YehID: Doing Our Part

By Angela Yeh | November 21, 2012 Volunteers prepare food for those in the Rockaways [Image courtesy of Todd Seelie]

It's 4:30am and I can't sleep. So many thoughts are racing through my head. I keep waking to put notes in my iPhone hoping that once they are safely recorded, they won’t keep needling me and I can go back to sleep. There's still so much destruction from Hurricane Sandy surrounding me and I'm so fortunate that those in my immediate circle are safe and out of harm’s way. I'm six months pregnant now and my husband, friends, and family insist I stay safe and not overdo it despite all my desire to get in there, roll up my sleeves, and offer whatever disaster relief I can. I care so much about this country. All of us at Yeh IDeology want to help in some way as New Yorkers and others on the East Coast struggle to recover and rebuild from nature’s fury. With Thanksgiving less than a few days away, the most prominent thoughts in our minds are those of thankfulness for all that we have, for all those who were kept safe throughout all of this turmoil, and for all those who have supported and helped those affected. The storm was and still is bad enough, but unfortunately, its not the only obstacle we Americans are facing now. The economy looks like it’s getting stronger, but it the fact is, there are many Americans who are still out of work, unable to find the opportunities that they want and need. At Yeh IDeology, we want to assist in the effort to put lives, homes, communities, and the economy back together, and helping people understand the job market is where we can have the most impact.

Having been in the recruiting business for 15 years now and establishing Yeh IDeology 6 years ago, we know the job market because we sit in the middle of the hiring process. I have heard so many of the same questions from job seekers and so many of the same questions from employers. The fortunate truth about Yeh Ideology’s team is that we are all designers: we specialized in the design world because that's the world we love, and we’re fortunate to help companies hire the best of the best of any category in which we specialize. As I teach about career strategies to students at Parsons New School and as we at Yeh IDeology advise our employer clients on issues about recruitment specific to design, it becomes clear that many of the lessons and topics we share span across all industries and professions and are relevant for people at all career stages, from the top-tier, seasoned professionals to the aspiring young beginners.

Prior to going into recruiting and starting Yeh IDeology, I experienced firsthand how lost a job seeker can feel not knowing what jobs out there were right for me and what jobs existed for me. Now that my team and I have a front row seat in the job market, we witness over and over how a career defines a person and gives them pride. We also see how crippling it can feel when someone can't find the job of their dreams, and how it can affect their composure.

As both a recruiter and a small business owner of a boutique recruitment firm, I experience firsthand the struggles business owners and businesses go through to build a thriving business. There are so many components to running a business and so many aspects of the business that need attention, time, and funding. We've seen companies find incredible solutions that balance those needs and succeed. And, conversely, we've seen businesses constrained by the many details to be juggled and tackled, and frustrated in their journey to succeed. We've witnessed some businesses struggle to find their way and then, for internal or external reasons, fail.

From our seat here at Yeh IDeology in New York, we care to share with you much of the knowledge and experience we have amassed. If in some small way we can help the job market and economy come together from both the job seeker's and the employer's perspectives, then we will all sleep better, assured we have done our part.

Let's all start sharing what we know and help each other succeed.

We hope that you all have a wonderful and safe holiday!

-Angela Yeh

YehID featured in Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Article

About a month ago, Angela Yeh was given the opportunity to be interviewed about YehID for Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses. The Press Release was sent to numerous newspapers across the globe, four of which are newspapers that are distributed throughout China. The article is already out in China Press and World Journal and is meant to run in Sing Tao Daily and Ming Pao in the next day or so. Click the links above to take a look. If you open the articles in Chrome or Firefox, it will give you the option to translate them into English!

Angela Yeh Featured in Design & Thinking Documentary

Design & Thinking is the brainchild of Yang Yu-Hsiu, the Executive Manager of the Taipei Design Center in the United States, based in San Francisco. He has the unique task of introducing promising Taiwanese designers to corporations and consultancies looking to bolster and invest in design talent. In his discussions with companies and consultancies over the years, he kept hearing the term “Design Thinking”, and more importantly kept hearing the different means and uses for it in the various design landscapes across the country and the world. Fascinated by how one powerful idea can have so many different meanings and misunderstandings in the world of design and commerce, Yang set about documenting the different understandings of the term “design thinking”, and charting its slight changes in terminology as a way of understanding design as a whole even better. The documentary examines how design thinking is successfully impacting business success in design, marketing & branding, analyzing services, operations, etc.

