Experience by Design

Anyone who has been involved in education knows that education ain’t easy. It can be tricky and challenging to figure out how best to learn, integrate, and distill information to an audience. From the days of Socrates in the Agora and even before, the challenge of reaching learning with information that connects and educates has existed. The emergence of a wide array of technologies has further complicated the question of how to teach. Google Classroom and Zoom, along with the array of learning management systems that exist, have not necessarily changed how we do teaching; rather it changed just how we delivered it. What is needed is a fresh re-evaluation of how we reach broader and more widely distributed audience with information that they need.

To help us explore these topics, we welcome Dr. Mohamed Latib to the Experience by Design studio. Mohamed is one of the founders of CX University, as well as PX University, online educational resources for those who are looking to become trained and versed in these areas of experience design. Mohamed has had a long career in teaching, consulting, and professional development with a variety of clients. While he has learned that each client comes with their own unique needs and characteristics, there are common features that need to be considered - because at the end of the day, you are dealing with humans.

We talk about the democratization of knowledge through technology, courteous nudges, and learning support. We also discuss how experience boils down to three elements: cognition, emotion, and behavior. Finally, we explore the systems-based elements of experience design, and how if you build content that is robust, and that captures people’s interest, then you can deliver meaningful learning experiences that provide the educational foundation upon which they can build their futures.

When confronted with all of the wicked problems that we are facing as a country, global community, and species, it can all seem pretty hopeless. The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass famously said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and never will.” When looking at the challenges of these wicked problems, we can see power and profit, and the resistance to cede that privileged position, to be a foundational challenge to making positive change. It might seem that big challenges require big complex responses. However, at the same time, great changes also can have humble beginnings.

To continue our conversations around social responsibility and designing social change, we have Professor and Attorney David Johnson from Stanford University. David has extensive experience working as a general counsel for high tech firms in Silicon Valley. But before that, he got his start as a marine biology student with the intention to do environmental and oceanographic sciences.   These beginnings led him to combine his legal experiences with his love and care for the environment. 

We talk with David about examples of social activism that started small but resulted in big changes. David describes the design of a type of activism starter kit, highlighting inspirational stories of social activism to inspire and direct contemporary and future generations looking to make a difference. These tools are part of his search to identify what are the elements that need to exist for a single action to trigger a movement for effective change. Design and designers can help activists improve their actions so they have the best chance of making that kind of change possible. Ultimately, when you design things well, good things can happen. And when you design social change and activism experience well, you might just save a planet. 

As social scientists in sociology and anthropology, we are well-versed in the examination of business as a source of disruption in society. The privileging of profits over people, the extraction of resources for the benefit of shareholders, question ethics and legality rationalized as a necessary evil. Especially looking at the slash-and-burn era of the 1980s and 1990s, we saw business culture as "greed is good," with Wall Street being given greater attention and importance than Main Street. 

As a result, it is easy to be cynical of the greater calls by businesses to be ethical and socially responsible. While there still are important reasons to be suspicious and critical of the motives and impacts of business (especially large multinationals), there are other indications of change in the mindset and philosophy of business culture and leaders. Gary's own place of employment has touted “Business for Good” as a mantra where businesses are a part of the solution to the massive challenges and wicked problems facing all of us. As the Business Roundtable endorses a “stakeholder model” and there is more discussion of ethics and social responsibility, we are left wondering just how serious can these claims be taken?

To talk about social responsibility and business, we welcome Drew Bonfiglio from Emzingo. Emzingo was born out of an academic exercise in graduate school that now exists as a thought and action leader in making business as a force for good. Replacing the studying abroad experience with more of a focus on social entrepreneurship, Emzingo provides pathways for businesses to do better and be partners in creating positive social change. 

We talk about the challenges of making businesses live the words that they speak. We also talk about the B-Corporation movement, and how Emzingo has been part of the effort to create certified socially responsible businesses. Working with company leaders and employees, Drew and Emzingo try to create socially responsible experience and design outcomes for a better society. Finally, we talk about how swimming in mayonnaise can get very tiring, and how trust is the absolute key when asking companies and employees to wade into uncertainty. 

