Staging an Experience: Orchestrating Memories from Pine and Gilmore

Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore published Welcome to the Experience Economy for the Harvard Business Review in July of 1998 followed by the book, The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage, in April of 1999 with an updated edition in 2011. Pine and Gilmore provide us with the first … Read more

The Secret to Innovation is Human-Centered Design

Many organizations talk about being innovated but few truly are. Organizations create goods, services, spaces, places, events – experiences – for people. Innovated organizations know this and follow the principles of human-centered design to innovate. Human-Centered Design, as the name implies, is designing solutions around human. It is the process that innovators like Apple and … Read more

Getty Center Parking Garage Barrier Bars

Located in Los Angeles, California, the Getty Center is a museum that specializes in pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts; and 19th- and 20th-century American and European photographs. It is named after famed oilman J. Paul Getty who’s trust funds it. The center is best known for its architecture, gardens, and … Read more

Give the Moment What the Moment Needs

Chris Bryant, at ProductCamp SoCal last year, said “Give the moment what the moment needs” I jotted this down and it really stuck with me.  Cherish yesterday, dream of tomorrow and live for today. This has been a mantra of mine for as long as I can remember. It reminds me not to dwell on … Read more

Customer Enchantment: An Interview with Bob Caruso

Bob Caruso is a Managing Director at Endeavor Management bringing over 20 years’ experience in reinventing, redefining and energizing customer experiences. He’s been a part of the irreversible power shift in the relationship between customers and service or product providers and to the complex personalized experiences of today. As an alumnus of powerful global consultancies, … Read more

The Four Customer Experience Core Competencies

In the latest Temkin Insight Report, The Four Customer Experience Core Competencies, it highlights what it takes for an organization to become truly customer-centric. The report focuses on these four competencies: Purposeful Leadership: Companies need to make sure that all of their HR practices reinforce the company’s purpose. Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, explained … Read more

The TEDxSanDiego Experience

TED is a nonprofit devoted to “ideas worth spreading” – amazing talks by remarkable people, free to the world. It started as a conference bringing together people from Technology, Entertainment, and Design and has grown to include the TED Talks video site, annual TED Prize, TED Fellows, TEDx programs, and more. TEDx programs are designed … Read more

Your Product’s Personality Can Create Meaning, Trust and Loyal Customers – or Not

In their recent post, Emotion Communicates Personality, Forms Relationships and Creates Meaning, Trevor van Gorp and Edie Adams share with us that: “Regardless of whether you intentionally give your product a personality, people will perceive a personality.” Not surprising, van Gorp and Adams’ research find that we tend to purchase products that seem to have … Read more

What is Important is the Entire Experience

In an interview for June 2000 interation magazine, Dr. Donald Norman stated: “I don’t like the term ‘usability,’ and I don’t want to be called an ‘HCI expert.’ I believe that what’s really important to the people who use our products is much more than whether I can use something, whether I can actually click … Read more

Customer Journey Maps, Customer Profiles and Touch Points

Customer journey maps are a diagram that illustrates the steps your customers go through in engaging with your company, its products and services. The journey map is a tool to measure your customers’ satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy to create sustainable long-term revenue. Consumer behavior is driven by the innate human need to satisfy identifiable as … Read more

Designing Great Customer Experiences with the Power of A/B Testing

“Over the past decade, the power of A/B testing has become an open secret of high-stakes web development. It’s now the standard (but seldom advertised) means through whichSilicon Valleyimproves its online products. Using A/B, new ideas can be essentially focus-group tested in real time: Without being told, a fraction of users are diverted to a … Read more

The Power and Financial Value of Designing a Great Customer Experience

Great designs create elegant and meaningful experiences for customers. And the design-oriented organizations understand the financial value of this:  “Apple, the epitome of a design-led organization, now has a market capitalization of $570 billion, larger than the GDP of Switzerland. Its revenue is double Microsoft’s, a similar type of technology organization but one not truly … Read more