Theatrical Tools in Service Design

On Camera

We've posted videos of our working methods before, but in German.

For those of you without German skills, here we are in English giving a (super-accelerated) sample at the Service Design Network Conference in Berlin this summer.

Beyond Roleplay - Theatrical Tools in Service Design from Snook on Vimeo.

Thanks to Snook for filming!

Top 10 Reasons why Powerpoint is like a bra

Yes, really.

It drives me crazy when people think of their Powerpoint* slides as their "presentation". Really, truly crunchy-monkey-nut crazy. Today, I was so annoyed at this habit that I tweeted:

The tweet rang bells with a few folks, notably Chris Atherton. Well, I do like to ring bells - so, for the list fetishists among you, here are...


The Top 10 Reasons a Powerpoint Slidedeck is Just Like a Bra.


10. It is often used out of habit or insecurity - but there are plenty of situations where it only gets in the way

9. It's possible to send one by mail, but it is empty and lifeless, so why bother?

8. Technical troubles will occur at the most embarassing moments

7. Too much decoration can distract from content

6. It's certainly pretty, but do you really want someone else's design to cover up your uniqueness?

5. People usually try to fit too much inside**

4. People think they need the support, but forget it's a restriction too

3. Given confidence, you will often make a bigger impact without one

2. You can borrow or steal someone else's, but it will never fit like your own

and finally..

1. It may look basically similar, but you should NEVER confuse it with the Real Thing

Folks, Powerpoint isn't the presentation. YOU ARE.

Got any more? Add them in the comments... Oh, and you should follow me on Twitter...


Reactions:

• Linda Wu at SixMinutes comes back with 32 Reasons a Powerpoint Slidedeck is Nothing Like a Bra. Thanks Linda!
• You can also have this list in Chinese, courtesy of ExcelPro.
• STOP PRESS! There is now even a Chinese illustrated version, I kid you not!

* Or Keynote, or whatever. I don't care. Slideware. You know.
** Oprah said 8 out of 10 ladies wear the wrong size, usually too small. And what Oprah says...

Customer experience, the jazz way

Lessons for customer experience from a master of voice

Over the last couple of days, I have spent a little time with three exceptional musicians: New York's Refuge Trio, made up of Theo Bleckmann, Gary Versace and John Hollenbeck. I was able to take part in a masterclass vocal workshop with Bleckmann, and several of his statements on singing - like so many showbiz ideas - offer excellent insight for customer experience practitioners.

(We spoke in German, and all this is based on my brief notes, so all quotes are no more than "my best attempt" at capturing the meaning.)


The Master on backstage and frontstage
TB: "When you perform, it can feel like a flat film set. It's like behind me is nothing. But that's not true: the music and the energy is all around me."

In experience design, we often think about frontstage and backstage processes - which is a useful distinction. But the interplay between backstage and frontstage is more complex than just boxes arriving from the storeroom.

Theo's words reminded me that the spaces behind the scenes and in front of the scenes share a common energy - one which customers can sense, and staff can be motivated (or demotivated) by. Remember, the frontstage/backstage boundary is real, but it is permeable to more than just product.


The Master on keeping on track
In one musical exercise, Theo had us hold one note while he played other notes. With notes that were further away, this was easy. But when he played the semitones - the closest possible notes - above and below our note, many of us found ourselves sliding off line.

This common singer's exercise offered parallels to the world of motivation, as is being discussed on Wenovski. Wildly different notes were easy to ignore, but the nearly-the-same notes were pure seduction. Similarly, it's not the grouch in the corner who will demotivate you - he's easy to ignore. Instead, it's the people who do pretty much the right things, but with a little less fire and passion for the customer. Their path - the slightly easier path that looks oh so similar - is the dangerous one, as it tempts us to do just a little less.

It's the same with service design. "All the other companies all do it this way - which is nearly the same. Why don't we?"

Answer: because you need to be exceptional.


The Master on intent
TB: "Know what note you are going to sing before you sing it. Intention is important - otherwise things happen out of fear or habit."