The field of leadership coaching has been expanding with many different types of offerings provided by just as many different approaches. And it is hard to say that it is not needed. People in management positions can be beset on all sides by demands and limitations, making even thinking about leadership just another thing to add onto an already packed to-do list. 

In some fields of work, the situation is even more challenging. For instance, those who are working in engineering fields might get next to no training on how to work with one of the most complex machines: people. While they might want to be in a position to help people who work for them, they have never been shown how. Furthermore, they likely are not into the “foofy”, meaning they want to cut to the chase in terms of how to create change. 

To talk about how to cut to the chase and avoid the “foof”, we have Jennifer Chapman from Ambition Leadership. Jennifer focuses her efforts on STEM managers and leaders, a unique niche that she is well suited to take on. Besides being married to an engineer,  she has worked with the Internal Revenue Services as well as the National Science Foundation, the Red Cross, and others. One thing these organizations have in common is that they turn more like cruise ships than jet skis. The other thing is that they are made up of people, and people who want a purpose. 

We talk with Jennifer about how the most effective leaders are the ones who empower their employees. We also explore the unique aspects of working with data-driven and task-focused sectors. She discusses how mindset is the primary obstacle to making changes, and how more resources need to be devoted to training. 

Finally, we talk about how people matter because those are the ones who are going to make things happen. And when designing leadership and employee experiences, your people need to come first. 

In many ways, Experience Design is a new field of work in terms of how it has become focused on and prioritized in companies and across sectors. In other ways, there is nothing new about it at its core. Experiences have been designed and delivered throughout human history. Perhaps what is most different about today is the awareness and intentionally behind experience design. 

But what is the purpose of all this experience designing? Are we just trying to increase bottom-line revenues? Are we trying to create better outcomes beyond profit? How about creating more equitable environments? Perhaps we are trying to effect some kind of positive change through the interactions that we orchestrate, the environments that we construct, and the perceptions that result. Or maybe all of the above?

To discuss these questions and more, today on Experience by Design we welcome Michael Kirkpatrick of Centric Park. Michael has had a long career as a designer, working as the Executive Vice President of Client Experience and Strategy at Mad*Pow before starting Centric Park and serving as its CEO. 

We talk about not just talking about design, but using experience design to transform business and outcomes. Specifically, we talk about how experience design needs to be a people (or human)-centered activity, constantly coming back to the question of what is best for those who are involved. Using a systems perspective, this requires the designer to take ethnographic noticings, stakeholder input, and designer vision to achieve those goals, which first and foremost includes designing products and services that will help people. 

Finally we talk about gaming in the age of CD-ROMs, and how Monopoly and Risk are really tough games to finish.

We might have all heard that curiosity killed the cat. But as with all stories, the reality of that statement is a bit more complicated. It turns out that the initial version of that phrase referred to how excessive worry or concern for others killed the cat, and that is a concept we can all relate to. Curiosity, on the other hand, did not cause harm to the cat, and may in fact have improved its life. Afterall, curiosity is one of the things that we see in babies as they explore their environments, children when they go off to school, or for anyone who is exploring a new environment. 

Where then, does curiosity go in our lives? It seems that as we get older, or more settled, or more busy and preoccupied, curiosity feels more like an obligation than an opportunity. How might we reinvigorate that sense of curiosity in our lives and ourselves? How can we integrate curiosity to make it once again part of who we are? And how can we have curiosity with care and intentionality, being aimed at a positive end that we are directing? 

Today on Experience by Design we Monica Canfield-Lenfest and Pim Schachtschabel from Architecting Curiosity. They describe their company as a community and school to practice and train your natural muscle of inquiry. That curiosity is part of our natural self is central to their work, and how they work with clients to tap back into it and exercise it. Like all muscles, curiosity can atrophy from lack of use. The good news is that Architecting Curiosity are like curiosity therapists, working with people who want to reinvigorate their inquisitive self.

