How to use improv to jumpstart creativity among your team

June 26, 2020

Dear Ditto: How can I jumpstart creativity to inspire my team?

It's great to hear that you're looking for ways to jumpstart creativity within your organization. According to Paul Petrone at LinkedIn Learning, "creativity is the single-most important skill in the world for all business professionals today to master." In this current moment of crisis, organizations are in need of it now more than ever. The reality is that creativity and innovation thrive in crises and constraints, so you can — and should — tap into both right now.

What is creativity anyway?

At first glance, creativity appears to be an intangible concept, or a tool to tap into to brainstorm unique ideas. But creativity is actually quite tangible — it's the result of "turning imaginative ideas into reality."

Yale School of Management professor Richard Foster, an expert in the study of the history of creativity and the creative process, says that creativity "is about making something new, rather than merely applying or discovering something new." He continues: "Creative solutions are insightful, novel, simple, elegant, and generative. When you find one creative idea, more often than not, it triggers other ideas in the same fashion." It's about tapping into our imagination, ideas, insights, and inspiration, and creating something new as a result.

With many people now working from home, dealing with Zoom fatigue, and other challenges associated with the blurring of work and home life, now is the time to use creativity as a tool for inspiring and uplifting your team. By learning how better to apply creativity and imagination to problem solving, you can improve employee collaboration and engagement.

Creativity in a time of crisis

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the way we all accomplish work, it doesn't mean that creative thinking has to come to a halt. In fact, according to Professor Jay Rao, of Babson College, "the current global health crisis is catalyzing innovation in organizations around the world." Over the past few months, numerous organizations and individuals have displayed immense amounts of creativity, and innovative solutions to maintain operations during these challenging times:

Big Brothers & Big Sisters mentors are using video tools to host virtual craft nights, workouts, and games to stay engaged with their mentees.
Museums and national parks are offering free virtual tours from the comfort and safety of your home.
Nonprofits and other organizations refreshed their fundraising efforts, relying on a mix of virtual fundraisers, and a revival of old school marketing tactics.

Without a doubt, tapping into and applying imagination effectively — the cornerstone of creativity — can be challenging during these stressful times. However, Harvard Business Review calls imagination ('the capacity to create, evolve, and exploit mental models of things or situations that don't yet exist') "the crucial factor in seizing and creating new opportunities, and finding new paths to growth." Knowing how to apply imagination to problem solving is the key to unlocking creativity in your organization.

Image created by Wire Media

How to boost creativity

The most important thing to understand about creativity is that it is a continuous practice, not an inherent gift. Learning how to apply imagination to problem solving in useful ways requires strengthening your, and your team's, skills in listening, empathy, adaptability, curiosity, ideation, and courage.

One of the best ways to develop these necessary creative skills is through improv. Improvisational comedy dates back to 16th Century "commedia dell'arte." It first gained mainstream popularity with the TV show "Whose Line is it Anyway?" and through popular schools and troupes like The Second City. Live improv performances often begin with a word suggestion from the audience, and performers adhere to the core principle of improv: "Yes, and" throughout the show.

According to John Windmueller, director of WIT@Work, "Yes, and" is an opportunity to "engage fully with your collaborators" — in the workplace, your colleagues — "hear and explore their ideas, and build off and support those ideas with your own creativity and insight." In short, "Yes, and" is a rule of thumb that encourages support of ideas through agreement, rather than opposition to and judgement of those ideas. Implementing "Yes, and" principles helps eliminate fear and judgement, while ushering teams closer to a collective solution or end goal.

Here are a few ways you're likely already applying "Yes, and" in your organization:

Listening to other members of your team, and crafting a response in support, rather than in disagreement.
Observing a member of your team pitching a new idea to a client, and another, or several other team members showing approval, and contributing complementary ideas to the discussion.
Kicking off a staff retreat with a collaborative team-building exercise (keep reading for useful activity ideas).

When you train your team on being intentional about incorporating "Yes, and" into the work environment and their daily interactions, it encourages trust, empathy, camaraderie, and other positive internal team dynamics.

We use improv activities to warm up teams during our creative sessions, as well as to brush up our own skills. A few months ago, we kicked off our Winter retreat with a two-hour long WIT@Work workshop. The session introduced our team to a variety of engaging improv exercises focused on promoting communication, collaboration, and creativity. Initial nervous feelings quickly dissipated as everyone dissolved in laughter, playing together and being present in the moment, while learning entertaining and educational ways to remain connected, collaborative, and creative.

This inspired us to share lessons learned with the nonprofit community via a session at 20NTC this March, titled "Improv Saves the Nonprofit," along with an improv happy hour that same evening, with several partner organizations. The conference and party were cancelled due to COVID-19. However, you can listen to our CEO, Graziella Jackson, along with National Council of Negro Women Chief Administrative Officer Krystal Ramseur, chat with Tony Martignetti on a recent episode of Nonprofit Radio about how improvisation can make your team more creative, confident, supportive and successful. Click here to listen to the full "Improv For Culture And Creativity & Tech Policies" episode. We're also sharing (below) some improv games to spark imagination and inspire creativity among your team right now.

"Playing allows us to practice imagining, improvising, and being open to inspiration — all important skills when navigating the unknown." And in these unpredictable times, "improvisation is needed. The less we can rely on plans, the more we need the mindset and skill of improvisation, to respond rapidly to novel situations."

Improv games for your workplace

Below are six improv games that you can use right now, even in a virtual environment, to inspire and enhance creativity, empathy, collaboration, communication, connection, and compassion in your workplace.

Want to learn more ways to use improv-based principles and tips to improve your team's online communication, and foster greater collaboration and creative problem solving? Sign up for a WIT@Work session, or one of Washington Improv Theater's selection of virtual improv classes.

What are some ways you're inspiring or tapping into creativity at the moment? Share with us on Twitter.

Improv Game for Creativity: "Giving Gifts"

(1-2 minutes)

One person gives their partner an imaginary gift. The partner accepts it, thanks them, and for 30 seconds, excitedly and creatively describes everything that’s inside the imaginary box and what they can do with it. Then switch roles.

This exercise strengthens creativity and ideation.

Improv Game for Collaboration: “Yes, and”

(3-5 minutes)

In groups of two or more, one team member starts a conversation with one another. Each following person should respond with "Yes, and" before continuing. This agreement adds to the discussion.

This exercise helps strengthen collaboration.

Improv Game for Teamwork: "What Are You Doing?"

(Approx. 5 minutes)

One person in the group initiates by miming an action. Another person in the group curiously asks "Hey [NAME], what are you doing?" The first person states their activity and the second person joins by miming a supportive action. Repeat with others on the team.

This exercise encourages teamwork.

Improv Game for Communication: "Word at a Time"

(3-5 minutes)

One person in the group starts a story with one word, and each person chimes in, adding one additional word. The game usually starts with 'Once upon a time'. Listen and be present in the moment to help keep your thoughts free from directing the story.

This exercise helps support free-flowing communication.

Improv Game for Connection and Empathy: "Mirror Body"

(1 minute)

In an in-person group, this game begins with one person taking the lead in creating a unique body movement, typically coupled with sound. In a virtual setting, you can initiate the game with a unique facial expression and/or sound. The next person should mirror it, continuing for everyone in the group, for several rounds.

Mirroring is a form of empathy. This exercise will help team members connect by paying attention to nonverbal cues.

Improv Game for Compassion: "Thank you"

(2-3 minutes)

Two people begin a conversation. One starts with a statement based on a given topic. The partner should reply with "Thank you," mention something specific from the statement, then add new information to the conversation.

This exercise builds positivity and compassion.

The ultimate guide to creating an effective work-from-home culture

Graziella Jackson, Peter Sax — April 14, 2020

By Graziella Jackson, Peter Sax

Dear Ditto: What are some best practices for designing efficient and effective remote workplaces and leading remote teams?

We live in a continuously connected world, where digital technology augments virtually every area of our lives. With 9.8 million — 7% of the civilian workforce — of the United States’ 140 million civilian workers having access to a "flexible workplace, or teleworking," remote work isn’t a novel concept, but has become a necessary one in the midst of our current pandemic.

