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As we become seasoned youth services librarians, it’s natural for our professional confidence and expertise around things like child development, children’s books, and summer learning to grow. At some point, we may feel like we’ve arrived! We are now ready to dole out ALL the brilliant advice! (I don’t know about you, but I can be an insufferable advice-giver. Just ask my family!)

A Deficits-Based Approach

And isn’t advice-giving sort of built into our jobs as librarians? When we work on the reference desk or the public service floor, we are there under the assumption that people will have problems for us to fix. Small problems (not finding the right book) and monumental problems (food and housing insecurity among a family of regulars) cross our paths daily. No fear! We have tools in our Super Librarian belts and resources to share!

But if we position ourselves as superheroes, doesn’t it follow that we assume library users are victims who need saving? Despite our best intentions, this deficits-based assumption can subtly suggest to families that we do not value their inherent worth and potential.

When organizations act as experts on resolving the problems of people, we deny and limit those particular individuals facing the problem the opportunity to explore what strengths and capacities they might have in the process of exploring, participating, taking control and learning (Herman-Stahl & Petersen, 1996).

 A New, Strengths-Based Approach

Applying a strengths-based approach to customer service can have powerful outcomes for you and your library. A strengths-based approach:

• Assumes that all people have strengths, expertise, and potential
• Promotes a relationship of trust between library staff and customers
• Allows us to learn side-by-side with our customers
• Takes the pressure off us to be experts
• Recognizes that dominate cultural and organizational assumptions can limit the growth of individuals, families and communities

So, how might youth services librarians apply this strengths-based approach? The most important first step is simple in concept and enormously challenging in practice—we can change our attitudes and assumptions about the families in our libraries. This takes practice, and you might have to fake it to make it at first. But gradually, applying strengths-based assumptions will start to become more natural… and you may even find yourself feeling more optimistic about working in public service.

Here are some familiar library scenarios with examples of how applying strengths-based assumptions might positively change our interactions with families:

A mother texts on her phone while her two young kids run around the library.

• Deficits-based assumption: This is an inattentive parent who needs to be informed of our rules surrounding unsupervised children.
• Strengths-based assumption: This mother is a competent person who knows more than I do about her children. There may be complicated reasons behind her decision to use her phone rather than pay close attention to her children in this moment. How can we partner with this parent to make sure her children are safe in the library?

A parent insists that his son, a reluctant reader, must read high level books and stay away from graphic novels and “easy books”.

• Deficits-based assumption: This parent doesn’t understand the importance of reading motivation and only cares about getting his child into the best university.
• Strengths-based assumption: This father loves his son and wants the best for him. There may be cultural or other factors influencing his parenting decisions and beliefs. How can we have a non-judgmental conversation with this father starting with the assumption that he is the expert when it comes to his family’s well-being?

During Stay & Play, a mother mentions she’s worried that her 18-month-old isn’t playing well with other kids.

• Deficits-based assumption: This parent doesn’t know much about child development, so she would benefit from learning about parallel play and being assured that her that her child’s behavior is normal.
• Strengths-based assumption: Whether or not this parent is familiar with child development theory, she is an expert when it comes to her child. Instead of positioning ourselves as authorities on child development, how can we use this interaction with the parent to build a partnership around the child? What open-ended questions can we ask to draw out the parent’s expertise before offering advice?

 

This strengths-based approach can also be a powerful tool for youth services managers to use when working with staff. Staff members who feel acknowledged, valued, and heard will be more likely to extend the same courtesy to the public!

 

Madeline Walton-Hadlock is the Early Education Manager at the San José Public Library and a member of the ALSC Managing Children’s Services Committee. You can reach her at [email protected] 

The post We Don’t Need to be Superheroes! appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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In order to get a few days off mid-week to do some research, I did some shift trading and found myself working three weekends in a row.  And as I worked, I realized how much I like those weekend shifts. Why?