Much like Gary Hustwit’s films Helvetica, Objectified and Urbanized, Design & Thinking explores its concept through conversation with luminaries, design thinkers and business leaders to attempt to explain and understand the idea of design thinking and its importance in business today.

As a friend of Angela’s in the design community, Yang asked her to be a part of the discussion, and to contribute her thoughts on design thinking through her unique perspective and role as a design recruiter.

As a recruitment firm, we are collaborators, mediators, and advisors to both employers and job seekers and we cultivate the best matches of talent to our client’s needs and cultural uniqueness. Design thinking is a term that we here at YehID have heard used plenty of times before and we are very pleased to have been a part of this film in order to help the business world understand how to invest in design & design talent.

Hurricane Sandy Update

It’s been a week since Hurricane Sandy hit, and the East Coast is slowly recovering. We are grateful to say that the YehID Team is safe and well. In the interim while the NYC area was ramping up, we continued to work - some of us remotely - to support you, our customer's needs.This week we're so proud to see NYC's transportation system back up to speed and we're glad to announce that Yeh IDeology is back at full capacity. Our thoughts continue to go out to those in more dire situations. And we hope for a swift recovery for all affected by this disaster. For those of you that want to donate to help those affected by the disaster, here is a link to the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) website. For those of you that want to volunteer in any way, these are two great resources to find out where and when you can help out: New York Cares and UJA-Federation of New York.

Sherry Turkle: The Dangers of Social Media TED Talk

We were recently listening to Sherry Turkle’s TED talk about the dangers of social media/social networking. Turkle spoke often that we are becoming increasingly “connected, but alone”. The statement resonates and is a frightening reminder that social media participation doesn’t necessarily equate to true connectivity to other people. There’s a comfort in these internet personas: you can be who you want, you can ignore who you want, you can lash out at or praise anyone you want… without ever coming into contact with them. It struck us how this issue is affecting careers today not only in the design industry but in all industries.

When we at Yeh IDeology reflect on all of the clients and searches we've worked on, one of the most crucial characteristics that most all of our clients ask for, regardless if they are a major global corporation, manufacturer, design consultancy or start up, is the ability to communicate with others. Whether it’s being able to communicate across departments, with clients, or within one’s design team, effective communication skills are an essential quality that these employees and future employees must have.

Moreover, Turkle states that the “little devices” that we carry with us during the day, sleep with at night, and use as a form of comfort and companionship, are so “psychologically powerful that they no longer simply affect what we do, they change who we are.” Now that the Internet can be accessed anywhere and everywhere using a simple touch of a button or phone screen, there is no “down time” from our Online Lives. She gives the examples of phones being used underneath the table at a business meeting, under a desk during school, and even while spending time with friends and family. We no longer give our attention towards subjects that are supposed to be meaningful to us, and allow ourselves to be distracted by the “rest of the online world”.

The fear is that we may be losing our most valuable skills: relating to others by empathizing or negotiating, representing and positioning ourselves, building real-life relationships, questioning, collaborating, mentoring, leading, etc. When it comes to communicating with one another, we have trained ourselves to retreat into our Internet personas, instead of reaching out with face-to-face conversation. We tend to see in any industry, that those that have a higher social intelligence tend to rise in the ranks faster because social interpersonal skills becomes one of the key attributes needed to succeed in management.

We pose the following questions to you: Are you noticing that social media is affecting business relationships at work? Is it changing the amount of communication, or lack of communication, with other departments? Is progress within your department suffering because of this? More importantly how is this affecting you directly? How is this affecting your job and your advancement?

The growth of digital spaces is inevitable but physical spaces will never be rendered completely irrelevant. As the two spaces fight for room in our lives the norms in one clash with norms in the other, affecting our ability to thrive in either.

Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing

In Last week’s Sunday Review the New York Times published an opinion piece by design polymath Michael Graves, making public a discussion that has been ongoing in design circles for some years now: The Death of drawing and what it means to the design profession. With the pervasiveness of digital technology is drawing by hand becoming a marginalized skill and a dying art? Graves speaks mostly from an architectural perspective and references his own growth as a practitioner as well as noting the need for digital and computation but lamenting a perceived lack of emotion in those designs.

“ … I find this quite different from today’s “parametric design,” which allows the computer to generate form from a set of instructions, sometimes resulting in so-called blob architecture. The designs are complex and interesting in their own way, but they lack the emotional content of a design derived from hand. “

At Yeh IDeology, this question is a daily conversation that we have with our clients. The visual nature of design makes hand drawing still an attractive piece of a portfolio and one that very quickly and easily shows process and how a designer, young or old, thinks. Yet without the ability to translate those drawings into 3D some of that value is lost and extends the design process unnecessarily. The ideal designer combines a solid foundation of hand drawing skills with the ability to translate and iterate quickly in 3D.