I can think of no greater enemies to good customer experience than fear and habit. Fear can be fear of trying something new, or fear of looking the customer in the eye and making human contact; habit is the innovation-killer of "we always do it this way". And fear and habit together are stagnation and boring or bad service.

Theo's advice here is that intention - knowing what we want to "sing" in advance - is the best weapon against these two.

What "song" do you intend to "sing" to your customers?

Photo by Amanda Stockwell from theobleckmann.com

How to rehearse (or not) a presentation

Best of both worlds

How a stand-up comedian rehearses for both flexibility and confidence.

An over-rehearsed presentation - like an over-rehearsed show - can really stink. It can be so automatic that it loses touch with the audience. It becomes a polished set of actions and words and ceases to be two-way communication, a persuasive dialogue.

On stage, we know that the comic aside - the gag improvised when the scenery collapses or a cellphone in the audience rings - is usually the biggest laugh of the evening. It's because the audience knows it was one-off, one-time, authentic creativity. So should we always improvise?

Usually, no. Bluffing your way through Shakespeare (or a complex presentation) on a wing and a teleprompter will not get you far. You need the confidence to know what happens next, the experience to get you through the technically challenging parts. And that only comes from practice. Lots of practice.

Hmm. So - we are in a quandary. Authentic, spontaneous flexibility, or calm rehearsed confidence? What to do?

The answer is this: you should not rehearse your presentation, you should rehearse your presentations. Plural.

When I'm developing a stand-up routine. I have many of my gag ideas on little index cards which I can add notes to, reshuffle, tear in half, or even eat in frustration. I will stand in a room away from the world (this is embarrassing) and rant my way through the cards. I'll try every line ten different ways. I'll try ten different orders. I'll throw cards away, and dig them out of the bin. I'll try missing out this part, and go off on a stream-of-consciousness tangent expanding that section. I'll even try running the cards backwards - seriously, it can teach you a lot.

After a while, I don't need the cards much, and I can play with my material while jogging, driving, or screaming at the top of my lungs while zooming down the Autobahn on my motorcycle. (If you've ever seen a lunatic doing this, now you know it was me. It feels as mad as a brush, but it's very effective.)*

At the end, I have not just rehearsed one routine - I have rehearsed dozens of routines based on basically the same material.

This stand-up rehearsal technique works for presentations too. Play with the pieces and bang them together until you know every angle.

After a while, you will know what the best order is. You can use it for your test audience. But you will not be tied to that order...

You will have all the confidence you need, because you will have mastered your material. But you will also have the flexibility you need. You will know that there is more than one path through the presentation, and that you can cope with anything.

Most importantly, you will be able to adjust your presentation with confidence to genuinely respond to the audiences signals - making it a real two-way exchange, not some polished performance that could have been done by DVD.

Have fun!

*Actually, a shouted rehearsal is a great technique. I know classical actors who rehearse monologues by shouting them from the beach into the ocean waves. Of course, this works best if you have a Victorian greatcoat and rather wild hair.

Photo of some of my index cards by me.

(This post is based on a comment I made last year on TJ Walker's blog)

!!! More great showbiz tips for presenters here.

Cheat the seating for better presentations & parties

Leading the horse to water

If you went your presentations to be effective and your events to rock, you will need to think about where you let your audience sit. Here's why.

Check out the first diagram below - it's the well known scheme of where we ought to sit in a classroom or presentation room. You know - the more front-and-centre you sit, the more information you retain and take home afterwards. Old news.

The second diagram, two paragraphs further down, has no hard research behind it. It's just my own experience from a gazillion shows, classroom lessons and presentations I have given over the years. It shows where people want to sit.

When people come into a presentation, classroom or gala event (let's assume for now they didn't pay for their own tickets), they invariably fill up from the back, and along the aisle. It seems they are looking for a swift exit, or trying to avoid direct contact to whatever is happening at the front. Even the keen ones, unless they are die-hard fans, avoid the front row, preferring the midfield.