Access to remote work is not inclusive. Fewer than 30 percent of American workers can telework, and the ability to work from home differs enormously by race and ethnicity. Service sector workers comprise only 1% of those who have access to remote work. Many others (restaurant servers, hair stylists, police officers, etc.) are completely excluded due to the nature of their jobs. The remote workforce remains primarily exclusive to private sector “knowledge workers” — those who do most of their work on computers and earn higher incomes. It is important to consider and support our health and service workers and those who are experiencing work disruptions as this COVID-19 pandemic unfolds.

For those in professional, creative, technical and similar fields with access to remote work tools, working from home has become the new normal. Given the exponential spread of COVID-19, coupled with urgent appeals for social distancing and self-quarantines to ‘flatten the curve,’ more and more organizations are needing to rapidly establish digital infrastructure and operations to keep afloat, and to keep their team members connected and engaged during this complicated time. They're also needing to adjust working schedules to accommodate homeschooling, caregiving, and other new challenges. These challenges will continue to unfold alongside this crisis.

Echo&Co began our shift to remote culture several years ago, around the time Google Hangouts launched (May 2013) and helped make video collaboration accessible and affordable. Improved network connectivity, cloud technologies, connected devices, and our team’s enthusiasm for adopting new technology enabled the transition, in large part.

Today, we operate as a hybrid in-person and remote team, with staff throughout the East Coast, Midwest, South, and in Canada. We have “hubs” in D.C. and Boston, and team members located in western Massachusetts, New Orleans, New York City, and Vancouver. Additionally, our many partners and clients have regional and international offices, or fully remote teams, so we've changed our approach to become very intentional about how we structure creative, collaborative work virtually.

As you shift to a remote workplace, read on for our ultimate guide to creating an effective work-from-home culture. We include strategies, tips, and best practices on how to do so in a way that inspires and supports your team.

It’s important to realize that a shift to working from home isn’t just about moving from a physical to virtual space. Working from home requires rethinking schedules, reimagining communication and collaboration workflows, encouraging a new kind of culture and camaraderie among team members, being inclusive of how people engage within their home environment, and creating respectful boundaries between work and home life.

Echo&Co partners Graziella Jackson and Peter Sax recommend seven things leaders can focus on to ensure a smooth and successful remote work transition.

1. Engage your team in co-designing their work-from-home experience

It is common for people to have mixed feelings about working from home. While some team members are excited to replace their commute with family or personal time, others see it as an opportunity to gain productive working time. While some people are excited about schedule flexibility, others wish for a more structured work setting and schedule. Some may relish the increased independent time, while others struggle without in-person social connection. And while some people are excited about the fluidity between work and home life, others prefer a more intentional separation.

It’s important to start an open, honest dialogue about what the shift to working from home means for each member of your team. As a leader, your goal is to create an effective work-from-home environment that is consistent across your team and inclusive of their needs. This is especially important now, as people have new demands on their time related to providing homeschooling and caregiving for children and family members.

To start, have structured conversations with each team member to ask them what they are excited about, what they are concerned about, and what they would need in order to feel supported. Inquire about their work style, how they like to engage with their colleagues, and what they need from a work-from-home environment in order to feel happy, supported, and successful.

After your initial conversations, ask the team to do four things:

Develop a quick list of gaps, issues, and other things they think may need to be addressed in order to enable successful remote work.
Inventory their home space, connectivity, and equipment, and come up with a list of things they may need in order to be more effective at working from home.
Define the qualities of a remote work culture that they are excited to be part of and what they need from the team in order to succeed.
Identify additional training, time management coaching, or other support they may want in order to feel confident in their work-from-home abilities.

If your team is small, you can conduct this “human-centered” discovery in one-on-one conversations. If your team is large, you can use survey tools, large group video conferences with breakout sessions, and small group video focus groups to build connections and gather insights.

Once everyone has contributed their ideas, you can summarize their insights and turn them into a detailed transition plan for the move to work-from-home. If your team is large, you may want to designate a transition team to help lead the roll-out. Plan to spend 60-90 days strengthening your remote work operations and culture with intentional transition conversations and activities. This will help your team establish common habits and routines that will benefit your long-term remote collaboration.

2. Help your team set up their space, connectivity, equipment, and routines

This is perhaps the most important advice we have to give: Don’t skip the important step of helping people physically and mentally prepare for the transition to working from home.

You never want to assume that your team members have everything they need to work from home successfully. As our minds and bodies shift between locations, we need thoughtful guidance about how to keep our whole selves healthy and active while working from home. This includes providing helpful resources to your team for incorporating healthy routines, movement, nutrition, mental wellness, and other beneficial practices into their day. Share these resources, and make it a topic of conversation in both informal and formal gatherings.

Start off with supporting your team members in creating an effective at-home setup, beginning with establishing a dedicated office space that has natural light, good temperature control and air quality, comfortable furniture, and strategies for minimizing distractions. Foster creative usage of 'backdrop' wall space, and encourage your team to experiment with different remote setups to see which works best for them.

Of course, the technical setup of a person’s workspace is equally important to get right. Once you have a thorough inventory of equipment and material needs from across the team, you’ll need to define what a consistent setup looks like, and support the team with outfitting their workstation.

We recommend outfitting teams with:

Internet connectivity equipment (routers, cables, etc.).
External monitors, keyboards, and back-up devices.
Ergonomic office desks, chairs, and equipment.
Basic office supplies.

You also will need to provide further support by adopting easy-to-use, collaborative digital workspaces and tools. Remember that adoption of new technology is hard, so make it fun and rewarding for your team. We recommend a suite of remote communication and collaboration tools to keep team members engaged, including:

A video conferencing platform that is easy to learn and use (e.g.: Google Hangouts, Skype, or Zoom).
An instant messaging tool (e.g.: Slack).
Remote “whiteboarding” tools (e.g.: ExplainEverything, Miro).
Document solution(s) (e.g.: Google Drive, Dropbox, Box).
Product and project management tool(s) (e.g.: Basecamp, Trello, Smartsheet, Airtable).

Setting up these systems is the first step to creating a successful remote work culture. At Echo&Co, we’ve tested out most of these major platforms and are happy to share any tips and ideas that we have learned. You can reach out to us with questions on Twitter, Facebook, or via email.

3. Develop detailed communication, connectivity, and availability guidelines

One of the biggest mistakes we often see organizations and teams make in transitioning staff to working from home is under-documenting and under-communicating remote work policies, procedures, and expectations. Keep in mind that for many people, online interaction is not second nature. Balancing technologies, video conferences, instant messages, emails, and texts can feel confusing and overwhelming.

As you lead a transition to remote culture and work, you will need to document, share, and reinforce helpful guidelines for expected availability, workspace presentation, and how to use the suite of tools you’ve provided. This includes updating your employee handbook and documenting supporting policies and communication guidelines to reinforce positive, shared remote work practices. This is your best tool for creating a supportive remote culture for your team that is free of ambiguity, confusion, or frustration.

You can help your team members eliminate guesswork by documenting clear guidelines (think of these as “rules of engagement”) for environment, availability, communication, and collaboration across channels. This includes:

Core hours you expect the team to be working and actively available online.
A clear definition of what active availability means across team members.
Requirements for the remote work environment and allowable working locations.
Requirements for basic, consistent internet connectivity.
Guidance for effective video meeting facilitation, participation, and etiquette.
Clear procedures for calendar usage and scheduling, to help with time management.
Guidelines for effective communication, task management, and document sharing channels.

Developing these guidelines sets individuals and teams up for success by eliminating ambiguity, outlining consistent and shared expectations, and creating an open environment for seeking clarification and support.

4. Document in real-time, with strong knowledge and process sharing supports

Along with defining and communicating remote work guidelines, you need to implement tools and workflows that support real-time document sharing and collaboration. This will help individuals and teams have the resources they need to be productive.

In a remote workplace, it is essential that your team has access to real-time collaboration and documentation tools with smart version control. Workflows that rely on passing documents back and forth via email, with multiple layers of track changes, create barriers to time and workflow management. If people have to “wait in line” for their turn to contribute, they’re not able to make the most of their time and productivity. If they have to worry about duplication or loss of work because of inadequate version control, their attention to detail will decrease and frustration will increase. If they have to go looking for information in threaded emails and documents, they’ll get lost in the weeds and lose creative momentum. In today’s digitally enabled world these should already be challenges of the past.

Digital collaboration tools were designed to enable more effective, streamlined collaboration across organizations. If your organization has been slow to transition to digital infrastructure, this move to remote work can help you pilot and reinforce the introduction of new tools and processes.