Where do you stand on this debate? Is Hand Sketching that important to your practice? Are tablets the right kind of in between system? And what does the future hold as technologies get faster and cheaper in this domain?

Read Graves' opinion piece here and tell us how you feel.

Remembering Bill Moggridge

With all the incredible people we've met in the design world, especially in our own community in New York City, there were very few that matched the intellect, drive, and downright pleasantness of Bill Moggridge. We were lucky enough to have him in the fold at many design events in New York, not to mention our great chats with him at so many symposiums and IDSA conferences, where we were so impressed by a man who added so much to the design world and really had an impact on human culture that far too many do not know. He is perhaps best known as the father of the laptop computer, the key mind in creating its design and ergonomic standards, and the man who created the basis for a tool that millions cannot live without today. He was a pioneer of what would become interaction design, and was a key architect in the forming and naming of the discipline. He went on to form one of if not the most influential design firms ever created, IDEO, which has continued to create new and incredible products and experiences. He left us while heading the Cooper-Hewitt, busy putting the final touches on a great fundraising campaign that will grow the design museum by 60%, and create a new National Design Library in New York. But the thing we'll miss most is our wonderful discussions with the man, so intelligent and down-to-earth, who lived and breathed design. You will be missed.

PepsiCo snags Mauro Porcini

PepsiCo made a really great move this past week by introducing Mauro Porcini as their first Chief Design Officer.This is a major win for PepsiCo and particularly their brand culture, which has undergone a variety of shifts during its lifetime without a key design chief to steer the ship. For a great visionary leader in design such as Mauro Porcini to handle the design language and image of the corporation’s top brands, PepsiCo may finally be able to settle upon an image or stronger sense of brand equity. Longtime rival Coca-Cola has known this for a while, whether purposefully or by a lucky draw, which is why the color red and scripted font are unmistakable throughout the world. And in a world where the brand is sometimes worth more than the product itself, bringing someone in who finally has the ability to say "This is who we are, this is what we are about, and we need to scream it from the mountaintops" is exactly the thing they need, not another, newer logo to take place of the old one. It's just another example of companies that are beginning to trust design, understand its value, and seek it out, and let designers take the reigns and utilize their creativity to establish brands. As more companies begin to understand that design isn’t just about styling pretty things, that in reality it's a vehicle and an invitation for the entire consumer experience, the world will begin to see more and more impactful and engaging brand experiences and start to develop more personable relationships with the product.

Pretty exciting stuff!

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandbergs Fantastic Commencement Address

Recently, Facebook has been in the news for its highly anticipated, if poorly executed IPO, and to a lesser extent, the stealth marriage of its young CEO Mark Zuckerberg to his college sweetheart. Flying under the radar is COO Sheryl Sandberg’s commencement speech to Harvard Business School’s class of 2012.I finally took some time out today to listen to Sheryl Sandberg's address and I was so impressed that she gave such a great speech illustrating the science of Career Strategies in this new world economy.

Among other topics, she ruminated on the breakdown of traditional methods in career pursuit, insightful views on being a truly successfully leader/manager, and the continuing gender inequality in the workplace.

Below are some slightly paraphrased quotes that I thought really hit hard, and what I thought about them. If you have some free time, I definitely suggest taking a look at the video or transcript.

On Career Strategies Sheryl gave some great advice on how to how careers work in today's society. Much of this is what I lecture about in my Careers Strategies Course and Workshops.

“Careers are not a ladder they are a jungle gym.” “Look for opportunities, for growth, for impact and for mission.” “Move sideways, move down, move on, move off.” “Build your skills not your resume.” “Evaluate what you can do not the title they're going to give you.” “Do real work. Take a sales quota, a line role, an ops job.” “Don't plan too much and don't expect a direct climb.”

On Leadership

As traditional structures are breaking down, leadership has to evolve as well. From hierarchy to shared responsibility. From command and control to listening and guiding.

Your strength will not come from some place on some org chart, Your strength will come from building trust and earning respect. You're going to need talent and skill and imagination and vision. More than anything else you're going to need to communicate more authentically, to speak so you inspire people around you, and to listen so you continue to learn each and everyday on the job.