Now compare the two rooms - the consequence is obvious. Unless every seat is taken, your audience will tend to sit in the seats where they will benefit least from their presence, and your efforts as a presenter.

And that is only the first downside of this trend.

A successful presentation is all about atmosphere (you are there to shape emotion, remember?). For a good, infectious buzz you need to have your audience up close and bunched together. If they are all spread around the back of the room, you are going to be struggling to reach them.

To avoid wasting both your time and the audience's, borrow these tricks from the hospitality industry.

First, choose a room that is as tight as possible for your predicted numbers. Then, encourage your audience to fill from the front, perhaps by:

- using pleasant soft lighting at the front of the room while the rear rows and outer edges remain dark
- standing at the front of the room, welcoming attendees there and offering them seats
- or, most simply and effectively, reserving the rear rows until the rest of the room is full. *

The result of your audience management will be a better buzz and more effective use of everyone's time - a winner all round.

* the sneakiest way is to simply set up fewer rows of chairs than needed, then fetch "reserve" chairs from another room when it gets to standing room only. Wow, the event was a surprise hit!

A Stand-Up's guide to presentation technique

My personal top ten

Business people love my presentation coaching. I'm an actor and stand-up comedian, so they find my approach refreshing as well as highly effective. Here, in a nutshell, is what I teach them:

10 Close the laptop
Do not plan your presentation by opening PowerPoint and typing your first bullet! Instead, spend time thinking about your audience. Who are they? What do they want? What do they already believe?

9 Throw out your material
It’s a huge mistake to start by collecting material. Don’t ask yourself what you have, ask yourself what your audience will need. Avoid facts and figures - choose powerful images, human stories and genuine emotion instead. These “soft” options are proven to be more effective than any hard numbers. And cut every word that is not truly useful to your audience.

8 Take what’s left and cut it in half
Yes, in half, at least. You should never speak more than five minutes - three is better - unless the people are coming just to hear you speak or you are a paid professional speaker. (And if you think your presentation is “just five minutes”, it is probably about 12. Time it, you’ll see. ) Finish early - they will love you.

7 Don’t start at the beginning
Comedians, rock musicians and James Bond start their shows with a huge bang, and finish with a bigger one. In between, they present a sequence of highlights, getting more impressive all the time. This “Boom!-wow-wow-wow-BOOM!!” sequence is ideal for your presentation (and for any service process). So start with a really strong point - your second best one - then drop down and build up towards your very best “BOOM!” point at the end. Take questions at the bar.

6 Burn the beamer
Look, people’s eyes are attracted to light - it’s why we stare at the fire, the telly, the ocean - so if you use PowerPoint you are distracting from the real presentation - which is not your ruddy slides, it is you. Ask yourself: would Martin Luther King or JFK have benefited from bullet points? (Er.. no pun intended. Well spotted, Ms Pollard!)
(If you have a huge room, you might need a beamer. But use it to project live video of yourself, or for powerful images. Avoid wordy slides and lists - if your slide has more than seven words on it, you are in big trouble. And switch it off as often as you can. Hey, try the “B” key!)

5 Set yourself on fire
This is incredibly important - we look at light, so the brightest object in the room must be you. Get a spotlight on you, and get every other light in the room dimmed or switched off - including the beamer. Insist on this.

4 Don’t read
Never, ever, ever read your presentation. It sounds unnatural, and people need to see your eyes to trust you. Keyword cards are ok, but you won’t need to look at them because you have rehearsed so well. You were planning to rehearse (with a test audience) weren’t you? How much is the time of all the people in the audience worth?

-13 Do something crazy
Do something to surprise your audience. Give them a reason to remember you. For example - don’t hand out business cards, but print your number on bundles of €5 notes and throw them at the audience.

2 Get carried away
This is the big one. I don’t care how you slouch, how you stutter, how badly you dress and how much you fidget with your hands - if you truly, utterly believe what you say, you will convince people. Be yourself and let your passion show. (And if you don’t feel passionate about what you are presenting, please go home and stop wasting our time.)