We talk to Pim and Monica about their work and how it started. We discuss the “Huh” moment when that first noticing becomes a pathway to explore new worlds. They take us through their framework to guide their clients back into curiosity and discovery. Ultimately their work is to help people go beyond the limitations they have created for themselves, freeing their minds to explore and discover. 

We also learn what is served at parties in the Netherlands.

As ethnographers, we are used to the idea that big discoveries can come from everyday observations. There are possibilities for discovery all around us. All it takes is for us to notice, and noticing can be the hardest thing to teach. An observation becomes a noticing, which then becomes a premise, which turns into an idea, and eventually perhaps even a paradigm. 

Our guest, Jason Barger, today spent a lot of time in airports, and it was a simple observation at the baggage claim that led to his book “Step Back from the Baggage Claim: Change the World, Start at the Airport.” The premise of the book is “how to change our daily world through thoughtful and compassionate action.” Or, the biggest changes can start with the smallest acts of compassion, kindness, and service.

He has a new book called “Breathing Oxygen: How Positive Leadership Gives Life to Winning Cultures.” In it, Jason takes his experience of working with some of the biggest brands and combines it with the lessons he has learned from a life spent in service to others. In the episode, we talk about how today’s generation needs fulfillment through their work, and to be part of something larger than themselves. We also explore how busyness is not the same as effectiveness, and how more time to reflect and think can pay dividends when it comes to deciding and doing. 

Gary also learns that good things can come out of Columbus, Ohio, although it is not clear if he remains convinced.

Changing mindsets, behaviors, and organizations are hugely challenging. Design presents a pathway for trying to do so. However, when considering the complexity of systems and all the elements associated with them, the challenge can seem overwhelming. People can either oversimply to the point where their approach is incomplete, or get stuck in the weeds to the extent that nothing gets done. To approach the challenge of systems design, we need to draw on a variety of inspirations and professions.

Being a physics teacher, a heavy metal aficionado, hockey player, cookie baker, rhetoritician has come together in interesting ways for our guest. Trying to teach high school students physics was good preparation for trying to keep the attention and reach executives. Heavy metal music allowed her to be sensitive to subtle aspects of a bigger sound. Hockey taught the concept of hard work and team work. Studying rhetoric gave her the understanding of how to communication information to people in ways that connect, along with diagnosing problems that people have when communicating with others. And cookies taught her the importance of …… cookies.

The key is to pull all of this together and integrate it into a workable framework that helps expand our capacity to understand and act. As we come to understand the importance of systems, we also understand that the challenges are bigger than any one perspective can understand or handle. This means that to handle bigger design problems, we need more integrated solutions.

Today on Experience by Design we have Jen Briselli, the Chief Design Strategy Officer at Mad*Pow, an experience design firm in New England. We explore how changing mindsets and “nudging” can be a key strategy to do so. We also discuss how communication and messaging is a key component to accomplishing behavioral changes. We need to know what makes people tick, what their goals are, and how to use the tools handed to them.

But we can’t do this in silos. To tackle the big challenges and wicked problems that we are facing, we need to combine our resources and work together. And ultimately, how keeping a beginner’s mind for every project keeps her engaged in her work and continuously learning. 

Bob Ross has long been a fixture in the pop cultural landscape. The big hair, the soft voice, the happy little clouds, and the artwork created in an episode made Bob compelling and peaceful viewing. There was something about seeing a canvas transformed into a landscape that was transfixing.

Despite his shows being on many decades ago, there is more Bob Ross today than ever. Bobble heads, Chia pets, art supplies, board games, t-shirts, and many other items. You can even watch a marathon of Bob Ross episodes on the live streaming platform Twitch every weekend. Bob, it seems, has never left us and won’t be going anywhere any time soon.

Today on Experience by Design to talk about the Bob Ross experience is Joan Kowalski. Joan’s parents were responsible for helping Bob launch into the cultural zeitgeist. From her first job at Bob Ross, Inc., Joan is now the company’s president. In that role, she oversees all things Bob.

