In the words of one Corbin client, “Wayfinding is about economic development. Period.” Robert Brengman, VP Creative for Corbin Design, will be leading a breakout session having to do with Regional Wayfinding and how a comprehensive program can contribute to the overall brand perception of a tourism region. Using examples from the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa, Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania and Fox Valley of Wisconsin, Robert will illustrate how communities have come together to create a system of verbal and visual wayfinding elements that clarify, direct and build awareness of all that each region has to offer.

Link to the Placemaking Summit Overview

But we need to be careful not to cross the line beyond what’s necessary for you. In most cases, an initial proposal will clearly define responsibilities and deliverables, a set fee for those deliverables, and a timeline for completion. Without this, a design firm is either working on a retainer or time and materials basis; even so, there needs to be some delineation of expectations.

There comes a point where we need to ‘teach a man to fish.’

Part of our responsibility is to design the process as well as the outcomes. In order to create a solution that is sustainable over time, we need to develop solutions that educate our clients’ internal staff, as well as addressing the needs of your end user. Indeed, often the most important audience is your internal staff and their ability to maintain and sustain the system we’ve designed together. Absent that, erosion quickly occurs and you lose the value of your initial investment in Corbin Design.

Similarly, if we as designers do not keep a close eye on project scope, timeframes and identified deliverables, we lose our investment in you, our client. If you’ve become too dependent on us for consultation, review and opinions, our billable time begins to add up. Without proper tracking of project phases, a tightly defined budget can begin to erode.

We offer the following to you, helping to create the proper balance:

1. Review the proposal and expectations as the first order of business. We know that sometimes client teams are assembled without full knowledge of project parameters, especially if a purchasing/legal department had final say over the contract terms. It is in the best interests of all concerned to carefully review the terms of the agreement the first time all team members are assembled.
2. Keep the lines of communication open. At Corbin, our Project Managers are tasked with closely tracking budgets and deliverables via an internal studio management software tool. Identifying a key person on your team to act in the same capacity will assure an ongoing system of checks and balances.
3. Define expectations. Part of our goal of ‘designing the process’ is to provide you with deliverables that you can fully understand. It is important for us to clearly state whether submitted designs are in draft form or finalized, whether we’re asking for input or final approval, what time commitments your team will need to make, and the deadlines you’ll need to hit. Clear, concise instructions will accompany every deliverable.
4. Call to confirm. When we send a document, a project manager will call to confirm receipt of that document. Whether or not your team receives the call directly, at least we’ve closed the loop and created an awareness that we’re there for questions or clarifications.
5. WebEx is a wonderful thing. Our experience in recent years points to the effectiveness of technology tools in keeping in touch with you. Building these meeting points into a project schedule and budget demonstrates our intention to stay on top of the project for the duration. Additionally, saving on travel costs allows more flexibility in budgeting, both for you and for us.

As consultants we know that there’s a point at which we need to help our clients take the reigns. It’s as important for us as it is for you to assure the long-term prospects of our respective businesses. By paying close attention to the points above, we’ll all see the benefits of a well-designed project process.

We purchased Studio Manager by Janet Tokerud. It was suggested to us by another design firm. Studio Manager is a vertical market product built for creative services businesses. It is a good product. This isn’t a review of Studio Manager, but I thought it was important background for what I really want to talk about.

Studio Manager is setup so that we can make changes to it. We can add layouts, modify existing layouts, all types of things. What we quickly discovered was that this is a very complicated database. It is far beyond anything that any of us had created in FileMaker Pro. That was when I realized that I needed to learn more about FileMaker Pro, so that I wouldn’t seriously screw up this database. As fate would have it, I received a mailing about FileMaker Developers Conference 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona. It was not cheap, but it sounded like a great opportunity for me to learn more. I did learn a ton. I also learned how little I really knew about FileMaker Pro.

A year has passed since I went to my first DevCon. I’ve had time to work with the application, and get to know it better. That really helped me at FileMaker Developer Conference 2009, in San Francisco, California. I got so much more out of DevCon this time, because I understand FileMaker better than I did a year ago.

I’ve known people who think FileMaker isn’t powerful enough, or versatile enough, or they just haven’t heard of it. I’ve even known people who think it is just a Mac thing. Which is funny, because FileMaker has been cross-platform for most of its existence. Well, anyone who thinks any of those things, hasn’t been to FileMaker DevCon.

There was no way that I could go to all of the sessions at DevCon, but what I saw was impressive. The big thing this year was the new feature for FileMaker Pro 10, “Script Triggers.” Script Triggers make it possible to run scripts based on actions in a database. There were several sessions on the topic. It is an exciting addition to FileMaker Pro that really has changed how developers are working with FileMaker.

I saw demonstrations of FileMaker doing things that I didn’t know it could do. It is fascinating to watch some of the FileMaker masters show their stuff. These people have dug into the application and found little gems for the rest of us. One really great thing about DevCon, is the fact that all of the presenters provide real files that we were able to bring back with us. These files have all of these wonderful little secrets in them for us to add to our own solutions.

Was FileMaker DevCon 2009 worth the expense and my time? Absolutely. The things that I learned there, and will continue to learn will far exceed anything that I would have picked up on my own.

Now, I have to get to work on building some great FileMaker Pro databases for us.

Here are some of the presenters who I saw:
John Mark Osborne, Database Pros http://www.databasepros.com/
Jonathan Stark, Jonathan Stark Consulting http://jonathanstark.com/
Kirk Bowman, Mighty Data LLC http://www.mightydata.com/
Rosemary Tietge, FileMaker Inc. http://www.filemaker.com/
Bill Heizer, FileMaker Inc. http://www.filemaker.com/
Steve Romig, FileMaker Inc. http://www.filemaker.com/
Debi Fuchs, Aptworks Consulting http://www.aptworks.com/tools/index.html
Matt Navarre, MSN Media http://msnmedia.com/
Linda Pitts, Compu-Books http://compu-books.com/
Jesse Barnum, 360Works http://www.360works.com/
Ray Cologon, PhD, NightWing Enterprises http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/
Geoff Coffey, Six Fried Rice http://sixfriedrice.com/wp/

All of those people really know FileMaker Pro. I want to thank all of them and everyone else who contributed to the FileMaker Developer Conference 2009. I benefited from your hard work. I also had a great time.

You also may want to check out Tim Dietrich’s FileMaker Addict blog. http://filemakeraddict.blogspot.com/