Exactly one month ago I started speaking publicly about my latest project. I’ve been working on Flashback since late 2012, so it is great to finally be in a position to report that my ideas are starting to work!
So what is Flashback really about?
I’ve always been interested in how people work with each other, but over the last few years became more and more interested in how people in different organizations work with each other. I am restricting my interest to longer collaborations, for example in project based industries.
There are very big differences between collaboration styles for purely internal groups and collaboration involving cross-organizational teams. This is because the inter-personal relationship changes from peer-to-peer collaboration to customer-to-client collaboration. You also have to factor into the mix professional relationships, the curated customer experience, data ownership, and legal issues. So there are lots of topics to blog about!
I believe the terminology in this domain is still in flux. Appropriate terms include cross-organizational collaboration and customer experience management (CXM). The term Customer relationship management (CRM) comes to mind too, but I don’t think it is appropriate, because clients most often don’t have access to a CRM system for collaboration – it is typically used internally to keep track of customers.
In a previous blog posting, I mentioned that my new venture is trying to determine a product-market. It is of course a journey more than a decision, and as we enter in to the market, it is likely to shift. At the moment however, I think of Flashback as a CXM tool for designers & visual thinkers.
I find this interesting for several reasons.
Firstly, when you design something for a client, it is a pretty big deal. Design is having a much bigger impact on everything we do nowadays, and everyone has an opinion about it. Also more and more when you open your wallet, or click “add to cart”, you are buying something that was highly designed.
Behind the scenes, that product was most likely lovingly created and manufactured by a team that spanned the globe. And that team struggled mightily to make the design perfect.
It is very hard to "talk" about a design, especially while you creating it.
How do you explain something to someone who does not have your design sensibilities? How do you even explain something when words are often not enough? If you are a design professional, you not only struggle with communicating your design, but getting feedback from your clients. As a client, why is it so hard to get the design your product deserves?
Personally, I find it hard communicating with the many designers in my life. These include the visual and UX designers for products I developed, and most recently my house remodel project (still unfortunately ongoing).
Why is this the case?
Well, there are the fundamental reasons as stated above, but also the simple fact that authoring tools are stuck in “authoring mode” and the design collaboration aspect of software tools have stagnated or is pretty much missing-in-action. Designers are stuck with Photoshop & GotoMeeting (substitute your own poison).
I strongly believe that over time design will become a more collaborative and “immersive experience” for professionals and their clients, and the result would be a big shift in ease of communicating ideas, not to mention creating much cooler products.
As they say, two minds are better than one. But you also know about two cooks in the kitchen, right? So with much more collaborative design, what new inter-human interaction problems and conflicts will be created?
So what is Flashback really about?
I’ve always been interested in how people work with each other, but over the last few years became more and more interested in how people in different organizations work with each other. I am restricting my interest to longer collaborations, for example in project based industries.
There are very big differences between collaboration styles for purely internal groups and collaboration involving cross-organizational teams. This is because the inter-personal relationship changes from peer-to-peer collaboration to customer-to-client collaboration. You also have to factor into the mix professional relationships, the curated customer experience, data ownership, and legal issues. So there are lots of topics to blog about!
I believe the terminology in this domain is still in flux. Appropriate terms include cross-organizational collaboration and customer experience management (CXM). The term Customer relationship management (CRM) comes to mind too, but I don’t think it is appropriate, because clients most often don’t have access to a CRM system for collaboration – it is typically used internally to keep track of customers.
In a previous blog posting, I mentioned that my new venture is trying to determine a product-market. It is of course a journey more than a decision, and as we enter in to the market, it is likely to shift. At the moment however, I think of Flashback as a CXM tool for designers & visual thinkers.
I find this interesting for several reasons.
Firstly, when you design something for a client, it is a pretty big deal. Design is having a much bigger impact on everything we do nowadays, and everyone has an opinion about it. Also more and more when you open your wallet, or click “add to cart”, you are buying something that was highly designed.
Behind the scenes, that product was most likely lovingly created and manufactured by a team that spanned the globe. And that team struggled mightily to make the design perfect.
It is very hard to "talk" about a design, especially while you creating it.
How do you explain something to someone who does not have your design sensibilities? How do you even explain something when words are often not enough? If you are a design professional, you not only struggle with communicating your design, but getting feedback from your clients. As a client, why is it so hard to get the design your product deserves?
Personally, I find it hard communicating with the many designers in my life. These include the visual and UX designers for products I developed, and most recently my house remodel project (still unfortunately ongoing).
Why is this the case?
Well, there are the fundamental reasons as stated above, but also the simple fact that authoring tools are stuck in “authoring mode” and the design collaboration aspect of software tools have stagnated or is pretty much missing-in-action. Designers are stuck with Photoshop & GotoMeeting (substitute your own poison).
I strongly believe that over time design will become a more collaborative and “immersive experience” for professionals and their clients, and the result would be a big shift in ease of communicating ideas, not to mention creating much cooler products.
As they say, two minds are better than one. But you also know about two cooks in the kitchen, right? So with much more collaborative design, what new inter-human interaction problems and conflicts will be created?
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