Experience by Design

Many months ago now, I had the chance to go to the WNDR Museum in Boston. If you google that, it will come categorized as a “tourist attraction.” but it is a lot more than that, especially considering that I wouldn’t classify myself as a “tourist” since I live outside of Boston. More specifically, and even importantly, WNDR is an interactive art museum with immersive art installations. And it was very interactive and immersive. There were a lot of great exhibits that invited you to engage and become surrounded by the creations that were provided there. Whether you are a tourist or not, it is definitely worth a visit.

So it was a very pleasant surprise to find that my guest today actually had an installation at the WNDR Museum. It was this very cool outdoor-type of building where you could be with others and experience an audio and visual immersion of rain and lightning. One of the fun things about it was that you were there with strangers, basically arranged in a way that you were experiencing it together.

I didn’t know that when I first met Leigh Sachwitz to discuss being on the show. But it was one of the, dare I say, “wonderful” things I found out about Leigh and her work with her Berlin-based company flora&faunavisions (FFV). I got to learn about their award-winning work on projects like the Ring Cycle, a digital opera that creates an immersive experience of the work by Richard Wagner. I also learned about her work on the Utopian Garden, described as a story-based immersive, interactive show where participants can tour the world. She described their Flying Up Sparrows event in China, where Buddhist paintings were brought to life.

Finally, she explains their work behind the Genius DaVinci Show that just opened up in Florida this past November. “This exhibition invites you to step into Renaissance Italy to explore Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpieces and inventions up close.” And the great thing about this is the way that educational and entertainment come together to form what Hip Hop artist KRS-One described as “Educatinment.” Or, in Leigh’s words, how do you create experiences that draw people into the moment and produce, empathy, emotional connection, and curiosity.

We covered a lot of other ground, including the science of immersive experiences, how we can co-create our futures together using these kinds of experiences as a prompt, how we can inspire our imaginations to unlock the possibilities of ourselves, and the intersection of Detroit and Berlin as hubs of techno music.

Leigh Sachwitz - http://leighsachwitz.com/

flora&faunavisions - https://www.florafaunavisions.de/

The New Year is a great time to reflect on our past, and to think about what we want to accomplish in the upcoming year. After all, it is the season of the Annual Performance Review!

Whether in our personal or professional lives, it can be hard to identify what is important in terms of our evaluations. How do we know if we are making progress toward our goals?

The same can be true for companies. What are the metrics that indicate our success? What are the expectations we are trying to meet? How do we stack up against others? What are the benchmarks that we think matter, versus the ones that actually matter?

To explore this question and more around customer experience, we welcome Michelle Spaul. Michelle is a customer experience management consultant with her company Delta Swan. Michelle has a wealth of experience in CX, with the simple goal of trying to make things better for customers. As many of you listening will know, behind that simple goal lies a complexity that can challenge most organizations. Therefore, it is a good thing that Michelle has a background in manufacturing systems engineering. We talk about how that education prepared her for working as an experience engineer.

She describes how her work on the price of oil informs her systems approach to CX. We discuss the importance of a shareholder mindset that creates value for not just customers, but all who are impacted by the business.

We explore how her first job with Phillips around preventing customer returns turned into listening to what customers said, and how that is the foundation of any CX work.

Finally, we talk about how there are a lot of different areas of feedback that we can find if we only look. And that if you get defensive about the feedback, you are missing an opportunity to grow.

Michelle Spaul LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-spaul-customerexperience/

Customer Experience Management Consultant - https://customerexperienceconsultant.co.uk/

"The Price of Oil" - https://www.amazon.com/VFUU-Price-Oil-Michelle-Spaul-ebook/dp/B01D7CTTEK

Before, our work lives were defined by our relationship with the brands we worked for. Growing up in Detroit, a person might be a “Ford person” or a “GM person”. The same can be said for those who worked for Mary Kay or Tupperware. Through our association with the brand, we gained a sense of self that was enriched by that association.

Today, people are feeling the pressure to become their own brands. We seek not to just influence those people with whom we come into direct contact, but everyone everywhere all at once. Being an influencer is exhausting. Or at least it seems to be when looking at those who are fully engaged in it. Constantly putting content on various social media channels. Responding and replying to other people’s posts. Creating and curating a digital experience for them that communicates who you are, or better put how you want to be seen. One of the ironies in all of this is the struggle of appearing authentic when we are portraying ourselves.

Today in the Experience by Design Studio, we’re excited to welcome Vladimer Botsvadze. Vladimir is a digital marketing and social media content machine. A global digital marketing expert, he has worked with top brands and executives worldwide, guiding them to drive growth and position their brands as market leaders. As a mentor to startups and a judge at the Webby Awards, Vladimer brings a wealth of knowledge on creating business opportunities, running businesses, and leveraging social media channels to build your brand.

He’s also passionate about communication, and believes it to be the backbone of success. As we discuss in the episode, he put in years of 16 hour days dedicated to building his craft and a strong online presence across social media platforms. With this in mind, we dig in on what are the characteristics of good content, how do we create community around content. Vladimir also walks us through his marketing strategies and mindset for creating with curiosity and persistence in ways that capture attention and make lasting impact.

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.

Issues of racial equity, and institutionalized discrimination, have long been at the center of customer experience, and the right of people to be seen as customers. Today’s podcast is a recording of an event from the end of July on ‘Inspiring Racial Equity: How CX Professionals Can Guide Their Organizations to Tackle This Urgent Issue.” The event was a joint effort of the Boston and Atlanta chapters of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. There was a tremendous team of folks from both chapters who worked together to put on this event. Most of the folks involved, including me, would be considered to be ‘allies.’ By that I mean people who may not have to suffer the daily indignities of structural racism and discrimination, but see it as a malevolent force that needs to be directly confronted and addressed in whatever quarters possible. For this group, the field of engagement is the organization, and what can customer experience professionals do to change these internal dynamics, which hopefully will contribute to a broader social change.

The panelist, who include Sandy Mathis, Stephanie C. Harris, and Thomas Houston, all bring a range of professional and personal experience on this topic. Join us in learning from the panelists regarding how to help inspire racial equity in organization, and deliver better experience for diverse audience.