Who You Calling A Jesse?

The new UW logo continues to create a stir with the request for feedback on the new logo and a couple alternatives. Pretty much immediately after the request went out UW Opinion was lit up with a range of colourful commentary, some useful suggestions, and some posts that are way out to lunch.

With regards to the new logos I don’t have much to offer about any specific design but I still think the staff at UW could do way better. I don’t think they will though as the process is broken (something I mentioned in my post back in July). A post by Sanjay on UW Opinion touches on it as well.

I think a big part of the problem with the logo boils down to an organizational cultural one that speaks to how people value art, communications, and design in this community. Over the years working at UW I have had a chance to work with many talented designers that have been treated as contract staff that are to simply create exactly what they are told. They aren’t seen as authoritative talent that was hired to handle ‘how things look.’

Usually what happens to the designer is they are forced to use bad photos, odd fonts, colours, and layouts as dictated by the client when they know they don’t work together. What it comes down to in design consultant terms, staff groups at UW are the nightmare client that you can’t get away from because it is your full-time job. They aren’t allowed to do what they are hired to do…. and yes, I said staff groups at UW are nightmare clients. I have been on both sides of it and I don’t think people do it intentionally but I do think people in general do not value the skills and expertise of others—particularly design talent.

It is likely that a lot of other higher ed institutions suffer from this organizational culture issue.

What I would ask from the leadership in higher ed in general is to let professionals do their jobs, don’t let them step outside their roles and step on the jobs of others, and understand good design can not be done on the cheap. Otherwise you will have burned out staff that feel overworked and under appreciated—the type of people that shut off and loose the passion for their work.

I should add… a lot innovation, personal growth, and good experience comes when people step outside their defined roles. My point is that people should be challenged to step outside their roles in a more strategic way. It should not just be normal that an admin assistant takes on a co-ordinator role for the admin assistant pay or worse take on the role of a co-ordinator that is already trying to fulfill that role.

One thing that really been highlighted to me by the University of Waterloo logo fun (#uwlogogate) is that committees are overused in higher education and the quality of the work could be suffering. Even if the quality might not improve I can’t see how committee work isn’t contributing to an increase in work load and stress. This happens because (using this current issue as an example) a committee (or a series of committees) appears to be responsible for:

1. requirements, strategy, and execution of the branding work
2. logo research, design, and approval
3. communications planning

How the day to day works is that you have a number of staff from different departments with different reports and interests doing their normal job and working on the branding stuff essentially on the side. Focus is not 100% on the task, it can’t be. The result, a decent logo but one that meets the needs of very specific, unfocused, and likely insular interests.

A project needs to be a real project

What I think is wrong is that a committee of staff with other jobs should be responsible for:

1. high level requirements, strategy, and oversight of project

Then a project team is to do the work, report back on how what they are doing is inline with the vision/values, and get the job done. A project team that is doing it full time reporting to one Project Manager and sharing a common interest.

The project team will have the added advantage of spending enough time on something to develop expertise that it might be missing. It is really hard to be really good at something that you don’t have the time for. It is likely the quality of the work suffers because the expertise just isn’t allowed to develop with the project.

This actually gets really bizarre when you look at things like hiring committees and search committees. The membership is made up of ‘representation’ but not by people that are qualified (or likely) to understand the requirements of a job for which they are hiring someone. Their positions don’t offer them the context or the expertise yet they are drawn together to represent what are arguably irrelevant interests.

That is why I am not arguing for broader consultation on projects (like logo making). That doesn’t work. I think broader consultation on higher level principles is ideal but when it comes to doing the work let the people you are paying to do the work produce the best work they are capable of. If it is truly sub-par work then something is wrong and something needs to be done.

A committee that is tasked with doing real work removes all responsibility and accountability for the quality and delivery of the work.

