Adaptive Path Blog

Last week, I sat in on a talk by Andrew Blau about Global Business Network’s scenario planning practice when he came by Adaptive Path as part of our Brown Bag lunch presentation series. I was struck by how his work relates to internal marketing practices, and am writing to share some of those connections. I should also say that my background is in marketing, and this is the focus of my work. I’ve recently joined AP and look forward to bringing some marketing related posts to this blog.

First, a word about scenario planning and internal marketing for those who are not familiar with these terms. The former is sometimes also referred to as “scenario thinking” and is a strategic planning method used to make flexible long-term plans. It is in large part an adaptation and generalization of classic methods used by military intelligence (I realize that may sound like an oxymoron).Internal marketing is an activity that is designed to align creative vision, purpose, processes, and culture in general. You can think of this as the Kool-Aid.

Andrew presented a scenario planning methodology that GBN uses to engage with organizations on a leadership level. The frame for this exercise was a ten year projection, which is far enough out as to limit the effectiveness of incremental visioning, but not so far out as to enter science fiction land. The process of building four divergent visions of the future helps the leadership get in touch with the culture within their organization, and understand how it will respond to different futures. It’s important to emphasize that the scenarios must be divergent from each other in order to address the broadest possible range of possibility. Andrew explained that each scenario becomes a caricature of sorts because it highlights predominant features within an organization that are teased out through specific scenarios.

This reminded me of Joseph Campbell’s mythological archetypes (The Hero with a Thousand Faces), because Campbell uses them to demonstrate that very similar features arise in creation myths across cultures. This approach was taken even earlier in Carl Jung’s use of archetypes as a psychological tool for individual analysis, and has also made it’s way into organizational psychology methods such as meta-analysis, which uses averages of individual assessments to represent larger groups. With this in mind, we touched on some common archetypes that arise within GBN’s scenario planning practice such as a disaster scenario, a utopian scenario, and a climate change scenario.

Internal marketing is relevant here because leadership teams must apply the knowledge that comes out of such exercises to their organizations in order to prepare for a myriad of possible futures. This practice recognizes that a culture of adaptation is key to success and must be fostered. I see internal marketing as an essential tool in cultivating adaptability because it distributes power throughout organizations while aligning resources with a larger cause. This leads to increased resiliency as well, not only because of its distributive nature but because it promotes multi-directional feedback from within an organization. At AP we embrace this approach by aligning our organizational purpose with employee behavior; this is represented through our conferences, Brown Bags, Open Design Sessions, management structure, and our commitment to the Designers’ Accord.

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Bryan Mason and I gave a talk last Thursday at Web 2.0 Expo ‘08 San Francisco called “10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment.” As we promised attendees of that talk, we have posted the slides here. We will soon be posting a slidecast of the same talk with audio from SXSW.

For the talk, Bryan and I talked with several creative groups, including the Neo-Futurists, the writers of Avenue Q, a writing collective called The Job Factory, and Ryan Freitas about his experiences working at Aqua, a San Francisco restaurant. We also drew on our own experiences in stage management and classical music. We chose these groups primarily because they, like design teams, create as groups, are schedule-focused, and are trying to do something different with the creative process.

From the research, we looked for common problems and techniques the groups used to deal with those problems. During the presentation, we share the stories and techniques we found.

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I attended MX for the first time this year and as I was chatting with many inspiring UX managers and designers, I noticed the following common challenge in many in-house UX teams: They lack UX quality check points for marketing, advertising, and branding to create a holistic experience. I had the same challenge while I was working within the UX team at Microsoft. For the UX team to build relationships with marketing, advertising and branding, one of the tasks I had was to be a brand liaison that maintained contact between all teams. The goal was to meet and speak early and often and be a part of the product UX review/decision cycle to create holistic integration across web, marketing, and branding experience. As a solution to create UX quality check points for all teams, consider creating a UX liaison. The UX liaison should be a creative designer who can define brand and user experience language for various product experiences.

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I found myself at a design conference listening to still another demand that clients give us designers that coveted place at that legendary table where all the big decisions are made. Sitting next to me was one of my favorite clients, someone I treasure for her levelheadedness and good humor. “I’ve spent hours at that table,” she whispered to me. “It’s not that great, you know.”
Michael Bierut, You’re So Intelligent

Adaptive Path’s MX Conference is about to kick off. Design managers and executives are descending up San Francisco to learn and talk about how to make their designs more effective, to speak to management better, how to innovate their organizations. Part of these discussions I’m sure will be the perennial talk of How to Get a Place at The Table. I’m here to offer an alternate view: our place as designers isn’t at The Table. It’s to smash The Table.

