I post little thoughts in our design teamās Slack channel every Friday morning. I think of them as either a reflective coda to the week weāre leaving behind, or a bit of inspiration for the week ahead. Or both.
Most are quotes. A few are not. Most are about design. A few are not. Most are short. A few are not. Occasionally Iāll do a little editorializing, add my own framing. I always link to the author or source, in case anyone wants to dig deeper. Some thoughts spark a conversation. Most garner a few emojis. Some colleagues have said they appreciate this little ritual. Many havenāt said anything at all.
Which might beg the question, with such a soft response, why do it? A bit of altruism, a bit of selfishness.
Altruism
I like to think one thought or another will land with someone, just as it landed with me when I found it. I think of it as an easy way to pay it forward, to share things that are useful, inspiring, provocative, or just generally intriguing.
And I think rituals are important. Ceremonies are important. Even the smallest rituals and ceremonies help build a shared culture, a common experience, a connectedness. This is especially important for distributed teams. (And itās a lot cheaper and safer than having everyone bond at a rope-climbing course.)
Selfishness
Itās easy to get lazy, to stop learning and growing. It takes work to hunt down interesting, meaningful ideas, and itās work I might not do if I hadnāt formalized the ritual into a self-assigned weekly task. So every week I hunt for something interestingāto me at least. Something I might incorporate into my creative, professional, or personal life. I can justify the āresearchā (aka, surfing around the web) by telling myself whatever I find might help someone else.
Basically, itās an act of indeterminate good with no risk of harm. Sort of like a Vitamin C supplement.
Making it a habit
Science tells us weāre more likely to do good stuff like eating healthy or trimming our nails if we make them habitual. I created a weekly reminder in ToDoist for 8 am every Friday. Ping, a little nudge to find and share something. I give myself 30 minutes.
Iām always saving interesting quotes and insights, but I enjoy the hunt, so I usually try to find something new. Fresh meat. If I hit my 30-minute limit and I havenāt found anything, I go to my reserves.
Sample the wares
Here are some š§ Friday Design Thoughts Iāve shared over the past couple of months:
š§ āIād much rather visit a supermarket than an art gallery, and watch how people interact with the space and the products there.ā ā Brendan Dawes, Analog In, Digital Out
š§ āYou can optimize everything and still fail, because you have to optimize for the right things. Thatās where more reflection and qualitative approaches come in. By asking why, we can see the opportunity for something better beyond the bounds of the current best. Even math has its limits.ā ā Erika Hall, Just Enough Research
š§ āWe must design for the way people behave, not for how we would wish them to behave.āāDonald Norman, Living with Complexity
š§ āPeople often talk about returning to a mythical past state where things were simpler and good. Sometimes people point to a time where men only wore long pants, sometimes they mean ābefore agriculture.ā As if the world has an undo button. But the past is immutable. The only unbreakable thing in the world is the past! Which means you can really only do new things, even if they feel like youāve done them before. Over and over, new things, for your whole life. It feels strange to put it like that, like I should have changed more, made more of my thoughts, imagined more broadly. But you got to work with what you have.ā ā Paul Ford, Things Left Undone
š§ āThe pursuit of normality is the ultimate sacrifice of potential.ā ā Faith Jegede, What Iāve learned from my autistic brothers (TED Talk)
š§ āTo be a good designer, you would need to have deep and far-reaching interests outside of the profession.āāStefan Sagmeister (This reminds me of something I wrote a while ago.)
š§ āDonāt make me think.āāSteve Krug, Donāt Make Me Think
š§ āAlways design a thing by considering it in its next larger contextāa chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.āāEero Saarinen
š§ āSometimes when an idea flashes, you distrust it because it seems too easy. You qualify it with all kinds of evasive phrases because youāre timid about it. But often, this turns out to be the best idea of all.āāSaul Bass
š§ āDesign adds value faster than it adds costs.āāThomas C. Gale
š§ āElegance in objects is everybodyās right, and it shouldnāt cost more than ugliness.āāPaola Antonelli
š§ āWhen you make something no on hates, no one loves it.āāTibor Kalman
š§ āDesigners shooting for usable is like a chef shooting for edible.āāAaron Walter
Much adoā¦?
Maybe Iām making a lot of noise about the otherwise banal act of sharing ideas in Slack. Itās not like this is a novel or revolutionary idea; itās basically the entire point of Slack. But I think thereās something about the ritual nature of it, the cadence, that makes it special. At least for me.
One week I blew it. I completely forgot to share a thought. By early afternoon, several people DMād me to ask what happened to the š§ Friday Design Thought. I apologized and said Iād simply forgotten. āI hope itās back next week!ā
That felt nice.
Hereās another thing I wrote about using Slack to build team culture. So, what are your tips for building culture? Let me know!