*Each weekend day is a four hour shift - two people split the duties: one goes 9-1 on Saturdays; the other works 1-5 on Saturday and Sunday. These are short, quick shifts that are easily worked and still leave plenty of time for weekend fun.

*It's all desk, all the time. I gear up for having a good day with patrons and for the most part I do. I get into my Wakanheza place and launch my service self from there. Even if I have to get tough, I have a smile and joke in reserve.

*Because of the pretty high usage and good pace, I only plan service to the public and not projects while working. So with my goal to serve the patrons, I ineveitably accomplish my work. If I do manage to get through emails or finish a report or design a handout because it's slow, that's a bonus - but not an expected result.

*As a manager, these are great days to work - lots of hands-on, sleeves-up reference and reader's advisory but no calls to negotiate, mediate, problem solve for staffers within the department or around the library - we are all too busy giving primary on-desk service (or having great days off!). This unadulterated face time with kids and families is golden.

*Weekends are great times to be up and about from the desk - straightening shelves and displaying books; spot weeding collections; chatting with kids and adults using the room; helping with catalog searches.  There are fewer phone calls so being tied to the desk isn't necessary and the pace is definitely one that keeps me moving.

*I get to check in throughout the shift on Twitter with the #saturdaylibrarian and #sundaylibrarian hashtags that connect me with colleagues from all types of libraries. Sometimes we comment on our days; sometimes we help each other with reference queries and sometimes we count down the time and patron quirks.

I don't think I'm Pollyanna-ish or see the weekend world through rose-colored glasses or live the lemons/lemonade paradigm. I just genuinely like those Saturday/Sunday shifts. It could be I'm just weird. Anybody else weird like me?

Image: 'It's here!'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/94812957@N00/341430448

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My friend Cheryl Becker has a great post up at her site bemoaning how difficult many library websites make it to find contact information. She was inspired by the M Word blog.

Man, I totally get behind this.  I find that on so many levels, libraries make it hard on customers. Our website is a perfect example (I am not linking to that monstrosity; if you want to see it, please use your google skills). I can barely find what I need. How can a customer?  On the good side, we are in re-design mode.

But then there's the on-line catalog.  Eeeee-yooooo. People gamely try to get it to give them the info they need but it is absolutely non-intuitive.  We don't foresee a time with our current vendor where the average user will be able to successfully use it without constant staff assistance. That makes it easy on the customer. NOT! It does mean job security for staff though. Hmmm, stealth vendor support of librarians?

Or let's consider signage.  Why do we assume that kids can read anything that we have posted around the place?  Why are we not relying on pictures and graphics to help our pre-emergent and emergent reading kid-customers find what they need? Gack.

How about information on programs. How many hoops do we make people jump though to get the information they need? One thing that has helped us is immediately posting programming on our website as a downloadable PDF as soon as we have it nailed down (even before any printed handouts are out) and putting out business-card sized handouts with bit.ly URLs pointing there. People can get a sneak peek months beforehand.

It's worth looking around at our work places, our websites, our handouts and our procedures to find ways to welcome our public by making it easy to use and peruse the library.  I can't help thinking that it  would help relieve nuttiness for all!


Image: 'Nuts 1'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/82607712@N00/2079743107

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Because of low enrollment this past winter session at UD, I lost my class. It's a five-week intensive for which you get the same fee as you would teaching during a normal semester. Translation: it's a nice chunk of change that I was expecting and didn't end up getting at the last minute when my section was canceled.

For some reason, about 70% of my monthly bills are due between the first of the month and the 10th of the month. I consider the 1st through the 15th my "first of the month" bills, which really comes out of the end-of-the-month paychecks. UD pays me on the 15th and 30th; Bank of America pays Joe bi-weekly. He used to get paid on the 15th and 30th, which made everything really easy, but now I have to pay more careful attention to what I'm paying and when because sometimes something will be due on, say, the 9th, but Joe's check won't come out until the 12th.

Anyway.

