Explaining XPLANE.
As I wrote the other day, I have joined XPLANE as a full time consultant. I want to thank everyone who has reached out to me to offer me their congratulations and support. I also want to answer several of the questions I've received, and figured it was far easier to do in a blog post. So here goes:
WHAT IS XPLANE? XPLANE (Wikipedia Entry) is one of the pioneers in Visual Thinking, which is the process of distilling complex processes and concepts into easy-to-understand and visually striking XPLANATIONS. In short, XPLANE helps companies improve their business communication. XPLANE has offices in St. Louis, Portland and Madrid.
WHY XPLANE? Since I returned to St. Louis over a year ago, I have been spending many of my Thursday afternoons at XPLANE's Visual Thinking School, a weekly design and thinking exercise conducted primarily for internal XPLANE personnel. I was invited by XPLANE CEO Dave Gray to attend, and found myself intrigued by the way XPLANE used drawing and visuals to communicate complex business processes. At the same time, XPLANE folks started coming to my Idea Markets, where I began to incorporate many visual thinking and drawing exercises and found it startling how much more effective a little "out of comfort zone" drawing could be than simply a verbal-based exercise. After several months of VTS, Dave asked me why I didn't work for XPLANE. Surprised by the question, I began to consider it. Six months later, and after a trip to visit the Portland office, I'm here.
WHAT WILL I DO? My official title is "Consultant," though that really doesn't describe what I'll be doing. Part of XPLANE's unique process is pairing up a consultant/facilitator (me) with an artist/concept designer (the people with real talent), and going to a client's office for a day-long discovery session. Instead of taking written notes, the artist will actually use live drawing to help visualize the client's story, audience, goals and needs. By combining this live-sketching with a number of brainstorming and drawing, XPLANE is able to elicit a far more complete picture (literally!) of what the client wants to communicate. Here's an overview of the process.
My role is to be the consultant/facilitator in the client sessions. In addition, I will work within XPLANE to expand the consulting practice and further develop the process for multiple client scenarios -- not just those that need an XPLANE "product" delivered at the end of the engagement. Finally, I am going to work on a "visual thinking module" that will bring the benefits of visual thinking to workshops, conferences and retreats.
In short, I get to do the same kinds of things I was doing before, but within a really cool organization, with amazingly talented people, and for much larger clients.
XPLANE will also begin to sponsor the Idea Markets. More on that soon.
WHAT ABOUT THIS BLOG? I will keep the [non]billable hour going. I am working on a redesign, and you will see some cool new things in the next 90 days. I am also going to be re-purposing much of the older content in ways to make it more accessible to newer readers.
WHAT ABOUT LEXTHINK? Dennis, JoAnna and I will be having a sit down soon to figure out what's next. We have too many cool things planned for LexThink to let it go. Stay tuned.
WHAT ELSE? If you have any more questions, shoot me an email at homann@gmail.com or mhomann@xplane.com, and I'd be happy to answer them. I am so excited to be working for XPLANE. I have spent most of my working life as an entrepreneur, and to find an employer where the entrepreneurial spirit is part of the fabric of the organization is really cool. Thanks for all your support!
Matt
Sweat the Outline
From the Church Relevance blog come Perry Noble's 6 Preaching Tips. Two worth remembering for your next speech:
1. Prepare your messages weeks in advance. You’d be amazed at what the Holy Spirit will reveal in a month compared to what he reveals in a week.4. Sweat the outline not the manuscript.
Time to XPlane Myself
I will have lots more Tuesday, but I want to announce that I've joined XPlane, The Visual Thinking Company, as a full-time consultant. Super cool company, wicked sharp people and a perfect fit for my talents and skills. Check them out. I'll tell you more after the holiday weekend.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Forget Big Associate Salaries
My friend Kareem shares the best three-step compensation scheme ever (from Alfie Kohn):
- Pay people well.
- Pay people fairly.
- Do everything possible to take money off people's minds.
OCD for Presenters
Here are some great tips for the road-warrior who does a lot of presentations from Escape from Cubicle Nation. Too many to list, and all are worth a read.
Idea Garage Sale: The Technology Bin
These are a couple of leftovers in the tech bin that I've found, used and/or just wanted to share:
- Review Basics: Online, secure reviewing platform for video, images.
- Concept Share: Another online collaboration platform.
- CircleUp: Email or IM a question to a group and get back a single result with everyone's answer.
- ScanR: One of my favorite apps. Turns your camera or cameraphone into a scanner and business card reader.
- Jott: Love this one too. Call a number, leave a message, and get it converted to a text email sent to you or to someone else.
- iPolipo: Schedule meetings automatically, share your calendar selectively.
- TimeSnapper: Automatic screenshot journal. Answers the question: "What the hell did I actually do today?"
- PlaceSite: Local wireless platform that could work in conferences or small groups.
- Gaboogie: Conference calling service that calls you and your attendees.
- Fidg't: Uses Flickr and LastFM tags to visualize your network.
- ProfileFly: Ties all your contact, profile, and bookmark links together on one place.
- Pando: Share large files through email and IM.
Also, check out this Google Document with a bunch more links from the ABA Techshow Presentation.