Perhaps the natural state of design—and thus designers—is to be outside the circle of power, and thus better able to tell the truth to power. At The Table, it is easy to have other concerns instead of just creating the best products possible: political concerns of gaining and retaining power, or financial concerns of running the company, or resource concerns about personnel, or the million other details it takes to run a business–many of which fight against putting out great products. Yes, a seat at the table can guarantee that a product gets made, but it doesn’t guarantee it will be good. Witness: Foleo, which Jeff Hawkins was able to push through but was so roundly criticized, it was pulled before it was even sold.

And of course, yes, we want and deserve respect (we’re changing the world, dontchaknow??), but that respect should flow from the products we create, not the number of meetings we’re in with the CEO.

Designers work better outside, looking in, the wise fools at court. The view outside is clearer, more open to other influences, less susceptible to groupthink and myopic viewpoints. (This outside viewpoint is why so many companies hire consultants.) Being outside allows designers to be advocates: lobbyists for what is the right thing to do for the users, the integrity of product itself, and even in some cases for what is best for the business.

This idea of Designer as Outsider is nothing new. In the 1950s, industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss had brown suits made so that he would stand out from his corporate clients in their blue and grey suits.

As Dreyfuss knew, sometimes it benefits us to be more like artists than scientists. Design is, after all, a combination of science and art, and it is often art’s job to shine a light on what is uncomfortable or hard to do: the strange and unusual. The Truth with a capital T (which also means Trouble). We just need to draw on that legacy more often. Telling a CEO her vision of the product is the wrong one is not easy. It requires two things: courage and allies.

Rather than expend energy to get to The Table, it’s better to have allies there. People who know how to read the room, who can seem impartial but also lobby for you and help you make your case. The best clients, Tibor Kalman rightly said, are smarter than you. We need to cultivate these allies through the strength of our work and our ability to explain our work in terms of the value it brings to the users and to business. Only then will our voices be heard and respect given. We don’t need a seat at The Table for that. We just need allies there.

And here’s the most subversive thing: if we do our jobs right, The Table will change. It will get bigger, move, transform, and, yes, even get smashed. The best products change companies, markets, and, yes, possibly even the world. And when that happens, attention will be paid, respect given. You will be thanked for smashing The Table and giving them a new one.

And then you will go and do it again.

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I recently had the opportunity to speak with Peter Coughlan, the head of IDEO’s Transformation by Design Practice and MX San Francisco speaker about the ways in which organizations can fundamentally rethink their approach to things from a design-oriented perspective. Some highlights:

On making change tangible:

 One of my favorite examples comes from a hospital that wanted to help reduce their patients’ worry levels while they were waiting for (chemo) treatment. A very simple idea they had was to just go up to patients and ask them if they had any worries, any questions that they could address. It turned out that doing that — going up to patients and asking them questions — was very awkward and difficult to do. So they created an artifact to help them get over that awkwardness — a set of question cards that they shared with patients to help break the ice and provide something to talk about. It turned out to be a wonderful way to prompt new behavior on the part of patients and providers.

On the designer-client relationship:

I would say that the most important shift in the design profession will be for designers to get comfortable with the notion that it’s more important for a client to have a great idea than for the designer to have the idea. If the client organization has played a role in coming up with the idea, it’s way more likely to see the light of day.

Read the complete interview here.

You can still register for MX San Francisco, April 20-22 here. Enter the code FOHF for a 15% discount.

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There’s a lot of activity around Adaptive Path these days. With the impending release of our book Subject to Change, our upcoming events rapidly selling out, our growing presence in Austin, and our expanding range of interesting projects for clients around the world — there’s more going on here than ever.

Right now, all three of us (Peter, Jesse, and Bryan) work as a team to keep Adaptive Path growing culturally, creatively, and financially. But with all the opportunities opening up for the company, we’ve decided the time is right to add a new perspective to the mix. That’s why we’re announcing today that we’re on the lookout for a CEO to add to our executive team.

We don’t want to replace any of the current executives. We want someone with a unique mix of business experience, operational savvy, and leadership qualities. We’d like someone to help us build on our successes, and make the most of our exceptional opportunities, without sacrificing the culture and values that have made our success possible.

We figured there’s a good chance that Adaptive Path’s ideal CEO either already reads this blog, or knows someone who does. So if you think you know the right person for this job (even if that’s you), send an email to bryan dot mason at adaptivepath dot com. We’d love to hear from you!

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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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Stephen P. Anderson, formerly Principal User Experience Architect for Sabre and currently Vice President of Design at Viewzi, will be speaking at MX San Francisco on how to get visionary ideas made into realities. He uses George Lucas’ work on Star Wars as inspiration and a practical example. We had a conversation over e-mail about changing organizational culture, managing design teams, and doing things that have never been done before.

Todd Wilkens [TW]: Well, Stephen, even though your talk is all about visionary ideas, let’s get the ball rolling with a practical question: What got you so interested in how visionary ideas get pushed through an organization? Why and how has this been relevant to you? What made this an itch you needed to scratch?