By mid-January, I knew we were going to have some serious difficulty getting all of the beginning of the month bills paid in February. There was the home heating oil thing, which meant purchasing 100 gallons right after Christmas and getting a tank fill around my birthday. There was the fact that I wasn't expecting another paycheck until 2/15. The numbers were making me crazy until I realized that if I could have one credit card payment moved to after the 15th of the month, everything would work out just fine.

So I called Chase, owner of my biggest credit card balance, and requested a due date change to "after the 15th of the month." The way their billing cycles fall, he said he could have it changed to the 21st and would that be acceptable? I said yes, it's perfect, thank you so much. Then I was informed that the due date change wouldn't take affect until March.

This was a problem.

Joe and I spent nearly an hour on the phone that day, talking to various customer service representatives and managers, about would it be possible to push the due date change through for February, and if not, would it be possible to get a three-day extension on the February due date without incurring any late fees or interest rate increases. The answer: No. NO NO NO NO NO sorry we can't help you NO.

This made me really, really angry. I've been a loyal Chase customer since 1997. I've financed two cars through them (both paid off in full early), have two credit cards with them (both paid on time and more than the minimum), and even have a small home equity line of credit through them (also paid on time and also paid more than the minimum).

All around me, people are defaulting on credit cards, mortgages, auto loans. They're filing bankruptcy, having their slates wiped clean and dumping huge amounts of debt. Banks are hurting because people borrowed more than they could afford, because the job market screwed them, because junk loan officers got greedy. And sometimes it's really just about people who charge what they want when they want it, regardless of how capable they are of ever paying off the rapidly acrued debt.

But me. Me, I pay on time. EVERY MONTH, I PAY ON TIME. I pay more than the minimum, even when we're so strapped I won't let myself buy a medium cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.

And yet.

People like me are suffering because of all the others who either can't or simply don't make their minimum payments on time. Let me clarify: I know there are people who got knocked down hard by this economy, and who are good people that would gladly pay their bills if they had the money to do so. These are not deadbeat people, but honest, hard-working folks who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances. I would probably put Joe and myself in that category, because we've been hit from every side. We've just been lucky enough that when disasters strike, we've been able to pull money from somewhere (another reason our wedding fund has been drained three full times in the past year). But also, I do think it's more than just luck.

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When in the course of human events one has a lousy customer service experience, one must, of course, blog about it.

A little role reversal is a valuable thing. When doctors become patients, teachers become students, customer service representatives become disgruntled customers, and librarians become patrons, we suddenly see the world from the other side of the desk—and sometimes, we find, we don't like what we see.

This morning, I stepped into the role of patron at my hometown library. (I work in the next town over.) I've had a poor customer service experience there previously, in the circulation department, but I thought I'd give Reader's Assistance a try. I'd looked in the mystery section for Charlie Huston's vampire detective series, to no avail, so I went up to the desk.

Two librarians were sitting behind it talking. They looked up at me as I approached and continued to talk for several seconds. Finally, one of them said, "Yes?"

"Hi!" I said. "I'm wondering if you can tell me what the most recent book in Charlie Huston's vampire detective series is."

The librarian began clicking and tapping away at her computer. Finally, she said, "The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death."

I waited a moment. The title didn't sound right (the other books in this series have very catchy, hard-boiled names), but I thought I'd at least take a look. When the librarian said nothing more, I said, "Okay. Can you tell me if it's checked in?"

"That's what I'm checking. It should be over in the fiction section." She pointed a vague finger.

"Okay, great. I was looking in the mysteries before. That must have been my problem."

I went to the fiction section and found Charlie Huston's books. The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death, of course, is not a vampire detective book. But some earlier books in the series were there. I took one back to the reference desk with me.

The librarian did not look happy to see my return. I smiled. "I found the book you told me, but it wasn't in the right series. This is the series I'm interested in." I opened the book to the publications list. "The Joe Pitt Casefiles. I didn't remember the name."