There are many platforms you can choose from:

Google Drive: which allows multiple people to create, edit, and comment on shared documents simultaneously.
Dropbox: which allows you to centrally manage files, comment via a shared web interface, and be notified of potential versioning conflicts.
Basecamp: to centrally manage threaded discussions and keep track of agreed-upon outcomes using to-dos and other tools.

Using tools that enable collaborative updates and changes to the document, from multiple people, in real-time makes it much more efficient to integrate document collaboration workflows into real life.

You’ll likely use one or two platforms in combination for document collaboration, and want to spend time mapping out the specific requirements and use cases of your team before investing in a tool. Once you develop a comprehensive set of requirements, you can use those to evaluate your options, select your platforms, develop supporting workflows and governance rules, and begin onboarding, training, and supporting your team.

If you’re new to workflow development, it can feel like a daunting task. You need to spend time mapping the people, activities, results, and various completion states that a particular task or set of tasks require. Once you have that developed, you need to understand the:

Order and sequence of those process elements
Rules that determine when they are successfully accomplished
Tools and resources required to support their completion.

It’s not enough to simply select a tool or set of tools and expect teams to organize themselves. Adoption of new tools and workflows requires careful planning, supportive documentation, clear onboarding and training, and ongoing support. Expect a minimum of 60-90 days for teams to feel comfortable and confident in understanding the new tools and workflow adoption, and create an environment that supports them getting there.

When defining complex workflows, and the tools embedded within them, you also need to be aware of common pitfalls like optimism bias, planning fallacies, and coordination neglect, and actively counteract them. The best way to do this is to engage your team in auditing, modeling, and co-designing new workflows that work for them, along with areas for improvement. Once you have that audit complete, you’ll want to structure collaborative working sessions to sketch out new potential models for working and the ways technology can enable them.

You won’t be able to develop new workflows without strong human-centered design and leadership. We recommend identifying a “task force” of team members who are strong researchers, problem solvers, process designers, and systems thinkers to help lead this effort. Pair them with strong workshop facilitators, so you can engage the team in envisioning new possibilities, piloting them to find the best potential solutions, and moving them into implementation.

People will adopt a new tool or process if it simplifies and improves their work — engaging them in co-designing what that looks like is the best way to ensure adoption.

5. Lead with highly engaging ‘face-to-face’ engagement

It’s important to keep in mind that shifting to a remote workplace means successfully navigating and managing a lot of change. Change is hard. It makes people feel uncertain about their work. It introduces new ambiguity and conflict. It disrupts familiar structures and silos. All of this is important to acknowledge and confront directly, with an empathetic, relationship-driven approach to managing change.

As your organization and team shifts to remote culture, one thing we strongly urge is replacing phone-only communication with video and minimizing exceptions to this rule.

Conference calls are bad for collaboration — they enable multitasking, can encourage fragmented focus and attention, and are riddled with audio delays and other technical issues. (They’re so bad, in fact, they inspired one of our favorite internet spoofs). If there are underlying interpersonal conflicts and issues, phone calls can have an exacerbating effect. Video provides many of the same physical cues you would notice during in-person interactions, and supports stronger interpersonal connections.

In addition to replacing phone with video communication, we also recommend replacing traditional meetings with “workshop” style gatherings that have clear agendas, structured activities, strong facilitation, better “brainstorming” methods, and a balance of receptive (“I’m listening”) and productive (“I’m contributing”) engagement. This will help to increase focus and attention, and decrease multitasking.

If you have the technical ability to set up video-based conferencing, we recommend doing it immediately and working closely with the staff through the first 30-60 days of “video-on” adoption, until they feel comfortable and familiar using the tool.

It takes time to establish familiarity and comfort with video collaboration. Leaders can help by encouraging good habit-forming practices and rewarding teams for embracing change. You’ll need to spend time encouraging team members who feel initially shy or hesitant about being on video to understand the purpose and value of it to both them and the team. The initial feeling of awkwardness will eventually wear off and engaging on video will become more natural.

If you’re trying to determine the right cadence of regular online interactions, we recommend:

For your full staff or unit: at least one weekly or biweekly video gathering, using an adaptive agenda that focuses on learning, sharing, and fun.
For individual project teams: one or two weekly video gatherings, using a structured agenda that focuses on status updates, action planning, and removing blockers, barriers, and risks.
For functional teams (department, office, program, etc.): one weekly video gathering, using an adaptive agenda that focuses on team vision, values, performance, growth, and development.
For cross-functional teams: one drop-in style weekly gathering, using an adaptive agenda focused on learning, sharing, creative expression, and fun.
For individual check-ins: one weekly video gathering, using an adaptive agenda focused on sharing overall ideas, observations, and concerns, and reviewing forthcoming priorities and removing blockers.

As you try this schedule on for size, you’ll want to take notes, encourage the team’s feedback, and tailor it to meet your team’s specific needs. Keep in mind that there are both social and technical aspects of good video meeting participation, so you’ll want to support your team with training and how-to guides for techniques such as:

Guidelines for when to mute and unmute your audio.
How to share documents within specific applications, and not entire desktops.
Etiquette around disabling notifications and instant messaging applications during meetings, or while document-sharing.

This will help to minimize distractions that come from audio disruptions, user errors, and minor technical issues. We love this advice on how to be good at video meetings from Erin Barnes, cofounder of the civic technology nonprofit ioby.

Moving to a video-based culture is both an art and a science. Your new practices need to recognize that change is difficult and counteract that with creative, rewarding virtual meeting practices that people are excited to adopt.

For further learning:

Check out Anna’s article on best practices for leading a remote content strategy training, to see what an effective remote workshop can look like.
Learn how to improve structured collaboration, in our presentation Staying Sharp: How to Implement Great Ideas from the 2019 Nonprofit Technology Conference (19NTC).
Listen to our CEO Graziella Jackson speaking with Tony Martignetti of Nonprofit Radio about establishing a creative culture that encourages better collaboration and ideas (second half of podcast).
Read Matt Stempeck’s take on next-generation remote collaboration on the Civic Hall website.

6. Encourage breaks, unplugging, and shut-down rituals

Remote workers often spend more time working beyond their normal work hours. While in the short term this seems like a beneficial thing, in the long term it can lead to burnout. Especially in times of heightened stress and anxiety — like during a pandemic — it’s important to actively encourage your team to set aside work and take care of their physical and mental health.

Leadership should provide strategies for:

Time-management and timeboxing their tasks.
Structuring working hours to make the most of working styles and limited productive time.
Encouraging screen breaks to rest your eyes and brain, and reduce stress.
Advocating for movement, meditation, good nutrition, and other forms of self-care.

One of the most supportive things you can do is encourage your team to set and follow "shutdown rituals" so they can close out their day and unplug. All team members should be respectful of others’ non-work time by avoiding emailing, calling, and texting after hours. Using tools like “schedule send” on emails can allow those who prefer to work before and after normal working hours to still be productive, while also being mindful and inclusive of those who want boundaries around their workday.

Once you have established clear availability and communication guidelines, encourage your team members to use their email (out of office notices), and calendaring tools to reinforce their schedules with others.

We recommend:

Adding blocks for non-meeting productive time on calendars, striving for two to three hours per day.
Encouraging users to set their status to “do not disturb” on instant messaging channels and turning off alerts and notifications.
Using out-of-office responders for before and after work hours, to reaffirm working schedules.

This is another area where it is helpful to engage your team in defining their individual needs and co-designing shared expectations among them. By encouraging downtime and self-care, you will create a culture that respects people, their working styles and preferences, and their need for time away from work.

7. Develop and maintain a strong team culture

As Peter Drucker said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” The reason for this is that culture is the expression of an organization’s values through all of its practices — and it is as true of remote workplaces as it is of traditional working environments. As you shift to a remote workplace, you will need to make sure you’re considering those values and adapting them into new ways of engaging and working.

With remote workplaces, the entire team needs to work together to create a shared sense of belonging, significance, and purpose. This includes balancing interactions that focus on context and meaning (seeking to know) with interactions focused on driving outcomes forward (planning to act). Both types are important to apply when building intentional, structured interactions in remote cultures.