Hierarchical, rigid business structures are making way to flatter and more collaborative models, with clear, authentic communication and an open mind as must-have tools to succeed. We look for these attributes in all of the candidates we work with at all levels. Our more progressive clients know this as well and seek these attributes for their businesses.
On Speaking Honestly

The work place is an especially difficult place for anyone to tell the truth. Because no matter how flat we want our organizations to be, all organizations have some form of hierarchy. And what that means is that one person's performance is assessed by someone else's perception. This is not a set up for honesty. Think about how people speak in a typical workforce.

Truth is better used by using simple language... People rarely speak this clearly in the workforce or in life and as you get more senior, not only will people speak less clearly to you but they will overreact to the small things you say. Next time you hear something that’s really stupid, don’t adhere to it, fight it or ignore it, even if it’s coming from me or Mark [Mark Zuckerberg that is].

Individuals and businesses need to understand the structural barriers that inhibit proper communication, realize how it affects their interactions and adjust accordingly. When they realize this and put it into practice, not only do they garner respect, but they also lay the foundation for a successful future.
On Being A Good Leader

A good leader recognizes that most people won’t feel comfortable challenging authority, so it falls upon authority to encourage them to question. It’s easy to say that you’re going to encourage feedback but it’s hard to do, because unfortunately it doesn’t always come in a format we want to hear.

When you’re the leader, it is really hard to get good and honest feedback, no many how many times you ask for it. One trick I’ve discovered is that I try to speak really openly about the things I’m bad at, because that gives people permission to agree with me, which is a lot easier than pointing it out in the first place. To take one of many possible examples, when things are unresolved I can get a tad anxious... Ask yourself, how will you lead? Will you use simple and clear language? Will you seek out honesty? When you get honesty back, will you react with anger or with gratitude? As we strive to be more authentic in our communication, we should also strive to be more authentic in a broader sense. I talk a lot about bringing your whole self to work— something I believe in deeply.

Creating a clear map of how you want to lead and what you want from those you lead helps set a standard by which you can be held. Moreover, learning how to foster and accept constructive criticism will make you a better leader (and person :) ). It's not often an easy thing to uphold but it's incredibly rewarding when you accomplish this. I practice this as well with my team running my business.
On Company Culture

Motivation comes from working on things we care about but it also comes from working with people we care about, and in order to care about someone, you have to know them. You have to know what they love and hate, what they feel, not just what they think. If you want to win hearts and minds, you have to lead with your heart as well as your mind. I don’t believe we have a professional self from Mondays through Fridays and a real self for the rest of the time. That kind of division probably never worked, but in today’s world, with a real voice, an authentic voice, it makes even less sense.

I talk about my hopes and fears and ask people about theirs. I try to be myself. Honest about my strengths and weaknesses and I encourage others to do the same. It is all professional and it is all personal, all at the very same time.

One major distinguishing characteristic of successful modern business from those in the past is the bridging of professional and personal lives. Learn what fundamentally drives the people your company and speak to those motivations then the company will drive itself.
On Women In The Workforce

We need to start talking about how women underestimate their abilities compared to men. Success and likeability are negatively correlated. That means that as a woman is more successful in your workplaces, she will be less liked. This means that women need a different form of management and mentorship, a different form of sponsorship and encouragement, and some protection, in some ways more than men. When they hear a woman is really great at her job but not liked, take a deep breath and ask why. We need to start talking openly about the flexibility all of us need to have both a job and a life.

I’ve spent 20 years in the creative industry and observed that women in the field are not immune from the challenges their peers face in other industries. Keeping a level head in the face of adversity and openness in addressing the issue are small, but necessary steps in the direction.

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The professional world is in the midst of a revolution. The most successful job seekers adapt to the new environment. They focus primarily on skills and value they can add rather than superficial titles. They take risks joining companies that are challenging norms, pushing innovation and are less concerned with location and prestige. We all need to continue this revolution.

NYC Design Summit 2012 Recap

We're happy to say that the Design Summit 2012 at the Knoll Showroom was a smashing success! Presented in a collaboration between IDSANYC and Yeh IDeology, creatives from around the Northeast enjoyed an engaging conversation between our panelists and a fun connectivity event. Thank you so much to our wonderful panelists Gaz Brown, Cordy Swope, Tiffany Threadgould, and Dan Fogarty. Thank you for coming and we hope to see you at the next IDSANYC and/or Yeh IDeology event! Video of the event will be up in just a bit.

NYC Design Summit 2012

On February 9th 2012, Yeh IDeology continues our strategic relationship with IDSANYC, presenting our second annual Design Summit at the Knoll showroom. This event will present a panel of top designers and business leaders who will be discussing the elements and issues impacting the current state of design and sharing their unique insight on how to approach 2012. Check out the specifics and learn about our panelists below:

You can RSVP here, but move quickly, space is limited!