Learn to Teach, Teach to Learn
From William Glasser:
We Learn:
10% of what we READ20% of what we HEAR
30% of what we SEE
50% of what we SEE and HEAR
70% of what is DISCUSSED with OTHERS
80% of what is EXPERIENCED PERSONALLY
95% of what we TEACH TO SOMEONE ELSE
Yet More Stuff from the Link Closet
More Idea Garage Sale stuff for you:
- Can you put a "suggestion box" on your site?
- Here are 18 ways to improve your body language. Well worth a read.
- Combat the over-logoinization of presentation slides.
- Should law firm partners open up their email (including sent emails) to associates as a learning tool?
- Here's a great video of inventions from the 20's to the 50's.
- Designing your web site? 43 Web Design Mistakes to Avoid.
- Thinking about the perfect law firm design? Think about the perfect car store.
- Some great articles are here for download from the Rotman Magazine.
- Hone your strategic incompetence.
- Does your business have a plan? Try PlanHQ.
I have more links coming tomorrow, and some tech links later today! Enjoy.
Spring Cleaning: Time for Another Idea Garage Sale
It has been almost a year since my last Idea Garage Sale, and it is time for me to clean out my link closet. Here are some miscellaneous goodies I've been saving that I'm giving away, free for a good home.
- Anybody out there marketing their law firm as Green? You know, only using recycled paper, reducing your carbon footprint, donating portion of fees paid to an environmental charity, picking up trash by the side of the road? Just wondering. Seems like a marketing no-brainer to me.
- Here's a great name-remembering tip:
If you are unable to remember someone's first name, simply ask them:
"What's your name?" When they reply with their first name, laugh and
say "Oh no, I knew that, of course. I meant your last name". This is a
much more acceptable thing to forget--and you still get their full name.
- Got any car dealers or automotive nuts as clients? Get them this.
- Do real estate work? Check Cyberhomes out.
- Mmmmmmmm, beer.
- For your divorce lawyers out there, here's a great tool for your clients: PhotoWipe. It "magically removes unwanted objects from your photos." Or try the Face Transformer.
- Reserve that parking space before you get to the airport.
- Here's why you should go with your Gut.
- Want to learn more about a client's industry, search for industry-specific conferences on Confabb.
- Need to understand Networks? Check out all of these essays from Forbes.
- Have ugly clients? Be careful in front of a jury (or a game show audience):
Wefind that the most attractive player is equally likely to be eliminatedas the average-looking players. The least attractive player, on theother hand, is significantly more likely to be eliminated. The effectis substantial: The least attractive player is almost twice as likelyto be eliminated at the end of the first round than any other player....Less attractive players are discriminated against, for reasons thatare uncorrelated with their performance or behavior during the game.
Gotta Lotta Blogging to Do
I've got a lot of catching up to do, so forgive the ton of posts (starting with this one) that you'll see today. My schedule, coupled with a really cool announcement I'll make Monday, is my excuse -- not that you were asking for one. Thanks!
Back Up Your LinkedIn Profile
I caught this tip over on the My LinkedIn Power Forum about backing up a LinkedIn profile. From the post, here's how to do it:
1. Print it as a hardcopy. You can click on the [Print] icon
above your headline and print it. This is the most traditional way
of backup and is also strongly recommended to always keep a hardcopy
just in case all your backup softcopies cannot work at the time of
recovery.2. Save it as a PDF or Word file. You can either click on the
[PDF] icon above your headline and save it as a PDF or cut-and-paste
your profile and save it as a Word file. The latter will have an
advantage of cut-and-paste back to your LinkedIn profile page at the
time recovery.
If you frequent any other social networking sites, it would make sense to back up your profiles there as well.
As an aside, the PDF printout is a pretty slick (and quick) way to build a resume. It looks great, too!
For Administrative Professionals Day -- Let Your Staff Fire a Client
I've written about this one before: the best gift you can give your administrative professional/secretary is to let them fire a client of their choice. Here's the post from 2004:
Several years ago, I told my secretary she could fire one client, no questions asked. After she picked herself off the floor, she chose a client that surprised me. Turns out that this client, while perfectly cordial to me, was consistently rude to her on the phone and made inappropriate comments to her when he came into the office. I sent the client a nice letter telling him I would be unable to represent him any longer, and my secretary told me it was one of the best presents she had ever gotten.The moral to this story is that there are clients who, if they treat your staff badly, don't deserve your hard work. Every day you work for them sends a message that you value their business more than the happiness of your staff. The trouble is that you probably don't even know who these clients are. So ask your assistant, and go ahead and give yourself a little bonus and fire your least-liked client too.
Of course, flowers are also nice.
Raise the Roof or Lower the Ceiling?
I found something interesting in a study titled The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing People Use (via Science Daily -- my new favorite RSS subscription):
“When a person is in a space with a 10-foot ceiling, they will tend to think more freely, more abstractly,” said Meyers-Levy. “They might process more abstract connections between objects in a room, whereas a person in a room with an 8-foot ceiling will be more likely to focus on specifics.”The research demonstrates that variations in ceiling height can evoke concepts that, in turn, affect how consumers process information. The authors theorized that when reasonably salient, a higher versus a lower ceiling can stimulate the concepts of freedom versus confinement, respectively. This causes people to engage in either more free-form, abstract thinking or more detail-specific thought. Thus, depending on what the task at hand requires, the consequences of the ceiling could be positive or negative.
If you are designing your next office or workspace, should you build in different ceiling types and plan to do different kinds of work in each one? For lawyers, should you take your depositions in low-ceilinged rooms?