Xperience This!

The following blog post dissects dimensions of employee engagement through an ecosystems-based point of view.

The Metaphor: Companion Planting

Outside of my MISI work, I spend part of my time working in a Philadelphia City Harvest community garden. I employ a gardening method called companion planting.

Companion planting cultivates reciprocal relationships between diverse yet interconnected entities. For instance, nutrient rich soil provides the foundation for healthy growth. Specific vegetables are paired and planted with complementary herbs, flowers or beneficial weeds that work with one another to manage pests, enrich flavor, attract helpful insects and enable resilience. My role as the gardener is to provide the resources for mutually beneficial interactions to unfold over time. The effect is a self-sustaining ecosystem where all integral parts, both human and non-human, participate in its making, flourishing and evolution.

Even though companion planting requires a certain amount of work upfront, the results are manifold. A higher yield of quality vegetables contains the right amount of nutrients and flavor, unmatched by monoculture production. Beneficial vegetation and insects abound. And the positive results travel beyond the garden. People are properly fed with nutritious food. A city corner is beautified. Neighbors work together to maintain the city block. The neighborhood is proud. A proactive community-based movement continues to grow in Philadelphia and beyond.

People’s lives are made a bit better.

Human Approach: Think In Ecosystems

Solutions that don’t encompass or work in concert with others across [the many] aspects of our lives significantly reduce their ability to succeed. – Nathan Shedroff, Author of Design is the Problem and Making Meaning More »

Or How Diapers.com Changed How I Shop by Remembering Four (4) Basic Aspects of Excellent CX Design 

Normally when I write a customer experience (CX) related blog post it is about something that went very wrong. After all, I’m just like most people. Something goes right I tell my husband and a couple of friends. Something goes wrong, tell the world! This time, I want to talk about the impact even a small great experience can have on brand loyalty – and how it can lead to changing hearts, minds and behaviors.

Believe it or not, despite all the multi-touchpoint experience design I do, I am 100% an in-store shopper… or I used to be.  The ability to see and touch the actual products I am going to spend my money on is very important to me, as is the money I can save on shipping. (Hey, that extra $10 can lead to an even nicer pair of shoes!).  All of that changed, of course, with the arrival of my daughter a few months ago.  What used to be long afternoons of wandering the mall for a great bargain have turned into wondering the halls of the web for…oh, say the cheapest deal on baby formula.  Sigh…

All during my pregnancy people were telling me to get ready for the world of online shopping.  I insisted that while I might break down for formula and diapers, NEVER would I be “one of those moms” who does all of her personal shopping online.  That said, towards the end, hitting the mall was not so much of an option. Resignedly, I opened up the Mac and went online.  And I hated it – with one exception… Diapers.com.   More »

MISI XD Account Director (AD) and strategist Jerilyn MacLaren-Hall co-presents a webinar with Morris Museum Executive Director Linda Moore. The topic: creating a great customer experience by first working with the museum’s employees to learn from them and to help them understand how they can contribute to a memorable museum experience. Based on her work with the museum and many other companies intent on improving their customer experiences, Jerilyn writes a white paper. The topic: how to create a great customer experience by first creating a great employee experience.

MISI XD AD and strategist Lisa Woodley leads a workshop at a Life Sciences Commercial IT Summit. The topic: how to prepare internal teams for the changes to come and create internal advocates when a company implements new technology solutions. Based on her experience helping companies understand and manage cultural change, Lisa writes a white paper. The topic: The Dawn of the Era of iT - how new trends in information technology are forcing IT organizations to be more customer-centric, with their “customer” being the employees they serve.

I travel to Moscow to present a keynote at UX Russia 2011. My topic is Beyond the Interface to the Interaction. I organize the presentation around three of MISI XD’s 10 Immutable Truths of XD. One of the truths I focus on is #6: XD Acknowledges that Employees are People Too. Among the points I make in my presentation is that companies have come to recognize that employees are customer experience professionals’ secret weapon. They experience the customer’s issues, they generate real world improvement ideas, and they build the links between the company and the customer experience.

Customer Experience (CX) - the idea of designing the end to end, multiple touchpoint, multi-modal experience as a whole as opposed to a series of discrete interactions – has been maturing as a discipline for many years. More companies are appreciating the power of CX to differentiate their products, services and/or brands in the marketplace and to create loyalty. Titles like Chief Experience Officer or SVP of Customer Experience are becoming more common. And new CX maturity models – measures of how committed an organization is to a strategy of customer-centricity – are being introduced into the marketplace by a variety of practitioners. What has not gotten as much play as we believe it should, is the role each employee plays in contributing to the desired outcome of a great, loyalty-inspiring customer experience. As Jerilyn writes in her white paper, “If you or your colleagues don’t buy into the value of your product, your brand and the customer experience you are seeking to create, you won’t be able to live that promise when working with your customers.”

No surprise then that Employee Experience has been a major theme at MISI XD in recent months, and will continue to be as the results of our work with our current clients develop into additional insights to the power of individual employees to make or break the customer experience.

Of all the groups in the healthcare ecosystem, none are courted by pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, and various business service providers as aggressively as physicians. With the emergence of various HIT and EMR systems, myriad mobile devices and services, and vast capabilities and services on the Web, in addition to traditional sales and service channels, companies in the healthcare field are in a constant search for new ways to differentiate their products and to engage with physicians. As a result there’s a growing acknowledgement that understanding physicians’ day-to-day realities is critical to meeting physician needs and building a strong relationship.

Having conducted international research audits, interviews and field research with physicians over the past few years, I’ve noticed 5 commonalities of the physicians’ experience that seem to transcend physical and cultural boundaries. Understanding and appreciating these common themes can provide those desiring to do business with physicians with a foundation for further cultivating their knowledge of physicians and for developing a successful relationship with them. More »

A few weeks ago, I was asked by a company marketer – let’s call the company High-End Department Store - to participate in their first attempt at viral marketing activity as a brand influencer for Sam Edelman, a popular shoe designer.  To participate, all I had to do was write interesting blog posts about my experiences wearing a pair of Sam Edelman shoes.  They provided the shoes and a list of “hot spots” for me to go wearing them.  This assignment lasted 2 weeks and culminated in a private shoe party for those in my network, the networks of the other 3 influencers, and some of their “key” clients. 

I volunteered not just because I love shoes and social media, but because I figured I’d learn a thing or two about the burgeoning world of influenced viral marketing. And boy did I learn some things. I decided to write a brief white paper on my experience, Turning the Tables on SM Viral Marketing.  Below I’ve summarized the lessons I learned during my brief time as a product influencer about the do’s and don’ts of running a viral marketing strategy.  More »