Stop sorting by category. Because of my work and because I'm an African-American, people make certain assumptions about who I am. I actually tend to be more conservative about social issues than many folks think I am. The same thing goes on in the workplace. Someone is an accountant -- so people assume that he'll do things by the book, that he's not interested in being creative, that he'll never understand a project that involves emotions. People tend to lump other people into categories: color, job title, gender. We're all more complicated than that. If you ascribe beliefs to people based on a category, you won't be able to change their minds. More important, you'll miss out on meeting some of your greatest potential allies.
Coordinates: Geoffrey Canada, Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families, 212-866-0700
According to Irene Etzkorn, executive vice president of Siegel & Gale Inc., a communications and branding consulting firm, there is no such thing as a boring project: There are only boring executions. Etzkorn, 39, heads up the New York-based company's Simplified Communications division, which specializes in taking the mundane and making it Wow. A classic example: In 1990, IBM Canada asked Siegel & Gale to redesign an agreement form that it used with customers who were buying or leasing IBM printers. The existing form was a rambling mess of typewritten legalese -- an odd look for a document intended to close deals on high-speed laser printers.
The first thing that people on Etzkorn's team did was to redesign the project: To them, the project wasn't about cleaning up an ugly form. It was about rethinking IBM's relationship with its customers. The form that Siegel & Gale ultimately designed was an elegant time line that clearly stated the obligations of both IBM and its customers. The form was so easy to understand that clients could sign it without sending it to their legal departments -- so sales closed faster. Even better, it supported IBM's image as a high-tech, customer-focused company. Here is Etzkorn's advice on how you can turn what looks like a tedious assignment into a Wow Project.
Start with a clean slate. A project isn't always what the client thinks it is. Often clients approach us with a project that deals only with the surface result of the real problem. With IBM, for instance, the surface problem was a poorly designed form. The real problem was that information was buried in the contract that could make that form a customer-friendly reflection of IBM's brand.
Set outrageous goals. The IBM executives knew that the form was bad. What they didn't know was that they were actually losing sales, because the form was so discouraging for customers to use. Our team aimed to boost IBM's sales by redesigning a form. That was an audacious thing for us to try -- but we did it.
Wider is better. Don't assume that a project's reach is limited to one department. Cast a wide net, and bring in players with different perspectives. When we were rethinking the form, we pulled people together from IBM's marketing department and from its accounting department -- people who didn't typically cross paths. It had simply never occurred to the lawyers and the accountants that something they did could affect brand image.
Coordinates: Irene Etzkorn, etzkorn@seigalgale.com
Rick Smolan, 49, specializes in Wow Projects. As the creator of the "Day in the Life" photography-book series, Smolan has racked up an unparalleled streak of successes with his complex, sprawling projects. A former photographer for Time, Life, and National Geographic, Smolan has developed a standard operating procedure for his projects (which cost an average of $5 million to produce): Hire researchers to spend three months sniffing out good stories. Fly 100 of the best photographers in the world to 100 different locations. Shoot for one day. Then pare down a pool of 150,000 photos to create a collection that turns into a coffee-table book, a CD-ROM, and a Web site -- as well as a documentary and a museum exhibit or two. His company, Against All Odds Inc., tackles seemingly unphotographable topics and transforms them into stunning slices of history. Here are some of Smolan's strategies for handling large, seemingly unmanageable projects.
If people like your idea, kill it. If you pitch your project and everybody says, "What a great idea," it's usually too late to do that project. People are always approaching me to do a version of the project that I just finished. Publishers want a sure thing. They want to buy Amazon.com stock today, even though it doubled yesterday. What they don't want to do is find the next Amazon.com. So you need to trust your own judgment -- and that's always hard. People think that because I've been doing these books for 18 years, I must be pretty confident about my ideas. But I'm always scared. I talk to the heads of Random House, and they say, "This is a terrible idea." My first thought is always "Well, gosh, this is a billion-dollar company, and who am I?" But there is a perverse pleasure in having everybody say, "This is never going to work" -- and then pulling it off anyway.
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