was that complexity is not only OK, but is to be desired…especially when the alternative is baffling simplicity masquerading as “design.” As our worlds become more and more complex, he claims, it is up to us as designers to ensure it doesn’t become more complicated. We must design for memory, not for the moment; creating pleasurable experiences that will overcome the frequently less-than-ideal interface trade-offs of today’s mobile devices.

Quick, what time is it? The sundial is simplicity incarnate, but the wall clock's complexity helps reduce complication.

Ondrejka took a different tack on the theme of “change,” positing that agility (or adoption rate) will become a–if not the–key competitive advantage in the near and long-term. He railed, rather convincingly, against the “Angry Dinosaurs” of the world who fail to see that their business model is crumbling around them (NYT, RIAA, we’re looking at you). Admitting you have a problem is only the first step, however. Ondrejka continued to outline how to build an agile team (that’s a small “a” for all you SCRUM/Agile/Lean geeks) in these massive institutions, how to foster innovation (which he likens to art and pornography…you know it when you see it, but nobody can define it), and why few of us can see massive world-rocking change coming before it’s about to swallow us whole.

Beyond the keynotes, some of the breakout sessions covered such topics as conducting quick and dirty usability tests, the benefits of prototyping, what to expect (or not) from your CMS, and designing interactions with Ajax.

For the most part, the lessons of the conference were broadly applicable and not just suited for the higher ed world. While the keynote speakers were clearly in a different league than most of the breakout hosts, the conference did provide good value given its extremely reasonable fees. Looking to 2011, this conference seems well suited for those in early- or mid-stage UX careers looking to build their repertoire, but may leave more experienced practitioners wanting more deep dives.