I attended KalamazooX over the weekend, which was a great combination of design, business, and technical presentations.  As someone who has transitioned from a programmer into marketing & strategy consulting, it was nice to see content that wasn’t just staring at code.  I believe some of the slides are up online, but here are some thoughts, not from every presentation, but from some of my favorites:

Dave Giard – Effective Customer Communication

• Communications is a two-way street – both sides are responsible.
• It’s important to get/give feedback early and often.
• You need to add value for the customer – what does the customer feel adds value? – need to know this up front.
• Weekly status of what you did, what you plan to do next week, any issues/problems.
• A daily standup (including the client) is better.
• The most important part of verbal communications (any communications) is listening.

James Bender – Organizational Dynamics

• Plug into the company’s information highway (water cooler, wiki, blog, intranet, etc.).
• Be someone in the know.
• Evangelize yourself and your ideas (and also your team!).
• Build coalitions.
• Learn the right way to gripe.

Josh Holmes – The Art of Simplicity

• The definition of simplicity from Websters includes: lack of sophisitcation, good sense or intelligence – which is how technologists often think.
• Systems need to be designed so the user knows immediately what to do and starts doing it.
• A simple design does not mean that the problem solved was simple.
• Users may not see a request as complex – they just know it will make their experience better.
• Agile is a buzzword, but it’s what techs need to be in order to solve problems.
• The right solution is not the one other technologists understand – its the one the user does.
• Enterprise automatically adds ten times the complexity.
• Consumer space has solved bigger issues in simpler ways.
• We usually don’t understand who are users are – the top 3 things they do.
• Use the right tool for the job.
• Solving someone’s problem adds value.

Brian Prince – 5 Easy Ways to Be More Agile

• Be Subversive – start doing things without permission, without changing what you’re doing, help people see value.
• Stand up Meetings – what was done yesterday, doing today, roadblocks.  Don’t solve problems – have speaking token.
• Keep – Stop – Start Meetings – Introspectives at end of each iteration.  What should we keep doing, what needs to stop, what do we need to start doing – assign people to solve by next iteration.
• Must – Should – Could – Won’t Priorities (from user’s view).  Keep quality and priority in the picture.  Use quality in equation always.
• Keep users and client as close as possible (not usually the same).  Ask – share – show.  Tell stories.  Use simple planning wall.

Leon Gersing – Change

• Make little changes until you don’t realize that you’ve changed.
• Be open to change.
• Know who you are.
• Don’t let others define who you are.
• There are 3 states in life – job, career, enjoying life – which are not always the same.  Know which you’re in.
• Change where you work (not always the employer, but sometimes the environment, or your state of mind).
• If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies.

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