1 Cancel the presentation
Presentations are there to persuade - not inform. Use them to move emotions, and sway decisions. If you just want to inform, then e-mails, articles, web based training, workshops or personal discussions are proven to be better. Too many presentations are information orgies. So cancel them, and do some work instead.

Magic lantern shot from Magic Lantern Show at flickr.
Article previously published in German in the FrankenPower magazine.

Book your own presentation coaching here.
You should follow me on Twitter here.

Staging one consistent customer story

Watching from the wings

Before a show or presentation, you will usually find me waaaay up in the lighting rig, hanging precariously from a gantry and peering at the top of the audience's heads. This is not just to hype myself up (although it is very focussing), or convince myself that my hairline is receding slower than many. Instead, I am trying to feel the vibe, and predict how the show will need to be tonight.

In his book The Invisible Actor, master actor Oida Yoshi (called Yoshi Oida in the West) says:

"Too often actors sit in their dressing rooms or the green room, listening to the tannoy for their cues. Once they hear the stage manager call their names, they go up into the wings, ready to make their entrance. [This] is completely unhelpful in terms of good storytelling. There is only one story being told by a team of actors; not ten different stories being told by ten actors. Therefore, you need to be there in the wings from the very beginning, in order to see how other actors are telling the story".

Anyone staging a customer experience is faced by the very same problem. And remember, the "actors" in a customer experience are not just the staff, but also the customers. So ask yourself:

• What opportunity do my staff have to see how "the story" of our daily business is going, enabling them to start in with the appropriate energy and preparation?

• What opportunity do my staff have to learn how "the story" of this particular customer's encounter with us is going, helping them to take over with the appropriate energy and preparation?

And even:

• How do I let my customer see how far along we are in his "story"? Does he have the feeling af a beginning, a middle and an end? Or, better yet, a hook, exposition, climax and resolution?

Stage wings pic from pimpampum at flickr

Perfect presentation structure

Two minutes & 22 seconds of intensive presentation training

Raymond Crowe's shadow play of Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World" has long been one of my favourite presentations. As well as his technical virtuousity, the way he arranges the various elements is perfect.

Even if you know the clip well, it's worth analysing his structure - and applying it to your presentation.

Mr Crowe has two really powerful images in his show - the Armstrong silhouette and the emotional highpoint of the baby and adult hands. Cleverly, he separates them - grabbing our attention with Armstrong at the beginning. Then come his other elements, starting with the (relatively) weakest - the horse and the swan which most of us could attempt - and moving on through the impressive rabbits. It's clear from the audience's reaction that they love the baby hand, and he wisely saves it for the climax of the piece, shortly before the end. Then we have a little gag with the old man's tongue, before Louis reappears to close the circle.

Watch it carefully, and see how it all fits together:



This classic structure is used by rock-concert planners and stand up comedians - wowing us at the start with your almost-best effort, dropping down to move steadily up through the material before blowing us away with the best piece near the end, and concluding with emotion. I call it "Boom! Wow-wow-wow! BOOM!" and you can read about it here.

In many cases, it's how you should be structuring your presentations - and your customer experiences.

Instant USP - for free

Your people know how

The human factor is probably the biggest single piece of your customer experience. If you have good people working for you, agree on the goals and then let them be themselves, it might even be this good:



Fair enough, not everyone has this gentleman's charm or musical talent - but his rap is most successful because he is initially not completely sure if he can pull it off. He shows his humanity, and that is the crucial part. He could have been equally successful doing something far less spectacular - as long as he were doing it his way.

The customers see a real human being doing something unique and - most tellingly - they know they wouldn't get anything like it from the competiton.

Are you brave enough to let your people be this good?

Via the Creative Generalist
PS. Hmm. I wonder if he has read this?

Presenters! Always remember...

Out of the dark...

Based on several otherwise successful presentations I witnessed last week, here's one really, really important rule for all presenters...

