Speaking of connection

Well, speaking of connection, my phone crashed and died this weekend. Poor thing, three years old and worked hard from day one! It just kept restarting. Wandering forever in a startup loop. I know I've felt that way before. Have you? 

The replacement phone is scheduled to arrive Tuesday (thankfully I've got full coverage on my phone), and I'm feeling a bit out of sync and unconnected. How will I ever get all my contacts re-entered if they weren't backed up? I'll find out soon. 

Offline, I did organize my recipes (finally), so there's a plus side to not going through my usual morning routine of playing Boggle online while I finish my chai latte. I'm wondering what other things I could accomplish if I bust out of my usual routine.

On a client-management-related note, I think I finally got through to my client today. The changes Mary* requested were precise design changes that unfortunately didn't help the design at all (she's not a designer). At first, I was so frustrated with her changes, I started to write an email explaining each of my design decisions. Then I remembered to put myself firmly into Mary's shoes. Her objective is the same as mine—to make the project awesome. So I wrote her a note to remind her of the big picture instead…

"If you give me specific art direction changes instead of the 'why' involved with what you want changed, I’m stuck between doing exactly what you’ve asked, or doing what looks and reads best."

I asked Mary to look over my changes and let me know if she felt the changes were still necessary. If she had still requested her changes, I would have done them. But at least she knows she can trust me to do what's best for the project, and that there's not a big ego involved. I think we've connected more firmly because of my push back. I'm not just an order taker—I'm her partner in making her projects awesome!

She actually apologized (not my intention, but welcome nonetheless) and agreed to give me her reasons for her changes and let me decide how best to get the project there.

So win-win. Except for my poor old phone. 

Thanks for reading. Good juju to you!  =)
—Cami

*Of course that's not her real name.