At Echo&Co, one of our approaches to building and maintaining a positive culture is to emphasize curiosity, courage, compassion, transparency, continuous learning, and vulnerability in everything we do (we love Brene Brown’s teachings on this work). We lead and encourage team celebrations, fun, idea-sharing, and ‘kudos’ in virtual gatherings, as well as through other virtual communication channels like Slack and Gmail. We also work through challenges, conflict, and difficulty with honesty, humility, and respect. It is important to remember that culture-building is an adaptive, fluid process that requires continuous work.

With the right approaches, remote work can be effective and rewarding for everyone. Our recommendation is to use the above ideas to try, test, refine, and repeat. Involve your team in defining the best remote approaches, be open to trial and error, and you'll improve with time and practice.

If you have questions or would like to talk further about any of the above concepts — get in touch. We love this work and would be happy to schedule a more in-depth conversation.

Best practices for leading remote content strategy training sessions

Anna Kassinger — April 14, 2020

By Anna Kassinger

Dear Ditto: What are some best practices for leading remote content strategy training sessions?

Before we dive in, let’s acknowledge the joys of in-person content strategy training: one in which we could create a space dedicated to creative work, get messy with markers, hold small breakout sessions, and reconvene for large group analysis and discussion. In other words: mix fun, physical engagement, and UDL engagement principles to support learning and retention.

Now, of course, the parameters have shifted. As we mentioned in our last Advice article, connecting remotely is fast becoming the new normal for many, challenging the way we create and share work. Because most states have closed schools, millions of parents and caregivers — including many of our project partners — need to meld work and family time. We don’t have the luxury of creating a space dedicated to learning, separate from normal routines and to-dos, nor the ease of a shared water cooler for asking questions.

To lead productive, engaging training sessions, use accessible digital tools, design replicable processes, and establish multiple help channels.

We have a culture of continuous learning at Echo, a distributed team, and partners across the country and abroad. Together, we’ve spent years testing tools and refining our approach. Below are best practices to help you prepare and lead engaging–and productive–remote training sessions.

1. Use Accessible Tools

For remote content strategy trainings, digital tools should be accessible in terms of cost and learning curve. We’ve found success creating shared Google Drive folders. Google Drive is free, widely-used, and flexible enough to create a virtual reference desk for participants to return to as needed. We prepare ours with examples, recommended resources, and practice sets. During the session, we take time to refine materials and structure with participants, so together we create tools that tightly align goals and needs.

To ensure success, we recommend:

Creating folders with clear labels and purposes.
Setting folder access to “anyone with the link can organize, add, & edit.”
Setting template document access to “anyone with the link can edit.”
Setting access for example documents to “anyone with link can view.”

As in good information architecture, your drive should maintain a healthy balance between going flat vs. deep in your folder hierarchy. Three or more documents on the same topic warrant one folder; folders are rarely necessary for one or two items.

2. Design Replicable Processes

For equity and efficiency, we recommend taking a “train-the-trainer” approach, so all participants are ready to apply what they learn and bring in others. No one person is the knowledge-keeper, so everyone can contribute, collaborate, and keep the project moving forward–even while social distancing.

To prepare for a session on writing for your website, start by setting up Google doc versions of your web pages. Teams can create copies of the template, practice completing them, and provide feedback through comments and the Suggesting editing mode. This process allows for conversation, peer-to-peer learning, and co-creation, without real-time access to the workshop lead–and without worrying about erasing someone’s work. As they practice, participants will take ownership of the process and onboard others.

To ensure success, we recommend:

Making Google Docs templates of our wireframes that every content creator can access — nicely organized in your folders!
Completing them together, in real time, with real content, on a video call.
Recording the training and providing edit access to the slide deck.

These steps provide team members with the same benefits of in-person workshops: working in a low-stakes environment, learning from their peers, building mastery through guided practice, and making materials to reference and annotate later.

3. Establish Help Channels

Under normal circumstances, for efficiency and clarity, we recommend workshop participants designate one person to collect and send questions to the workshop lead during the implementation phase. Now, we emphasize being as flexible as possible, to support everyone’s disrupted schedules.

To ease communication, we suggest trainers set up at least two ways for everyone on the project to ask questions and connect:

Virtual office hours on RingCentral or other video conference platform for project participants to “drop in” and ask questions or review their work.
A short Google form for sending help requests outside of normal office hours.

These avenues allow us to connect with and support each other, and accommodate schedules and communication styles.

Although face-to-face interactions are always preferred, remote content strategy training sessions can be effective and successful when you use accessible tools, create replicable processes, and establish help channels. If you need assistance in refining your digital strategy, get in touch

How can tech organizations tackle unconscious bias?

March 6, 2020

Dear Ditto: How can tech organizations tackle unconscious bias?

Our reliance on technology is unavoidable. As a result, tech organizations must examine their role in shaping and perpetuating assumed cultural norms and unconscious biases. Whether intentional or involuntary, technology reinforces these behaviors — and prejudices. Social impact organizations must lead the charge to improve equity and inclusion in their technological strategy. Leadership within our sector is promising — and shows that there is great potential for other social impact and nonprofit organizations to provide a model for other organizations to follow.

Researchers investigated racial discrimination and residential segregation by measuring users’ behavior on Craigslist, and found that there were severe implications on subsets of the population. Their study also highlighted the behavior of users on the platform, which echoed the role of race in the larger context of our society and cultures.

The link between the use of technology and how it can empower discrimination is once again making headline news with the Coronavirus. Recent reports, as well as social media posts show that some Uber and Lyft drivers are discriminating against passengers who they believe are more likely to carry Coronavirus, based on the passenger’s race. Uber and Lyft are under current scrutiny to address their drivers’ discriminatory, bias-ridden behavior. These prejudices impact many: the rideshare passengers, drivers, delivery service people, restaurants, and more.

Stories like these underscore the need for organizations to responsibly and proactively address bias in their technology and that of their users.

Bias is a deep-seated part of the human experience that is often magnified by events and situations stemming from fear. In order to maintain a sense of control, human beings look for ways to place blame, and overlay their existing stereotypes across swaths of populations. When we feel vulnerable to epidemics like Coronavirus, Ebola, SARS, HIV, etc., biases create a sense of comfort and domination over the situation.

This is not the first time user biases created serious consequences for a technology organization. In 2016, Airbnb was the focus of a conversation about their users’ unconscious bias and the use of their platform. A study about racial discrimination in the sharing economy found that prospective Airbnb guests with “African American sounding names were roughly 16% less likely to be accepted than their white-sounding counterparts.” This occurred even at the expense of hosts having underutilized vacancies.

In response, Airbnb hired a director of diversity and belonging, rewrote their “Partners and community” policies, required users to acknowledge and comply with the Nondiscrimination Policy, and created a tool for inclusive design: Another Lens.

Tech apps in the sharing economy use personal data, including names, genders, and profile pictures to build trust between strangers. Uber and Lyft, for example, use this data to promote passenger safety by recommending that they confirm the name and appearance of their drivers. However, this data enables drivers to make biased decisions about which services to provide or cancel/decline, based on the other party’s appearance or name.

Uber and Lyft responded to questions about user bias by directing the community to their training and policies on unconscious bias and discrimination. They met the minimum obligation of acknowledging the existence of driver bias, and their stance against it. But given our dependency on technology, and our inability to extract it from defining our culture, meeting the minimum obligation of addressing bias is not enough. Whether it is intentional or not; benevolent or not, our interaction with technology changes our behavior.

In response to users making prejudiced decisions about who they will interact with via a platform or app, organizations can design micro-interactions that challenge users’ biases. An example of a user flow that would go beyond the minimum obligation to reduce bias could:

Hide the other party’s profile information until the user verifies availability for the request.
Display the other party’s details and confirm the service. If the service is canceled, ask the user for the reason.
Include a short training after all cancelations about customer service and bias.

An interaction like this would help bring self-awareness to users’ behavior and provide an avenue for building and strengthening the community.

Organizations have the capacity to design and develop products that meet their organizational goals while also consciously and intentionally promoting a healthier, empathetic, and inclusive user. At Echo&Co, we’re committed to working with organizations to create inclusive strategy and products. We help you identify how your product (website, application, etc.) can have the greatest positive impact on your users and your organization. We provide training and consulting services on inclusion, as well as implementation techniques. Please get in touch if you’re interested in working with us to audit your interactive digital products. Together, we can build bridges and genuine connections.

What’s next from Echo&Co on interactive digital inclusion? We start to answer: what is inclusion? Spoiler: It’s a lot of things, and we’re here to help!