Whenever you are using Powerpoint, Keynote or a similar projection system*, always make sure that you are better lit than the screen!

That's all. Thank you for your attention.

*usually you shouldn't be, but that's another story
Big screen shot by prizepony at flickr

Smart ideas for experience designers

Wisdom straight from the stage

When Greg Allen wrote his 25 Rules for Creating Good Theater, he was thinking of his Chicago theater company and not your customer experience.

Nevertheless, Greg's one-page list of theatrical tips are as good a guide to customer experience, service design or even presentation technique as you will find on any business bookshelf.

Starting with the basics, some of his showbiz pointers are simple good advice for anyone working with customers:

Rule #7: Know your audience
Rule #10: Use the performers for who they are
Rule #523 (!): Include a surprise
Rule #5: Make form follow function

Others are more challenging and thought provoking, but potentially invaluable:

Rule #4: Know why you are creating this show
Rule #17: Put the backstage on stage
Rule #22: Get non-verbal

My favourite Rule is just beautiful - and mighty, if you can pin it down for your customers:

Rule #16: Create a gift for the audience. The show should include a personal gift for each member of the audience – either material, emotional, or experiential. Make sure everyone in the audience has an individual experience of the show to take out of the theater and share and discuss afterwards.

Can your customer experience do that? What could you add, to achieve that goal?

Here's Greg's full list. It's well worth reading.

More posts here...

Stage door pic by slimmer_jimmer at flickr.

An experiment...

Look here --->

This is how it works: if this post got more of your attention than usual, simply post a comment by clicking on the word "comments" in orange below. Or mail me.

That's it. Thanks!

Adam

The Gods' View - an exercise in perspective

Can you hear me at the back?

I think I like Garth Brooks, though I've never really heard his music. As the story goes, he liked to personally check out the worst seats in his venues just before the show, seeing if the seats way up in the "Gods'" were worth his fan's hard earned cash*. It's a technique we can all use - and not just when we are on stage.

How does your customer experience work from the metaphorical back row?

Imagine you are the very last passenger to check in, the diner who gets the very last portion of soup, the very last caller to dial the hotline today. Imagine you are the absolute latest adopter, the most allergic guest, or you wear the most outsiziest size. Or perhaps you have a dicky back, terrible hearing, low bandwidth or fifty-five year old eyes? Does the experience still work for you?

It's crucial to put ourselves in the shoes of all our customers - not just the ones that look like our "typical customer" personas. This is not (only) because we want to please as many as possible, but because these end-of-the-bell-curve viewpoints and needs can tell us something about the way our experience works for everyone.

A great example from WorkPlayExperience colleague Markus Hormess: I was typing up our Book of Shenanigans, and Markus peered over my shoulder.

"Look at it at 25% zoom," he suggested. "Does the layout still make sense?"

Take a step back. Book late. Get down on your knees. Sit in the cheapest seat. Squint at your packaging.

I bet you will learn something.

Experience Monitor readers click HERE for more...

Binocular pic by Operators Are Standing By at Flickr.

* If the seats were no good, Garth would give away front-row tickets to those back-row fans, or dash up there for a close-up song during the concert. And this from one of the most successful recording artists of all time. Respect.

Fake smiles are dangerous

Take the test

I've written before on the dangers of fake smiles in customer experience design. Customers spot them - can you?

The BBC's psychology crew offer this test.

The best way to avoid fake smiles (and uneasy customers) is to make sure that your team are having a blast at work. That's not just a hunch - the Sunday Times Great Places to Work Survey showed that companies whose staff were enjoying their daily grin(d) grew four times faster than average.*

More on what to do about fake smiles here and here.

Plastic smile pic by colodio by at flickr.

* Over the past five years, companies rated as “a good place to work” have shown 25 per cent growth in share and dividend returns, compared to an average return of only 6.3 per cent.
(Source: Sunday Times Great Places To Work Survey, 2002)

How not to close a presentation...

