7 Common Design Mistakes That Clients Love (and how to fight back)

I read a great post today from Crestock’s blog and had to share it.  This article makes some great points that work in and out of the Church world.  To read the whole post from the original site click here.

“From flash intros, to logo theft, to information overload, clients often ask a design team to do a lot of stuff that’s just plain wrong. Here are 7 of the most common mistakes clients might ask you to make — and how to talk some sense into them.

Too Much Information

The problem: The average client seems to have never heard the old adage: less is more. No matter what you’re designing, they’ll want to add more copy, links, calls-to-action, logos, headers, footers, global nav elements and 1-800 numbers. Part of the problem is that they think that if it’s there, their customers will read it. And sometimes part of the problem is that they’re balancing the needs of fifteen different divisions within their company, who all want some of that prime screen real-estate on whatever you’re designing.

How to fight back: Ask them what they want the design to accomplish, not what it should contain. No matter what you’re designing, it should have a purpose. Whether it’s a poster, product packaging or a corporate homepage, the design should serve to accomplish something for the person who will ultimately be viewing it. Once you’re discussing what a viewer needs from the design (rather than what the company wants it to contain) you’re on the right track to reducing the amount of information to only that which is necessary.

The “Long Neck Theory” by Gerry McGovern states that every website has a very short list of “killer tasks” that visitors to the site want to accomplish. His testing indicates that just 5% of content, which serve those killer tasks, is used by at least 25% of visitors to a site. And past that key 5%, the vast majority of the rest of the content is only useful to a tiny percentage of people. Which means that not every little bit of content on a site needs prominent placement.”

Read rest of the post here.

3 Simple Ways To Keep Burnout At Bay

I love my pastor Ray Johnston.  Recently, he told me of 3 things that I must build into my life to keep burn out at bay.  Here you go, courtesy of Rick Warren.

1.  Divert Daily

Choose to divert your attention each day to what is important even if it means walking out of the office for a few minutes to remember what your role is and what is important.  It’s great for pulling yourself out of the minutia.

2.  Withdraw Weekly

Find a place to withdraw to pray.  Prayer is key, without it nothing happens.  Jesus models this as countless times the bible says “he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.”  There is a sense of purpose, strength and yes sometimes silence in our times of prayer but never are they in vain.  Someone once told me that “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.”

3.  Abandon Annually

Every year go on a vacation.  Get away from the office and spend time away.  Amazing what can happen.

Twitter for Beginners: Some Do’s and Don’ts

Twitter is now one of the hottest social networking sites on the Internet. Members from all ethnic, age, religion, and lifestyle groups come together, which is what makes this such a great site. People connect with loved ones, build new friendships, conduct research, or market products.  Social networking media is a powerful tool for people in leadership roles that want to get information out about the organization. However, knowing some of the Twitter dos and don’ts will help your experience be a successful one.  It’s not just about telling people what you are eating for dinner!

Some of the dos include:

• Add a picture to your account profile.  People want to see who they are communicating with
• Add a bio to your profile.  Take a few minutes and tell us what you love, what you do for a living and what you are passionate about.  You bio is a way to validate your tweets (what you write is called a “tweet”).  You don’t have to get too personal.
• Accomplishments – People love hearing about accomplishments in that it motivates and encourages
• Feelings – Even business owners and leaders can post about feelings, which might be comments showing passion for the organization, product, or service offered to the public
• Distinct Information – Another great do for people on Twitter is to share a special skill or unique insight since Twitter is designed so people have two opportunities – to communicate and to learn.
• Ideas – Most people love learning about new software, cool gadgets, sound technology, and other ideas so sharing something new, exciting, or innovative is always a great option
• Blogs – Among the Twitter dos and don’ts, one of the big dos is to advertise and market business through writing blogs or Tweets. Business owners will see a significant increase in readers and ultimately, customers.
• Choose Wisely – People will be more successful on Twitter by following people they trust, those that have something important to offer and are interesting
• Honest Aspirations – It is important to be upfront about aspirations, making it clear the person, product, or service being represented, which will boost the number of people interested in learning about the business.

Now, as far as the don’ts, some of these include:

• Too Personal – One of the things that many people are uncertain about when joining a social media such as Twitter is just how personal information should be. One of the don’ts among the Twitter dos and don’ts is to be careful in how much and to what degree personal information is shared. There is nothing wrong with discussing personal experiences but especially for people using Twitter for marketing, personal information should be limited to owner and leader bios specific to the company. Distracting – Information provided on Twitter should be brief and concise, not fluffy and cluttered, which becomes extremely distracting
• Too many Tweets – For people that want to maximize the value of the Twitter experience, they need to be careful not to flood their homepage with Tweets that don’t add value to their followers. 

