Aug 07 2008
Hurry Up and Wait

One of the aspects of building websites and working for interactive agencies that is sometimes nice and sometimes excruiciatingly painful (for some, anyway), is the hurry up and wait aspect of projects. If you’ve been involved in this type of work–or other types that rely on bidding for a contract, a lot of back and forth with clients, dotting all of the i’s and crossing all of the t’s, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s good and it’s bad–depending, anyway, on who you ask.
Personally, i’m neither here nor there on the matter. I enjoy having downtime to prep, to learn more about my client’s business, to think (or at least try to think) as they do. I know putting myself in my client’s shoes is one of the best ways for me to help them get where they need to get. In previous positions, I’ve not always had the opportunity to step back for a few minutes in order to look at the bigger picture. And I know (and I’m sure you know), plenty of people that don’t really care to grasp the bigger picture, because they know what their role is and know (or think) that their role will not have a direct impact or substantial impact on the client business to make a difference…so why try. And, in reality, some of them may be right. But there needs to be a little bit of both type people–the contributor with his or her eye on the larger picture, and the contributor who can’t see the trees for the forest. I think that helps–at least I know it does in my world.
OK, I sense i’m blabbing here, because it’s getting late and i’m tired. I hope I made sense up above–and, in fact, I ‘hope’ so much that i’m not even going to read what I just wrote, which is pretty rare. Have a great night.
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