When People Don’t See
At the end of the their first year, new editors begin to “find their feet.” They’ve been through the publishing process; completed one or more projects; and know considerably more about making books than they did when they first walked through the door.
We were working on 8-page readers. These books were for kids at the earliest stages of their reading career.
We were at the beginning of the book design process. On this day, we had met to review book design samples and had chosen the one we would go with ââ¬â a large square, 8 inches de all photo or art but a one-inch band for type across the bottom of the page.
The typeface was one of the four then available that had an “open a” and an “open g.” These two letters are important to early readers because they help kids make connections. They look the same way kids are taught to write them.
I tell you this because the discussion of the open a and open g led one first year-editor to over-generalize, taking her woefully astray. Two hours after the design meeting, Suzannah, the editor, came into my office looking seriously concerned.
“We have a problem,” she said.
“I see. Tell me about it.”
“We can’t use this typeface we have chosen. It has square periods.”
She showed me a two-page design spread that had two giant pictures, one sentence per page. She pointed to the periods. Indeed they were square. Pixels are square. So are periods. I guess she hadn’t noticed that you have to go through a few typefaces to find periods that are not. Itââ¬â¢s kind of like kissing frogs to find a prince. It takes a lot.
“Okay, lay out your thinking.”
“First-grade teachers teach kids to make their periods round like this,” she said demonstrating. She took out a sheet of paper and wrote a sentence like a first grade teacher might — though she had never taught, she seemed awfully certain of exactly how it was done.
“And the typeface is a problem because . . . ”
“It’s different from the teachers’ model.”
“Oh, Suzannah. Now I see.” I turned the two-page spread back to face her. “What you’re saying is . . . if I made another spread exactly like this one replacing only the square periods with round ones, . . . and if I showed the two spreads to ten teachers and asked them to tell me what was different, all ten would see it right away.”
“Oh yes,” said Suzannah. By now I’m thinking, I’d better get this girl a banjo for her knee, because she’s not seeing the world the way it really is.
“That’s okay, Suzannah. I’ll take the hit. I take full responsibility. For every letter or returned book we get because of square periods, the heat will come down on me.”
I’m not sure how long it took for her to get perspctive. I knew there was no convincing her just then. It’s hard to have an unbiased world view when you’re in love with the information in your own head.
Remembering what we once didn’t know seems to be an acquired skill not a natural talent.
That can lead us to endow our customers with information that they have no way of knowing and to us deciding what’s important to them.
Caring for customers is the goal. Configuring them is the problem. Don’t fix square periods that folks don’t even see.
I bet there are “square periods” in your line of work — they show up in conversations where I work more often than I’d ever have thought.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Business Rule 7: Sound Bytes, Stories, and Analogies
Business Rule 6: Who Dropped the Paddle?
Business Rule 5: Never Underestimate the Power of a Voice on the Telephone
>ââ¬ÅThatââ¬â¢s okay, Suzannah. Iââ¬â¢ll take the hit. I take full responsibility. For every letter or returned book we get because of square periods, the heat will come down on me.ââ¬Â
I’m wiping tears away. That story, and especially that retort will become one of my staples – hysterical.
It’s what I really said, but not the way you makd it sound.
Are you picking on me? Jeff Brown? 🙂
If she didn’t realize you’d just turned BawldGuy on her, I can understand. Coming from you my guess is you intended (and she took it) to literally insure she thought you were taking the pressure off her. You were indeed being kind.
That said, it’s still hysterical. 🙂
And for the record, any time I can pick on you I take it. The opportunity presents itself so rarely, it has great value. 🙂
I used what worked. Tha’t smy story and I’m sticking to it. 🙂
“By now Iââ¬â¢m thinking, Iââ¬â¢d better get this girl a banjo for her knee, because sheââ¬â¢s not seeing the world the way it really is.”
That’s what got me wiping away the tears. Why do I find that funny? I don’t even know why I find that funny.
Well,
I admit. I did write it to be a little bit funny. I can do that and Oh Sussanah really needed to lighten up a little. you know?
My question is “Would anyone really have noticed?”
No Leon,
They wouldn’t have noticed. Do you notice whether the typefaces in the books you read do? The young lady in question had just gotten over sensitized and over-applied her knowledge. She made up a rationale to fit comething she thought she knew.
Later “square periods” became our code phrase for “We’re talking about something that doesn’t matter.” People in business talke things they think are important that aren quire often actually. I bet you’ve seen it once or twice. 🙂
I bet Suzannah was drinking from the “font” of youth… OK, OK, bad pun. Twenty years in the work world, and I think the only things that still amaze and astound me are those nuggets that wind people up in the dogma house. I’ll probably always have a hard time understanding those who always think there is only one right answer. But without those myopic and narrow-minded people out there, I would have no blog fodder of my own.
Hi Tim!!
This is one of the first stories I tell no matter where I work. It comes in handy to have it in the cultural lore. Then when folks go off on tangents about things that don’t matter I can just say, “Are we talking about square periods here?’
Blog fodder is a goldmine!!
What a wonderful illustration of the Heath boys’ Made to Stick principle of “the curse of knowledge”! It’s hard for us, once we know something, to remember what it’s like NOT to know it.
I think you handled it quite well, especially the banjo part – bwa-ha-ha-ha! I should have you for a boss. I guarantee we’d be laughing so hard all day milk would spray from our noses! 😀
Hi Robert!
That’s it exactly the “curse of knowledge.” How hard it was to convince folks that once they walked in the door they were no longer representative of the folks who had never worked at a publisher.
It’s too early for that milk image. You are evil. 🙂