Here are some fun people to follow:

@baysidechurch
@drjohnjackson
@guykawasaki
@successfool
@kemmeyer
@timastevens
@cjalvarado (had to throw it in there)

What is Social Influence Marketing?

Read a great article from Razorfish today and wanted to share it with you.  (Big thanks to @Guykawasaki for the tip).

What is Social Influence Marketing?

Social Influence Marketing (SIM) is about employing social media and social influencers to achieve the marketing and business needs of an organization. Social Influence Marketing is about recognizing, accounting and tapping into the fact that as your potential consumer makes a purchasing decision, he or she is being influenced by different circles of people through conversations with them, both online and off. It is not enough to market to the consumer anymore; as a marketer you also have to market to each individual’s social influencers throughout the marketing funnel.

I’ve adjusted this slightly to address church leaders:

Social Influence Marketing (SIM) is about employing social media and social influencers to achieve the positioning needs and mission of the church. Social Influence Marketing is about recognizing, accounting and tapping into the fact that as your potential attender makes a decision, he or she is being influenced by different circles of people through conversations with them, both online and off. It is not enough to communicate to the attender anymore; as an pastor, leader, advocate you also have to communicate to each individual’s social influencers throughout the social marketing funnel.

Thoughts?

Investing in Teams

Investing in the future sometimes means making the tough decisions in the present. John Maxwell says “one of the great things about investing in the team is that it almost guarantees higher return for the effort, because the team can do so much more than individuals. ”

Here are some takeaways from John Maxwell’s the 17 indisputable laws of leadership:

1.  Make the decision to build the team.
2.  Gather the best team possible.
3.  Pay the price to develop the team.
4.  Do things together as a team.
5.  In power team members with responsibility and authority.
6.  Give credit for success to the team.
7.  Watch to see that the investment in the team is paying off.
8.  Stop your investment in players who do not grow.
9.  Create new opportunities for the team.
10. Give the team the best possible chance to succeed.

“Where there’s a will there’s a way; where there is a team, there’s more than one way.” Rex Murphy

How to: Simplify Your Social Media Routine

Great article on Mashable today that I wanted to republish and share with you.

Leo Babauta is author of Top 25 blog Zen Habits and best-selling book, The Power of Less.

These days participating in social media such as Twitter, Facebook, blogging and more is almost required for any entrepreneur or business, small or large.

But there’s so much info and chatter coming in through social media that it can overwhelm you, eat up your time, and ruin your productivity.

Simplifying will help you stay in touch, and continue to participate in the conversation, without losing sight of your mission and the important work you need to get done.

Step 1. Use simple tools to make the most of social media

The simpler the tools, the better. But tools that combine two or more social media into one are best, because that means you need fewer tools. An example is TweetDeck – not only does it incorporate Twitter, but you can see your Facebook friends’ updates at the same time.

Another good example is Digsby, which combines email, IM, and social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

My setup uses Gmail, as it’s the communication tool that I use most often. I’ve set it up to be my all-in-one inbox: I can Twitter, Facebook, delicious, Flickr, IM and more. You can make Gmail your ultimate productivity center.

Step 2. Focus on sending out high impact messages

Here’s something that many people who use social media don’t understand: if you send out too many messages, people might stop following you or might even block you, because you’re flooding their inbox.

The secret is to try to make every message you send, or at least a high percentage of them, high-impact messages. Examples: share really useful links, news related to your field, things that are really funny or inspirational, or inside information about your business or blog. The key is to make sure almost every message is something that people will want to share with their friends.

Limit yourself to high-impact messages to reduce the time you spend communicating.

Step 3. Let go of the need to read everything. Learn to scan

It’s impossible to consume ALL the information that comes at you. It’s like trying to drink from a fire-hose — not only is it a waste of your time, it can be damaging, because you have other important things to do.

So be selective. Find sources of information that are valuable. And scan to get the gist of what’s going on, instead of trying to read every message. Let go of the need to stay on top of everything. Let it go! And instead, just take a dip in the river now and then.

