FRIDAY MARCH 6, 2009

Design-thinking works…even for geeks

You wouldn’t think that a workshop with colored pens, scissors and tape would appeal to the engineering-types. Here’s how Leo Bley from SAP has implemented the sketching and thinking process into his presentation development:

I started with sticky pads, but they were sticky. They were good for brainstorming on a wall with other people, but they didn’t travel well as a medium to store a draft presentation.
sticky-notes

Then, I fell “in like” with blank index cards. They are easy to sort and they stack nicely when I’m not working on the draft. A binder clip, plastic index card case, pencil, and eraser made for a complete mobile drafting kit.
pastedgraphic

This worked great, but I was still spending a lot of time trying to get the layout to look right after I got the draft into PowerPoint / Keynote. So I took a blank card and folded it to have the same number of rows and columns as the grid in our corporate presentation template. This helped with layouts, but it was tedious to transfer the grid to blank index cards.

Then I remembered the idea in slide:ology to print out a blank corporate template slide as a handout (six slides per page), and use that as a drafting medium where it is easy to get the spacing right. I combined that idea with the grid slide from our corporate template AND a stack of blank index cards…
1. Load my printer with a stack of index cards
2. Set the paper size to index card (5″ x 3″)
3. Printed copies of the grid slide from our corporate template

Now I keep these grid index cards as my “blank” stock. I load up my plastic index card case with “blank” grid cards, my rejected draft cards bound with a binder clip (which I may reference / reuse), the current draft, pencil, and eraser. Sometimes I add in a few pens in our corporate colors to try accenting something on a slide. I also keep a copy of our corporate color palette to simplify color selections when I finally transfer the draft into PowerPoint.

When it comes time to review drafts with my boss in Germany, I scan the numbered cards from my current draft and send him a PDF. He sends back a notes referencing the card numbers.

As a result, I:

Draft and design in a quick and easy medium
Draft with only a small, portable kit (no computer)… small footprint to free my mind
Easily adhere to the corporate grid
Confirm layout appeal on index cards (vs. wasting time in Powerpoint)
Scan, email, review with index cards…quick and easy

Topic: Design, Message, Strategy
Tags: brainstorm, index cards, leo bley, PowerPoint, SAP

COMMENTS (9)

Todd Chandler

^{March 7th, 2009

8:02 am}

Another benefit of this specific process is that the small size of the cards forces you to edit and not put too much on a slide. It’s brilliant! Thanks for sharing.

Bruce Couch

^{March 7th, 2009

9:05 am}

thanks Nancy… I think I’ll swipe that idea. ;c)

Oliver Adria

^{March 7th, 2009

10:09 am}

Thank you Nancy, some nice ideas there that I haven’t used yet!
Cheers from Germany,

Oliver

Thorir Bjornsson

^{March 8th, 2009

2:33 pm}

Nancy, another great story! Have you’ll looked at softwares like Scrivener? It has a storyboard feature; they also list similar softwares on their website. BTW, I forwarded to them Ben Bley’s story.

Thorir

Doug Neff

^{March 8th, 2009

5:57 pm}

Hi Thorir!

I love Scrivener, and I’m NUTS about index cards! I’ve tinkered with Scrivener a bit, though I haven’t yet found a project to use it on. The only drawback for me, at the moment, is the formatting. Since we work with clients (as you know) I need to build a slidemap or script format as I go, so I can submit a first, second, and third draft to the client. Scrivener is great for organizing my thoughts, but since you can’t do a printout of the “corkboard” view, or set up print layouts, it’s not quite the tool I need yet. Great for working on my own, but not great for client projects.

But I absolutely LOVE the interface, and have already started using it for a big personal project.

Mauro Mello

^{March 8th, 2009

8:03 pm}

Hello!

First of all, congratulations for the wonderful job you do. Needless to say, I’m a big fan of yours.

I guess every advertising film producer dreams of becoming a movie director; every copywriter dreams of becoming a novelist… Is it possible that heavy users of Powerpoint may fancy becoming digital artists?

In my case, I just HAD to try one or two ideas. They are here:

Mauro Mello

^{March 8th, 2009

8:05 pm}

Hello!

First of all, congratulations for the wonderful job you do. Needless to say, I’m a big fan of yours.

In my case, I just HAD to try one or two ideas. They are here: http://ppt-art.blogspot.com/

May I ask you to take a look, and give me your thoughts about it? I would much appreciate.

Thanks a lot!
Mauro Mello

D Tzau

^{March 9th, 2009

6:22 am}

Only an engineer would devise such a process… nice work.

ade

^{March 11th, 2009

1:43 pm}

Really interesting! Never thought about it in this light before. People are really thinking and doing great stuff these days.

SUBMIT A COMMENT

NAME (required)	COMMENT
MAIL (required, but will not be published)
WEBSITE