The librarian somehow completely misunderstood me. "Well, it doesn't say it's new, but it might be in the new book section."

We walked over, and I said, "Is this the vampire book we're looking for?"

"We're looking for the one I told you about before."

"I found that book. It was by the same author, but it wasn't in the series I wanted."

"Well, then, I don't understand what you're asking me." By now the librarian had gone from seeming mildly put-out to downright hostile.

I patiently opened the book to the publications lists again. "This author writes several series. This is the one I'm interested in: the Joe Pitt Casefiles. This one was published in 2007. I want to know if there's a more recent one."

Resignedly, the librarian spent several more minutes at the computer without talking to me. Meanwhile, I began to feel sick with anger and anxiety. I wished I could grab her computer and look up the information myself, or at least say, "Are you searching all libraries? Have you considered googling the series to get a full listing?" But I hate outsiders telling me how to do my job, so I kept my mouth shut.

Finally she said, "I think this is the one: My Dead Body. 2009."

"Okay. Do you have it?"

"One library has it on order." She didn't offer to reserve it for me.

"Okay. Well, thanks a lot!" I said brightly.

"All right." I left the library and bought a burrito (clearly my only course of action at that point).

Storytime is over; let the rant begin. My problem with this whole "customer service transaction" is not that I walked away empty-handed. My problem is that everything about the librarian's speech and body language, from beginning to end, screamed, "Get out of my face, you stupid patron."

Let's take a look:

• "Yes?" is not a greeting or an offer of assistance. It's something you say when someone's interrupted you.
• She didn't smile. She barely made eye contact.
• She either didn't listen to my question or didn't compare what she saw on her screen with what I'd asked. (The book she directed me to had nothing to do with vampires.)
• She didn't listen to what I said when I returned to the desk.
• She got angry with me for, apparently, not communicating what I wanted.
• When someone says "thank you," the appropriate response is "you're welcome."

Oh, and another thing? There's a Joe Pitt novel that came out in 2008 and, while that library does not own it, other libraries in the consortium do. She easily could have ordered it for me... if she'd been remotely interested in actually answering my question.

The experience brought home for me how important friendly faces and can-do attitudes are at the library reference desk. I think my library (the one where I work) does very well, on the whole. At least we do in my department. When people approach the desk, we say, "Hi! May I help you!" We say, "You're welcome." We listen carefully to our patrons' questions. We do our best to answer them accurately, using not just the catalog as a resource but also our coworkers, the Internet, and other reference materials as necessary.

That's the way it should be. The fact that it's not that way everywhere makes me sick. These are the librarians who give us all a bad name. The ones who embody the stereotype of the antisocial shusher. The ones who make patrons of all ages afraid to approach the reference desk with their questions. The ones whose "best" is somehow worse than my "worst."

They're also the ones who remind me, when I return to my place behind the desk, how to do my job right. And for that, Ms. Crabbycakes Librarian, I thank you.

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"Be Selfish, Promote Service" by Michael Casey and Michael Stephens in the June 15 Library Journal isn't just a commonsense look at offering great library customer service during hard times, but works as a pep talk as well - and boy, that's just what we need.

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• What do you do better than everyone else? Focus on that. Prioritize that.


• You’re a natural community gathering place. Focus on your community. Feed it. Grow it.


• Ask people why they don’t use your library. Use that information to improve your services.


• Find your largest population segment of “potential patrons” and focus on growing patrons there.


• Don’t focus on yourself or your stuff – instead, turn your focus on your customers and their needs.


• Maybe it’s something as simple as rearranging your stuff so normal people can actually find things. We can do better than LC or Dewey call number order. Really.


• Work on improving the experience at your library – both in the library and

digitally.

