How to Draw to Sell Your Vision

Have you ever drawn a map to show someone how to get to your house? Or how to get from your house to the park or the corner store? If you have, you know how to draw, how to visualize, and how to communicate a path in time and space.

These are the same skills you can apply if you are an entrepreneur trying to sell customers on a new product or service, or someone who helps others imagine the future. Draw a map to help people to get from here to there.

When your goal is to describe a vision for the future, information is not enough. People are up to their necks in information. What they need is a way to imagine their life after the change, and compare it with their life today. That's why it's called a "vision" and not a "plan."
--Marty Neumeier, author of The Designful Company

A vision map shows, economically, how to get from point A (where you are today) to point B (where you want and need to get). You can write about it and you should. But if you want people to understand you quickly and intuitively, draw it for them.

Now, I know what you're thinking -- you really can't draw. But remember, your drawing doesn't need to be great. Who cares if the lines are crooked as long as it gives good directions? However, it does need to be drawn by you, because when you draw your idea you create an abstraction in space and time. You show a path. And because only you know the path, you need to draw it for the rest of us.

Contrary to what you think, the ability to draw is not purely a talent. It is having a kit of visual symbols and icons, which is just like drawing a map. New York Times financial writer Carl Richard's napkin sketches are a great example. Alex Osterwalder, author of the Business Model Generation, is both a great visionary and visualizer, as you can see on his Twitter account almost daily.

To help you draw, I broke down my drawings into the visual symbols I most often use. Please feel free to try them out, borrow and adopt them.

My vision-drawing alphabet

Simple geometric shapes: Circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, and cubes are simple shapes that can depict an area or category.

1 circle with a word in it: Depicts something central to your idea or concept.

2 overlapping circles: Intersection of two ideas. The intersection is the "sweet spot." This is my favorite way of showing dichotomy resolution.

3 overlapping circles: Intersection of three ideas, or a trifecta.

2 lines drawn at 90-degree angles to each other: A graph. I use this to show the relation of one thing to another over time.

2 lines intersecting in the middle: Four quadrants. I use this to depict the emotional, the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual.

2 words and an arrow between them: One thing becoming something else. Arrows can also depict direction, movement, or the future.

Infinity sign: I use this to show a continuous feedback loop, like "give and take."

Equal/unequal symbols: When used between two words, they summarize how things are alike or dissimilar. Other math symbols, like +, x, <, and >, are also useful.

A stick figure or a smiley face: A person. As simple as it sounds, adding a person connects the idea to users and humanizes it.

A stick figure in a circle: Depicts being user-centered.

Circle with a diagonal line over a word or symbol: Something that is banned or unwanted.

Simple icons: Heart for emotion, yin and yang for spirit, dollar sign for money, messy scribble for complication, etc.

Throw some of these together to express one of your ideas. Put it on Twitter. Email it to your colleague. Draw it on a white board. You will see that a picture is worth a thousand words.

If you already draw to sell your vision, I would love to hear from you and learn about your drawing tool kit.

Design the vision you love, by drawing.

How to Turn Boredom Into Inspiration

You might need to get out of the office to reengage.

Summer is here and although you may want to go on vacation this instant, you might not be able to just yet. Work is slow, you're feeling burnt out, and bored by doing the same things day in day out. Here is a simple way to find mental rejuvenation that will require one day of your time but will offer long-lasting benefits.

All you need to do is pick a topic you're interested in, and curate a day exploring that topic. Outside the office--I call this "knowledge tourism."

My most recent day as a knowledge tourist was inspired by our client the Kale Group, and I focused on the topic of the future of retail buildings. But this is the kind of thing you can also do without a client. In fact, I recommend it.

Here is how--

Have a goal

Make it your mission to be a knowledge tourist for a day. Get out of the office to come back with new knowledge, connections and insights to inspire your projects. Imagine you're a bee collecting pollen to make honey.

Start

Block a whole day on your calendar. Pick your area of research--anything that interests you will work. Now you will plan a day around your research topic (just like you would plan a day if you were visiting Paris or Chicago).

Experts

Start with experts--people you know or people you know of. Connect via LinkedIn or Twitter with a brief description of your research. You will be surprised how many will be open to giving you an hour of their time. Go with 3 experts for one day. Once you have them scheduled, use the experts as your anchors and plan everything else around what they suggest.

I reached out to Guillaume Bazouin, the Director of Product and Innovation at architecture firm Bone Structure (he accepted on LinkedIn) and Tish Shute , who works at Huawei Technologies, to talk about VR, AR and implications of humans are merging with their tools (old friend, new conversation).