(A true story)

If you say...

"... thanks for that presentation. In just a second, we'll be opening the buffet. But first, an announcement: the 8.30 meeting tomorrow is not in Building A, but in Building F. Now let's eat!"

They will hear:

"... thanks for that presentation. In just a second, we'll be opening the BUFFET... announcement... YEAH! .. meeting... FOOD! ... building something ... FOOD! Now LET'S EAT!"

Remember Maslow's pyramid? It was a ranking of the things which motivate us, from basic physiological needs at the bottom, up through security, friendship and achievement and on to creativity and the rest of the self actualisation crew. Here's a diagram if you've forgotten, or never cared. Click on it to - hey presto! - enlarge.


Important point: normal people who are busy with high-brain activities towards the top of the pyramid are really, really easily distracted by issues lower down - because they are more fundamental.

This is why your top creative team can't have great ideas if they are worried about their jobs. It's why you don't carry on mowing the lawn if the guy next door drops his pants and jumps you.

And it's why you should never ever mention the imminent opening of the buffet until you have got the important business issues well and truly out of the way.

I experienced this live and in terrifying Stampede-o-rama last week, exactly as described above. As soon as the word "buffet" was out, jackets were being grabbed, chairs were scraping and conversation had started. What followed was not just drowned out, it was ignored by 100 lizard brains who could already smell the steaming flesh. And nobody - nobody - was at Building F the next morning. Oops.

So do say....
"... thanks for that presentation. Here's an announcement: the meeting tomorrow has been moved from Building A to Building F. Got that? We moved the meeting. Now the buffet is open, so let's eat!"

More on the best structure for presentations here.

Hungry man pic by misterbisson at flickr.
Pyramid from Wikipedia.

Movement breaks the ice

Shake before serving...

I'm a big fan of David Polinchock's "crowd control" work over at the Brand Experience Lab. If you've missed it, they've got people in cinemas swaying in unison to play giant computer games on the sacred silver screen...



The most telling statement in this video is when David says that the viewers enjoyed the movie more after playing the game.

I've encountered a similar effect in my interactive theater work. In one successful show, the fun begins with the audience sitting down to a gala meal. One character is wandering around with a bellows camera, taking snaps.

Now, the various actors who play the photographer have different strategies. One will let the people stay seated and will amuse them with excellent witty patter while he sets up his camera and takes portraits. Another actor will get this bunch of strangers on their feet, stand them against the wall, switch them around, make them move into the light, out of the light, banish someone from the group, bring him back... You get the idea.

The difference is startling. While both audiences are equally amused, the shaken-and-stirred second group will move back to their table with the ice thoroughly broken (remember, these are strangers) and quickly get down to the teamwork of the murder mystery, laughing and joking all the time. The other group are just as happy with the show, but the barriers between them are still strong, and they will still be sitting slightly stiffly and making polite conversation during the second course.

Every actor who has done a warm-up knows that physical movement - especially in unison or in groups - is a strong method to break down social barriers and encourage communication. It also gets the blood flowing to the brain and encourages creativity.

If you are a trainer, teacher or presenter, remember to get your group out of their seats and moving as often as you can. If you are planning a party, remember that the simple act of asking people to stand can make the evening better. And if you are designing a customer experience, think how letting customers move and cooperate in groups could enhance their experience of your service.

Wacky-pack-attack

And why not?

Choosenick put me onto this wonderful little clip:



Of course, it's a gag - but comedy is always made of truth and pain. (The truth here is that we want to celebrate our cool new toy, the pain is that we can't.) So: why not?

Everything up to the point where the guy presses the red button is possible.

So why not take it that far? Then... holographic chorus girls are tricky just now, but there are a bunch of cheap and cheesy fun effects which could replace them.

What about the little melody chips you get in birthday cards? They could play an appropriately quirky tune, celebrating the purchase (no corporate jingles, please!).

How about the tiny voice recording chips I've seen? Why not hear a pre-recorded message from your guy at the store saying "Hi Adam, this is Gary. Thanks for buying this phone - if you have any problems setting it up, call me on my direct number...."