And here is a stupendously wonderful post on interpreting customer body language - and, not coincidentally, offering terrific customer service. Although Elizabeth Bluemle is talking about bookstores, and specifically children's bookstores, everything she says can be transferred to a library setting. Here's a small tidbit of her post (but you really must read the whole thing):

Body language is huge when you're recommending books to customers. They will literally lean toward you and a book when they're interested, and lean away or step back when they're not. Kids are particularly funny about this: kids (especially ages 6-10) who don't know you, and who are not yet as schooled in politeness as most adults, may actually silently refuse to take hold of a book you're showing them if they aren't intrigued. When this happens, I either move on to the next recommendation or, if it's a great book I'm pretty sure the child will love, I reassure them that they don't have to commit to any book they take a look at, and that they might find it worthwhile to read a page or two of the proffered title. I also let them know that these are just suggestions, and that they certainly won't hurt my feelings if they decide not to get a book I've recommended. "You want the right book at the right time, a book you're in the mood for," I tell them, and—the pressure lifted—they usually are willing to take a look at whatever book with an iffy cover but terrific insides I'm trying to hand them.

The lovely thing about great customer service is that it doesn't need to cost money - it only requires a bit of thought, time, and attention. A perfect recipe for these hard times.

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I’m taking a quick break from the massive amount of toil that’s going into two major animation projects and my school launch because I just had to get these thoughts out. Sometimes it happens that way.

So Which Are You?

One of my favorite move lines ever is from Forrest Gump where he’s in Marine boot camp (may be paraphrased a bit):

Drill Sergeant: GUMP! What is your primary function in life?

Forrest: To do whatever it is you tell me to, Drill Sergeant?

Drill Sergeant: Godammit, Gump, that is the finest answer I have ever heard.

This is the Production Artist.

I’ve been a Production Artist. It’s not bad. One of the things I enjoyed about it was turning off my brain and just creating the art in a way that someone else thought long and hard about. Sometimes that’s kind of relaxing.

After a while, I got all itchy and started to discuss the concepts and the merits of particular design choices that I didn’t agree with or thought could be improved. Thankfully I was in a place where that was not only welcomed, but needed. However, my status changed and after speaking up for a while I was no longer a Production Artist.

I suppose if I had to slap a title on that it would be Consultative Illustrator. That sounds kind of staid and business-ey, but for today it will have to do (did I mention how much other stuff I have on my plate? Title suggestions are welcome. Really. Please?).

I love being a Consultative Illustrator. My favorite clients are the ones who love this, too. I could just read a quick description and bang out something that I think hits the mark, but it’s not as much fun.

The most fun and rewarding work really comes from having little conversations and e-mails about the project. The results are better, too.

Some clients who don’t want any part of that process. They want what they want and they don’t want to talk about it. It can go two ways:

1. They want me to just figure it out for them and hand it back, complete and perfect.
   
2. They want me to just shut up and make the thing they described so they can get on with their life. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Obviously these are needs that are out there. Somebody wants this stuff. Perfectly valid. A good Production Artist should snap up this work, pronto!

It’s not for me.

In my experience, the first one almost always results in, “Hmm. That’s not really what we were looking for. Can you take another run at it?”

The problem here is that it’s never going to be perfect or complete, because unfortunately mind-reading is not part of my skill set. What the client is asking for is for me to paint their house any color I want, except a color they wouldn’t want. Huh?

Exactly.

The second one has more likelihood for a successful outcome, as long as the successful outcome means that if it doesn’t fit on their packaging (because they refused to give me dimensions) or match the color of their blog header (”Uhh, the site isn’t up yet.”) that it’s okay.

I saw an ad once for illustrators that started out with, “I need a Photoshop drawing for a web logo. If you don’t know Photoshop, don’t respond.” Out of curiosity, I responded and asked a few questions like, “Why Photoshop?”

“Oh, my friend wrote the ad for me. That’s what she said I should ask for. I don’t really know anything about it, I just need this for my logo.”

As it turned out, they were also going to use the illustration on all kinds of print materials, including huge street banners. If I had just banged it out in Photoshop like she asked, she might have been in trouble later. A small raster image for a web site blown up on a ginormous street banner looks like a big fat blob of nothingness.