Balancing Social Media Freedom vs. Regulation

Graziella Jackson — January 28, 2020

By Graziella Jackson

Dear Ditto: As social technologies get more influential, how do we prevent harm?

By now, most people have seen, heard, or read about Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questioning Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the company’s fact-checking and advertising practices.

This sparked a flurry of debates about free speech vs. regulation of social media platforms, which extend into most of our lives. In the past several years, social media has significantly increased our exposure to misinformation and disinformation — not to mention security breaches and inadequate data privacy — to the point where government regulation appears inevitable.

What are the arguments for or against social media regulation?

The typical argument against regulation says that it is the responsibility of social media users to view and judge social media content for themselves, without censorship, similarly to consumers of print media products. It views this as a fundamental aspect of upholding free speech. In this view, the consumer is seen as the ultimate decision-maker and has control over their experience — choosing what content to engage with and believe. By acting together, consumers regulate their experience with a social media company or tool. In turn the company needs to abstain from “unreasonably restrictive and oppressive conduct” (American Bar Association) in controlling, limiting, or censoring content .

The typical argument for regulation says that in our “attention-driven” economy, social media companies rely on invasive data practices and behavioral and cognitive manipulation to cause predictable, habitual usage over time. And research shows that most Facebook users are unaware that the platform gathers insights from their “personal interests and traits” for the company’s — and their advertisers’ — benefit. In this view, the user is the product and is being sold to advertisers and content producers in order to create more company profits. Attention manipulation is an essential component of this model and relies on mood-altering content to control behavior. Content is produced by a virtually unlimited number of users and monitored by company staff and technologies. In this view, the belief is that this open, largely unmeditated marketplace of content coupled with behavioral surveillance and embedded psychological manipulation has led to harm on an individual and societal level. This is why social media has been compared with substance abuse and addiction and raised concerns about its influence on psychological health.

So the big question is — who is right? We were interested in this and whether or not we could apply design thinking could answer this question.

First, can we EMPATHIZE with both perspectives?

When we started to look into both perspectives, we decided it was important to start by reviewing the ways in which people engage with media content.

Not all media is handled equally:

Some types of media have intentional separation between primary content and advertising content (ex: Traditional newspapers).
Some types of media separate primary content and advertising content into different formats, but do not have intentional separation of the messaging across those formats (ex: SuperBowl ads shown during the televised event, Political ads shown during debates, Special print advertising supplements).
Some types of media intentionally place advertising messages within the context of the primary content (ex: Product placement in movies, Sponsored content in magazines).
Some types of media do not clearly distinguish between primary content and advertising content and manipulate both in order to increase views and revenue. (ex: Facebook sponsored posts.)

When we quickly researched people’s reactions to the these distinctions and the challenge of social media content (the fourth kind), we uncovered five primary concerns:

I know content manipulation is there, but I don’t have time to spot and counteract it.
“I probably engage with all four types of media almost daily, but more often my experiences are centered on the fourth type. While I get that there’s a lot of manipulation happening, I don’t always have the time to figure out what is real and what isn’t.”
If content comes from a trusted source or is very popular, I usually just attach that trust / credibility to the content itself.
“It’s easy when content seems to come from a credible institution. If I see The New York Times and I like The New York Times, I know how to engage with that content. When I don’t know the producer, I might be a little bit more wary. But, if a friend shares it with me or it has 1,000 likes, I probably will just automatically trust it because it came from a friend and had high popularity. This can be confusing.”
There may be distinctions between paid-for content and organic content that seem important, but on social media they seem like two different forms of the same thing.
“I can ignore advertising when I see something listed as ‘sponsored.’ But what’s the difference between sponsored content and someone organically publishing a piece of content that goes viral and gets tons of views and then ends up in my feed because an algorithm put it there? Isn’t that kind of a form of sponsoring content? And that content might actually have the same misinformation in it, but I’ll likely be less critical of the second type of content because it wasn’t officially listed as ‘sponsored.’ Bottom line is, it’s hard to tell what you’re working with and the labels we use for content don’t seem to fit.”
The notion of freedom of speech or freedom of choice only truly exists in what you post and who you choose to follow. The rest is mostly controlled on your behalf.
“I don’t really have any understanding of how Facebook and other platforms are controlling the content I see and the content that my network sees. I don’t think there is a lot of consumer freedom in the platform as it is, because there’s no real transparency in what’s being shown to me and why. When I go on a newspaper, I see a byline. I can research that writer. I know there are editors. I can research them. I know what I’m working with. Same on television and radio, for the most part. On social media — no clue. Who’s behind that content? What’s more, I often feel like I'm being penalized by Facebook for not being a more active user. That takes away my freedom and control. The concept of ‘free speech’ on Facebook — I don’t think it actually exists.”
I can sense a constant potential for harm, yet continue interacting.
“When we’re off Facebook, we feel pretty good. When we’re on Facebook we feel pretty bad. But we can’t stop getting on Facebook. That may be the most damning evidence. In this case, ‘I know it when I see it’ is still relevant.”

How can we use this perspective to better DEFINE the problem?

Ultimately, our findings came down to:

People do want to have more control over their social media experiences. They feel they have some control today, but to a large degree they have little transparency into how social media works and feel their control is limited.
People want confidence that they are not being harmed or contributing to harm. Because of the lack of transparency into content policies and practices, it is hard to build this confidence. People generally feel guilty of having shared misinformation at some point in time and lack confidence that they will be able to prevent themselves and others from doing it in the future. This speaks to distrust of the way content is governed by social media companies.
Most people feel confident in their ability to critically judge content in general, but that confidence decreases as the volume of manipulated content increases. They often lack the time to intentionally evaluate everything presented to them, to figure out how and why it’s being presented and prevent misinformation from causing harm.
People don’t always mind that there is advertising money behind content (advertising, product placement, sponsoring, etc.). They mind when it’s presented in a way that is very hard to tell what the source of the content is, who produced it, and how it was funded. Making this information more transparent would help them take control over their experience.

John Milton once wrote: “Let Truth and Falsehood grapple; whoever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” The challenge in today’s social media landscape is that people feel truth is indistinguishable from falsehood and falsehood is made to be more addictive — rendering the experience of interacting with both types together on social media inherently risky.

How does this answer the original question?

Back to the original question of who is right on the issue of social media freedom versus social media regulation, our findings reveal that the question itself may be too narrow.

In our initial, informal, and qualitative discovery, we found users already have a sense that they are subject to excessive interference by social media companies in their day-to-day experience. They don’t feel free, and they want more freedom from manipulation and harm. They see their relationship with social media as related to both content consumption and psychological health.

They are primarily concerned about two things:

What content is allowed on the platform and how that content is governed.
How often they’re being manipulated in their interactions with that content.

While this can and should be investigated further, it allowed us to hypothesize that:

Government regulation will have an important role to play in the first item — defining what is allowed on the platforms and how that content is controlled to prevent issues like invasive surveillance, political manipulation, racial and social profiling and targeting, poor working conditions for social media employees, and national security breaches.
On the second item, there are actions social media companies should take right now to reduce the day-to-day interferences and psychological manipulations that are embedded in their technologies, particularly those causing harm.

Our next section focuses on the second bullet — the immediate actions social media companies can take to use better design to reduce harm.

Let’s IDEATE some possible solutions ...

Taking our defined problems, we came up with 12 ideas for how social media companies may be able to tackle these issues:

As is the case with political advertising on broadcast media, publish the source of paid content and how it was paid for, particularly related to political content.
Introduce more tools that allow users to toggle between content that is curated on their behalf and an unfiltered view of content.
Introduce options for users to engage with the platform without sponsored content (ex: an ad-free subscription model).
Create a version of the social media tool that eliminates violent or harmful content and allow users to opt-in to that version of the platform.
Allow users to publicly rank content as harmful, with indicators in the user interface that show the number of people who ranked a piece of content as harmful. Have a way to review and remove content based upon a certain threshold.
Provide people with a dashboard of their time spent on social media and trends in their usage, for example: data that shows them how much they interact with different types of content. Show them how they engage over time, so they can see and learn from patterns of interactions.
Put time limits on engagement or suggest users take a break from the platform. Allow users to set their target daily, weekly, time limits on social media and alert users when they have gone over their limits. Encourage them to spend time offline.
Indicate to users what data is being collected on them and how it is being used, stored, and secured. Quickly and openly notify users of data breaches.
Indicate to users what common identifying factors are being used to show them content and allow them to set greater privacy controls.
Eliminate partnerships with content producers who engage in information distortion or content that incites violent or lawless action.
Involve social media users explicitly in deciding what content, features, and functionality will be removed or introduced over time.
Involve researchers, ethicists, public servants, and human rights and racial and social justice advocates in drafting the ethical standards of the platform and how those will influence content and design. Align them to the U.N. sustainable development goals.

