Adaptive Path Blog

It’s hard to believe that iTunes Music Store just turned five years old yesterday, that there was a time (for two years!) that the iPod (iTunes’ better-looking older sibling, the Marcia to its Jan) relied on either users slowly converting all their analog CDs to digital, or simply stealing music online.

While iPod gets all the press and adoration, it seems clear that iTunes, for all its faults, is the little app that could. iTunes is the secret sauce of the iPod experience, and the music store is, if not at the center, than at least an incredible piece of that. Imagine trying to put a major ecommerce store in the middle of another application (Word, Photoshop, etc.) and it becomes clear marvel that is iTunes Music Store.

Of course, the store itself is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to that marvel. Were it not for the amazing technical and business infrastructure backstage (which remains (as it should) mostly invisible), we’d be downloading donated MP3s. Slowly. And forget about movies, TV, podcasts, etc. The store has expanded so that the “music” in iTunes Music Store seems almost silly. iTunes Media Store is more like it. But I quibble.

Happy fifth birthday! You don’t look a day over four. Now could you please go get Twin Peaks for me?

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I’ve posted the slides from my presentation at last week’s MX Conference here in San Francisco. Titled “A House Divided: Two Perspectives on Managing the Customer Experience,” this talk is an evolution of my past efforts to pull from my prior career as a professional cook.

Here, I use my restaurant experience as a lens to interpret Glushko and Tabas’ work on getting front and back stage organizations to cooperate in delivering superior experiences. I hope you enjoy it.

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 I’m heading to Europe for three weeks for 2 must-attend conferences! The first is MEX, Mobile User Experience conference, 27-28 May in London, UK hosted by PMN who shook up the mobile design industry last year with their fabulously astute and thought provoking 10 point Manifesto for enhancing the mobile user experience. Our host, Marek Pawlowski, has created a different kind of conference format, bringing together 100 of the leading thinkers in mobile and challenging us to define the cutting edge of user experience. At the heart of the event is the 10 point Manifesto, highlighting the major issues facing the mobile industry as it strives to become a more customer-focused, design-led business. Now in its 4th year, MEX is attended by pioneers from the carriers, handset manufacturers, platform providers, software developers and UI designers. 

I will be leading a MEX breakout group exploring the controversial notion that “Fashion is a stronger motivator than functionality”, in the mobile handset business. Conference attendees will work together in a number of small teams to look at this issue from all the angles before re-convening for an open debate. I love this format and cannot wait to dive into deeper discussions about the issues that we face everyday as designers. 

If you are looking for some inspiration and thought leadership in the mobile user experience arena, I highly recommend attending MEX this year. Marek has also kindly offered a discount for Friends of Adaptive Path (that’s YOU!), so please take advantage of the 15% discount on attendance by registering online with the referral code AP08 or by calling Marek Pawlowski on +44 (0)7767 622957.  

I head over to Malmö, Sweden the 2nd week of June for inUse’s conference From Business to Buttons hosted at Malmö University. The conference is a mixture of strategy, design and facilitated hands-on workshops offering insights and methods of how to bridge the gap between business goals and user needs. They have Don Norman as the keynote speaker as well as other top industry professionals in user experience design including Adaptive Path’s very own Ryan Freitas and Friend of AP Jonathan Grubb, CEO of Rubyred Labs and Co-founder of Get Satisfaction.  

I will be giving my workshop Process Reboot: Change your process to create experience-driven innovations, which I first presented at DUX07 in November last year and most recently at Adaptive Path’s MX conference. I’m always reworking and improving the content each time I present, so the attendees at From Business to Buttons will be experiencing the latest and greatest. 

As designers we are often brought in to simply design a product, but many times the business strategy needs attention before we can clearly define the product we’re designing. From Business to Buttons is a great conference for helping us all find better ways to bring business strategy into the conversation of designing products. I hope you’ll attend From Business to Buttons 12-13 June for insightful presentations, workshops and discussions around business strategy and design. The folks at inUse and Malmö University have extended a discount too, please use FBTB2008 in the “special requests” section of the registration to receive 15% off the regular price. 

