Reflection: Key to Lifelong Learning

I was recently asked to lead a design concept presentation to a group of editorial executives in our NBC newsroom regarding a new feature in our mobile apps. It leant on an initial approach of conditional knowledge in seeking out confirmations and gaps in knowledge from my audience, as well as the procedural knowledge involved in presenting the proposed work. It wasn’t a pitch, but more of an informal conversation based on sharing an approach, making the discussion visual, and giving our executives something to react to.

Unsure of the tenor of the room, I deliberately seeded aspects of the design which I knew were incorrect as a means of getting to what we do want, but through showing something we don’t want. I need to overcome the challenge of getting from vague to crisp in under five minutes with a room of ten people. This preemptive affective approach motivated a conversation about what we should do next, without the risk of showing something which was unwillingly incorrect. By making the work deliberately wrong, I crucially had to position the work as such early, changing my responses based on the real-time conditional and affective aspects of the feedback. By showing something wrong, we got to a path forward faster.

Upon reflection, it felt risky to take an approach of going into an executive meeting with work you know to be incorrect, and I’ve learned to be sparing with this approach, especially when I am less familiar with others in the room. But by deliberately positioning the work as an incomplete conversation starter, I was able to get a room of executives to focus on what happens next, rather than derailing into reacting to a series of designs they don’t like.

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