Choosing your own experience remixed

Posted on | February 19, 2009 | View Comments

I have this quote (picture above) by Bruce Nussbaum on my wall. I put it up about a year and a half ago and I still believe it’s true. This isn’t a post on a radical new idea, but rather recalling it as a reminder. Here’s the quote:

Social media is upending relationships between customers and corporations, brand owners and brand creators, consumers and producers, centralized authority and anarchistic periphery and-pay attention here-designers and their audiences. People want to design their own experiences, or at least have a big voice in it. With Web 2.0 technology and blogs, they get that voice. People are increasingly designing their own shoes and clothes, their own screen pages, their own interfaces, their own homes. And when they’re not, they want designers and managers to really understand what they have to say. Nike is changing the way it designs and manufactures because of social networking. So are dozens of other companies. Yes, we will always have our brilliant geniuses who intuit their audiences and create wonderful experiences for them. Ive and Jobs at Apple. Bang & Olufsen and its incredible designers and designs. But even Apple is getting hit very hard on the sustainability issue because it isn’t listening to its social networks. Brands have ideologies. They stand for things. People believe in those things. When the culture of Apples’ customers changes, as it is happening today, it has to move with it. You, as designers, can’t just do ethnology anymore. You have to join with those you’re observing to be in their culture and create with them.

The sections I’ve highlighted above and will discuss below are:

People are increasingly designing their own shoes and clothes, their own screen pages, their own interfaces, their own homes. And when they’re not, they want designers and managers to really understand what they have to say.

You have to join with those you’re observing to be in their culture and create with them

What’s great is that a lot, A LOT of companies have embraced the ethos of the quote and they are realizing that times have changed and HOW they relate to customers and HOW customers relate to them has changed. People now have the voice and aren’t afraid to communicate. I’m not talking exclusively about twitter or blogs, because those are amplifiers of communication. Culture has changed and people expect to be able to choose their own experience.

So how do we listen? First, I think we have to care. Secondly, we need to ask questions and make listening a priority. Which isn’t just a media awareness strategy, it’s not responding to those people though those are both good things. It’s making a priority to connect with your customers, and your future customers.

Then, we can bridge to the question “How do we let people choose their own experience?” I believe we should ask, and not that their answers are the 100% answer, but they’ll lead to them. Which will equal better customer engagement and support and ultimately brand loyalty.

What stops us? I think it’s fear, fear of loss of control. Fear that they might change the brand. Or on a more personal level, it’s fear that their ideas might be better then ours. Fear that we’re not the best.

But the great thing is, if their idea is better then yours, that’s ok. Because you made it happen. And if your brand changes, that’s ok too because it’s growth. Growth from real customers.

Wouldn’t you rather have growth from customers vs company stagnation?

I would.

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