Person To Person Interactions

The first and most important type of interactions in a community is person-to-person. These interactions are exactly what they sound like. They are the interactions that one person has with at least one other person. These interactions can take the form in almost any form of engagement. The type of person-to-person interactions I have been trying to influence is conversation. Conversation is the first step to creating a relationship in which you feel comfortable with another party. Without cultivating some level of comfort, you cannot hope to have a relationship that yields constructive conversations, critique, or collaborations.

Saying "Hi."

Getting people to interact openly and freely has always been one of the main things I wanted to incorporate into this new culture an CD experience. I have found out that you can’t rely on people to just start doing this when they are used to being introverted and keeping things to themselves. My solution to this problem is to inspire the members of the CD Community to feel comfortable talking and interacting with their studiomates.

At first I wasn’t sure how to approach getting people together to talk about anything. Last year (2010-2011) I initiated a student run chapter of AIGA. Unfortunately it failed, with only a few people joining and many of those few not coming to meetings. I looked to these experiences when starting to think about how I wanted to corral people into talking this year.

I took some time to evaluate things I thought had gone wrong with AIGA last year. It was things like having to pay to join, infrequent meetings, no true strong leadership. I was OK admitting that those things were partly my fault, knowing that I could try again this year with something new.

Before I reached the point of actually knowing what to do, I knew we had to have a department meeting. It was the third or fourth week of school and we still had not met as a group to discuss what was going on with the department. I took it upon myself to organize the department meeting, send out emails, and create something to get people interacting in an indirect way. I wanted to start easing people into interacting.

I did some hand set type on a wall in the CD studio that advertised the meeting and encouraged those who were coming to the meeting to sign their name on the wall underneath the message. This was very successful. About 95% of the department showed up and we got to talk with the faculty about what was going on in the department and go around the room and introduce ourselves to everyone. I know that seems very “elementary schoolish” but I was trying to let everyone know that it’s OK to talk to people you don’t know. We are all in this community together, and we need to act like it.

I was very pleased after that department meeting, and I knew that those sort of events needed to keep happening for my project to have any level of success.

Talk CD!

So the plan was now to create a group that was free, frequent, and well advertised within the community. I knew I needed this group to function as a way to break down people’s protective walls so that they could get comfortable working around other students. My project would either turn into a reality or into a hypothetical based on how people react to these interactions.

The way that I approached this was by creating a new student group called “TALK CD!” This group’s purpose is to provide a comfortable, low key meeting place for the members of the community to come and learn, discuss their work, and to form relationships.

TALK CD! was a biweekly event focused on discussing new techniques, critiquing student work, and having fun conversation and snacks. My belief is that getting people to contribute to conversations outside of class time and with people not only from their classes but also from their community will instill a level of comfort and familiarity between students. Getting people comfortable enough to initiate conversation is the biggest obstacle to overcome.

First Meeting

I was very nervous for the first meeting I held for Talk CD! I wanted it to be a
success— something that everyone would enjoy and want to continue to come to. I made an itinerary for the first meeting that involved introductions, a demonstration of a new technique, a conversation about workspace, and then anything else anybody wanted to discuss. I decided the best way to market this was to create posters and send an HTML email blast.

I started by creating the posters. I knew that I wanted to give a demonstration on how I made them, so it took me a long time to figure out how I would make them. I ended up deciding on a typographic poster, with some customization of paths, and using several effects in illustrator. The logo for Talk CD! came out of this process too. I was very happy with the series of posters, and got great reception from them too.

That first HTML email was a learning experience. I didn’t want to just send out a plain text email because I like to think my studiomates have the same appreciation for brand cohesion as I do. I wanted it to be an exciting looking email that people would see after the posters and link the two together and want to come to the meeting. I signed up for a mailchimp account, did a bunch of research on how HTML emails are designed and coded, then got to work on it. The first one was definitely a beginning point for emails to follow it.

The night came when the first meeting was held and the turnout was amazing. About 85% of the department showed up, and we had a really good time. I encouraged attendees to contribute to the conversation, and while they weren’t as open to talking in front of everyone as I am, I was happy that they were contributing when prompted. Overall, a great success. I got a lot of feedback from the sophomores that they learned a lot and were looking forward to future Talk CD! events. I was very pleased at this, feeling as though I was actually creating some positive change. I decided that these meetings would be every other week from now.

More Talking?

I was eager to get to the next Talk CD! as soon as the first one ended. I wanted to continue building off of that initial energy that everyone was a part of and make this something people would look forward to. Unfortunately after the first meeting, attendance was never as good. I put just as much work into the events, but students told me that they are too busy with schoolwork and life to come.

I believe it had more to do with not wanting to speak about design outside of class rather than being busy. It is my belief that to build relationships you must converse about more than professional topics at events like this. It is my recommendation that in the future these types of events be centered around topics outside of design. I think personal connections will foster themselves easier and allow for relationships to develop quicker and deeper.

I decided that the amount of time these events took to prepare was not worth continuing into the second semester of the school year. Even though the attendance did not sustain as each new event occurred, I do believe that the first event played a very big role in getting people to start conversations with each other and start casual relationships. I would still call it a success, just not the success I initially planned for.

Person To People Interactions

I took a leadership role this year. I spent a lot of time getting to know people in the CD community, and I think that helped form relationships not only for myself, but set an example for them to form relationships with others. Anytime someone would ask me for help I would respond with eagerness and tried to help as much as I could. From my experiences interacting with these people this year I can tell you that they don’t want their problems to just be solved, they want help solving their problems. The passion and integrity is in each and everyone of these people, it just needs to be discovered.

How can you grow a culture even when no one is together? Find out in Chapter Six: Intangible Conversation.