You can’t apply good project management to a committee

Can you actually apply project management techniques to committee work? I don’t think so. Sure in MS Project you can claim an asset (person) has 20% of their work week for a project but it doesn’t take into account that with one day a week of time you are probably getting 1/3 productivity on that. The inevitable 1/3 of your day getting your mind focused and working, 1/3 doing work, 1/3 for interruptions.

Too much time is spent on updating progress, lingering issues that aren’t solved, politics in the office back in the home department, etc.

Highered needs to create more temporary project teams and less committees

I believe we need to stop using a faculty influenced process and go to a more business focused way of running projects with a twist. The twist being the project has committee oversight that agrees on the goals and the measure of the project is its adherence to the goals (committees can not say things like “moar lazerz”).

This is a rough thought of course… more discussion is welcome and required but in general we need to change how we do projects in higher ed or continue to put out sub-par work and over stress staff in the process.

A pretty interesting social media incident has occurred here at the University of Waterloo, one that I am sure is causing some people a lot of stress and others entertainment. Short version: UW branding effort had its logo work leaked, students rise up on Facebook!

As someone that started working at UW at the tender age of 25 having my work out in full public view for public stoning I can certainly emphasize with those behind the new UW branding effort. The Facebook group that is acting as the hub of criticism has certainly grown fast and the comments are emotive and colourful (image above left is an example of their ‘protest’ versions and they show UW students are creative!). What has happened thus far? This is my best guess order of events:

• a long time ago the previous VP of External Relations identified problems with U of Waterloo’s brand outside of Ontario. Our Alumni are everywhere in senior positions of very fashionable organizations yet our name isn’t. The school, city, and region all suffer from the “Toronto is the centre of the Canadian Universe” syndrome I think.
• Committees were formed, talented staff were rallied and a very long process began.
• A turnover at the VP level brought some fresh vision and motivation, process moves faster.
• Lots of work, emotion, and discussions later there appears to be some visual identity pieces that started going up on campus this week.
• Students got a hold of some ‘still in progress’ logo work, Facebook group created, the freak out gathers steam.

1. an idea is generated
2. committees are formed
3. they meet
4. and meet
5. they meet with other committees and things are changed to please certain people
6. a careful strategy of ‘getting use to change’ is deployed

Everything went according to the way things do in academia and then a step 5a happened—a digital media problem. Files are leaked and social media rallies the ‘no’ camp before step 6 really gets going. What happens next will be very interesting. Currently the students behind the group have a meeting with the VP of External Relations and I hope from that comes some more factual information to the Facebook group on what is happening and why. A missed opportunity, I think, is having the VP post that information herself to the Facebook group.

In higher education it is about being open to criticism and debate. Social media just compliments what is a long standing tradition. Don’t shy away or worse be dismissal of branding or your position because you will get some lumps from the vocal stake holders… engage them. Although I don’t think a closed door meeting is truly open at least a VP takes the student concerns serious enough to spend time talking to them. It is part of who we are in higher ed.

It isn’t all bad even though I will freely admit I expected more out of a logo for UW. There is more to branding than a jpeg. The banners going up speak of ‘taking risks’ and being ‘courageous.’ Since being an undergrad here I can honestly say I have only seen that in spits or spurts (with VeloCity being an example). However, to me the secondary and maybe more important part of branding is putting out there the values and aspirations of the institution so everyone has a common point of reference. If we say we are risk takers we need to be risk takers. Having it as part of the branding empowers the risk takers vs the risk adverse people. The whole language on the banners thing is a risk… like ‘intelligent community’ the institution will be called out when it does things that seem risk adverse.

As the Facebook group grows it will be interesting to see if #uwlogogate will have legs into the fall. My guess is that this will be a good example of why you need to have a social media strategy as part of your step 6. Assume what you are working on will get leaked and you can’t control the message anymore. It is a real risk and one that needs to be managed.

Note: I have not nor likely will be involved in UW’s branding effort. I left External Relations before it started but I can say that the need to work on UW’s brand has been known for a very long time. Nor am I an expert in marketing.