How could the average person know that? They can’t, and that’s why I don’t work with people who don’t allow for questions. It’s risky and unrewarding. I feel weird taking someone’s money for something that they can’t even use. I wouldn’t laugh my way to the bank, I would slink in with a false beard and sunglasses.

Creating the artwork is only one aspect of a Consultative Illustrator’s job. Any Production Artist can be hired out for that. It’s cool. I’m just not that guy.

I’m not going to go all Reverend Firepants on you, because there’s more than one way to bake a pie.

What I’m saying is, it’s probably a good idea for a commercial artist to decide what they are ahead of time; Production Artist or Consultative Artist? Go ahead and change your mind after a year or even between projects. Before you answer the ad or take the job, think about which one you’re going to be, then be okay with it either way.

But please. Please, please, please. Help me think of another name for this consultative thing we do. Something that doesn’t conjure up a bow tie and horn-rimmed spectacles.

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I started making beer about a month ago. It’s been a fun hobby for me (what? do something that doesn’t lead to an income stream? crazy.) It’s also rewarding for other people (neighbors), because they get to sample free beer. “Let me twist your arm while I push this beer in your other hand.”

Last week I made plans to head to Hood River (wind surfing capital of the U.S.) just so I could pick up some supplies to make a new batch (an IPA). There’s a small shop there that I wanted to visit and it also gives everyone else the opportunity to enjoy a nice town while I indulge in yeast and hop shoppin’.

The shop has no web site, but I put aside my usual “No web site? How do they do business?” tirade and called the phone number I found in Google.

Voice mail.

It’s around noon on a weekday and I get voicemail for a business. Weird, but still tolerable. There are some quirky shops in this part of the country where people tend to open after noon. We’re still cool.

At least in a voicemail there’s the opportunity to open things up to customers by listing hours, e-mail contact, or a reassuring message that someone just stepped out.

No such thing in this case.

So I left a message to call me and let me know if he was open today, since I was making a special trip into Hood River just to give him my money.

In the meantime, we headed out because our alternative shop was in Portland and at least 1/3 of the trip was in the same direction. I figured if he called back and said he was open, I would turn towards Hood River.

As I was filling my cart with barley in the Portland shop (two hours later), I get a phone call from Hood River. “Hi, I just wanted to let you know we’re open from noon to five today.”

I explained that unfortunately I had to choose another shop, but thanks anyway. “Do you have regular hours?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, noon to five, Monday through Saturday.”

Okay, so I had an opportunity there myself. I could have pitched him on setting up a web site (I may still do that), or ask him lots of questions about his business, maybe offer a suggestion for his voicemail. Sometimes I’m just getting stuff to make beer, ya know? So I put all that aside so I could focus on finding the right specialty grain.

Besides, I was a bit annoyed.

I wondered if his home brew supply business is going okay (he also lists himself as [Some Name?] Scooter Sports in the voicemail, so I have to wonder). I wouldn’t be surprised if he was having “hard times in this economy.”

I also suspect that it’s really a deep level, undercover branch of the CIA. Best reason I can think of to be so hush-hush about a business.

It’s just so easy these days to set your business up to be contacted. A free WordPress site would do the trick. Dude… anything.

So of course now I think about the art business and freelancing, and I pass these questions along to you.

How easy is it for potential clients to reach you?

If someone wanted a logo design and was ready to start right away, could they hire you? I mean, could they find out how to reach you and just call? E-mail? Tweet? Facebook (ugh, but whatever)? Smoke signal? Drive over and knock on your door?

I understand that many freelancers have one toe in the water because they just aren’t ready to jump the corporate ship yet. I was there once, too. But if you ever plan on getting your whole body wet, then you might want to think about preparing to be contacted.

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I’m a professional digital illustrator. I also train people how to create digital illustration.

