Time by Design: How Communicating Slow Allows Us to Go Fast
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.
1147147636
Time by Design: How Communicating Slow Allows Us to Go Fast
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.
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Time by Design: How Communicating Slow Allows Us to Go Fast

Time by Design: How Communicating Slow Allows Us to Go Fast

by Dawna I Ballard
Time by Design: How Communicating Slow Allows Us to Go Fast

Time by Design: How Communicating Slow Allows Us to Go Fast

by Dawna I Ballard

eBook

$28.99 
Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on December 16, 2025

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Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780262383554
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication date: 12/16/2025
Series: Design Thinking, Design Theory
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 234
File size: 20 MB
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About the 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.
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