A month in nudenotes: Feb 2019
A monthly round-up of Dean O’Callaghan’s #nudenotes
Over at Night Sky Creative, I post a weekly roundup of all things nudenotes.
If you’re wondering what nudenotes are, everything you need to know is right here:
In this series of Medium articles, I compile a monthly summary of all things nudenotes, alongside my insights and some key takeaways.
Every Monday on my Instagram feed, I start the week by sharing some sketchquotes, to help us get over that bad case of the Mondays:
My favourite quote from this month was:
“Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument”
Raising your voice during an argument is usually the sign of frustration, the misalignment of your thoughts at what you are actually saying.
Instead of raising your voice, take a deep breath and gather your thoughts.
Think about how to change your language to improve your argument.
Encouraging Motivation to Change: Am I Doing This Right?
These 11 questions are used to build self-awareness about your attitudes, thoughts, and communication style as you conduct your work.
There’s some deep stuff here, with interesting mindset changes, which can be used to keep your attention focused on the people you serve.
For us designers, that’s either the client or the user — sometimes, I think we lose sight of that in the fog of the design hustle.
Key takeaway: Be more self-aware.
This is a tricky one to master.
It will take a lot of time to master, but even becoming 10% more self-aware in your life will dramatically improve your ability to communicate with others.
Becoming a leader of yourself will empower you with skills to lead others.
ESTJ Personality
From 16personalities.com
Based on the famous Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator.
I am a proud ESTJ: “The Executive”, just like Frank Sinatra, Robb Stark, Dwight Schrute (oh dear), and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
It’s scary how accurate this is from just a 5-minute online quiz.
It’s great to understand my personality nuances, so I can better develop my strengths, understand my weaknesses and lead a happier creative (and personal) life.
My colleagues and I have had great fun discussing all of our personality traits, and comparing which celebs are our personality doppelgangers!
I hope this inspires you to discover your personality type, and see if it helps you to become a happier, more successful version of you.
I’d love to hear whether you’ve taken the test, let me know which personality type you end up with and whether you think it’s accurate.
Key takeaway: Don’t work with me if you are: disorganised, inept, lazy or dishonest.
It was a little scary how accurate this was about my personality.
Now I understand my weaknesses, it’s time to develop them into strengths.
Value In Design: Part 1
In the creative business everyone, talks about value.
We all know that values are hooks for potential consumers, but how many of us actually know what value means?
It’s so subjective, right!?
Wrong.
Once you speak the language of value, you can leverage it to create better design solutions and have a happier, smoother design process.
I’ve reworked some old university notes into this breakdown of value.
If you’re intrigued, check out the full article here.
Key takeaway: Not all values are created equal.
Value is a subjective topic — to make sense of it, you need to have an understanding of value from consumers and user with your creative team.
This empowers you with the insight of knowing what consumers are looking for when making a purchase.
This is the key to making that all-important sale.
Value In Design: Part II
In part one, I broke ‘value’ down into categories, taking the subjective term of adding value and making it more objective.
In part two, I outline the next steps: creating a value ratio, the impact of design, value engineering and the problem of ‘adding value’.
This should help to improve your ability to discuss and harness the power of value with your own designs, by focusing on values that resonate with your consumers or clients.
Check out the full article here.
Key takeaway: To add value, you must understand it
Design has a long history of being prompted as ‘adding value’ to a product, but in order achieve this, you must have a clear understanding of value as it is perceived by your consumers.
This will empower you to be more focused and discuss value in an objective way — allowing you to develop ideas and solutions that consumer perceives as more valuable, avoiding extra costs.
Mindsets of Design Thinking
Based on a random pin I came across on Pinterest — not sure who to credit!
Design Thinking is one of the reasons that I get up every day.
This explanation of Design Thinking really resonated with me and helps to describe why and how I work the way that I do.
Show, don’t tell: Storytelling using another method. Not just using words, but visual aids, for a more inclusive way of sharing valuable information, whether it’s part of a product’s design, a company’s brand, or even a nudenote.
Radical collaboration: Ultimately, we’re all in this together. To get a more honest, true reaction to design, people need to work on it as a team.
Bias towards action: This is common sense, but so many companies and designers have a tendency to procrastinate and spend too long on projects. Just do.
Mindful process: Engage your brain! Be empathetic and considerate: who are you designing for? What are you trying to achieve? How will you achieve it?
Culture of prototyping: To see whether a design works, it needs to be tested.
Human-centred: Following on from the culture of prototyping, designs need to be tested on people for the most accurate predicted reactions from your audience.
Key takeaway: Design Thinking is not just a process, its a mindset!
I’m a firm believer that design thinking is not just for creating epic design work, it’s a frame of mind that can change the way you look at the world and how to solve life’s daily problems, no matter the size.
If more of us used these design thinking principles the world would be a happier and more positive place to live in.
How To: Deal With a Heavy Workload
By Catherine’s Career Corner
We’ve all been there, right?
Too many tasks, not enough time to do them, and even more tasks on the way.
Constant heavy workloads can be more than just stressful; they can effect your mental and physical health, both in and outside of work.
Key takeaway: The key to job satisfaction is workload management.
Many employees and managers can’t (or won’t) understand this — therefore it is important that you provide regular feedback to your team and managers.
Ensure you balance out the positive, the negatives and provide potential ideas for improvements in the future.
However, I hope that these handy tips will help you see how to manage your workload better so you can be a happier creative professional!
Rik Mayall’s Mantras For Life
Based on the graduation speech by Rik Mayall after he was awarded his honorary doctorate at Exeter University in 2008.
RIP Rik Mayall.
He will always be one of my favourite comedy actors — both Tassia and I love him in Bottom, Young Ones and Man Down — we actually have these mantras framed in our house, right by the front door, to keep us motivated.
They’re inspirational words to live by, for people from all walks of life.
I thoroughly recommend watching the video whenever you need a bit of a push.
Key takeaway: Never forget: love is the answer.
Disciplines of a Learning Organisation
By Peter Senege
I’ve heard many good things about Peter’s book The Fifth Discipline — The Art and Practice of Learning Organisation, but I still haven’t got around to reading it, my reading list is growing faster than I can get through them.
Until I do, here are quick summaries of the five disciplines of a learning organisation.
I love learning new things, it is one of the main reasons I started making these notes.
Applying the thirst for learning in everyday work really appeals to me.
I look forward to weaving these disciplines into my daily work.
Key takeaway: Shared vision
Businesses and organisations are complex — it can take years for a learning culture to develop.
Although it is number three on the list, I believe ‘shared vision’ is the most important discipline.
If you don’t know where you are going, you can’t figure out the best possible route to get there.
23 Emotions People Feel But Can’t Explain: Part 1
I love these kinds of things, hopefully, I can remember them and use them regularly.
My new goal is to actually use at least one in conversation.
Key takeaway: ‘Jouska’, a hypothetical conversation that you play out in your head.
I can’t count the number of times this happens to me, especially before a bid design meeting when I’m trying to anticipate the possible question and answers.
That was a month in nudenotes — stay tuned for more articles like this in the future.
Feel free to DM me on Instagram or post a response with any new topics you’d like me to create nudenotes for, and look into.
Until next time… In case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good morning and good night.
Can’t wait until next time?
Then head over to Instagram and follow me @deanoj312.
Or head over to nightskycreative.org for weekly updates on everything in the world of nudenotes!
