Chuck Scoggins | Web + Print + Video Design

This might be the most important concept I’ve run across in my career (pardon the drama, but it really has shaped nearly every aspect of my work in the communications and design field):

“People choose not on the basis of what’s most important, but on what’s easiest to evaluate.”
-Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

To put it another way, (beyond the first few options) the more options available to an individual, the harder it becomes to make a selection and the less satisfaction there is in making the decision. After a certain point, the easiest and most likely decision is to make no decision at all.

I highly recommend you pick up a copy of the book.
Here is also a good article on the topic.

If you follow me at all, you probably know that I’m on a Mission Trip for Creatives this week. I thought I’d share a few things that I learned this week:

• It’s pretty amazing what God can do through a few people who are willing to use their gifts. On our two-man team (one of four teams) alone, we served 6 churches, provided about 60 hours of complimentary communications work, and gave an estimated $8,300 in goods and services away. But that’s not even the amazing part. The amazing part is how God is going to take our humble efforts and multiply them for his amazing purposes. That is something to get excited about.
• There are some churches that are doing amazing things here in the Albany / Hudson Valley area. It is a good reminder to me that in spite of size, resources, and communications ability, God can and is moving in mighty ways.
• The creative communication of the Gospel is of the utmost importance. My new friend Jon Rogers said it well on his blog:

No, we didn’t build a church building or construct an orphanage. No we didn’t run a VBS or witness on the streets. We have created sustainable solutions for churches to effectively communicate an ultimate message of God’s never-ending love for each community these churches are involved in. Yeah, we all know that design is not what’s going to grow the churches we work with on this trip but it can help to remove the barriers for outsiders looking in. It’s still and always will be all about Jesus and his people devoted to growing in their faith and reaching out to others.

• It’s really important to know your calling and work where you (and your gifts) are celebrated. Sometimes when we get into the daily grind, it’s easy to forget that God has called us and gifted us. This week was just what I needed for renewal and rededicating.

Some people that I would like to thank for making this trip possible if you will indulge me for a moment:

• My church (Calvary) for getting behind the vision enough to release me from my duties for a week.
• Cleve Persinger, the guy who dreamed up Creative Missions.
• Andy Burns and Eric Murrell, two guys who really came alongside Cleve to make it happen.
• Michael Buckingham, Danielle Harland, & Phil Bowdle who were team leaders.
• My parents who gave a generous donation to make this trip possible.
• My amazing wife who stayed home to take care of the kiddos; and my inlaws for coming to help her out.
• All of our sponsors/partners (Center For Church Communication, Mid America Seminary, Media Salt, Hudson Baptist Association, Our Shirts Don’t Suck, and others too numerous to name).

If you’d like to hear more about Creative Missions, I’d love to chat with you and tell you our stories. Please feel free to give me a shout. If you’re interested in future trips, check out www.creativemissions.to. If you’d like to help sponsor a future trip, hit up Cleve.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m a reductionist. I’ve become a full believer in the concept that less is more. Between reading Kem Meyer’s book, Less Clutter Less Noise, and  Barry Schwartz’s book, The Paradox of Choice – I truly believe with all my heart that communication in general, and church communications in specific, should be reduced down to the bare minimum. Throw in some Seth Godin and his notions of under promise and over- deliver, and Rainer and Geiger’s book, Simple Church, and I think I have a new philosophy for life.

The problem is that in today’s American culture, we’re inundated with so many messages, choices, and decisions that it’s paralyzing for most people. We’re adding anxiety and burden to people when we add noise and clutter to their lives.

I firmly believe as a church or organization we should seek out that one thing (or a couple of things at most) that we’re really good at and go wholeheartedly after it. The notion of trying to be all things to all people is simply no longer effective. The difficulty, for our organization at least, is deciding what one thing makes us unique. What is it that we’re the absolute best at? What makes us remarkable? What is our Purple Cow? Of course, implied in that decision is the question, “What are we going to say ‘No!’ to?” Or, even harder, “Who are we going to say ‘No!’ to?”

There are many worthwhile causes out there. They are all competing for attention, promotion, publicity, and budget. We need to aggressively push through the dross and find our focus.

Dictionary.com defines a reductionist as:

The practice of simplifying a complex idea, issue, condition, or the like, esp. to the point of minimizing, obscuring, or distorting it.

The paradox for communicators is that reducing our messages, ideas, offerings, etc. to the point of simplicity does not push it into obscurity, but rather, enhances it to the point of digestibility. It is by becoming a communications reductionist that we keep our message from being lost, minimized, obscure, distorted.

I love paradoxes…and I love my new vision as a neo-reductionist.

PS Check out this new resource: Shrink The Church (this link alone might be worth the time you spent reading this blog post).

I’m currently re-reading Kem Meyer’s book, Less Clutter. Less Noise. This is probably my 5th time reading it (I feel like a stalker) and it has dynamically changed the way I think about church communications. If you do anything church-related, go get it. Now. Don’t finish this post. Go! Are you still here?

There is a passage that I keep getting stuck on, and I thought I’d share it with you.