You know, like in a computer. Pixels, vectors, Adobe products, Apple gear, WACOM tablet, LCD, external drives. Electromagnetic Hell.

So some students will find it odd that the first thing out of my mouth when I talk about method is, “Don’t create your art in the computer.”

This coming from the guy who makes his living with a computer. I didn’t always make awesome digital illustration. In fact, it kind of sucked.

A little backstory.

The first time I sat down at a computer was at my dad’s office at O’Hare airport (riiiight. try that nowadays, kids). It was a green-screen airline reservations system hooked up to a dot-matrix printer.  I was seven years old. My first thought was “This is just like Star Wars.” My second thought was, “How can I make art with this thing?” My sister and I had all kinds of fun making rocket ship patterns with numbers and letters. Weee-hoo!

 

Years later, when Windows 3.1 became the hottest thing since 10-lb. mobile phones, I started creating art in the computer again. It was terrible. Pixelated nightmares of birthday greetings and mutilated self-portraits.

When a friend loaned me a copy of CorelDraw, I created some equally bad art in the computer. The fact that I had a more sophisticated vector application did nothing to improve my digital work. Why?

It’s because I strayed from the wildly fun and inspirational process of drawing and doodling and focused on just making it all up onscreen.

My digital work has improved considerably since I “went backwards” and started sketching again. When I work on a project now, my first step is to move away from the computer. Even though the final art is all digital, it always (always, always) starts out with a #2 pencil and plain ol’ paper.

Copylicious was delicious

Here’s an awesome real-world example of my method. It’s not brain surgery, this method of mine. I didn’t file a patent on the process. It just works.

Kelly Parkinson is a copywriter extraordinaire. If you visit her copylicious web site, you’ll soon find yourself inventing excuses to work with her. She’s just awesome, and she’s also my ideal client. She’s independent, knows her business, and enjoys talking about it. That made it incredibly easier to get a handle on how I could help her with some illustrations.

Kelly has a pretty cool product called the Web Site Jet Pack. The design of her site is simple and fun. She just needed a simple bird illustration. A birdie wearing a jet pack. When I hear something like that you can’t pull me away. A bird wearing a jet pack. This is what gets me excited, what can I say?

Let’s make some birdies!

After Kelly and I talked about her site, I went to Step 1: I put my computer to sleep and started doodling little birdies. I just had fun with it, let loose. No high art here, no polished Leonardo DaVinci renderings, just some messin’ around.

Then I went away and had something to eat (that’s Step 2 if you’re keeping track). It’s good to go away for a bit because I find I overfocus and lose sight of the big picture.

When I came back I narrowed down my doodles and made some more finished drawings. Below you can see a few examples. I do this every time.

 

 

You’ll also see the final drawing on the tracing paper (upper right, by the pencil point). That’s the thing I scan in and use as a reference in the computer.

I’ll get into that in more depth another time, I promise.

For now, the thing I want to stick in your mind is the idea that creating digital illustration does not always start in the computer. For me, it starts where all my better illustration starts, which is in the noggin and on paper.

Another interesting point is that I never sent Kelly my doodles and scraps. How much fun would that have been for her?

Ummm… what the hell is this? I thought this guy was good, I don’t want this sketchy crap on my web site. What is this, like, half a bird? Oh my god… is it too late to get my money back?

It would be the equivalent of Kelly sending one of her clients a torn-up notebook page of shorthand and saying, “It will be kind of like this.”

Disaster, right? So instead they just get awesome copy that works. Kelly gets a polished-up birdie in a jet pack. Everyone’s happy.

So again, the lesson for today, Kids? Turn off the computer. Give that pencil a workout. You’ll be very pleased with the results and you might just have a blast in the process. Isn’t that why you do this anyway?

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I wasn’t in the mood for Thistle and Shamrock on my drive home from a Sunday afternoon writing siege at Panera’s (a little Celtic music goes an extremely long way for me), and I really wanted to finish listening to the latest On the Media show I had downloaded to my iPod, so I rummaged in the scary bottom floor of my purse for my Kensington digital iPod FM transmitter — but came up with a handful of parts.

