New Job, New Behaviors
by KimSo I’ve started this new job. Same title more or less, but new people, new computer, new systems; getting to know personalities, motivations and how things get done here at Adaptive Path. Overall my first 3 months have been positive and wonderfully fulfilling. I’ve drank the Adaptive Path Kool-Aid and really love the founding principles and philosophy of the studio.
As with starting anything new, here’s my opportunity to make changes to my behaviors. Not so much bad habits, those I fondly refer to now as character. It’s more that, with starting something new, I have this opportunity and desire to create new systems for:
Managing personal and work schedules — At my previous job we used Entourage’s shared project calendar for work and I used my Sidekick II and iCal for personal appointments — an imperfect system to say the least. Adaptive Path uses iCal pretty heavily, so now I can have my personal calendar at home and work. However, I’ve had to break out my personal calendar into 2 — the office needs to know when I’m traveling or at the dentist, but doesn’t need to know when I’m attending a baby shower or going camping with friends. And, as Brandon’s mentioned, iCal has its points of frustration too.
Gathering research for multiple, concurrent projects — Do I finally breakdown and try out Backpack or stick with my 1/2 paper, 1/2 digital un-method? What do I do with the information that I find interesting, but have yet to know how or where I’ll use it, you know, the non-project-specific stuff? I don’t want ideas getting lost in my analog notebook or in the browser bookmark abyss.
Taking notes during various meetings — I used to have a paper notebook for general studio activities, meetings, etc. and used my computer when I knew I’d have to share more formal meeting minutes with team members. At Adaptive Path we have an internal wiki for office related stuff, digital group calendars, basecamp for projects and many mailing lists that seem to capture most everything needed for recall later.
Here’s the clincher: Since starting at AP in January, I’ve had this desire to go completely digital in my research, notes, writing, etc. simply for the ability to search by keywords. However, I am finding that I *need* the tactile nature of a pencil and paper. Not just for storyboarding and wireframing, but even reading articles so I can highlight key phrases with a marker or flag a page with a postit. I’m realizing that what it comes down to is this: I’m of the generation where computers in college were in a classroom and only owned by computer science majors. I have managed to ride the digital wave fairly well and can thank my high school’s vice principal for purchasing the first school computer for the journalism class. But since personal computers arrived while in college and the internet didn’t become mainstream until well after graduating college, I’ve realized that there are certain things in my behaviors that are innate and visceral, these things are so deeply embedded in who I am that I cannot make the leap. So for now, I will stick with my imperfect system of bridging the analog and digital worlds because going 100% digital would feel like I’m abandoning a part of me.
What systems do you use? And what’s your ratio of digital to analog?
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March 30th, 2007 at 7:43 am
I’ve gone the other way, trying to be completely analog–but documenting everything with my cameraphone.
Another tip–store everything online. Much nicer when you want to share it or move it. This could be with a shared server at the company or 3rd-party apps/storage.
March 30th, 2007 at 9:33 am
I believe in the analog/digital combination, I would say my own process for managing projects is about 30/70%. There’s a potency to inscribing to-do lists and important ideas into my memory through the act of writing them in my notebook.
As for the conversion of analog to digital, we work a lot on whiteboards and type up the notes digitally for general distribution. The drawback of visual/whiteboard thinking to text notes is losing some of the creative essense of someone’s handwriting on the whiteboard.
Until we get hardware like these: (http://www.officetronics.com/product_info.php?item_number=306), we typically take a high-quality digital photo of all whiteboards before they get erased. If anyone has a question about what the notes mean, we can refer to the digital photo. These work well on basecamp, so anyone can see the whiteboards in perpetuity.
On a side note, the UPS commercials featuring whiteboards (http://whiteboard.ups.com/) were a great idea.
Is it that everyone is using whiteboards these days, so UPS connects well with its target demo? Or are they trying to be ‘cutting edge’ by using whiteboards?
Not to mention, that guy has the best whiteboard handwriting I’ve ever seen…
March 30th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
To gather stuff for later consumption/use I would recommend del.icio.us. The taging and searching mechanisms there allow you to make sense of your collection much better then traditional bookmarks.
As far as analog/digital capture I recently settled on a system where I scribble stuff on paper and then transcribe it to a mind map (FreeMind) later. That way I get the freedom of pancil+paper as well as the operational flexibility of a digital mind map.
The extra review also gives me a chance to organize the ideas and information I captured and re-think their sigificance, connections and so on. If it’s not worth spending a couple of minutes going through what I learned in a day then it’s most probably not worth recording anyway.
(Learned that one from a video interview of Jeff Veen by Merlin Mann (both formerly with AP)
Anyway, since you seem to be looking for ways to improve your mo I suggest you look at the Getting Things Done methodology (if you didn’t already). A good starting point is Merlins 43folders blog/wiki/forum.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Great comments all around, thanks. Yes, the act of writing is a memory trigger for me as well. I also photograph markerboards as part of my routine. I like the idea of the digital markerboards, but they seem too expensive for the number of markerboards we have in the studio. I suppose we could get just a few, but photographing them seems to work.
Sadly, I have several neglected del.icio.us accounts, I just can’t seem to integrate that extra step into my routine. I do love del.icio.us for team collaboration and distribution of links.
I’ve looked at Getting Things Done since starting at AP and was surprised by how many things they recommend that I’ve already been doing. I’ve considered looking a little deeper at 43 Folders to see if there are additional things I could incorporate, maybe I’ll take a 2nd look.
On another vein … Thinking more about the behavioral change aspect of my post … it really brings home to me how designing for tasks and features is not enough or perhaps even not the right approach. Discovering the underlying behaviors can lead to developing new services and products that might not be thought of if only working from a list of features and tasks. Todd talked about behaviors, motivations and contexts last year.
April 9th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I’d say my ratio is about 20:80 in favour of digital methods. I’ve been pushing more and more towards digital notebooks since joining Habanero. We are a Microsoft-heavy firm, so I run parallels on my mac and have taken advantage of One Note (I even blogged about it recently“).
I still find that in certain settings, such as interviews, the laptop “wall” just doesn’t work - pen and paper are still best and are least intimidating for interviewees. I also still love to begin wireframing with a pen-to-paper sketching process.
April 9th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Yes, I’ve read about OneNote and was disappointed that it’s not in the Mac version of Office. Reading your blog, the key for me is it’s searchable - that’s just what I’m looking for.
I’m hoping Parallels performs better than Virtual PC, but I haven’t had the need to use it just yet.
April 11th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Actually.. I tend to use a digital voice recorder to take meeting notes, collect random thoughts, etc, and transcribe the important pieces later. I found its the easiest way for me to keep tabs on everything. Aside from that.. I create alot of Excel Spreadsheets.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:47 am
Hello Kim, I couldn’t resist making a comment on pencil and paper note taking. I always go for pencil and paper and feel that there is a relationship between me, the pencil and the paper that I just don’t get with a keyboard and screen. When taking notes, somehow I remember more if I’ve written them by hand and can then transcribe, organise and add to them afterwards. There is also the pleasure of writing, I like my handwriting and enjoy the physical feeling of my hand using the pencil to form flowing words. The same goes for design work - even with a stylus and pad, you just don’t get the same connection as with pencil and paper.