However, within that ‘digital landscape’ lies much more of the social stuff, the democratic stuff, the dangerous gobby subversive stuff, the experimental stuff. Here, things are reeally open and reeeally fast and you need to behave yourself as marketers or else you’ll lose friends. So, less of the arrogant one-way advertising, and barging in on discussions.

Otherwise, we’re still here to ease the communication between brands and people, and the process is similar to the faithful one concieved in the ad agencies in the 60′s (and I should stress every bit is done in collaboration with clients, account teams, creative & production)

Research:

• Asking the right questions… here it’s useful to have the creative brief / project brief to hand as a checklist. (here’s a creative brief checklist in the interests of self-promotion)
• Conducting or commissioning research – where known gaps exist, or purely to explore and illuminate
• Being resourceful (quick and cheap?) when exploring and researching, e.g. social networks, slideshare, yahoo answers, twitter, google trends, buzzmetrics
• Brainstorming and exploring around issues or insights. This is the best bit – when you’ve got all the homework in front of you and you examine it in many ways to see what possibilities exist… (heres a brainstorming checklist in the interests of self-promotion)
• Both specific tactical research e.g. particular markets, demographics, and long-term e.g. human behaviour norms

Distil

• Use whoever you need to turn the info, insights and possible directions into a neat cohesive direction.. whether this is working with copywriters to help the articulation of an interesting creative brief, working with the information architects to help visualise an interface, journey or mechanic.

Fix, measure, learn, test, improve, delve, enquire…

• even if we’re looking for a qualitative impact, there’s plenty of ways to monitor this to optimise and improve.
• which of course keeps all us planners in employment.

… and, thats how digital planning works.

John Maeda devoted 6 years of his research at MIT to the study of simplicity in technology and design, this book (along with his blog) organise his thoughts on the subject.

The Laws Of Simplicity is a gentle thoughful, elegantly designed book, undaunting (light?) at only 100 pages.

John offers insight into the thought processes behind product/interface design – particularly the i-pod wheel. More examples would have been nice here though. We also get a window into how John integrates the theme of simplicity into his own life (as he matures, he confesses to listening to less and less music, instead favouring the soundtrack of the world surrounding him).

Maeda encourages us to focus on some of the more humble yet powerful tools of simplification and organisation (organisation being one of the ‘laws’) for example, the power of the tab-key / the space bar / the return key within information organisation.

There is an attempt to find the ‘one law to rule them all’  which for me is unconvincing, unnecessary and frankly (I found) clumsily made, however this is an insightful book which throws in a nice mix of practice, theory, biography and philosophy on the subject.

Sometimes painful, sometimes boring, almost always ugly.

Yet, that data could be powering something like this:

… in this case an essay or book, which  has been indexed and presented in an interesting way. (Thanks to Munterbund, and if that’s your cuppa tea, there’s a mammoth collection of great data visualisation examples on Smashing Magazines site.)

Elsewhere, another wordy one:

…from visuwords where you can see the relationships between words of your choice… opposites, derivatives, synonyms.. Just punch in a word and all the related words (blobs) open up before your eyes. This is a jolly useful tool for naming projects, or exploring new conceptual territories for a brand.

Pretty, but does this simplify? Does this help?

It can certainly simplify, and it can make otherwise ‘heavy’ data accessible, but it also can over-simplify, and jeopardise the integrity of the data through creative visualisation. Just think about what the viewer needs (and maybe adopt both to satisfy the statisticians and the marketers)

In my view one of there most useful creations has been exploratree – a suite of thinking-guides and mind-mapping exercises and templates.

Now there are many mind-mapping resources out there, but they all seem to have very formal structures, and encourage you to have already organised your thoughts beforehand, and have already worked out the right headings, and the right information strucutre. What I wanted was something less organised… closer to a virtual white-board, where you can capture ideas in a less orderly way, and subsequently overlay my own organisation, for example wavy arrows connecting things, items belonging to multiple headers, informal relationships between different contents, and so on.

I still don’t think anything replaces a good old piece of A3 paper / whiteboard, and a handful of coloured pens…. but if you need an online version (I do for storage and easy referral) then exploratree aint half bad.

There’s also a ton of other thinking guides that are worth browsing. It’s all free too.

Exhibit 1: my bike looking edgy, juxtaposed with some less edgy flowers

A nice cheery shot, but a bit blah. I guess its all very personal, but there’s no real point or focus to this shot, simply a bike and some flowers.

Individually, there’s lots focus on. When we isolate the items, we no longer have a bike and some flowers, but instead have:

A bike with some intricate detail on a vintage frame, exploring some of the geometry of bikes (OK not everyones idea of a good photographic study)

And… some flowers. But by isolating them, I’m now able to focus on the distance, encouraging the viewer eye to move through the flowers to the rear of the shot.

Personal preference counts for a lot here, but for me, by simplifying the shot I’m doing a better job at pin-pointing what I want the viewer to explore. Added to which, most things are strong enough subjects when you get close enough to focus on their detail /patterns / texture / geometry.

Exhibit 2:

A church and street scene (from leaning precariously outta my window):

Nice enough (ignoring the blob of guttering in the top left), but it’s slightly eye-candy.. whilst pretty, it doesn’t ‘do’ much (provoke thought, create a sense of ease or awkwardness, or mystery)

For me, picking on one part invites greater exploration in the image, and asks the viewer to bring a bit of their own imagination to the shot.. so I prefer this:

Actually, I think it would be better if closer still, and higher.

For me, a simpler shot is actually richer as it draws the viewer in.

• Story-telling – what triggers empathy, what persuades, how to hold attention
• Explicit / implicit – the balance between what is said & shown, and what the reader must bring to fully render the scene
• Words and images – and their delicate relationship
• Character creation / world creation
• Mastering expressions, gestures, body language
• Clarity vs intensity

… and then there’s all the technical stuff about which tools and mediums to consider.  AND he throws in a healthy dosage of philosophy, culture, the history of visual commuication.

This books covers a massive terrain, but does so with delightful clarity. The medium truly is the message here; with every point made Scott makes the best choice of framing, gestures, balance of words/images, symbols, pacing…

By the way, I never even liked comics.

Dunno exactly, but we’ll be starting somewhere around here:

Um, yes, I know the remit is broad, but we’re going for ‘single-theme, multi-subject’ rather than ‘multi-theme, single-subject’

At least, thats the intention.

Well, this is what’s in it for me.

Self-discipline
Whilst I’m good at having values (and I obviously feel there’s wealth within simplification), I’m not so good at living these values. So, this site may discipline me.

Webby experimentation
Working in digital marketing means I need a digital sand-pit to muck about in.

Share/Learn
Discussing is better than reading, learning is better than stagnating, sharing is better than hoarding

Simplistic: A crude version of something. ‘Lite’, basic, overview

Simplified: Organised, reduced, articulated

Complexity lies in-between the two… you start at the simplistic, pass through the complex, and, with a bit of luck arrive at a simplified destination.

Oh, and the ‘value’  (or benefit) to the recipient increases far greater on that last leg of the journey; from complexity to simplification.

A simple chart, as ever, says it best:

Visually articulated by Nicholas Bate in his book Unplugged, which by the way is a massive inspiration on the topic of simplification.