Words drive the creative economy. I like to drive the words. This is how it’s done.

 

Three observations about my method.

  • Tell me in your own words.

    My method is profoundly simple.

    There are no elaborate pre-prepared questions, agendas or preconceived filters in place. This is true regardless of what media or channel we will be working within. This is because the meaning and message of what you do or make must precede and live independently of the channel of delivery.

    So we meet, and we talk. I listen carefully.

    You and your team are the authority on what you do, on what you create, and how you do it. The essence of the process is so simple. I get you to tell me the story of what you do in your own words. Everything falls out of that.

    Remember that creativity is all bit mysterious to your users and clients. We may even discover it is a bit mysterious to you and the team some days. Creative industries of all kinds trade in the ephemeral - ideas and subtlety - and it can be tricky to pin down. For example, we all agree that Apple sells experiences, not products, right? Nevertheless, it remains far easier to express and articulate the contours of the product than those of the brand experience.

    The value that design and creativity add to products, processes and places is well established but not well understood. It is rarely expressed with any clarity..

    Dumb questions are important, and our friend in this process. Addressing the obvious is a fine way to start. What do you do? How do you do it? What do you make? What does it mean to you? What does it mean to your users?

    This isn’t rocket science. We start where you are and use what you have at hand. The magic emerges from the simplicity of the approach.

  • Clarity is king (or queen, or gender non-binary equivalent).

    For web, print, social media - indeed any form of communication - clarity is the foundation. This is particularly true in the creative industries, which deal in ideas.

    Clarity allows us to define ideas with specificity and precision. These two factors may be far more useful and relevant to your users - your buyers, and potential buyers - than that more glamorous cousin, ‘originality’.

    I can help you define what you do with absolute clarity. By doing so the processes, methods, products or places you create will be better understood by everyone involved - your team, your users, and even you.

  • It's all pointless without a strategy.

    This gets us to the most important point. Clarity may be king, or whatever: fair enough. However, crafting and delivering a clear message that is not guided by a strategic intent gets you nowhere.

    Worse than that, communication without strategic direction can work against your core purpose - as a creative person, a team and as a business. This can confuse your users and clients, misrepresent the meaning of your work, dilute your brand and suck the momentum and focus out of your team.

    Getting it right has the opposite effect. Read the case study below for a very personal example.

A very personal case study: architecture studio website.

 

  • When we set about redefining the web presence of our architecture business baumgartclark.au, we had to come to terms with what we actually did before we could express it clearly. Our clients are primarily not-for-profits, including housing providers, aged-care providers, independent or public schools, government and community agencies and social welfare organisations.

    We had to engage with their particular world, and work out what our clients were actually buying AND how they buy before we could work out how to sell it to them, and indeed clearly understand who we were selling it to.

    Sounds obvious.

    Was it obvious? No, it was not. The answer was unexpected.

    Most architects communicate as if their clients are primarily buying design product or skills. Their websites are designed accordingly, as a largely static showcase of their best product, which is usually the design outcome. Most architect’s websites are little more than a gallery or, at best, a series of beautifully presented case studies.

    Others do slightly better, and define their core offering as ‘problem solving’, and support this with project examples. This is certainly an improvement, but still not very specific.

    What profession does not involve deep problem solving? Certainly every architect does it. Cardiologists and accountants also do it. You have to be more specific.

  • Much to our amazement, by listening to our clients, we learnt that they weren’t buying design at all. They weren’t even buying our ability to ‘solve problems’ creatively, even though they assumed, indeed insisted, that we could do that.

    We dug deep and realised that our particular cohort of clients were buying the skilful management of uncertainty and risk, based on our decades of experience - delivered as a payload in the design process. They were buying our ability to reassure them and their stakeholders that time, cost and quality were not going to be royally screwed up while we delivered the design we loved and solved the problems they faced.

    It kind of hurt to face it, but design - our favourite bit - however skilfully pursued in the studio, was secondary to the buying decision. This made it secondary to the ongoing viability and prosperity of our business. Our clients expected the design work to be very good, and we did too, but that is not primarily what motivated them to engage us.

  • Realising this changed everything. From within this observation, we developed a strategy around the real point of our website: the specific job the website had to do, as a communications tool. To be crystal clear, that job was not to make us look good in the estimation of other architects and designers.

    Once we had done this, our broader strategic purpose became clear as well. The tactical moves - and the intent or ‘job’ of the content - became self evident.

    The project showcase was still important - more important than ever - but needed to speak in certain ways. Once it did this, we found that what we offered better than anyone else became clearer: to existing clients, potential clients and even to us.

  • The result is a website structure and content that is profoundly different from most other architect’s websites. Not different for its own sake, not particularly different in visual design terms, but specific to the communication task. Specific to our particular clients. It has an entirely unique, bespoke taxonomy and organising principle, one that has little in common with a mere ‘greatest hits’ showcase.

    Because of this it speaks with clarity to our users and their most pressing needs: reassurance that we will manage the factors that directly cause uncertainty and risk. They can use the website as a practical tool, it is of use to them.

    This is essential as our specfic client cohort typically has a layered governance structure, where multiple individuals need to endorse key decisions. Our website empowers our contacts, the people who know us personally, to explain and defend their decision to engage us to their stakeholders - their boards, senior managers, colleagues and benefactors.

    I want to work with you to define a similarly tailored outcome for your creative business. The solution for your business will of necessity be different again, targeted at your specific client group and their decision-making needs.

    Let’s unlock it together.

 

When you visit the website, pay attention to the taxonomy - the structure and type of information communicated. The visual design is important but secondary to the actual job of the website: helping our buyers make the decision to engage us, and defend that decision to their stakeholders.