Viva Helvetica!

Always a sucker for things Helvetica, I've fallen in love with Helvetimail, a script that puts Gmail into a much cleaner visual interface. It's the brainchild of Josef Richter, a designer and web entrepreneur from Olomouc, Czech Republic. Helvetica versions of Google Calendar and Reader, as well as Twitter, are also terrific.

As a typeface, Helvetica is clear and compelling. Although it has been shunted aside in favor of Arial, the feel of Helvetica is unmistakable.

Analyzing Communications by Bandwith

Seth Godin has an interesting take on a dozen or so forms of communication, which he's arranged on two axes. "On the horizontal, they rank from asynchronous (meaning the creator and the responder are separated in time--like a letter) and synchronous (meaning the creator and the responder are in real time proximity to each other--like a phone call)."

There could easily be a third dimension to be considered: static vs. dynamic content. Think about it, upper right quadrant communications (synchronous-highbandwidth, in Seth-speak) implies content where only the opening line is known, everything else builds on the dynamic of a conversation. Here, the content is less controlled, which can be a good thing depending on your desired outcome of the communication.

An early adopter comes in late

I didn't set out in life to be an "early adopter", but looking back, I guess I was. I was the first kid in my neighborhood to have a Schwinn Orange Crate Sting Ray and I had a Sony Walkman -- all 16 oz. of it -- a couple of days after they came into the US market. Early adopter also means that I wore a Nehru-style suit as a 10-year-old (don't ask).

Despite that stellar track record, I didn't get Twitter... until today. For me, it was a hammer looking for a nail. The nail is a virtual team that I'm working on, with colleagues 7-10 hours behind me and doing a gazillion other things. But I need their inputs and to give them a "head's up" on emerging client issues. So, I set up a new Twitter account, made it private (so only those who need to see it, see it), invited the team to Tweet and now I'm waiting to see what happens.

Maybe the Nehru suit wasn't such a bad idea.

Brilliant: When smart people are hard to understand

Seth Godin asks and answers the question: "If you're in a meeting with smart people and they start discussing a term or concept you don't understand, what do you do?" More proof of why Seth's Blog is one of the most followed.

Stacking up a trillion dollars

A trillion dollars isn't what it used to be. But, then again, what does $1,000,000,000,000 look like?
PageTutor.com decided to try out Google SketchUp and use it to visualize a trillion bucks. The pallet above shows a billion dollars in $100 bills (itself quite a bunch of benjamins...). Click here to see the entire visualization process.

Visualizing the Financial Crisis

An earlier blog described how the Madoff scam has been visualized. Now comes FlowingData.com with a collection of graphics visualizing aspects of the financial crisis. There's a nice range of styles and content.


I've long been a fan of the site, which believes that data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all. And the 27 visualization and infographics here really help explain things.

Plain English

It's been 30 years since the Plain English Campaign was launched in the UK. No, it's not a Monty Python sketch, but a grassroots effort against gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information.

Now, the campaign is being used to protect the democratic process: the Local Government Association has published a list of 100 banned words that they hope will be eliminated from government communication. ""If a [governmental body] fails to explain what it does in plain English then local people will fail to understand its relevance to them or why they should bother to turn out and vote." Hard to argue with that.

There are some laughable words and phrases on the list. My favorite is "coterminous, stakeholder engagement"; The suggested alternative is: "talk to people".

Feel free to add your own jargon below.

Jonesing for TED Talks

I only wish I had the time to listen or watch all of the podcasts that pile up when my iTunes subscriptions refresh. So it was reassuring to read today's New York Times Magazine's confession of a TED Talks addict.



Writer Virginia Heffernan comes clean on her own TED "problem", while also highlighting one dimension of what makes the offering so compelling. Sure, there are the obscure and varied multidisciplinary subjects that are covered, but the delivery is also key.