Exhibits

Check ongoing exhibits at museums, galleries, retail stores that relate to your topic. Plan 1-2 exhibits around your expert interviews. Be mindful of distances.

I stopped by a Sephora store to try their new VR make-up service (proud to say I stuck to research and didn't shop!) and the Target Open House to look at their new startup apps (very cool storytelling).

Meals

Plan a breakfast to review your plan for the day, your interview questions and to get your day started. Lunch is the perfect way to refuel and review your insights from the morning. Dinner caps your day and finalize your insights. If you're feeling adventurous, choose a meal spot that reinforces your research topic

I visited Eatsa, a cutting edge automaton diner. Good food, quick service, no bathrooms (because bots don't need them but we do!)

It will take you 2 hours (20min/day X 6) to curate this day. And you don't have to do it alone, you can take 1-4 people with you. You can also play with mixing meals and experts.

Benefits

- You can write up 3 interviews with your experts for your blog (or for your team).

- Use what you learned to do a further deep dive on things you heard.

- Present an insights summary to your team and open it to conversation: what does this mean for us?

- How will you use this new wealth of information in your daily work? Make a plan.

- Stay in touch with your experts and continue to build your network.

- Share insights via Twitter, LinkedIn.

Now that you know my little secret for having fun and working, block a day on your calendar and start curating!

Design the life and work you love!

Why Work with People Who Are Better

I was listening to Sheryl Sandberg on the podcast Master's of Scale, when I heard her say, "You do want to hire people who are better than you are." When someone I perceive as an awesome smart woman says this, it gives you pause for thought. I paused the podcast and wondered why so many great leaders all give the same advice.

Hire people who are smarter than you.

It turns out the real smart move is intentionally not being the smartest person in the room. Rather it is inspiring, cultivating and bringing out the best in people who are better than you.

"I hire people brighter than me and get out of their way." Lee Iococca

Brown Johnson, Creative director of Sesame Workshop, had told me that her secret is working with people who are smarter than her. Johnson, who is known as the mother of Dora the Explorer, is my friend and I thought she was being humble. I was wrong. She was stating a business credo.

Even someone who is not known for being humble, Steve Jobs, gave similar advice: "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do."

Here is why working with people who are better, more knowledgeable or more talented than we are, is such a big contributor to success:

They pull you up--Jeff Bezos says this about hiring: "every time we hire someone, he or she should raise the bar for the next hire, so that the overall talent pool is always improving." This creates an upward movement of talent pulling talent. You build on each other's ideas and pull each other up.

Proximity to greatness--I went to graduate school with Stefan Sagmeister, who for many is the best graphic designer today. Seeing Sagmeister in action, up close, I could observe how he approached new projects, feel his infectious enthusiasm, watch him at work, and then go to my studio and emulate him. I learned early on that when you build a team, you want to create that proximity to greatness.

Learning from each other--In design, you need to learn like a sponge and synthesize diverse information quickly with every project. Your team is your first and deepest place of learning, you learn from each other and you learn together. Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, says not to hire "people you can't learn from or be challenged by." This is why.

Being different from you--people who are smarter than you are often smarter in different ways. I am great at visualizing ideas and thinking in systems. Couple me with coders, mathematical thinkers, great story tellers and people who are incredibly detail oriented, and together we go from great to amazing. You need the intellectual diversity to help you cross-fertilize from each other's knowledge and expertise. That is the formula for 1+1=3.

I love the way Michael Dell states it: "Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people ... or find a different room."

Design the life and work you love, with people who are smarter.

How to Manage Information Overload

A few weeks ago I wrote about simplifying our lives and that article got a lot of interest. That interest made me curious. What actually complicates our lives?

We put out a small survey with my team and asked our peers--entrepreneurs, designers, working moms, leadership coaches--the #1 thing that complicates their life. And what they do about it.

It turns out that the biggest culprit still is information overload. One of the survey responders called this, "drinking from a firehose."

Here are their tips for managing seemingly endless information flow and digital distraction, with some additions from me. And not to overload you more, I deliberately kept it short.

1. Turn it off

Deactivate Facebook. Turn off pesky notifications. Quit all programs except the one you're using. Use the app SelfControl which blocks your access to sites of your choice for time blocks you set up. Have windows of time where you're 100 percent off technology.