After the panel discussion, we invite everyone to participate in a Community Connectivity Workshop, it's a great way to come and meet people throughout the design landscape and network, not to mention pick up some cool prizes from Quirky and TerraCycle.

The Panel Discussion will begin promptly at 6:30pm and the event will go on to 9:00pm EST. Come out and enjoy!

Building Culture with the Right Talent

“Culture” has become the corporate equivalent of charisma – clearly some have it, but those that try to create it too often end up with a mess of lip service and blatant mimicry that misses the spirit. True, not every company is going to be a Google, an IDEO, or one of Fortune 500’s Top 100 , but that doesn’t mean that employees shouldn’t love and connect with where they work. FastCo recently featured a few articles, one by Arshad Chowdhury and another by Shawn Parr which both offered great insights into what makes (or breaks) a company culture. We agree its not about the office space or the letterhead; we think it has everything to do with the people you hire. Here are a few factors we have found to be incredibly impactful:

Pick the employees who are right for you – There is no end to different kinds of companies out there. In a world where acceptable office attire can range from a pinstriped suit to a blazer and an old band T-shirt, it’s worth recognizing that these differences matter. You’ll want to create a team that reflects the attitude and the verve of the founders and the company. It’s a whole different energy when employees not only understand but also internalize a business’s principals. And choosing the right people off the bat can save your company the time and money that turnover costs entail.

When you’ve found the right talent for your culture, make it work - Sure it may sound like homage to the incomparable Tim Gunn, but it’s really great advice. The best person for your company isn’t always going to be a local, inexpensive hire. Seeming obstacles (Visa issues, salary negotiations, relocation costs, mortgages, rooted families) may actually be a reason why they’re the right person to hire. The perspective they get from their international background or the insights they have from being a parent can all be very valuable. In seeing employees as people, it’s amazing to realize how many facets they have to offer.

Be who you are as a company – Don’t try to create another company’s culture in your office. If you’re a rugged outdoor equipment firm, don’t try to create the out-of-the-box environment of a tech startup. Some of the best company cultures are also radically different from one another. Method isn’t Zappos isn’t The Container Store and that’s OK. The most important thing is to be genuine and sincere.

Don’t be afraid to do things differently – Google’s 20% rule is proof that a non-traditional approach can be incredibly productive, both for employees and the company. In enacting this, Google proved that it really understood it’s employees, what would motivate them and allow them to do their best work. It’s certainly not a one-size fits all, but it is great to evaluate your own company and see if your company could benefit from it’s own version of the 20% rule.

Let people have some autonomy – Building Happiness cited studies that found employees who could control the light on their desk (how bright, when it was turned on, etc) were considerably better off than those that had a uniformly lit office. If a desk lamp can make that much difference just imagine what larger changes can do.

Our final piece of advice? Office snacks.

Design Impact Fellows

At Yeh IDeology our day-to-day consists of matching design talent with companies that need that designers. However, that’s a fairly narrow way to think about design recruitment, and we like to keep the broader picture in mind. Every corporation that hires a new designer grows it’s design department. Each department that grows will reach more individuals with its thinking. And as more people appreciate and value quality design, it gains traction as a positive force not only improving the day-to-day, but also addressing social challenges. Humanitarian aid, much like design thinking, has undergone a substantial shift in recent years. Summed up by Project H’s creed “Design WITH, not FOR” there is now a heavy focus on collaborative long-term solutions. By integrating a system into an existing community, the effort becomes self-sustained and assists individuals not only in the immediate, but also in the long term to gain a greater autonomy and sense of control, addressing (at least in part) the harsh psychological effects of poverty.

One of the exciting organizations that’s expanding the reach of design is Design Impact Founded by Ramsey Ford and Kate Hanisian, Design Impact is a sort of Peace Corps for strategic thinkers with design chops. As their website states:

“We not only scale individual social design solutions, we scale a social design process, sustainably replicating our model. This means more design services offered in the social sector, more people collaborating on pressing issues, and more design solutions fostered simultaneously.”

They do this by bolstering entrepreneurial ventures:

As well as considering health and the environment while working on development:

Design Impact is looking for a new set of fellows to carry on with the great work they have already accomplished. On January 1st they opened their call for the 2012 set of fellows, passionate, talented designers who want to work in the field and do hands-on work in India. Check out their website to see if you'd like to apply!

This is a great organization we are thrilled to support, because after all, Design Impact really seems to get step #5