We talk to Joan about the origins and rise of Bob Ross, Inc, and why she thinks Bob continues to resonate today. We explore the design of the Bob Ross experience in its many forms. We discuss Bob the Sex Symbol, and the rise of “Bobology”, or the study of Bob. We talk about whether Bob will ever get respect from the art world given that he is perhaps one of the most popular culture artist known. Finally she tells us why the world needs more art, and how the curating of Bob’s work is helping to connect people with their creative selves. 

Anyone engaged in experience design knows the challenges of measuring experiences. Far being being a recent issue, understanding our experiences with the world has long challenged philosophers and social scientists. If centuries of the world's greatest thinkers has yet to be able to figure it out, you know it is a hard nut to crack. To solve this issue, many measurement strategies have evolved, each with this benefits and drawbacks. It can feel overwhelming in terms of trying to what can be the best approach to take.

Luckily, there is Greg Kihlström's new book "Meaningful Measurement of the Customer Experience." A prolific writer, speaker, consultant, and podcaster, Greg combines his experience and the experiences of others in a comprehensive overview of measurement strategy, philosophy, and execution.

Greg visits the Experience by Design studio to discuss his book, where he gives “guidance on how to create a customer-centric culture that prioritizes customer needs while aligning internal teams around a common goal.” On the podcast, we discuss ‘best practices’ across different companies, and how we might provide  ‘better practices’ for increasing our understanding of customers, their experiences, and their worlds. We also discuss the connection between customer and employee experiences, and new directions in CX and experience measurement.  

Memories are central to our lives, and how we form a sense of who we are as people. How we remember and engage with the past speaks to our identity in the present. Both events good and bad can form deep impressions in our minds, cutting grooves  and building pinnacles that create the topography of our experiences. Low points and high points, trauma and triumphs, all are part of the past brought to present in our memories.

But memories are not ours alone to make. Rather, memories can be built, constructed, framed, and recalled in the context of others, society, and culture. We can see this today in American society, where there is a lot of contested territory regarding what is being remembered and how. When we broaden out the voices being represented in these collective memories, the challenge becomes even greater to be inclusive and to negotiate memories in these contested spaces.

To explore the creation of memory and place, Julia Beabout from the company Novaby visits the Experience by Design studios. Julia is the CEO and Creative Director at Novaby, and was involved in the Monumental Conversations project in Richmond, VA. The project combined augmented reality with local community institutions to tell different stories about place, history, and memory. 

She describes herself as “On fire for Fairness”, trying to create engaging experiences that capture the collective memories of community members. ‘Place making’ as she calls it is about co-creation with the community, and then making augmented and virtual memorials to commemorate in ways that are themselves memorable. By doing so, we make environments that are inclusive and representative in a continuous ways as our understanding of who we are evolves.

While we are celebrating Earth Day on April 22nd, it might feel more appropriate to be planning the Earth’s memorial service. Earth Day was founded in 1970 as a way to learn about environmental issues, highlight sustainability of natural resources, and direct our attention to the fragility of our world. In the intervening 52 years, things haven’t gotten much better. 

Attempts to change our energy production, usage, and pollution have run into the wall of politics, conspiracy theories, and denial. It seems that when we need action the most, it is hardest to come by. Despite people increasingly coming to terms with the reality of climate change, adequate action is still not being taken, leading to worries about it being too late.

To help us explore some of these questions, Professor Frans Melissen visits the Experience by Design studios. Frans has spent a career examining not only the impact of people and society on the environment, but also the larger question of sustainable experiences. We talk about the nature of how systems based on profit cannot necessarily act in ways that are environmentally responsible. He tells us about his idea of being a ‘scholactivist’, or combining scholarship with activism. By finding ways to communicate more broadly through new mediums like TikTok, scholars can have a greater impact.

Organizations may often think of change, but they are also often not serious about actually changing. When it comes down to making changes, where the rubber hits the proverbial road and orgs have to consider resourcing, people, budgets and time horizons, the reality of what it takes to change runs up against actual desire to change. Change can be even more difficult when things seem to be going well. Why change when we don’t need to? Because when things are going well, it might be the best time to start thinking about changes.

