This is an interview with the co-founder of Bling Nation – Meyer Malka.

About Bling Nation; Founded in mid-2007, Bling Nation is a offline payment service company which invented a payment technology designed specifically for local and community financial institutions, that facilitates fast, efficient and secure payment transactions. Using the Bling Nation service, local financial institutions can strengthen and grow the relationships with their clients by creating a local payment network for their consumer and merchant clients.

About This Presentation

Renowned graphic designer Michael Bierut claims that he’s not creative. Instead, he likens his job to that of a doctor who tends to patients – “the sicker, the better.” Digging into the 86 notebooks he’s kept over the course of his career, Bierut walks us through 5 projects – from original conception to final execution – extracting a handful of simple lessons (e.g. the problem contains the solution; don’t avoid the obvious) at the foundation of brilliant design solutions.

About Michael Bierut

Prior to joining Pentagram in 1990 as a partner in the firm’s New York office, Michael Bierut worked for ten years at Vignelli Associates, ultimately as vice president of graphic design. His clients at Pentagram have included The New York Times, Saks Fifth Avenue, The Council of Fashion Designers of America, Harley-Davidson, The Minnesota Children’s Museum, The William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, Mohawk Paper Mills, the New York Jets, Princeton University, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Morgan Library and Museum.

He has won hundreds of design awards and his work is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Montreal. His commentaries about graphic design in everyday life have been heard nationally on the Public Radio International program “Studio 360″ and his appearance in Helvetica: A Documentary Film is considered by many that movie’s funniest moment. Michael is a co-founder of the weblog DesignObserver.com, and his book 79 Short Essays on Design was published in 2007 by Princeton Architectural Press.

Links

www.pentagram.com
www.designobserver.com

by Scott Belsky courtesy the99percent.com

The author and leadership guru Stephen Covey encourages us to only focus on concerns that we have control over. He outlines the “circle of concerns” as all of the stuff that worries us – and then a smaller “circle of influence” (within the larger “circle of concerns”) that only contains stuff that we can actually control.

His point, of course, is that we should only spend our energy on stuff that we can do something about. Focus only on problems that lie within your “circle of influence.”

Easy to say, HARD TO DO! As creative people, our passion for our work makes it more difficult to worry selectively. Why? The more passionate you are, the more protective and perfection-driven you become. Any concern becomes exaggerated just based on your beautiful vision being obstructed. Regardless of whether or not you have influence, you will want to tackle every problem as it emerges.

This tendency is dangerous. Your energy becomes fractured as you start to obsess over details and situations that are beyond your control. Ultimately, your ideas and projects suffer.

When faced with a problem, here are a few questions that all creative leaders should ask themselves:

Is this REALLY in your circle of influence?

Many designers will argue with printers over an error that was made during production. Most of the time, the error can be fixed. But sometimes, due to a hard deadline, resources, and the limitations of the machinery, ink, and paper, the right answer is to work around the error. Rather than obsess, time is better spent on changes that can still be made. Nevertheless, many projects suffer because a concern OUTSIDE of the circle of influence becomes the center of attention. The best practice here is to ask yourself, “what is the percentage likelihood that this problem can be reversed with further discussion?” If the chance of resolution is less than 10% then you need to cut your losses! Yes, attaining your perfect vision is nice, but not at the expense of maintaining momentum.

Is this even WORTH your influence?

If you can focus on just the “circle of influence,” then you’re in good shape! But this doesn’t necessarily mean solving every problem. You have limited energy. Challenge your judgments on whether or not these concerns are really worthy of your time. Perhaps it is a concern about a competitor. While you could spend time and advertising dollars to quell your anxiety, perhaps the right answer is to focus on your own customers instead? Just because you can fix something doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

If you can’t delineate your “circle of influence,” get help.

Often times you’ll find yourself unsure of whether or not an item is under your control. A number of internet entrepreneurs I know lament when they find another site copying their design or marketing. The new entrepreneurs become angry and retaliatory, firing off multiple emails and discussing to no end.  In contrast, the more experienced entrepreneurs understand that the back-and-forth that will ensue will simply waste their energy without much to show for it. If you’re too immersed in a problem to be objective, get some perspective from those around you!

In his bestselling book The Power of Now, spiritual teacher Eckart Tolle writes, “Ultimately… there are no problems. Only situations – to be dealt with now, or to be left alone and accepted as part of the present moment until they change or can be dealt with.” Great creative leaders are passionate about their work without allowing their perfectionism and/or anxiety to compromise their judgment. Challenge yourself to only worry about problems that you can solve.