While these are just a few ideas — each with varying levels of feasibility — any one of them may merit further investigation, prototyping, and testing. This is how we can apply design thinking as a tool for working with social media companies and consumers to create a future of positive, ethical social media that benefits our communities and our lives.

Do you have an idea for how we can improve our social media platforms? If so, send your idea to connect@echo.co with the subject line: Future of Social Media.

Demystifying Accessibility

October 16, 2019

Dear Ditto: I've been hearing a lot about website accessibility and compliance recently. What does it mean for me and how can I ensure my website is compliant?

What an important question!

We'll start by saying that here at Echo&Co, we believe in a free and open Internet that is available and accessible, without interference, to all people and communities. This includes people of all abilities. You can learn more about issues related to internet freedom at Free Press, a nonprofit organization we've proudly partnered with for a number of years.

We've been helping our clients understand and implement accessible websites for many years. In recent years, website accessibility-related lawsuits have been increasing. This has raised concerns among website owners about whether their sites are compliant with accessibility standards and how to make sure they are.

We've put together this advice article as a handy guide for understanding the issue of accessibility compliance and developing your own plan.

What is accessibility and why is it important?

Imagine that you need to research some critical information online — e.g., where to fill a mail-order prescription, or how to pay an electric bill. Now imagine that you are living with a condition that impairs your ability to see. You arrive at the website where you need to fill out your prescription form or pay your bill and discover that you can't see the design because it lacks visual contrast. You then try to use a screen-reading tool to navigate the site, but the site doesn't allow it. No matter how much you need to use the site — until you get someone else to assist you, you're blocked. Now imagine you live at home and don't have access to transportation or community members to support you. You're unable to take care of the most basic things you need in order to have a healthy and secure life.

Every modern website owner should be concerned with removing these kinds of digital barriers from people's lives. Accessibility is required by law and should be of the utmost importance to anyone who designs and operates websites.

How did accessibility come about?

In July 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — civil rights legislation prohibiting discrimination against individuals who are differently abled. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four adults in the United States lives with a disability, and the Census Bureau predicts that the number of disabilities will increase over the next decade.

Although the ADA has helped improve the lives of many people since 1990, there are still many barriers to access for the differently abled, especially when it comes to life online. Some of the most critical barriers that exist today, exist online.

Does every website have to be accessible?

In short, yes. Equitable access to information is a civil right and providing universal digital accessibility is a part of upholding that right.

Before 2018, however, many website owners failed to bring their sites into compliance with minimal accessibility standards and therefore excluded differently abled people from accessing their content. There were few real consequences to owning a website that restricted access for people based upon ability.

That changed dramatically in 2018. Website users began filing complaints, and eventually lawsuits against website owners who failed to comply with website accessibility standards. This movement has continued to gain support and momentum. As a result, web owners and managers are becoming increasingly concerned with making sure their websites are compliant.

We saw a recent example of this increasing momentum when we attended the National Education Association's (NEA) Representative Assembly this past July (2019). During the annual meeting, NEA state and local delegates from around the country introduced a new business item requiring NEA to improve the accessibility of its digital content. Since earlier this year, our team has been collaborating with the NEA team on defining a new web experience and platform that better serves members, supporters, state and local affiliates, and community allies — and that puts accessibility first.

In the next year, we expect to see accessibility become a key item at board meetings, strategic planning sessions, member meetings, and more.

What is the best source for accessibility information?

With the lack of regulations at the federal level with regard to accessibility on the Internet, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created a set of universal standards and solutions for developers. W3C designed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to empower creators in the digital sphere to improve compliance with accessibility requirements. These guidelines ensure that websites are accessible to people with visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, neurological, and other disabilities.

At every phase of our process, Echo&Co references W3's full set of 12 guidelines, organized under the following four principles of accessibility of web content:

Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive and users must be able to perceive the information being presented (it can't be invisible to all of their senses).
Operable - User interface components and navigation must be operable (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform).
Understandable - Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding).
Robust - Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies, and users must be able to access the content as technologies advance (as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible).

For each of the guidelines, there are also three levels of testable success criteria (A, AA, and AAA). You should test your website against these criteria to ensure that differently abled users have full access to the information available on your site. Fully understanding users' needs and applying the suggested guidelines in the web content design and development process will help to increase accessibility and improve usability.

We recommend bringing your website to a minimum of AA compliance by January 2020, or as soon as possible.

I want to get started with improving my website's accessibility. How do I start?

To determine whether or not your current website is compliant, first, you should run an accessibility scan using one of the evaluation tools listed on the W3.org website, and create a checklist against the WCAG 2.0 requirements guidelines. If you have a major website upgrade, update or enhancement planned, compliance should already be part of your strategy. If it isn't, make sure to roll that into your 2020 strategy.

If you need an accessibility partner to help bring you into compliance, get in touch and we will help you get started!

As a human-centered creative digital agency, Echo&Co advocates for universal compliance with web content accessibility guidelines. We are committed to incorporating inclusive design practices within our work to achieve accessibility for everyone.

Where can I get more training on digital literacy?

If you want to learn more about how to best address digital literacy needs, our friends at NTEN are hosting a Digital Literacy and Accessibility professional certificate course. It covers three key topics under the digital literacy umbrella:

Awareness: understanding the practices and technologies to ensure digital accessibility and inclusion.
Strategy Development: develop and implement strategies for successful engagement and inclusion of people with disabilities.
Assessment: evaluating tools and spaces and identifying potential barriers.

We're very grateful to NTEN for offering this training and excited to share it with you.

Further Reading

Here's some further reading, if you'd like to learn more:

Domino's Wants to Slice Away at the Americans With Disabilities Act, Slate
Disabled Americans are less likely to use technology, Pew Research Center
When Good Sites Go Bad: The Growing Risk of Website Accessibility Litigation, National Law Review
Reporters have forgotten one of the greatest civil rights advances in the past 30 years, USC Annenberg, Center for Health Journalism

Open Source: Drupal vs. WordPress

Peter Sax — May 29, 2019

By Peter Sax

Dear Ditto: Should I build my site on Drupal or WordPress? Which platform do you recommend?

Drupal and WordPress are the two leaders in the open source market, and Echo&Co architects and develops on both content management systems (CMS).

Drupal and WordPress are both very popular, solid products, but there are important distinctions. WordPress was originally designed as a blogging platform. While there are very rich and interactive feature sets that exist for WordPress today, many of those are pushing the bounds of what the platform was created to do. Drupal, on the other hand, was designed as a robust and extensible enterprise CMS, with broad applications across website, user profile, and e-commerce management.

Drupal is better designed to support complex content and authoring ecosystems, and integrations with systems like Salesforce. In addition, it exceeds WordPress in overall usability, extensibility, security, and maintenance.

Overall Usability

WordPress gained an early reputation for superior ease-of-use in the late 2000s. It has efficient tools for editors and blog managers, including its sidebar widget system which allows editors to create, drag, and drop granular pieces of content into the site’s sidebar. WordPress also created a superior implementation of the ”what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) interface that allows users to create rich text elements such as bold, italic, blockquote, hyperlinks, etc. Its utility for simple, straightforward website publishing is proven.

The newest WordPress innovation is Gutenberg, a replacement for a traditional WYSIWYG editor, which provides a Squarespace-like drag and drop experience within a structured CMS. Currently, 68% of the reviews on the project’s page are 1 out of 5 stars. The problem with this replacement is that critical decisions about page structure should not be made on a per-page basis by content editors.

In order to create an experience that is learnable and persuasive, most decisions about the structure must be made at the system level, by a product manager who has expertise in user experience definition and design. This ensures that structural decisions about site templates and content stem from an understanding of performance objectives and are grounded in usability best practices. When templates are created that deviate from these, it can lead to depreciation of the site’s intent, and fragmentation of its experience.