Andy McDowell, of Generate Your Value, stops by the Experience by Design studios to talk about how self-transformation is the key to making transformative experiences. The mission of Andy's company is "to serve as a powerful catalyst for entrepreneurs to experience extraordinary success in business and life.” To help clients achieve this transformation, he applies organizational change and innovation strategies to individual lives. 

We talk about how going to and then leaving Boeing lead to his own realization of achieving individual change. We also chat about how it is hard to be heard within your own organization when trying to lead innovation and change initiatives. Anyone who has tried to be recognized and ended up being ignored knows what this feels like. We discuss his own challenges in Boeing to be heard, how he uses this experience to fuel his own work, and how that work has translated into helping others to transform their own work and lives. 

With the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, there has been a lot of discussion of the military in the news recently. As we see images on television of these conflicts, the service of those in the military comes into clearer focus. There are those who are giving their years, themselves, and even their lives. Even in 'peace time,' military members can go on long deployments not take them away from their homes and their families. While we often are reminded of the sacrifices of those in uniform, it can be easy to forget the sacrifices of those family members who also are affected. 

On this episode of Experience by Design, we talk to Dr. Shelley Kimball, formerly of the Military Family Advisory Network. Shelley was the Vice President of Research and Program Evaluation at the MFAN, and is now Senior Lecturer and Program Coordinator at the Johns Hopkins University. In her role at MFAN, it was her job with her team to not just count how many services were delivered, but how many positive experiences were created. 

In our conversation, we talk about how she and her team use experience design principles in the evaluation of services and programs provided by MFAN. Central to their work is to treat everyone with dignity and that they are a customer. They use qualitative measurement approaches to understand the meaning behind the experiences they provide. Their goal is to make sense of everything from the point of view of those who are their target audiences. As Shelley notes, while AI and ML can perhaps get you 80% of the way in your analysis, you can’t yet replace the human brain. Also, you can't just deliver services and count that as success. You need to see the meanings that are created for those you are serving. 

Organizations used to be notable for their stability. Some of the biggest companies were well-known for their established cultures, their recognizable products, and their steadfast brands. Going to work at one of those companies meant permanence and security. It wasn’t just that those companies were change adverse; it is that change was seen as irrelevant. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 

But we don’t live in a world that is predictable and stable. As the saying goes, change is the only constant, and if we aren’t willing to change, then we may be on the path to irrelevance.

At the same time, wanting and being willing to change isn’t enough. We have to make changes in how we see the world and change our reactions to it. Barry Borgerson has been helping organizations see and make the changes they needed to make for some time. A PhD in computer science helped him see culture from a systemic perspective, understanding how an organization is a set of interconnected parts that can have a legacy framework that impedes change. Likewise, we need to create self-correcting mechanisms to help change happen more frequently in response to the rate of change. Finally, be challenging our perceptions in how we see the world can be the cornerstone in how we create the possibility for change

It can be easy to forget that experience design, whatever the kind, is about people. More than that, it is about making not only experiences better, but more importantly their lives better. As experience designers, we can help in ways great and small. It can be an overused phrase to be customer, or patient, or user centric. And we can lose sight what that means, and what our design recommendations and decisions can mean, in people’s lives. 

Eleni Stathoulis is focused on delivering that difference through design. She is Principal in Design at Mad*Pow, a New England-based firm that creates innovative experiences and solutions that benefit people and businesses. She has worked with clients across a variety of business sectors and industries, but with always the same goal: to bring the voices of people back into the design process in order to do good. 

We talk with Eleni about her path to her current position. From her education as a graphic design major and communications minor, she has integrated both to better relate findings to clients. We talk about how by keeping the goals of the project in mind, and the needs of the people at the center, we can deliver designs that matter and create change.

We are on the verge of a new year, and with a new year comes new ideas about how we need to make changes in our lives. While individual will often make New Year’s Resolutions about how to make a “new you”, what about organization? What resolutions can organizations make to change the way they have been doing things, and enter the new year with not only the best intentions, but the best outcomes?

