FreeThinking 4Everyone Should be an Experience Architect21.05.15

Welcome.

FreeThinking is a regular thought leader paper by FreeState.

This week’s issue, Everyone Should Be An Experience

Architect examines a belief close to our heart. Namely, that

everything a brand, business or corporation does ought to be

done in the spirit of the extraordinary. The Experience

Architect – CEO, founder, owner, anyone and everyone –

turns the experience of the everyday into the extraordinary.

It’s good for people, for employees as much as customers or

clients, and it’s good for business.

Please, read on. Add value to what you do.

‘Whether an architect or a sushi chef, the Experience Architect maps out how to turn something ordinary

into something distinctive – even delightful – every chance they get.’

Tom Kelley

That Tom Kelley should choose to lead with

Peters’s quote in his book The Ten Faces of

Innovation serves as some idea as to the

weight his thesis gives to the - strangely

unacknowledged - figure of the so-called

Experience Architect (EA).

Unacknowledged because while the likes of

Kelly, Peters and a relatively tiny and so-

considered experimental frontier of the

business community centre their thinking

and practice on the fundamental

importance of the real-world, live and

designed experience, in the wider world the

EA is either anomaly or virtually unknown.

Strange because, given that our experiences

of a brand, business or corporation – as

clients, customers, employees – are

fundamental to their success, the lack of

time and resources and expertise afforded

the notion of the EA feels so wrongheaded

as to border on a kind of collective death

wish. Rather than stand apart, rather than

feel different, memorable, enjoyable, rather

than create an experience so rewarding as

to birth loyalty, pride, communities of

follower-doers, they toe the line, play it safe

and hardly ever think about how they

engage in the now.

The lack of time and resources and expertise afforded the notion of the EA feels so wrongheaded as

to border on a kind of collective death wish.

As a result, they lack a heart, a face of their

own. They are nothing to speak of. They are

ordinary.

PAGE 4 FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

EVERYONE SHOULD BE AN EXPERIENCE ARCHITECT

‘The ‘Value Added’ for most any company, tiny or enormous, comes from the

quality of experience provided.’Tom Peters, (American writer on business

management practices)

PAGE 5

‘Whether an architect or a sushi chef, the Experience Architect maps out how to turn something ordinary into something distinctive – even delightful – every chance they get.’Tom Kelley

FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

CURSE OF THE ORDINARY

ROKA RESTAURANT IN

NORTH LONDON. A MEETING

PLACE WHERE FRIENDS (RO)

SHARE WARMTH (KA).

The point of the Experience Architect –

who may be an owner, founder, the CEO,

but can be anybody and everybody - is not

to make a managerial virtue out of the

ethos or spirit that once gave birth to a

good idea, which then became a good

business, which then went on to create

more good ideas, more good business.

Brands, businesses and corporations who

mistake policy or strategy or the way-

things-are-done-around-here for a

beautifully architected experience commit

the fatal error of mistaking the ordinary for

the extraordinary. Case in point: Tesco.

I know it’s easy to knock Tesco, once owner

and generator of one in eight of the pounds

that passed through our hands, now a giant

rabbit transfixed in the headlights of the car

it used to drive, but for an example of a

conglomerate that dined out on the same

meal so often as to become menacingly

ordinary, it stands as a perfect case study.

In sum, the EA asks of his or her brand, business or corporation a simple question: do people want – not have – WANT to be here, to

experience us, to take part in what we do?

Having pioneered automisation, a digitally-

gunned real-shopping experience that

made luddites of the competition, Tesco fell

in love with its own visual and verbal

rhetoric, believing itself to have reached the

endpoint of supermarket history. It settled

onto its automated laurels, and everybody

caught up, and moved past, and turned

their own digitally created experiences into

something new, something recognisably

different. Tesco had not beaten history. It

had ignored exactly that which lay at its feet

- all the opportunities as presented by its

digital pioneering, opportunities that, for

an EA, are absolute manna. It just became

ordinary.

Which is not to say that there is no such

thing as ordinariness in brands, businesses

and corporations. Quite the opposite: of

course there is. Rather it’s the very

opportunity that the ordinary, once

identified, affords the EA. As Kelley says

time and again, if ever the EA stops the task

of shining a light in every corner of the

business, asking of everything experienced,

‘ordinary or extraordinary?’, then that’s it.

