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.

Apathy Creep

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."            -- Elie Wiesel

As any parent of a teenager will attest, there are times when you look into your child's eyes, you no longer see the sparkle of enthusiasm and curiosity.

When you talk of striving for excellence and reaching for the stars, you see glazed eyes, a bit of a slump in the shoulders, and a stifled yawn.

Thankfully, these moments are relatively short-lived, and soon your vivacious, lover of life returns.

But what happens when apathy creeps into an organization? Are you able to know it when you see it? If you recognize it, can you do anything to stop it?

Look around right now.

Do you see evidence of attention or apathy in your nonprofit organization, your retail venture, your restaurant, or your university?

Do you care (a lot) about the small things? Is your store clean, easy to find, and open during convenient hours? Is your staff knowledgeable, friendly, and able to solve problems creatively?

Does your restaurant offer only the freshest of ingredients in customer-designed dishes?

Are you offering the services your customers actually want? How do you know?

What is the energy level of everyone in the organization (from the receptionist to the CEO)? Is the excitement contagious or is the environment stifling?

Is it fun to be a part of your team? Is your love and respect for your customers, employees, and/or board members evident?

Become an expert in locating and routing out apathy.

Tell Me a Good Story

What is it about a good story that transports us from the mundane world to magical places?

Maybe it is the shared journey we crave -- being able to experience new adventures with others. Perhaps we are attracted to finding meaning in new narratives that shed light on some of our own darker corners. Or, maybe it is simply our human need to understand others (both near and far) in hopes of finding a deeper connection to the world and to ourselves.

We like to read and hear funny stories, mysterious stories, and stories with happy endings. We are as attracted to "real life" stories as we are those of fantasy. We like a good ghost story, dramatic stories, and stories that detail "the little guy or gal" finding success against all odds.

We like sharing our own stories, pictures, and experiences that shed light on who we are, what we like, and what we value.

When we want others to hear us, we often weave our message into a story.

"Let me tell you what happened ...."

Andy Goodman reminds us in the September edition of Free-Range Thinking that "from courtrooms to classrooms, from the NBA to the GOP, examples of the power of storytelling are everywhere."

If you want to move someone to action, tell a story.

If you want someone to remember your brand, your message, your products, your services, or your nonprofit's mission, tell a story.

If you want to build rapport, build a case, or build a following, tell a story.

Take a look at your marketing messages, how you interact with your customers, and what someone walks away with when they leave you.

Are you inviting us in to share your story?

Are your services and products so extraordinary that we are compelled to talk about them in our stories?

Tell me a good story.

All of us are good listeners when the story is well told.

Sumo Chairs and Slippery Slopes

RainToday asked 11 experts in selling professional services to name the "one piece of advice you simply cannot sell without." Here is a brief snapshot of the responses contained in their 34-page e-book:

Seth Godin said, "there is only one thing that matters when you're selling professional services. Only one. Does the person who is buying from you (and her boss!) trust you?"

Paige Arnof-Fenn said "authenticity always rules" and "in the end, imposters are always revealed, so it does catch up eventually and then you will be confronted with either feeling like a fraud, or wanting to take an integrity shower, or both. Either way, you lose."

Paul Dunay said, "I firmly believe that the foundation for a truly trusting relationship is to care about whether people succeed because of what it means for them, not for you.... Do you have soul? Are you truly interested in other people's success?"

So why are some companies and bloggers risking forever alienating their customers and readers by stepping on the slippery slope?

Let me explain.

As everyone knows, the Internet's blogosphere and massive social networks create enormous marketing opportunities for companies, politicians, authors, nonprofits, and on and on.

Getting the right traffic to your web site and the right folks to link to you, talk about your product, and give you buzz is key. Many companies are sending their products to highly visible bloggers and asking for them to write about their perceptions of the product online.

So what's the big deal? This isn't all that different from the decades-old tradition of sending bound galleys to a well known author in hopes of securing a publicity quote, right?

Well, I am not so sure.

When Sumo Urban Furniture asked Dave Taylor if he'd review their Sumo Chair and write about it on his blog, he noted his concern this way:

"To be frank, I wasn't very interested in this offer because while there was no requirement to have a positive review, there's still somewhat of an unstated expectation that... nod nod, wink wink... I'd write a positive review."

And then there is the BusinessWeek story in the September 11 edition (p.10) entitled, "A Strategy That Isn't in the Book."

Jena McGregor outlines Fred Reichheld's partnering with BzzAgent to promote his new book, The Utlimate Question.

(According to McGregor, "BzzAgent doesn't pay its agents, nor urge them, it says, to give positive reviews. Agents get points that can be redeemed for prizes by reporting back on their 'buzz' activities.")

McGregor notes that "Bain representatives initially said the book's publisher, Harvard Business School Press, was the source of the campaign. Indeed, Rob Markey, a Bain partner who works with Reichheld, said he was 'disappointed' that BzzAgent people were reviewing the book.

But the publisher wasn't the source. Reached later, Reichheld said he had accepted an offer from BzzAgent's founder and CEO, Dave Balter, for a free word-of-mouth campaign."

So what is wrong with tapping all the potential sources for buzz? Isn't that what a good marketer does?

It makes sense for everyone to disclose, disclose, disclose.

Don't be shy about telling folks how you came to write about Product Y or Service Z. Let readers know where those connections are so they understand the context of the review.

That is what Dave Taylor did in his review of the Sumo Chair.

Reading his full disclosure and honest review (he wasn't wild about it, but his wife liked it and his kids loved it) gave me a much richer understanding of the product (which I trusted).

And Jennifer Goff disclosed to her Brains on Fire audience her BzzAgent status in her review of Seth Godin's Small is the New Big.

Follow Dave's and Jennifer's lead and stay off the slippery slope.

Once you lose your customers' trust and your authentic voice, no one will listen to you again.