TED supplies its speakers with strict guidelines. “Start strong” is the most obvious one, and there is virtually no throat clearing or contrived thanking. Instead, speakers blaze onto the stage like stand-up comics, hellbent on room domination. Some consult notes and stay close by their audiovisual equipment — PowerPoint is used for emphasis, but it never directs the talks — while others pace, spread their arms wide and take up space. No one apologizes for himself. No one fails to make jokes. The appreciative room roars at humor, when they’re not literally oohing and aahing at insight.

How to do a good job delivering bad news

There's no shortage of bad news coming out of the business world, so it's worth a few minutes to explore some ideas on how to do a good job delivering bad news.


Organizations show their real values and skills when they communicate bad news. The goodwill earned from telling stakeholders how important they are and how much the business cares about them goes down the drain if that same organization screws up the delivery of bad news.

There is no alternative called “Let’s not communicate.” If there’s bad news, it’s certain to find communication channel. Organizations can either step forward at the outset and orchestrate how the news is delivered or step back and react as the information comes out.

If open and honest communication is not part of the organization’s culture, personality, and history, communicating bad news is bad news. Without a well-established framework that supports a dialogue of full disclosure, there’s very little that can be done at the last minute to make the communication of bad news anything other than a disastrous disappointment.

Supervisors and managers must be included early, kept fully informed, and remain supportive. supervisors and managers are the organization’s most important employee communication vehicle. They provide an opportunity for two-way communication that will help lay the issue to rest as soon as possible. If they’re not on management’s team, the game’s over.

Proper planning prevents poor performance. This may sound like a "duh" statement —but it is essential in communicating bad news. In fact, organizations that are good at communicating bad news have contingency plans in case they’re needed. Good planning can’t occur at the last minute.

The worst alternative that management considers is likely to be communicated through the grapevine. In most cases, employees are aware somethingbad is about to happen. This is the main reason the “Let’s not communicate” alternative doesn’t really exist. On the positive side, when the bad news is not as bad as the worst alternative, employees sometimes are relieved to
hear it.

Here's a checklist for getting ready to communicate bad news:

• Describe the news in a clear and compelling manner.
• Explain why the action is being taken.
• Explain how the decision is fair to as many groups as possible.
• Involve a high-status messenger in delivering the message.
• Deliver the message in a timely manner.
• Identify who made the decision and what process was used.
• Describe the effort that went into the decision.
• Outline some of the alternatives that were considered.
• Show that the organization cares about employees.
• Describe what action is required and what, if anything, can be done to change the decision or help avoid the problem in the future.

(Disclaimer: this blog entry is a distillation of papers I have in a file labeled "Communicating Bad News". I claim no ownership and ask forgiveness for not citing proper credit.)

Dealing with Low Energy (when it's not Gazprom's fault...)

It's cold. Staff are just returning from holiday. The economy sucks. The coffee maker is broken. And you've just gathered 10 people into a meeting room to brainstorm on changes to the 2009 plan. The smell of low energy is in the air.

Here are some ways, as a facilitator, you can raise the energy level of participants:

• Project energy to the group, by increasing or varying voice volume, moving around the room, using bigger gestures and more expansive body language.
• Use the mood meter to engage the group in a moment of self-awareness around the need for energy to make the session work. Use one of your arms as the "needle" on a meter, down at the side as zero energy and up high as the peak. Ask the group how its feeling, and ask everyone to “beep” at the appropriate place as the needle passes from zero toward the maximum. Tell people that they have to project more energy if it’s low, and try again. Ask for suggestions if they have trouble getting themselves out of the slump.
• Ask what’s going on (Everyone seems a bit low on energy after that delicious lunch – is that how you’re feeling?) as a prelude to having everyone swap seats, open windows, get a drink, stand up and stretch.
• Break the larger group up into pairs or trios to answer or prepare for the next session. Anything to get them talking and thinking.
• Physically rearrange the room during break.

A caffeine fix usually wears off after about 20 minutes. These interventions are longer lasting.