It’s ordinary. What the alert EA might

consider: the moment a client rings that

bell, the experience of the new employee’s

first day, the design of a week on the shop

floor / at the office, the various apertures –

telephone, front-desk, website, television,

advert, digital applications, social media,

print – through and by which we converse

with the world? Where’s the difference, the

little things that leave big impressions? In

sum, the EA asks of his or her brand,

business or corporation a simple question:

do people want – not have – want to be

here, to experience us, to take part in what

we do? If the answer’s a resounding no,

then life is a stone: time to flip the ordinary.

Become extraordinary.

SERVICEEXPERIENCE

CUSTOMEREXPERIENCE

PRODUCTEXPERIENCE

EMPLOYEEEXPERIENCEINTERIORS

EXPERIENCE

For the Experience Architect, flipping the ordinary is

an act of the imagination, of becoming, an endless

process of creativity. It’s not, however, about turning

every moment into a something loud and bright, all

bells and whistles and primary colours – death, in

other words, by a thousand stage costumes. It’s about

taking the norm, the seemingly – unbelievably,

blindly – accepted, and transforming it, either

suddenly, gently or progressively. It’s about having a

different idea about the same. It’s about making the

ordinary extraordinary.

It’s about taking the norm, the seemingly – unbelievably, blindly – accepted, and

transforming it, either suddenly, gently or progressively.

All of which sounds great, but how in practice does it

work? While I’m a tad reluctant to share what to all

intents and purposes reads like a Top Tips For

Becoming an Extraordinary Business, there are

certain principles of action that I know work, both

from the experience of my own practice and also from

having had the opportunity to witness them firsthand

– either as a customer or in a client’s workplace. Let’s

jump in:

THE PRODUCT – DON’T FORGET IT

When thinking about designing experiences, EAs

often find themselves caught in the interdepartmental

complexities of the service aspect of the business -

understandable, given that it is by the standard of its

services that a business lives or dies. Often, however,

it’s far simpler and much more effective to work from

the product outwards, taking advantage of its very

physicality, its immediacy. Great example: In San

Paulo, advertising agency JWT Brazil has teamed up

with AC Camargo Cancer Center to ‘superheroise’ the

children’s ward, a mix of very careful storytelling

techniques centring about the notion of a ‘super-

formula’, the IV chemotherapy bags encased in

specially designed superhero capsules. Enormously

simple, incredibly effective, it’s a product that

instantly – for children, parents, hospital workers –

harnesses the power of the imaginary, alleviating

stress and helping transform the ward. Here the

product comes first, blowing fresh wind into a service

necessarily stretched to its limits.

PAGE 6 FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

BECOMING EXTRAORDINARY

JWT JOINED WITH WARNER BROS. AND THE A.C. CAMARGO

CANCER CENTER IN SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL, TO CRAFT A SUPER

POWERFUL CAMPAIGN DESIGNED TO HELP CHILDREN WITH

CANCER BE LESS FRIGHTENED BY CHEMOTHERAPY.

‘Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.’Helen Keller

THE EMPLOYEE JOURNEY – DON’T FORGET THAT

Brands, businesses and corporations are obsessed by

strategy, which they manage from up above, thinking

constantly about how it affects the customer, user or

client. All well and good, but the helicopter view it

necessarily entails makes ants of the very people

strategic change requires if it is to work. Better here to

think about your employees – and tactically as

opposed to simply strategically. Compulsively taking

note of the little things, the everyday, an EA worth his

or his salt knows the business inside out, from the

ground up, and centres on the life-world of the people

that make the workplace a living, breathing entity,

turning the dial of care up on every little moment. I

hesitate to give Google as fine example, given its

mightier-than-the-state persona, but all reports agree:

Google looks after – trusts, respects, inspires - its

people, from the moment they leave home on a

Monday morning to its end of week TGIF Thursday

debriefs. It doesn’t fuss, curtail, block. It’s generous,

believing, a flight maker. It designs its employee’s

journeys, their experience of work special, rewarding,

a source of real pride.

