Day One of Two. (Some of it!) Managing Experience Through Creative Leadership

I guess there are actually three, if you include cocktails. I, however, abstained. So for me, it is a two dayer. Big sad face.

An ounce of snarky irony to begin with. I loved that JJG's preso started off with a projector malfunction and then segued immediately into Eastman's Kodak and his slogan of "You press the button, we do the rest," Fabulous poetry which speaks to the a pyramid that JJG references later.

JJG had a slide which I think made a great point, and something that I don't think would be the immediate response of most people: "What's the highest compliment that someone can pay a product?" Thinking I was on my toes, I racked through a series of ideas, but none of them seemed high enough -- nothing struck me as something that would make me feel like I had truly succeeded. His answer, "I can't live without it."

A quick survey of products in my life that fall into this category:

• OXO Pick Me Up Kettle
• Tom's of Maine Anti-plaque Clear Gel Toothpaste
• Converse Chuck Taylors
• Wikipedia wikipedia.org
• Google Gmail
• Beehouse Ceramic Dripper
• Peets Coffee & Tea
• Carolina Herrera 212 Men
• Apple 60 Gb iPod Video

Anyway, to circle back to JJG's projector issues, I think that the differentiator pyramid really centered around this issue: When companies rely on technology for the basis of their product, they cannot succeed. Logically, moving on to features, a variation on the classic "Word with all toolbars" higlighted the problem with a feature focused approach. The emblematic "blinking 12:00" a perfect metaphor for the feature noone can figure out how to use. At the top of the pyramid is Experience, where you find, "The beautiful, elegant thing that works."

JJG points out that Tivo is an example of something people can't live without. Though at this point their mindshare exceeds their marketshare. Ergo they risk running the coarse of Xerox, Band-Aid or Kleenex. In Jesse's mind, Tivo and the iPod are examples of the psychology of interaction: the way that people interact with products mimics the way we interact with people. "Products are people too."

Really quickly, I have to point out that Jesse is the first person I have seen articulate visually what I have always professed, and that is the auto-magical quality of the best products. To me, this is one of the key aspects of successful design: making everything but the core user features invisible.

Lou Carbone stepped up for the Keynote. He started off really deadpan, between that and his suit, I thought for sure it was going to be a dry one. I have to say he was one of the most engaging speakers I have encountered. He presented a video: A lesson from 21 MN winters, which highlighted a struggle between man and nature. "In our haste, we often don't step back far enough to look at context."

"We live, eat, sleep, breathe and unravel the riddle that is the human experience..." A problem in uncovering this riddle Carbone points out is that people benchmark best practices instead of making the next practices. From his time at Disney he learned that you can whittle it down by looking at what can you embed in four frames that would make the connection with a person. He questions the oft relied upon customer data ... just 'cuz you have data on me, does that mean we have a relationship??

One of my favorite quotes of his (largely due to my current place of employment) was: "The worst thing that happened to the banking industry is that they discovered product. They were in the experience industry, and now focus on churning out product." More on this in later posts. It is a bit of a messed up mashup, but I like the pairing of that statement with another of his: "toilet paper speaks volumes," Just check out the TP triangles.

Labels: adaptivepath, conference, experience design, MXSF07, SF, ux

  ¶ 10:57 PM