However, it's important to note that well-designed page architecture can allow editors to make structural page decisions on a per-page basis, where greater flexibility is necessary. This happens through the mixing of structured components on a template with more flexible content elements. When it comes to drag-and-drop content management, it's possible that WordPress Gutenberg will become the standard, but it’s not nearly mature enough to outweigh the strengths of structured content via an enterprise CMS.

Extensibility

Extensibility is the relative ease with which new features can be built on a platform. Drupal natively supports the creation of any number of content types, as well as relationships between individual pieces of content. WordPress supports only two content types (Pages and Posts), offering less variety than Drupal in site architecture. Also, WordPress requires customization in order to achieve basic dynamic, relational, or personalized content presentation. In order to build a unique content type in WordPress, you have to use a third-party plugin. The same goes for the ability to relate two content types to each other.

WordPress’ reliance on third-party plugins for such essential, fundamental features compounds its weaknesses regarding maintenance; keeping WordPress’ core and plugin code up to date with their most recent, most secure release versions.

Regardless of maintenance issues, there also are important differences between WordPress’ third-party plugins and Drupal’s contributed modules. In general, with a WordPress plugin, you get a discrete set of functionality. You don’t often get tools you can use to extend that functionality. It’s a more transactional ecosystem, since many plugins aren’t free. In addition, many plugins also require users to purchase licenses with associated monthly or annual costs. With Drupal-contributed modules (which are always free and open source), you get functionality along with tools — either in the CMS interface or in code — you can use to extend that functionality. The principle of extensibility is embedded in the culture of contributed module developers. WordPress is geared more toward selling digestible, concrete features to a non-technical audience. In short, it’s great for a casual blog, but not great for an enterprise-wide website that needs to expand and grow over time.

The structural design of the database powering the platform also has a significant impact on extensibility. The WordPress database stores all of the values of content fields in a single table, in a way that makes it very difficult to select content or data by a certain criterion. For example, if you have a “shirt” content type with a “color” field, the WordPress structure impedes the retrieval of all green shirts. There are workarounds, but they are cumbersome and should not be necessary. The Drupal database is consistent unto itself; it follows best practices for database design, making it easy to retrieve data.

For organizations that want to introduce a feature set surrounding personalization or user profile-driven content, connecting user information to content using metadata would be critical to the success. Allowing users to set preferences, query or filter content, etc. would be crucial for creating an enhanced experience for users in the future.

Multilingual is another feature set that benefits from Drupal’s much more extensible database design. WordPress Core does not support multilingual, though there are some workarounds, like using Google Translate or creating two multiple versions of the same page in different languages. In Drupal Core, all content field data is marked with its language by default. No data is ever stored without noting the language. This way, the ability to translate individual content field data, taxonomy terms, and interface text is baked in at the most fundamental level. The entire feature set for translating any content, fields, menu links (information architecture), taxonomy terms, and interface text is part of Drupal core, as are a range of options for detecting the user’s language and serving appropriate content. Drupal is better suited to serving multilingual features.

Finally, Drupal offers a range of tools for federating sites in various ways. The Drupal Core migration tools allow sites that coexist on the same server to pass content back and forth with relative ease. The Domain module suite enables multiple domains to be fully federated under a shared database, allowing for a fully federated CMS experience across domains, and a fully federated search, with minimal development overhead.

Security

We encourage everyone to complete independent research into the matter of WordPress vs. Drupal security. Though all software has vulnerabilities, WordPress is routinely hacked and is poorly designed for security. Further, many plugins on WordPress sites require routine updates. Outdated plugins can pose a security risk, and expose your site to vulnerabilities if not maintained regularly. Drupal’s security team has a strong track record for patching security issues quickly, and applying the updates are easier because of Drupal’s advantages with site maintenance, as outlined below.

Maintenance

Both Drupal and WordPress require maintenance: upgrading the core software and plugins/modules to the most recent version. Site managers should make a copy of the site and place it on a staging environment when testing updates prior to making the update to the live site. On both platforms, it is possible during updates to encounter “regression bugs,” or bugs that are caused by the update. Because this is a much more common occurrence on WordPress for both core and plugins, much more quality assurance work to find and fix regression bugs is required. And since more fundamental, critical functionality is provided by third-party plugins on WordPress, the process of keeping a WordPress install secure and up-to-date is much more cumbersome. Many WordPress third-party installations are developed by independent entities and are cost-based. Because there is no guarantee that those entities will continue to support plugins, this can lead to increased cost and effort over time as these plugins need replacing. In contrast, Drupal has an open marketplace of free modules typically supported by a broader developer base, so they have greater extensibility and longevity.

If you have more questions on the comparisons between Drupal vs. WordPress, get in touch!

UX Heroes & Villains

May 28, 2019

Dear Ditto: How can I use storytelling for better product design?

UX practitioners often have good project resources available when we’re tasked with the challenge of redesigning a complex website or software system. Perhaps we have personas, stakeholder interviews, use cases and requirements. If we are really fortunate, we also have access to user research findings and recommendations. But how do we weave all of this together in a meaningful way?

Human beings’ neurobiology is wired for storytelling. Stories connect us to one another. Experiments demonstrate that character-driven stories with emotional content result in a better understanding of the key points a speaker wishes to make to enable better recall of these points later.

Defining and architecting a system or features that will support and delight our users can at times feel overwhelming. This is especially true if we are embarking on a project where we don’t have a deep understanding of our primary users. Working together with stakeholders to define a primary user (the hero), their goals, the obstacles to those goals (the villains) and brainstorming solutions is an engaging way to make sure our work is effective. I want to share with you one method to help accomplish this.

Right before leading some design thinking workshops for a software redesign, I came across an article on the value of scenarios, and it really resonated with me. Let's face it - you can’t design the ideal experience if you don’t know what the problems are. Plus, the idea of using storytelling to solve problems while working with other people strongly appealed to me. I designed the following workshop activity, using the basic idea of Problem Scenarios and narrative, that was really successful for all members of the team.

What You Need:

A facilitator.
A group of stakeholders.
Poster paper.
Post-it notes.
Pens for everyone.

Getting Started:

I recommend creating groups of 3-4 stakeholders. Depending on the circumstances, using a count-off system of forming the groups may be best for getting different people to work together. Each group should assign one member to be the recorder and one to be the reporter.

Step 1: The Hero

First, the small groups need to create a hero by thinking about the different kinds of users who will be using the product. Is the hero a receptionist at a veterinarian’s office who’s trying to check in a busy person with a hissing cat? Or is it a parent who’s in the market for a new vehicle while having the added pressures of a new baby on the way and too many options to choose from? Perhaps the hero is a generous philanthropist trying to renew their membership or make a donation to their favorite organization. They may expect to understand how their payments, participation and contributions make a difference.

Every good hero needs a name. Participants in each small group should determine their hero’s name and write it on their posters. Next, each group should choose a setting and some basic characteristics for their hero that makes sense for the project.

Examples:

Is the hero on their phone or laptop?
Is it winter or another season?
Is the hero on a deadline?
Is the hero tech-savvy?

You don’t need to know much about users to create stories about them. There is no need for group members to think through which magazines they read, if they are married, if they like to go fishing, or anything along those lines that you might typically associate with persona work.

Step 2: The Goals

Group members should brainstorm the goals of their hero (as many as possible), write them down on Post-it notes, and attach those to the poster under Goals.

Step 3: The Villains (Obstacles)

Next, the small groups should brainstorm multiple villains or obstacles that stand in the way of the hero accomplishing their goals. ‘What is holding the hero back? Is it time, another person, poor internet, an evil nemesis?’ Group members should also record their responses on Post-it notes and add them to the poster beneath the goals under Villains.

Step 4: Goal and Villain Pairing

The facilitator should ask the group members to take a few moments to review the Post-it notes on their poster and select a goal and villain pairing to use for their storytelling. Note: the goals and villains that are most critical to solve for in the new product design are preferable.

Step 5: The Problem Scenario

For this step, each group should spend time writing out a 3-4 paragraph story from their selected hero, goals and villains. Each group reporter should then share the Problem Scenario with the larger group to introduce their hero and the challenges he or she faces.

Step 6: Brainstorm Solutions

In this step, it is time to come up with solutions to resolve each group’s Problem Scenario. The full group should participate in thinking of solutions, writing them on Post-it notes and then adding those notes to the relevant hero poster under Solutions.

Step 7: The Future Scenario

This is the opportunity for the small groups to reconvene and select their favorite solution. After the group makes a decision, they should add specifics for that solution and create another 3-4 paragraph story (the Future Scenario). Once complete, the group reporter can read their Future Scenario to the larger group.

