InnovationCompass

Experience Maps

Every for-profit and non-profit entity would love to have a treasure map showing them where to find the most profitable and loyal customers and/or donors.

This treasure map would also point CEOs and Board Chairs in the right direction as they design the ultimate experiences and services for customers. Leaders of organizations and firms would have uncanny insight into what their customers want as well as key knowledge on how to provide it.

Sound like an impossible dream?

At the 12th Annual Innovation Convergence, Ben Jacobson of Conifer Research in Chicago hosted an innovation lab on how an Experience Map can be your organization's treasure map. Experience Maps can be the precise tool you need to identify innovation and design opportunities as well as to pinpoint un-articulated customer needs.

What is an Experience Map?

Here is Conifer Research's definition: "An Experience Map is a model of how people experience a product, service, environment, or computer system. Like a good highway map, it organizes and abstracts complex reality to focus us on the important bits."

The core of making an Experience Map comprises three elements: defining which experience you want to map, documenting (through videos, photos, samples, etc.) your observations and conversations in real time, and digging through the information you collected to find treasure (What seems to be working well? What seems to be missing? Where are customers' needs neglected?).

Ben Jacobson suggested that you arrange your data into 5 areas on your map: Entice, Enter, Engage, Exit, and Extend. Assign metaphors to each experience stage and explore the relationship of your metaphors to your brand. Fix problem areas, fill in gaps, and build on bright spots. Finally, create a plan and share it with key stakeholders.

What jewels are hiding in the experiences of your customers? Employ Experience Maps in your organization and design around your customers' needs. You'll find that once you do, your own treasure chest will be within reach.

Business Success through Storytelling

"When placed in an outstretched hand, this stone symbolizes that something important is about to be shared. This is good news for business, for if we listen, the gifts within the stories will be ours. The premise behind the storytelling stone is that whoever holds the stone, their voice will be heard."

   -- BJ McCabe, President, Idein Rise, Inc.

During the conference kickoff for the 12th Annual Innovation Convergence, BJ McCabe treated us to a session on storytelling.

We learned the history and power of storytelling and that our charge is to liberate the stories in our own companies. Stories of ordinary people accomplishing the extraordinary inspire others to dig deep down and find the energy and passion to do the same. 

Using traditional Sufi stories as a creative teaching tool, each of us read and shared our stories with those seated at our table. Some made the stories completely their own and stood in front of the group and shared on a larger scale. As if by magic, whether communicating with 5 or 500, an immediate intimacy forms when we tell stories.

BJ McCabe left us with this: "We live our lives by the stories we tell ourselves and tell others. Change the story and life changes."

What stories are you telling to yourself, your team, and your customers? Look for common themes. Do you need to redefine your organization's culture?

If so, decide your future and change your story. Shape a new vision and begin the transformation through stories.