2. Reverse the direction of information

Instead of letting all and every piece of information come at you, choose to go after information of your choice. Whether it is for work or life, curate your own information deliberately and with care.

3. Look for inspiration in the real world

Go to a museum. Take a walk with a friend. Attend a workshop. Watch a documentary. Read a book. Then use them as jumping off points to explore things that interest you.

4. Put limits

Check and answer email in batches and schedule these in your calendar. Have only one professional (i.e. LinkedIn) and one social (i.e. Facebook) network. Clock your time on both. Know not to answer every email (i.e. all emails on which you're CC'ed). Select a number that is manageable for your photo albums (i.e. 100/month) and stick to that (this from a professional photographer).

5. Unsubscribe

Set a separate mailbox for mails that come with an unsubscribe option. Unsubscribe from all except 5 that bring you joy (a la Mari Kondo).

6. Separate work and life

Have a different computer for work and home. Don't check Facebook at work. Ditto for LinkedIn at home. Leave your phone in another room when you're having dinner with your family.

7. Go back to paper

Get the paper edition of your newspaper. Use a notebook for your notes. Create a printed photo album. Buy paperbacks.

Thank you to everyone who inspired me by replying to our Design the Life You Love survey.

If you have tools and tips to manage information overload, please send them in. We can always use more help.

Design the Life and Work You Love!

Why You Should Start Thinking in Dichotomies

Sometimes I think that life is just a series of contradictions. We want freedom, but we also want to be in a relationship. At work, similarly, we want autonomy, but we also want to belong. When shopping, we want luxury, but we don't want to spend a lot of money.

These contradictory or opposing factors are dichotomies, two things that are mutually exclusive or that seemingly cancel each other out.

Now for the secret--their resolution is one of the best ways to create unique, long-term value. One of my favorite design mottos is a case in point, "less is more".

In other words, if you can make any two opposites co-exist, you can have your cake and eat it too.

Let's start with nature. In his book The Gene: An Intimate History, Siddhartha Mukherjee explains that you need exceptions or variants to a breed for that breed to survive and continue. According to Mukherjee, for natural selection to happen, "two seemingly contradictory facts had to be simultaneously true."

"For Darwin's theory to work, heredity had to possess constancy and inconstancy, stability and mutation."

Now let's think of something more mundane, like shopping. When H&M does celebrity collaborations, like shoes by Jimmy Choo, Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney or David Beckham, you get luxury at affordable prices. That is dichotomy resolution.

"Karl Lagerfeld was the first, with design greats like Rei Kawakubo and Alber Elbaz following in his footsteps, finding new ways to reimagine their haute aesthetics for the high street." -Steff Yotka, Vogue

One of the more controversial but riveting examples is author and sex-columnist Dan Savage's viewpoint on how to resolve freedom and monogamy, in the New York Times Magazine article, Married, With Infidelities. Savage calls this, "monogamish". The more accepted version in the States is serial monogamy, which itself is also a resolution of opposites.

In architecture, my favorite practitioner these days is Bjarke Ingels work. Ingels explains his work as "Hedonistic Sustainability", a contradictory phenomenon that he finds different ways to resolve. His West 57th Residences in New York, a metal pyramid with a rectangular cutout in the middle to create a garden, is a good case in point as he explains in Archdaily--

"...creating a unique shape which combines the advantages of both: the compactness of a courtyard with the airiness and the amazing views of a skyscraper."

Once you start thinking in dichotomies you start seeing them everywhere. The trick is looking for ways to make them co-exist. Here is a simple guide, using the great chef and author Julia Child as an example--

01. Find a dichotomy--If you grew up with Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, or still use her recipes, you are benefitting from her resolution of two opposing cuisines--American and French.

02. List the qualities of each--Before Child, American food was quick, practical and bland (imagine the 50's and 60's). French cooking was time consuming and elaborate, but exquisitely delicious.

03. Mash these qualities up to generate multiple ways to make them co-exist--Child's genius was to make the great taste of French food accessible and practical to Americans. She mashed up the strengths of both cuisines to make a win-win solution that is valued to this day, almost 60 years later.

"She decided that they had to start from scratch--rethinking, researching, re-testing--and with American ingredients, American measurements, and cultural translations (for instance, what the French call le carrelet, the British call plaice, and Americans, sand dab or lemon sole)." Laura Jacobs, Vanity Fair

Now that you're in on the secret, what are some dichotomies you are tackling with and resolving? I would love to hear from you.

Design the life and work you love, and resolve dichotomies to create new value!