Since I’m in Europe for 3 full weeks, I’ll be available for meetings and would love to connect with folks while I’m there. Email me at kim at adaptivepath dot com otherwise, see you at the conference(s)!

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I recently sat down to talk with Scott Hirsch, principal of the Management Innovation Group and MX conference speaker, to talk about using UX and design sensibilities to solve the problems of business strategy. Scott shares his experiences on where UX outperforms and compliments typical business functions like financial analysis, and how UX can be used to tackle problems differently—from how much is Google worth to how telecoms respond to the iPhone.

Download the MP3 of our conversation, and come join Scott at the MX conference next week to learn more about “what’s wrong with strategy!”

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In our forthcoming book, Subject to Change, we close with a chapter titled “An Uncertain World,” about how the approaches we suggest will help businesses manage no matter what comes at them. In it, there’s this passage:

One key opportunity driven by this uncertainty is how the old categories will break down. David Weinberger discusses these trends and their implications in his excellent book, Everything Is Miscellaneous. Though the book is ostensibly about the nature of information in a digital world, the forces underlying that miscellany pervade all aspects of society. Google and Yahoo!, once technology companies, are now media players, and their advertising-based business models mean they compete more with Los Angeles and New York than their Silicon Valley brethren. Apple began as a computer company, but has morphed into a consumer electronics company (iPod, iPhone, Apple TV) and the third largest music retailer in the United States, which means its competitors are not only HP, Dell, and Toshiba, but also Sony, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy.

Oh, the perils of book publishing! Word is coming out that Apple is now the premier music retailer in the country, having surpassed Wal-mart and Best Buy.

What industry are you in, again? Who are your competitors, really?

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On the evening of April 9, we’re hosting a presentation by Jan Chipchase (who spoke at UX Week 2007) and Duncan Burns from Nokia Design. The description:

Street Hacks: From Design Research to Prototype to

How long have you been using your current cell phone? And what happened to your previous model? If you live in a country like India, China or Ghana the answer is likely to involve the vibrant used phone market and, somewhere along the line the informal repair cultures - guys on the street who appear able to fix pretty much anything using little more than a flat surface a screwdriver and knowledge.

This presentation will highlight the mobile phone hacking skills available on the streets of cities from Accra and beyond, the sophisticated ecosystem of reverse engineered repair manuals and highlight how it challenges our thinking about what it means to make, distribute our products. The presentation will introduce Remade - a phone made from upcycled and recycled products.

Brandon will offer up a preview of his forthcoming IA Summit 2008 presentation:

The Long Wow

Customer loyalty — the idea that a customer will return to you repeatedly — is a hot topic these days. It’s been in the spotlight ever since business author Frederick Riechfield introduced the “Net Promoter Score,” a simple calculation used to measure the loyalty of your customers.

Although it’s become easier to measure customer loyalty, it’s just not that simple to create it. Rewards cards, frequent-whatever-programs, and other artificial attempts at customer loyalty just get in the way. Instead, engaging customers in more meaningful relationships over time is what builds true loyalty. And that is where well-planned, notably great experiences can play a big role in business.

This presentation lays out an experience-centric approach to fostering and creating loyalty by systematically impressing your customers again and again. The Long Wow challenges creators of customer experiences to plan across channels, time, and disciplines to identify a progression of seduceable moments.

Doors open at 6pm, Brandon speaks at 6:30, Jan and Duncan at 7:15.

Adaptive Path is at 363 Brannan Street in San Francisco.

Please let us know you’re coming by marking us “Attending” or “Watching” on the event page on Upcoming.

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One of the perks of working at Adaptive Path is the opportunity to meet and share ideas with others from all over the world who are working on the same problems.

