Every company has a system to help new hires integrate into the company and team. Our current on-boarding process involves the new hire sitting down for one-on-ones with every new teammate. It teaches the new hire what everyone does, and how that work pertains what the new hire will be doing. It’s a community effort to get the new hire up to speed and ready for their job, but there’s a problem with this system:
We haven’t done their job before.
leadership
Graphics! Visual design! Layout!
Websites are a visual medium, and need to look good when they do your selling for you. But the internet is a constantly changing space, and what looks good today will look old and stale tomorrow. With the incessant pushing of innovation – the constant developing of new standards for the web – future proofing a website is difficult.
So how do you keep ahead of (or at least in step with) the changes? Two ways:
- Watch the big boys.
Each major company in the software buissness has design guidelines. Apple, Google, Microsoft each have design guidelines. Pay attention to the most forward-pushing one of your choice.
Which one do you pick? Make a judgment call. You can switch in a year or two when that design gets long in the tooth. - Push the boundaries yourself.
Someone somewhere, outside of Google or Apple, came up with the initial “flat” look that both companies use. That graphics or web designer started a trend that, when it got big enough, was eventually co-opted by some of the largest companies in the world. That designer was ahead of the curve. They were a trend setter and pushed the entire internet a little bit forward.
But watch out – for every trend setting awesomesauce there are designs that don’t work out over the long term. They solved the immediate problem that was presented to them and probably doesn’t work well for anything else.
Personally, I go with a combination of 1 and 2. Using Google and Apple’s guidelines as just that – guidelines – they are a starting point for great design. They can also serve as the course corrector when a design idea gets too far afield from the intended purpose.
Hi, I’m Michael Belcher and I do a lot of stuff.
For the past few years I seem to have made a habit of finding jobs that have centered around helping companies redesign their websites into responsive, mobile friendly sites. Before that I lived in Dublin, Ireland for a while working as a freelance writer and finishing up a masters degree in mass communications.
I currently work in a front-end developer role with an in-house marketing group, using analytics and solid UX/UI design to increase lead generation and sales for a multi-billion dollar, multi-national company. I’m also the project manager for the larger marketing undertakings including company rebrands, site redesigns, and implementing new CRM systems. Since we’re a small department everyone does a little bit of everything from copy editing and writing, to social media management, to graphic design and video and audio production.
Advice, and bad advice at that.
In the Dale Carnegie [and Associates, Inc. (natch)] book The Leader in You they tell the story of Julius Caesar, during his campaign in Gaul, landing on the south coast of England and then burning his ships; ensuring his troops will not have a means of retreat. It’s in the chapter 14: Creating a Positive Mental Attitude.
“One of a leader’s most important jobs, then is to set a positive, self confident tone, showing others that failure isn’t even a possibility.”
It makes for a good visual, doesn’t it? This great conqueror, who has already marched over much of continental Gaul has set his sights on England, like so many conquerors before and since. The story talks about the legions on the white cliffs of Dover looking down at their ships being set ablaze. Caesar, so sure of his legions that he cut off their link with Europe so they must conquer, and win, or perish.
“What else could they do but advance? What else could they do but conquer? What else could they do but fight with every ounce of strength that was buried in their souls? That is precisely what they did.”
Only, they didn’t.
On Caesar’s first invasion attempt many of his ships were damaged by the strong tides and storms, but the Romans eventually repaired as many ships as possible and retreated back to the continent until the next year. His second attempt fared much better, with him marching to the Thames, but his ships were still damaged by the extreme Atlantic and Channel tides. There is no account of him purposefully burning any of his ships.
Other conquerors have burned, or sunk, their boats behind them to create a “point of no return”, including Hernan Cortez, the conquistador, in 1519.
But this story is supposed to be an illustration on LEADERSHIP, not a history lesson, so how does the accompanying advice measure up? Just like the history lesson, it’s also BS.
Telling people their job is “showing others that failure isn’t even a possibility” is horrible advice. Failure is always close by, and will happen. Hell, Caesar had to retreat after the first invasion failed.
Better advice, that would fit the actual historic account of Caesar’s invasions of England, would be:
“One of a leader’s most important jobs, then, is to set a positive, self confident tone, showing others that failure in most cases doesn’t lead to instant death and dismemberment can be learned from, and that success can follow after a failure.”
There: a much more accurate portrayal of how failure works, and a much more accurate portrayal of Julius Caesar.
Sadly, a lot of managers reading this book (it’s pushed as a “must read!” to those moving up in the ranks at my company) may actually take advice like this to heart. Please don’t.
Instead think – consciously sit down and examine – all the advice you get. Whether from a book or mentor, whether about managing people or your 401K. Not every piece of advice is applicable to you. Some are downright silly. Others require you to first analyze yourself before you can judge the advice. But none should be taken on whole-heartedly without first understanding what the advice is really suggesting.