Google looks after – trusts, respects, inspires - its people, from the moment they

leave home on a Monday morning to its end of week TGIF Thursday debriefs.

If you’re after a different example, something less

compromised, then may I suggest the Finnish

education system, and in particular the trust the state

has for its high value teaching staff, spearhead for a

four decade long revolution that has seen Finland

become one of the world’s most admired education

models. The employee journey: think about it.

PAGE 7 FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

INSIDE GOOGLE’S NEW LONDON HEADQUARTERS.

DESIGNED BY RENOWNED INTERIOR DESIGNERS PENSON, A

SPACE CALLED GRANNY’S FLAT IS FURNISHED IN CHINCY CHIC.

KEEP OLD FRIENDS CLOSE

In 1955, in Anaheim, California, an already super

successful Walt Disney opened the world’s first

Disneyland, claiming that films by their very nature

were creatively unrewarding once done, their power –

to surprise, interest – bound to weaken, to wane, with

every watch.

‘We have to keep plussing our show. If we were to lose them (the converted), it would

take us ten years to get them back.’

Unlike a Tesco to come, Disney wasn’t about to rest on

his laurels. The EA par excellence, he designed the

experience of a live interactive Disney world - the live,

repeatable and yet ever changeable event, the perfect

vehicle for retaining the already converted, the Disney

experience collector – for the express purpose of

‘plussing the experience’: ‘We have to keep plussing

our show. If we were to lose them (the converted), it

would take us ten years to get them back.’ Keep your

new friends close; keep your old ones closer. The

master has spoken.

PAGE 8 FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

DISNEY’S MAGICBAND IS A NEW TICKETING SYSTEM.THESE

WRISTBANDS CONTAIN A CHIP WHICH ALLOWS VISITORS

TO USE THEM FOR ROOM KEY, THEME PARK TICKETS, FOOD

AND MERCHANDISE. A HIGHLY SOUGHT AFTER COLLECTABLE

FOR FANS, MANY PEOPLE NOW ALSO CUSTOMIZE THEIR

MAGICBANDS WITH THEIR OWN CUSTOM DESIGNS.

HAND ON THE TRIGGER

A great experience of a brand, business or corporation

is rarely remembered in its entirety. What sticks in the

mind are its high points – those and how it ends.

There is in every (shop) the sound and sight of running water, a beautiful basin,

the opportunity to engage with the product sensually.

EAs take care: given that it’s impossible to do

everything for everyone all of the time, the trigger

points of an experience need special attention.

Designer skin care brand Aesop is especially fine at

this. The experience from shop to shop may depend

on their local inspired designs and services, but there

is in every one the sound and sight of running water, a

beautiful basin, the opportunity to engage with the

product sensually, a small and wonderful thing that

not only makes guests of your customers, but also

hosts of your staff.

On a personal note, my favourite restaurant’s

endpoint trigger takes the biscuit, a fabulous meal

topped by the expected unexpected, a surprise you

know is going to happen, something not ordered, on

the house, a sensual leaving present. Endpoint trigger:

I never forget why I must keep going back there.

PAGE 9 FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

THIS METICULOUSLY ORDERED LABORATORY REFERENCES

AESOP’S SCIENTIFIC RIGOUR. THREE CUSTOM-BLOWN SPHERICAL

GLASS BULBS PROVIDE THE FOCAL POINT. DESIGNED BY TORAFU

ARCHITECTS AND LOCATED IN TOKYO.

GOOD KARMA MAKES FOR GOOD BUSINESS

Do as you would have done to you: be an excellent

host. Tom Kelley is especially good on this, the notion

of the CEO (or other) as host, the idea that generosity

begats generosity.

The host is a person that ensures all are treated with respect, that listens, acts on

promises, remembers and makes fine and meaningful conversation.

The host is a person that cares, that does not lecture,

that ensures that all – customer, client or employee –

are treated with respect, that listens, acts on promises,

remembers and makes fine and meaningful

conversation. You are intelligent – intellectually, sure;

emotionally, certainly. Take the first step forward: be

a Clinton, not a Carter. Jimmy Carter, for all his post-

president wonderfulness, took frequent refuge behind

the lectern. Bill Clinton stood to its side, welcoming,

engaging, relating – relationships forged that served

him well during those well-televised rock bottom

moments. Shine and all will shine with you.