Stephen Anderson [SA]: As a consultant, you see a lot of really great ideas that, for whatever reason, never get implemented. Or when they do, there is little resemblance between what actually gets produced and the original concepts. In 2006, I moved from the world of consulting to become a UX director at a large, enterprise company. Needless to say, it was a real eye-opener. I think I went in with a rather naive faith in the power of prototypes and ‘leading with an inspiring product vision’. While I still value this approach, I quickly learned that there is much more to pushing visionary ideas through an organization.

For starters, if you want to bring a great product/service experience to market, you have to first change the company culture. This is basic — and critical. So many other forces are at play inside large organizations — competition, politics, procedure, history. It’s about much more than creating business value. In fact, the biggest shock for me was discovering how internal business units compete with each other in ways that hurt the larger organization…

Read the full interview.

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending an hour chatting with Chip Conley, CEO of boutique hotel chain Joie de Vivre Hotels, and keynote speaker at our upcoming MX San Francisco conference (April 20-22).

You can listen to the interview (MP3). Be warned that it doesn’t have a formal introduction. It begins with us kind of mid-conversation, and just goes from there. In the interview, we talk about recession planning, service design, systematizing experience design (JDV uses a tool called “experience report cards”), team dynamics, succession planning, and all manner of things. It’s a bit free-wheeling, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

To provide some context for the interview:

Chip has just written PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow, which you can see me reading on BART here:

I hate business books. They’re typically trite, self-serving, and poorly written. At best they have one good idea that takes 10-15 pages to explain, and then another 200 pages of filler so that it warrants being sold at Barnes and Noble.

PEAK, and I’m not just saying this because he’s a speaker, is actually worth reading. I’ve been a fan of Chip’s for a while, and one reason is his honesty, forthrightness, and, as a CEO of a $200 million company that employs over 2,300 people, his willingness to engage with the emotional, squishy, unmeasurable. Actually, not just willingness–he recognizes how essential such things are to achieve long-term success. His book gets at this by way of Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, which Chip translates into serving employees, customers, and investors.

When Chip talks about engaging customers, he sounds very much like an experience designer — he discusses ethnography, and the importance of satisfying unmet needs. He also has fantastic ideas for maintaining not just employee satisfaction or loyalty, but deep engagement. Ideas that I could see working for our 35-person firm as well as larger enterprises.

If, after all this, you’re hooked, don’t hesitate to register for our MX Conference (and use the promotional code BLOG for 10% off). You’ll get a chance to meet Chip, and many other interesting folks as well!

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Two of the best events we’ve hosted were last year’s MX and MXEast. MX (short for Managing Experiences) has repeatedly drawn a roster of very bright and inspiring speakers and an equally bright and engaged audience—people who lead UX teams, people who are responsible for shaping or managing a product or service’s experience, and leaders who’s job intersects with user experience.

At MX San Francisco on April 20-22, we’re looking to continue to push the conversation of what it takes to get great experiences out into the world. We’re assembling the strongest and most influential voices on the topics of organizational change, user experience strategy, and the leadership of creative teams so they can share with you ideas and practices that will impact your own effectiveness in delivering great experiences.

Here’s just a sampling of speakers sharing their best ideas and know-how:
* Peter Coughlan of IDEO—lead of IDEO’s business Transformation Practice.
* Chip Heath—Stanford University professor and the author of Made to Stick, a person who knows how to communicate great ideas in simple ways that can lead to real change
* Chip Conley—founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hotels, a widely successful California boutique hotel company focused on great guest experiences
* Cordell Ratzlaff—you may know him as the man behind Mac OS X, but he’s been championing an effort within Cisco to change product and service design from a requirements-driven system to a culture focused on customer experience.
* Ryan Armbruster—so loved at MX East, we had to bring Ryan back; at Mayo Clinic’s SPARC Innovation Lab and now Chief Experience Officer a radiation oncology practice, Ryan successfully integrates user emotion into the design and development of new healthcare experiences
* Scott Hirsh—founding principle at the Management Innovation Group, Scott’s experience in consulting executives on how and where to integrate UX into their business gives him unique insight into the opportunities and challenges for all of us.

We know the value of hands-on learning, so we’re very happy to have Adaptive Path’s Kim Lenox leading her popular Process Reboot as a pre-conference workshop on April 20. It’s for anyone ready to rethink and reinvigorate their UX processes to more regularly create innovative results.

And we also want to prepare you for what’s ahead, so the MX program will feature several short sessions on topics like mobile, social networks, and new forms of interaction design that may soon be impacting your career. We’re lining up great forward-thinkers like Adaptive Path’s own mobile expert Rachel Hinman and co-founder of the Dopplr social networking service Matt Jones to help shine a light on what’s next.

So this is a call out to all you creative leaders who want to add to the discussion and join us as we move ahead in getting great experiences out into the world. The early-bird pricing ends this Sunday, so be sure to sign up ASAP as save $300-400.

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