Step 4. Figure out which social media give you the most value, and simplify

I recommend trying the main forms of social media, but only for a little while. It doesn’t hurt to try them out, but you simply can’t keep up with it all, and what’s more, it’s not the best use of your time. Not all forms of social media are effective for all goals, for all people.

Instead, find just one or two or three that are most effective for you. For me, blogging and Twitter are the best. I try to stay in touch with Facebook, but MySpace and the rest are not worthwhile, for me.

Your choices will be different. But in the end, be selective and guard your time wisely.

Step 5. Form close relationships with people who give you the most value, not everyone

I’m not suggesting you only follow a handful of people on Twitter or Facebook. But while you can have a large number of friends, you won’t have the same degree of closeness with all of them. So find the people who give you the most value — who share great info, who make you laugh, who inspire you, who give you great suggestions for improving, who help you on a regular basis, who you enjoy talking to. Then focus on building relationships with them. They’re worth spending time with.

Step 6. Manage your time wisely

It can be easy to do social media too much. Find ways to integrate social media activities in your life without them overwhelming the other work you have to do, and your personal life.

You can set regular schedules, such as doing it 2-3 times a day at certain times, or 10 minutes every hour, or at certain times when there’s a lull in your schedule. But be sure to have boundaries — the rest of your life should be held sacred too.

“How to: simplify your social media routine” as seen on Mashable.com

Overcoming The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team

Every worship, tech and production team should go through this book together if they haven’t already.  This book has been out for a while now but the concepts in it have yielded great results with every team I have worked with.

In fact, over the last couple weeks the whole Worship Arts staff (worship pastors, tech, production and admins) at Bayside has been going through “Overcoming The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team” program together.  Doing this as a team may be the most significant team builder we do all year.  My team has been amazing and they have engaged and done very well with this.

Here’s the premise of the book in a nutshell:

Dysfunction 1: Absence of Trust

The first dysfunction is the absence of trust amongst team members. Trust is defined as a vulnerability type trust.  Trust is never generated in teams when the team members are not prepared to be vulnerable. Instead they feel the need to be right, to be strong and competent, so much that they are unable to be vulnerable and open with one another. The lack of trust amongst teams is a huge waste of time and energy as team members invest their time and energy in defensive behaviors, reluctant to ask for help and to assist others.

Dysfunction 2: Fear of Conflict

Trust is the foundation of great teams and it’s trust that makes team conflict possible. Teams become dysfunctional when they are unable to productively deal with conflict. All meaningful relationships require productive conflict for them to grow. Healthy conflict occurs when people talk about the issue at hand avoiding personal attacks, looking for the best solution for the team. Teams tend to avoid conflict often replacing it with an artificial harmony.

“Harmony itself is good, I suppose, if it comes as a result of working through issues constantly and cycling through conflict. But if it comes only as a result of people holding back their opinions and honest concerns, then it’s a bad thing.”

We wear masks and focus on being nice to everyone. however, productive conflict is required for teams to become functional. This allows for meaningful dialogue where people are open to share, without feeling fearful of reprisal or criticism. One of the worst team dysfunctions is when you have a team of “yes men”.

Dysfunction 3: Lack of Commitment

When teams engage in productive conflict they can confidently commit and buy-in to decisions. Commitment is a function of clarity and buy-in. Productive teams make clear decisions and are confident that they have the support from every team member. A lack of commitment usually arises from not hearing all the teams concerns before making a decision. There can be no commitment without debate. People will not buy into something when their opinions and thoughts on the matter were not included and discussed. “If they don’t weigh in, then they won’t buy in.” This is not as much about seeking consensus as it is about making sure that everyone is heard.

At the end of the day everyone needs to get to the point where they can say, “I may not agree with your ideas but I understand them and can support them.”

Dysfunction 4: Avoidance of Accountability

Without team commitment you cannot have accountability. If the team is to be accountable, everyone must have a clear understanding of what is expected of them.

“People aren’t going to hold each other accountable if they haven’t clearly bought in to the same plan.”

At the end of the day it’s about each team member being accountable to the team. This means that a team member never lets the team down when is comes to meeting commitments. The team needs to hold their peers responsible for achieving results and working to high standards. It’s the responsibility of each team member to hold one another accountable and accept it when others hold them accountable.

Dysfunction 5: Inattention to Results

When teams are not held accountable the team members tend to look out for their own interests, rather than the interests of the team. A healthy team places team results as the most important goal. When all team members place the team’s results first the team becomes results orientated.