PAGE 10 FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

KINGS OF COOL. THE IMPRESARIO PARTNERSHIP OF CHRIS

CORBIN AND JEREMY KING, OWNERS OF THE WOLSELEY, THE

DELAUNAY AND BRASSERIE ZEDEL TO NAME BUT A FEW.

PLANNING FOR COLLISIONS

As Steve Wynn - inspiration and force behind Las

Vegas’s extraordinary Wynn Hotel and Casino - might

say, when it comes to defining the ins and outs of

customer or client experience, the environment is all

important - particularly in terms of planning for the

unexpected. An EA plans the time-space dynamic of

the live down to the last lick of paint, but built into the

design must be the unplanned for, holes or spaces that

allow for the unexpected, for collision, for the

absolutely live. Brands, businesses and corporations

that have lost their mojo, or are uncomfortable

operating at the live chalk-face of customer service,

events and tradeshows, are generally so worried as to

how they will come over, their default positions are

almost always the creation of environments designed

to minimise all risk.

Plain, undifferentiated, unimaginative, dominated by

the pre-planned, they fail to do exactly that which the

live experience is designed to do: engage in the

moment.

Built into the design must be the unplanned for, holes or spaces that allow for the unexpected, for collision, for the

absolutely live.

The message: plan for things to go spectacularly,

unexpectedly right.

PAGE 1 1 FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

STEVE WYNN’S HOTEL IN LAS VEGAS

A SET OF EA GUIDELINES

Guidelines not policy, the former being fluid, adaptable, the

latter set in stone. Given everything we’ve said, the nature of

the EA is crucial to the success of making the ordinary

extraordinary.

Good leaders make more good leaders – not followers.

However, it’s not all down to a single personality. The idea

that anything of reasonable size’s experiences being

architected, mobilised and overseen by just one individual

makes gods out of mere mortals. More, it’s counterintuitive.

As Tom Peters says, good leaders make more good leaders –

not followers. Sharing your EA principles serve one purpose:

they give license for others to act positively, and celebrate

their actions very specifically, within the everyday beat of the

company. Which brings us back to Google or Finland:

everyone should be an Experience Architect; give them

permission to be so.

PAGE 12 FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

THE AMERICAN FOOTBALL PLAYBOOK CONTAINS

DESCRIPTIONS AND DIAGRAMS OF THE MANY

SCRIPTS OF TACTICAL PLAY

Calling all businesses, all brands, small or large: As said, the Experience

Architect can be anyone, the CEO, owner or founder, a specially created

position. Either way, the EA knows nothing about the business of laurel

making. It matters not that he or she is a strategist, a thinker, a financial whizz.

Never mind having achieved great things, broken new ground or collected

coveted awards. The EA is there to inspire, to see things differently, to create

experiences not for experiences sake, but rather to highlight – continually,

endlessly – the fact that everything a given business does is understood as

special, a real and differentiated living experience. Done well, the work of an

EA is the work that brings out the EA in all of us, that gets you noticed, that

satisfies the world (out there and within), that ensures your reputation

precedes you, the reward a remarkable return on an outlay that doesn’t cost the

earth – cf FedEx, Virgin Atlantic, the aforementioned Aesop or, as Kelley says,

any of the ‘hundred other companies who shook themselves loose of the

ordinary experience’ and realised the truly extraordinary. So, please: think

differently – about everything.

PAGE 13 FREESTATE | ISSUE 4

ARCHITECT THE EXTRAORDINARY

‘The Experience Architect is the right person to remind your organisation that the first step in becoming extraordinary is simply to stop being ordinary. In order to compete, to outperform the market, and so exceed the norm, you have to create remarkable experiences for your customers, for your partners, for your employees, and for yourself.’ Tom Kelley

FreeThinking 4FreeState are always interested in your thoughts, so please get in touch.

@ADAMFREESTATE JUSTIN.LEAHY@FREESTATE.CO.UK

+44 [0]7855 754 879