Xperience This!

The Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ

MISI Company is very excited to launch this blog series covering our work with the Morris Museum & Bickford Theater located in Morristown, New Jersey.  The project  is focused on delivering an end-to-end Strategic Experience Alignment (SEA) engagement in hopes of helping them resolve some challenges they are facing around brand, marketing, and communications as they seek to engage a new generation of museum and theater supporters.  And we would like to enlist you to join our project team.

Over the course of the next few months you will be privy to a behind the scenes look at what a SEA project looks like – who is part of the project team, what types of activities are involved, and ultimately – the types of deliverables and results that can be expected.

Throughout this series, we will be asking for your input on concepts/ideas we are hatching as well as your objective thoughts on how we are doing.  To kick this part off, please click this link to a 5 minute survey (and I really mean 5 minutes) about why you support cultural destinations near you.  Your input is going to be folded into our first primary research activity focused on identifying the key value propositions for different audiences when it comes to participating in museum and theater events. More »

Seven (7) tips to help you ensure your business and customers are getting demonstrably valuable designs from your agency

No doubt you are aware of programs that were elegant, motivating experiences for their target audiences and returned compelling business results. The question is how can you ensure that the work your agencies are doing for you will result in such experiences? Do you know what good looks like when you’re watching it develop? 

If you’re not even thinking to ask that question, then here’s

Tip #1: Ask it

After all, something about this headline intrigued you, right? Whatever industry you work in, you have the responsibility to question what it is your agencies are creating and why. And not just questions like, “Are you using the right treatment of the logo?” Rather bottom line questions like, “Will I ever see a quantifiable or qualifiable benefit of that $80,000 Flash video you suggested we put on our site?” or “That 55-e-mail communication stream…how will we know it is working for us?”

Some agencies are questioning themselves. Take David Berkowitz and his Inside the Marketer’s Studio blog where he recently ‘atoned’ for sins on behalf of marketers and agencies. Included among his confessions was, “We have killed ideas that were spot on in favor of pet projects that we wanted for our portfolios.” If you’re not lucky enough to be working with an agency that has developed this level of self-awareness and self-evaluation, I’ve provided some tried and true tips for ensuring your agency is gives you good design. More »