What about the clever techniques you see in modern pop-up books?

What about a little light show with supercheap LEDs? Or a smoke bomb and laser projection on your ceiling...

Erm, well, maybe the lasers are still sci-fi, but you get the point.

Whatever the gimmick is, two things would be important:

1) The manufacturer must realise it's just a gimmick, and keep it fun.
2) It must be replayable, so you can show all your friends...

Jacked Up Presentation

Bill Lane on writing your presentation

I'm reading Bill Lane's "Jacked Up" - the story of his two decades as Jack Welch's speechwriter at GE. A full review may follow, but I wanted to share one passage with you already.

(I hope that Sally and the other nice folks at McGraw-Hill will excuse an extended quote. Consider it a recommendation.)

"Firstly, shun the PowerPoint. Avoid the computer like it was a roadkill skunk. Go into a room with no phone. Turn on a tape recorder. Stand up. Walk around. Yell. Splutter. Trail off. Start again. What do you know and believe that will knock this audience on its ass? What must they understand, be aware of? Make rough notes on a pad. Write down whole phrases or sentences if you absolutely love them.

All this will start to clarify within 10 or 20 minutes. Ignore the boring crap you have been told to pitch - the mind-numbing "report" or "analysis" that no-one cares about.

Think, at first, only in terms of what the crowd will hear from you, and see in your face and in your passion. At this point, you should put out of your mind any evil vision of a tedious word chart. Spit at the thought of turning you back to your victims and rushing through a read of a two hundred word chart that no-one is interested in.

At this point, PowerPoint is the abortionist of the great presentation gestating within you.

Any presentation that does not give the people in the audience something they can take out of the door with them and use is a failure and a waste of their time."

(Edited for length between the last 2 paragraphs).

Amen, Bill. And thanks.

Backstage heroes

Ninja* customer service

I am sure most of you will have seen this great video, and others of this ilk.



The lesson for customer experience and service designers?

Sometimes we have to give up the easy life backstage, to make things more memorable for the customer frontstage.

PS For a very different take on "the men in black", try here.

(*Actually it's bunraku, but ninjas always sell better.)

Make it tellable

Normal folks don't talk dpi, they tell stories

Cool new printers are like leaves in a forest these days, and it's terribly hard to make any one stand out. Even super-duper printer-fax-scanner-copiers are now serious yawn-material. But when my good buddy and colleague Markus bought himself an HP machine last week, he called me straight away to rave about one feature.

"You put in your memory card," he says, "and it prints thumbnails of all your photos."
"Uh, OK," I reply.
"Wait, this is the cool bit. On the printout, there are little boxes next to the thumbnails. You tick the size you need, and put the paper back in the machine. It reads your ticks and prints the pics you want automatically!"

Now, I don't know if this is HP's own idea, or if it's even new, but it's solid gold experience design for two reasons.

Firstly, that is a brilliant interface. People are much happier with pens and papers than with even the best computer menus - and you can pass a piece of paper around. Choosing the pics to print becomes a social experience on the sofa or in the cafe, without the sickly light and cricked necks of too many people trying to see the same computer monitor. Excellent work!

Secondly, that design feature is something that it is really easy to talk about. And this is important.

Remember, a lot of technical development results in improved specifications - say, a higher dpi or printing speed. There's not much you can say about that, except "well, it's better quality" or "yes, it's a bit faster". Hardly gripping stuff - and well on the way to Commodity City.

HP's clever user experience gimmick is different, because it gave Markus a story to tell - and helped him endorse a product he was excited about without boring us with geeky spec-numbers.

Pine and Gilmore argue that the experience economy is about creating memories. You could also say that experience design is about creating good stories - that bring all the benefits of word-of-mouth marketing.

Question for the week - what part of your offering is easily "tellable"? What makes a good story, for people to pass on to their friends?

Storyteller pic from travel_aficionado at flickr