People are busy and life is hard. They have too much information bombarding them from everywhere (not just one hour on Sunday) and never enough time. But, they’re still looking for answers that make a real difference in their lives. Being part of something bigger than you makes a difference. And, people experience that life change one step at a time. The value we provide grows in direct proportion to how easily people can find and say yest to their next step.

And the opposite is true: the value we provide decreases in direct proportion to how hard we make it for people to do what they’re trying to do.

The minimalist approach here is all about breaking a big leap into smaller, incremental steps. A person’s journey away from God does not happen in one step, but rather in a series of steps and decisions that seemed otherwise perfectly rational at the time. One day, he wakes up and realizes just how far he traveled as a result of the sum of steps in the wrong direction. And, what about when he’s ready to start taking steps back? How hard are we making it for him?

This certainly makes me re-think the way I do a lot of things.

Teaching others has always been something that I really enjoy. It’s fun when I get to share my (limited) knowledge on a subject with others – particularly in matters relating to design and design software like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, etc.

So, I was really excited back in December when Lindenwood University (in St. Charles, MO – just outside of St. Louis) called and asked me to teach a course on Digital Design Concepts (Print Concepts and Web Concepts). The class is a graduate-level 9 credit-hour course designed to teach concepts through applied methods using design software. I thought I was going to be awesome at it given my passion for teaching. I have taught communication classes before, but never one on design concepts (abstract) specifically.

What I learned was, sharing your knowledge in an informal setting is much easier than in a formal setting. Giving someone a software tip or shortcut over their shoulder is much easier than preparing an hour-long lecture and trying to explain the nuances of design – balance, harmony, movement, color, type, etc. Add to that lesson plans, attendance tracking, and grading papers and it has been a much more challenging experience than I expected.

Nevertheless, I am doing the best I can to do just that – to formalize my knowledge into a classroom experience. Hopefully my students have learned enough from me that they can be successful in their future classes and in their endeavors to find employment in our field. Hopefully, if nothing else, I’ve helped to inspire students in their art form and help them realized that it takes hours and hours of dedication to hone their craft.

In spite of the unexpected difficulties, the teaching experience has been very rewarding. I love building into the lives of future designers. And, I must not be doing too bad because he school has asked me to teach the course again in the summer.

I think it is really important for people in any field to pass on what they’ve learned. What are you doing to raise up the next generation in your area? I’d love to hear your thoughts, experiences, etc. in the comments!

Cultivate 09 was a fabulous one-day conference. Thanks to Tim Schraeder, Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Kem Meyer and others for coming up with the concept. It was an amazing chance for me to get to know a lot of my friends from Twitter in person and to learn from some of the most gifted people in my field.

Rather than recap my session notes from conference (Tim took great notes over on his blog), I thought I’d give a few points from the lessons I’ve learned.

Stories

99% of what I do as a communications professional is (or should be) story-telling. Even when promoting events & ministries, I need to tell stories. Branding is, in essence, telling a story. Most people think of story-telling (in communications terms) as something done with video – and video is a great medium for visual story-telling – but it is also done through every other thing we do. The parking lot attendants are telling a story. Brochures, either directly or indirectly, are telling a story.

The tricky thing about story-telling is that everyone else is telling a story as well. In this current age of digital communication, there are shorter messages and more messages being sent. The challenge is to make our particular story relevant to the audience we’re trying to reach. One key to doing just that is to make sure we don’t fill up our stories with so much of  ‘us.’ By leaving a little extra space in the story, the hearer can have room to find themselves in and share a part of our story. The connection of two people or groups with separate stories in a common experience has the potential to speak loudly.

Youth Audiences

The differences between Generation X and Generation Y (Millennials) is significant. If we’re trying to reach both generations, we’ll likely fail to reach either of them. Gen X-ers are “me” focused while Millennials are “we” focused. That significantly effects what story we tell and what story they hear. Speaking of the story they hear, that leads me to the biggest lesson learned at the conference: It’s not about what ‘we’ are saying, it’s about what ‘they’ are hearing.

Web Site Design

I wonder what people are hearing when they visit websites that I’ve designed. I know what I (or the organization I work for) is trying to say, but I’m not sure that message is always being heard. In the web communication breakout I attended, I was challenged to re-evaluate all of the design techniques that I use when designing digitally with the end-user in mind. I learned that I need to be more community focused in web design. I also was challenged with the thought that the computer or even the traditional web site is no longer the first contact, but rather the mobile device. I need to design towad that idea.

To Sum It Up

At a conference full of Macbooks and iPhones and the latest, coolest trends in communications, there was one additional comment that was made that really struck me: The question isn’t what’s cool at the moment, but what people will respond to. The question is what will bring about life-change. Our job is not to send the right message; our job is to release the right response. My I never be more concerned with the tools than the people. May my love for the latest technology never be stronger than my love for God and love for others.

If you’ve been a reader of my old blog, you know that it was just occasional ramblings as they happened to spew out of my head. Well, I’ve decided to start anew and be a little more intentional and a little more professional. This blog will still be my personal opinions, but will focus primarily on web, print, and video communications (notice I say “primarily” because I can’t promise that there will not be an occasional personal or random rant). Hopefully if you are reading this, you find that it is of some benefit and return. Well, here goes…