To help us explore how to make those radical changes in our individual and organizational lives, we have in the Experience by Design Studios Radhika Dutt. Radhika is the author of Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter. In her book, she distills that wealth of knowledge into some clear elements that any individual or organization can use. In today’s conversation we break down what radical product thinking is and can do. It’s a skill for creating change in the world around you, and one of the most interesting aspects is that it can work for organizations, but also you as an individual, or even entities not traditionally considered products such as Singapore. 

One key element of radical product thinking we discuss is building out vision vs iterative product thinking, meaning how can we create guides and guardrails to foster growth in a desired direction, measure what matters, and create lasting change.

When the world can feel more divided than ever - whether polarizing politics, climate change or economic uncertainty, ethnography reminds us to come back down to earth, and into the lives of people. Because the truth is, if we want to see systemic change, and address issues larger than ourselves, we actually have to start with everyday experience. And being willing to go against the grain, challenge the status quo.

Thibault Manekin has a habit of putting himself into uncomfortable situations of the extraordinary kind. In his new book Larger than Yourself, he chronicles the various moments in his life where seeking the uncomfortable was the path to not only his growth, but increased opportunities for others. At the heart of each of these stories is the rebellion against those who warn “You can’t” or tell him “No.” Hearing these phrases lets him know when he is pushing hard enough to do something truly revolutionary. If you are not struggling, what you are trying to do is probably too easy to begin with.

While perhaps laudable, such an approach can easily become misguided. Putting oneself into uncomfortable situations can easily become self-serving. Such an approach can slip into a person using others to feel growthful and even a thrill seeker. To embed the action into impact, it becomes more important to align the idea with the desires and goals of those in the setting. We have to build and make change from the inside out, getting input from the various stakeholders that exist in the space in which we are seeking to make a difference.  

This means a rebalancing of power, whether it be in an organization, an institution, or a community. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. The question becomes how to make people more equal in the relationship. While a CEO and a janitor may have different roles and responsibilities, they are not unequal in their tasks. Sanitation workers, not physicians, would have curtailed the plague. Physicians could perhaps treat the symptoms. Sanitation workers could remove the causes. Thus, each has a role to play that is not any less important than the other. Ultimately each has a perspective to add and value to contribute. Organizations and leaders need to do better to make that possibility a reality.  

Meaning is a key element of designing experiences. At the same time, a major challenge is to understand how people construct and achieve meaning not just personally, but shared with others. How we create meaning through language has long been a philosophical question drawing sharp arguments around a fundamental feature of our lives. 

Max Louwerse’s book “Keeping those Words in Mind: How Language Creates Meaning” explores how we make meaning through language in terms that anyone can understand. Based on his own cutting-edge research, Max helps us explore how words work in the mind, how people create meaning, and what it means for experience design.

We also discuss efforts at creating transformative learning experiences through pedagogical technology. From augmented reality, to virtual reality, to “CAVES”, to artificial intelligence, and to not giving tests, Max talks about his work pushing the boundaries of how students learn. We engage in a critical examination of the educational system, some of the biggest challenges in higher education, and how technology is meant to enhance and supplement rather than replace. 

When looking at American culture, you can see how security minded it is. Home security systems. Car security systems. Gun ownership for protection. Locking your doors. It is a society that in many ways does not trust its own environment. At the same, we have in many ways given up pretending that we have digital privacy and security. News reports of security breaches, stolen passwords, hacking, and cybercrime all create the sense that resistance is futile. 

Our guest today is looking to change that by making data privacy a human right. Ben Brook went to Harvard with aspirations of studying film. Soon after arriving, he turned his attention to books on the future of AI and computer science. This led to his co-creation of Transcend, a company that aims to make managing your data and privacy an easier and seamless experience.  

We talk about how cleaning up someone’s data is like throwing confetti into a ceiling fan, and how Transcend helps companies and consumers clean up that mess. Transcend also helps companies be who they wish they were but helping earn their customers’ trust in how they manage customer data. Inspired by regulations like GDPR and California’s CCPA, Transcend aims to educate end-users and give them increased control over their personal data as an enjoyable experience.