Pay Atention to Detail.
I came across this quote this morning via Design Matters on Twitter:
“The details are not the details. They make the design.” Charles Eames.
That is wisdom. Truly.
If you work in a church, let me ask you a few questions:
- Is there trash/litter/debris scattered throughout your hallways? That’s a design issue and people notice.
- Do you consistently have misspellings in your bulletin or communication pieces? It’s a design issue and people notice.
- Do you have a room that is the “catch-all”, overflowing with junk from various ministries that no one knows what to do with? It’s a design issue and people notice.
- Does your website have old content and/or broken links? That, for sure, is a design issue and many people notice, regardless of what your traffic looks like.
Think these examples of detail sound trivial? Rudy Giuliani didn’t. As a part of a city-wide effort to reform the Big Apple in the 1980′s, Mayor Giuliani ordered that all broken windows be fixed, especially the windows in the darkest, most dangerous, crime-filled parts of the city.
So, amongst other things, the windows were re-paned, graffiti was cleaned up, and New York City started down a path of transformation that is still taking place to this day. Crime and prostitution went down; tourism went up; New York City became a better place.
NYC isn’t perfect, but it’s a lot better than it used to be. Why? Because someone paid attention to detail.
So what about you? What “details” do you need to be paying attention to? They matter more than you think.
PS – Did you notice the title of this post? Did you notice the “t” missing in “attention”? If so, consider yourself well on your way to paying “atention” to detail!
AWESOME! thanks for this post!!! I need to clean my desk, and my room!
Clean. And clean well.
That's good. Gave me goosebumps when reading about Rudi. I actually didn't notice the missing "t" – ugh. What does that say about me???
Most people don't catch the "t". Studies show that if we know the beginning and the ending of the word, we pay little atention (did you catch it there?) to what order the letters in between take. For instance:
Mthoer
Fthaer
Stiser
Bhroter
Most of us know exactly what words those are supposed to say.
And then I went and spelled his name wrong Rud"y".
And here I thought the devil was in the details… But seriously, this is a good point. I just got back from a week with Mickey Mouse and that is a seriously detail oriented place. Every little detail seems to matter there and it's part of the "magic" that you pay a mint for, but it was a really great experience too.
I, too, need to focus on the details…get that little stuff right to make a better big picture. Great thoughts here Justin!