Last night Henning and I had the pleasure of meeting with the German chapter of the IXDA , where we learned that practitioners in Europe are facing the same challenges that we face in the states.

Chief among them is a business community that is increasingly curious about experience design, but who still don’t quite get it. While the success of products like the iPod and the Wii have certainly made decision makers more receptive to the idea of design strategy, it turns out we’re all still working our way towards a common language that helps us get the message across to people outside of our field.

Service design is evidently also a hot topic just like back home, and in Germany as at Adaptive Path, practitioners are still figuring out what that means. Henning cleared his throat to permit himself a small rant on the topic, which was actually quite insightful and got some heads nodding. He pointed out that service design is nothing new. It’s been happening in places like restaurants, travel, and retail for years. Designers, he says, can learn a lot by training their gazes on those established fields and seeing how they create a cohesive experience for their customers.

Many thanks in particular to German Leon and Neil Clavin for organizing the event, and to Oliver Kapelle from NeoMotion for giving us a warm soapbox from which to preach our thoughts on design strategy.

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It’s less than one month until our MX Conference, and I couldn’t be more excited. It’ll will be our third and best conference on the Managing Experiences, and we’re focusing strongly this time on the skills and practices that successful creative leaders use to get great experiences out into the world.

Here’s just a few of the incredible speakers at MX that we’ve interviewed in the lead-up to the conference:

Chip Conley, CEO of successful boutique hotel chain Joie de Vivre Hotels, talks about recession planning, service design, systematizing experience design, “experience report cards”, team dynamics, and succession planning. Listen to the interview (MP3) »

Julie Peters, Brand Manager at Virgin, shares her experiences in managing and building new experiences within Virgin’s U.S. brands, Virgin’s model for incubating new brands and experiences, and how Virgin defines and practices innovation. Listen to the interview (MP3) »

Nathan Shedroff, Program Chair of the new MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts, reveals his plans for a new program to blend design and business and the needs that future graduates will fill. Read the interview »

And Stephen P. Anderson, formerly Principal User Experience Architect for Sabre and currently Vice President of Design at Viewzi, explains his passion and lessons on pushing visionary ideas through an organization. Read the interview »

MX will be April 20-22 in San Francisco. It’s now just $1,495 (plus $395 for a pre-conference workshop). After March 31st, it’ll go up to $1,595 plus $495. And if you register by March 31st, you also get a free iPod Shuffle! Use the promotional code BLOG and get 10% off when you register.

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I recently had the pleasure of chatting via email with Nathan Shedroff, experience strategist, author, and the Program Chair and founder of the brand new MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts. Nathan will be speaking on Future Topics in Managing User Experience at our upcoming MX San Francisco conference on April 20-22.

MBA programs with a focus on design are cropping up in leading business schools. What’s behind this trend and what do these programs teach? In this conversation, Nathan lifts the curtain of the newest program to blend design and business.

But don’t just read the essay…come hear Nathan up close and in person at MX: Managing Experience Through Creative Leadership in San Francisco, April 20-22. Early bird pricing ends March 31st, so sign up today!

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Earlier today I had a delightful chat with Julie Peters, Brand Manager at Virgin USA, and speaker at our upcoming MX San Francisco 2008 conference. You can listen to our conversation (45 minutes, MP3), which addresses topics as varied as: the Virgin Brand; the importance of hiring the right people; how Virgin incubates and spins out businesses; what “innovation” means for Virgin; the challenge of delivering the Virgin experience; and plans for traveling on Virgin Galactic. She provided fascinating insight into how Virgin operates, and I hope you appreciate it.

And don’t forget, one lucky person who registers for MX San Francisco by Friday March 14, 11:59pm Pacific Daylight Time will be chosen at random to receive their choice of either one round-trip ticket wherever Virgin America flies (in honor of Julie), or a spa/massage package at the conference hotel, the Mark Hopkins.

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