0
    • Elementary Secondary Higher Ed Common Reads
    0 0
    Download high-resolution image

    Time by Design

    How Communicating Slow Allows Us to Go Fast

    Part of Design Thinking, Design Theory

    Author Dawna I Ballard On Tour
    Ebook
    The MIT Press
    On sale Dec 16, 2025 | 234 Pages | 9780262383554
    Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies

    See Additional Formats
    How effective individuals, teams, and organizations routinely communicate slow to go fast, and how time as a feature of human experience can actually be designed.

    Speed in collective action, like teamwork or organizing, is never simply a time-based issue. While conventional theory relies on time-based interventions to achieve speed, this approach typically fails. In Time by Design, Dawna Ballard shows how speed is actually a function of the relationship between time and communication, or chronemics.

    Ballard identifies two communication design logics—fast and slow—that reflect contrasting beliefs about how communication works to support urgent, time-sensitive work demands. Fast communication design logics are linear, short term in orientation, and treat time in interaction as transactional. Slow communication design logics are nonlinear and long term in orientation and treat time in interaction as transcendent. Given these distinct approaches, the book offers a practical toolkit that shows the reader how the two chronemic designs can be used in complementary fashion—and how effective teams, communities, and organizations routinely communicate slow to go fast.
    1 Time Talks: The Power of Fast and Slow Communication Design Logics
    2 Design Frames: Communication and the Designable Features of Time
    3 Fast Logics: The Communication Theory of More-Faster-Better
    4 Slow Logics: The Communication Theory of Going Slow to Go Fast 
    5 Beyond Words: Signposts for New Timescapes
    6 Measure Twice: Good Design Takes Time
    Dawna I. Ballard is Associate Professor of Organizational Communication and Technology in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas Austin. Her research and commentary are regularly featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, The Atlantic, Fortune, Forbes, Inc., and NPR, as well as venues such as SXSW and Creative Mornings.
    Dawna I Ballard View titles by Dawna I Ballard

    About

    How effective individuals, teams, and organizations routinely communicate slow to go fast, and how time as a feature of human experience can actually be designed.

    Speed in collective action, like teamwork or organizing, is never simply a time-based issue. While conventional theory relies on time-based interventions to achieve speed, this approach typically fails. In Time by Design, Dawna Ballard shows how speed is actually a function of the relationship between time and communication, or chronemics.

    Ballard identifies two communication design logics—fast and slow—that reflect contrasting beliefs about how communication works to support urgent, time-sensitive work demands. Fast communication design logics are linear, short term in orientation, and treat time in interaction as transactional. Slow communication design logics are nonlinear and long term in orientation and treat time in interaction as transcendent. Given these distinct approaches, the book offers a practical toolkit that shows the reader how the two chronemic designs can be used in complementary fashion—and how effective teams, communities, and organizations routinely communicate slow to go fast.

    Table of Contents

    1 Time Talks: The Power of Fast and Slow Communication Design Logics
    2 Design Frames: Communication and the Designable Features of Time
    3 Fast Logics: The Communication Theory of More-Faster-Better
    4 Slow Logics: The Communication Theory of Going Slow to Go Fast 
    5 Beyond Words: Signposts for New Timescapes
    6 Measure Twice: Good Design Takes Time

    Author

    Dawna I. Ballard is Associate Professor of Organizational Communication and Technology in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas Austin. Her research and commentary are regularly featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, The Atlantic, Fortune, Forbes, Inc., and NPR, as well as venues such as SXSW and Creative Mornings.
    Dawna I Ballard View titles by Dawna I Ballard

    Additional formats

    Other books in this series

    Related Articles

    Subscribe

    Penguin Random House Higher Education

    © 2025 Penguin Random House

    Back to Top
    0
    Wish List (0)