Somehow the transmitter had separated. The tip, which constrains all the innards of the transmitter, screws off, which is a good thing if I ever need to change the fuse (I didn’t even know it had a fuse until the transmitter deconstructed), and a bad thing for someone with a purse so messy for all I know the WMD are in there.

I found four parts. The only problem is that there are actually five, and the missing part is a bespoke little spring that makes the doomaflatchy stay firm against the whatsis so the whole thing works.
So I wrote Kensington and asked them if they sold a spring or could provide one.

No, they said, they couldn’t. (This unit is being discontinued, Amazon advises.) But they could send me an entire replacement unit, assuming I could provide them with my address (easily acquired; I ran outside my house to make sure I remembered it correctly) and the serial number on the unit, which gave me a day’s pause as I rummaged through my office (strangely evocative of my purse) for the handy Brookstone magnifying glass a friend had given me two years ago. (I think the magnifying glass was a regifting thrice removed from friends who are pretending they aren’t growing old, and who will later complain that they can’t read the serial number on the back of their iPod/transmitter/Treo/computer, etc.)

Now, I’m sure Kensington doesn’t replace entire units for every customer query or problem. I’m guessing “you need an X fuse” is their most common response, and if I could fix this with a fuse, I would. I also suspect that tepid reaction to their new unit might make it good policy to send out freebies for customers with problems with the old ones.

But I already adored Kensington for the value this product had added to my life — and if you think that’s an overstatement, try driving from Tallahassee to Atlanta with only the radio as your companion (which is why it usually stays in my purse: so I have it when I rent cars).

For that matter, try driving to Publix from your home when the local public radio talk show is all a-chatter about poor picked-upon Mr. Vicks who ain’t done nuthin wrong. In exasperation against local radio programming I have used my iPod and my FM transmitter to create Radio Free Tallahassee, and I now donate directly to the public radio shows I regularly download. My iPod transmitter isn’t some miscellaneous bit of technology; it’s part of my local survival strategy (and I went through several other brands before finding one that worked).

So while I wait for the new transmitter, I shall hum to myself quite a bit — and the song shall be “If only we could all be like Kensington.” When my transmitter finally meets its maker, the chances are extremely good I’ll buy another Kensington. If the new unit is a dud, I’m going to be a lot more forgiving, and still willing to give Kensington a chance, and if I like it, I’ll coo all over Amazon. Overall, they’ve set the temperature of my warmth for their company far higher than it had been before I reached into my purse and came up with a handful of metal and plastic.

Meanwhile, in preparation for some Very Serious Work (research about research — the thought makes me dizzy), I ordered The Black Swan from the Leon County library. It arrived, but in the wrong format (CD instead of print). So I wrote the library, and guess what? I got the same service.

The library didn’t say “You ordered the wrong format!” There weren’t demands to come in to get this right or even call them (this was all by email). They immediately reassured me that the right format was on order — and guess what, they even told me when it might arrive. I know they have funky old catalog software that makes it difficult if not impossible to put this last bit of information into messages, but how wonderful that they took the time to share it with me so that I didn’t have to give up and buy the book from Amazon.

I’m always happy at that library — if they don’t have a book, they get it for me fast, and everyone is so friendly. I feel welcome there. But I felt welcome by this email exchange, as well.

The key here is understanding that it’s not the freebie or the close attention to an interlibrary loan. It’s not about the policy or the workflow. It’s about the focus on making — and keeping — happy, even passionate, customers.

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Are you fed up with the piles of paperwork involved in every single thing these days? What frustrates me the most is when I receive requests to fill it in again! In my experience Centre link is a classic example of this. Although I receive very little assistance financially I have to go to great lengths to report my earnings to them. Their forms are a nightmare often requiring you to guess your

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