Step 8: Congratulate Yourselves

You did it!

The challenges that users face and the ways products appeal to them are more impactful, persuasive and memorable to everyone when they come together in a story. And hopefully the stories you know about the heroes and their villains will help you craft a better product as you move into your UX Design phase.

As an added bonus, your project stakeholders will now think about the heroes, their struggles, and how they overcame adversity to triumph over villains and better advocate for the users. And that is the story we all love.

Moving from Drupal 7 to Versions 8 and 9

Peter Sax — May 20, 2019

By Peter Sax

Dear Ditto: When should we start thinking about moving from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9?

The short answer is: As soon as you can!

What’s happening to Drupal 7 and 8?

In late 2018, Drupal announced that versions 7 and 8 would reach end-of-life in November 2021. In order to prepare for this transition, sites currently built on Drupal 7 will need to transition to Drupal 9 or another platform by May/June 2021 (5-6 months prior to end-of-life).

Image via: https://dri.es/drupal-7-8-and-9

Drupal 8’s innovation model of “introducing new functionality in minor versions while maintaining backwards compatibility” has been successful. However, lead developer Dries Buytaert says that “instituting minor releases” to Drupal 8 is not feasible or sustainable. Drupal 8’s biggest dependency is on Symfony, a third-party library that has an end-of-life date of November 2021. And in order to maintain the security of sites built on Drupal, a Symfony upgrade will require a Drupal 9 release. This means Drupal 8 must reach end-of-life by November 2021.

Image via: https://dri.es/drupal-7-8-and-9

What do you recommend site owners do?

Drupal 7 site owners should start rebuilding on Drupal 8 immediately. Drupal 8 is available and mature. It requires a major rebuild of the platform now, but will enable an easy upgrade to Drupal 9. Moving from Drupal 8 to 9 will be a simple, routine version update.

Image via: https://dri.es/drupal-7-8-and-9

Because of the transition, we are not recommending Drupal 7 site owners make significant investments in the current platform. Instead, we recommend maintaining sites as minimally as possible and redirecting investments to developing a transition strategy and prioritizing movement off Drupal 7. We’ve developed the below sample timeline to help our partners get a sense of the best timing for planning and implementation.

Sample Timeline for Moving from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8

This sample timeline is a tool for beginning to plan and socialize your Drupal upgrade with your executive leadership and board. Because these projects are rarely one-size-fits-all, it may need to be modified to your organization’s unique needs and budget cycles.

We’ve advised organizations of all shapes and sizes on these kinds of transitions and would love to work with you. If that’s something of interest to you — get in touch.

Now - July 2019: Plan and scope your platform rebuild strategy and identify your budget

The move from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 requires a full rebuild, so use this as an opportunity to make enhancements to your content and SEO, information architecture, user experience, visual identity and design, authoring experience, search integration, and other platform integrations. You also should consider introducing advanced functionality like custom tracking, multilingual, and personalization.

You may need to adopt a new search strategy, as Google deprecated its site search application. Open source options include Solr and Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch acquired Swiftype, which is a powerful search product we recommend that you can license for minimal cost.

Accessibility is another important consideration for planning. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance is now required by all organizations (not just those in the public sector), in order to ensure website design is inclusive of persons with disabilities. Your website needs to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design as soon as possible to avoid potential legal action for non-compliance. As part of your Drupal upgrade planning, we recommend running a WCAG audit and determining steps you need to take to be ADA-compliant with the new platform.

August - October 2019: Finalize requirements and planning for new platform and approve multi-year funding

We recommend using 2019-2020 funding to develop a full strategy and validate the scope of your design build, so you can finalize that budget for 2020. If you have the means, begin user research this year to inform your decisions.

As you budget, you’ll want to make sure you’re accounting for hosting and maintenance of your legacy site until you fully sunset it.

October - December 2019: Develop and finalize statements of work and kick-off your implementation project

If you’re on a calendar fiscal year, you’ll align the project start to the January turnover. If you’re on an April, July, or academic year cycle, you may decide to hold on the start until the fiscal year turnover.

However, for these budget cycles, we recommend allocating 2019-2020 funds to get started ahead of your new fiscal year so your timeline is not constrained.

January - May 2020: Project kickoff

You’ll kick off your project, architect your sitemap, taxonomy, site templates, authoring experience and develop an integration plan.

With this work complete, you’ll be able to validate and refine the scope and budget for your design and implementation. You’ll also be able to scope your content effort and get started with content planning, refinement, and production.

June 2020 - March 2021: Complete the visual and in-browser design and pattern library development for the site, as well as your back-end development

During this time period, you will also need to:

Complete your content development efforts and migrate and input content into the new site

Complete user acceptance testing and preparation for launch.

Develop your roll-out plan and a plan for how long you’ll maintain your legacy site in archive

Start planning and budgeting for continuous improvement — website administration, routine security updates and maintenance, and enhancements — for post-launch. Make sure to include budget for ongoing user research in this planning.

April - June 2021: Launch new site

You’ll launch your new site between major fundraising cycles so it doesn’t disrupt major ongoing initiatives. You’ll also develop statements of work for any continuous improvement work and begin that work.

July 2021 - November 2021: Make final modifications and preparations

With your site live, make any final modifications and preparations for sunsetting your legacy site. Once you no longer need to access that site in archive, discontinue hosting the site.

We hope this sample timeline is helpful to you as you plan your transition. If you’re interested in partnering with us on this work, get in touch. We’d love to work with you!

Drupal vs. WordPress?

If you’re one of the many people curious about the rationale for Drupal over WordPress or vice versa, check out our advice article on the topic.

Becoming a B Corp and Prioritizing Purpose

Graziella Jackson — May 16, 2019

By Graziella Jackson

Dear Ditto: Why is it important for businesses to focus on social, environmental, and economic impact?

We are in the midst of a global culture shift toward business that prioritizes social, economic, and environmental good.

In 2018, Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of the multinational investment firm Black Rock, wrote a letter to corporate CEOs urging them to prioritize purpose alongside profit. Consumers are increasingly looking to companies to address social, economic, and environmental issues, Fink said. He suggested businesses focus on "purpose" as a new strategy for navigating the changing expectations of workers and customers.

CEOs listened. They started talking about “purpose” as a differentiator and making it part of their strategic plans. In a few months, "purpose" became the business buzzword of the year.

But purpose-driven business models aren't new. In 2006, three friends left careers in business and private equity to create an organization (now B Lab) dedicated to making it easier for companies to protect and improve their positive impact over time. They certified the first 19 B Corporations® in 2007 and continued on to build a global movement of more than 2,500 mission-driven companies in more than 50 countries. These Certified B Corps™ — Ben & Jerry's, Patagonia, Seventh Generation, Danone, and Echo&Co among them — do business that equally balances people, profits, and planet (a "triple bottom line").

The B Corp™ certification is a commitment to higher standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. It is to business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee, or what USDA Organic certification is to dairy and produce.

We started our work toward becoming a Certified B Corporation in 2017 and we received official certification for Echo&Co in April 2019. The process was not easy. It required a rigorous assessment of many things, including:

Corporate governance, mission, and engagement.
Transparency, accountability, and ethics.
Employee engagement, benefits, and practices.
Diversity and inclusion.
Community involvement and civic engagement.
Environmental practices.
Customer practices.

When we first completed our assessment, we scored 55 (the minimum qualifying score for certification is 80 on a scale of 0 to 200). Today, we are at 83.9 and continue to measure and improve our positive impact as we work toward the highest standards of practice.

"Purpose over profit" may be the mantra of the moment, and while it is impactful, it's not enough to focus on purpose. I say this quite a bit. Purpose can be a motivating force, but it's also a powerful ruse. It's a feel-good veneer used to satisfy customers and employees while their companies continue to operate in ways that deplete and damage our human and natural resources.

In order for businesses to truly prioritize good, they need to fundamentally shift who they serve, what their objectives and motives are, and how they operate. Further, they need to adopt an agreed-upon standard of practice that goes far beyond "purpose" and sets in place practices, with rigorous accountability, that achieve the highest social and environmental standards. B Corp certification sets that standard.

Until next time,

Graziella

P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about the process of becoming a B Corp, check out the conversation I had with my teammate Ehmonie about the experience.