In today’s episode of Experience by Design, we welcome Jon Cohen, an expert in transformative experience design from G&A, an experience design company. We do a deep dive into the potential risks and implications of emerging technologies, particularly the Apple Vision Pro, and its impact on distraction and deployment in various settings, including museums and public spaces.

Jon shares his expertise on integrating augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to create immersive and awe-inspiring experiences, enhancing both educational programs and collective memories. The discussion extends to the evolution of video quality, the role of fashion trends, and the intricate balance of using technology to enhance, rather than distract from, meaningful experiences.

We’ll also hear poignant stories from Jon about gaming with his son and a transformative visit to Dachau, highlighting the power of immersive experiences in understanding cultural trauma. The conversation touches on significant historical events, such as Operation Overlord and the Vietnam War, and how reverence and reflection are incorporated into modern design.

We talk about how to approach the making of reverent spaces that not only prompt introspection, but also connection. While tech might be great for immersion, it can also lead to distraction. So the goal is to balance those features and think about when to use technology and when you need to leave it out. To be reverent is to be in the moment. This means the designer of reverent spaces needs to amplify the moment, heighten the sense of reverence, and move the person into the space of remembering.

Whether you’re interested in how today’s technology can preserve stories of the past or how it impacts our sense of identity and place, this episode promises a thoughtful exploration of the intersection between technology, design, and human experience.

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I’ve been involved in the creation and promotion of a number of athletic events, more specifically a cycling discipline called cyclocross. I’ve also participated in my fair share of events, from local road running races to Ironman and the Boston Marathon. I like to think that I have a decent understanding on the design of sporting events from the perspective of participants, promoter, and even spectator. When you are looking at these events from different perspectives, different elements become important. When designing them, it becomes important to take them all into account to create a successful experience.

It can be a challenge to capture what these events are all about, especially to those who have no direct understanding of them. What is the allure? What draws people in? Why do people put themselves through it all? Portraying more obscure sporting events to a broader audience is a balancing act between over explaining what is going on and leaving spaces to draw people in.

We can look at events like the Tour de France, professional hockey, Ironman, and other sports that don't have a broad audience, and as a result any coverage of it seems to try to overexplain itself.

One of the trends we see in sports media is the telling of stories of those who are competing. One of the things that draws us into sports is the struggle inherent in it. The struggle against ourselves, the struggle against others, the struggle against the elements. And it is not just about the struggle, but as ABC sports famously said “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” We learn about these things through how they are portrayed in sports media.

On this episode of Experience by Design, we welcome Matt B. Davis of Obstacle Racing Media to the studio. I first heard of Matt on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast where he was talking about his documentary World’s Toughest Mudder. You’ll hear references to his appearance on Marc’s podcast in our conversation. As an endurance athlete, I recognized the struggle of communicating what it is we do and why it is we do it. So, I thought it would be fun to have him on and talk about the documentary he created, the culture of obstacle racing, and sports media for more fringe sports.

Matt’s desire for creative communication and entertainment led him to a variety of outlets. From comedy to blogging to podcasting and now videos, Matt talks about how he created a media presence for obstacle racing. For those who don’t know, which is probably most of you, obstacle racing are events like Tough Mudders or Spartan Race. What becomes really fascinating about these events is the strong sense of support and community that is created by all those involved. Competitors helping one another overcome literal obstacles because they are all in this together.

We talk about his journey from New England to the world of comedy. We explore his decision to create a content creation company for the emerging world of obstacle racing. We dig into how to create authentic content that doesn’t pander to the world of clickbait. He emphasizes that it is not just about the money, but the challenges of being a content creator who does justice to the community that is being portrayed.

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The field of education and learning is shifting in a lot of ways. Some of this is related to the new technologies, and the opportunities that are created through them. At the same time, we can see the duplication of traditional approaches through new technologies. Afterall, what does PowerPoint really accomplish if all we do is just put our lecture notes in it. It is still just a professor in front of the room delivering the content.

And that used to be enough. Professors weren’t entertainers, but gatekeepers. We could be in front of the room, expecting students to pay attention, engaging in the content under duress, and providing output that fit our requirements.

The game has changed in many ways. Now educators have to figure out ways of being engaging. We have to think not just in terms of class materials, but learning experiences. We can’t just think about course lectures, but content creation. We have to explore ways to get students curious, to bring material to them because we can’t just rely on them to come to the material.

Part of this is probably related to the a la carte culture that we currently have. ‘Kids today’ are socialized in an environment where they can pick and choose what they want when they want it. They can listen to whatever music they want any time they want to. They can pick a show or movie and see it at any time. Even Door Dash and Grub Hub can deliver food that they want.

To get students and learners engaged, we have to have them want to be engaged. Given that they have choice around so much of their lives, educators find themselves being in the situation of having to entertain students and learners.

Of course, education doesn’t just happen in the classroom. Museums are another environment in which learning can take place. And museums also are a place where learning and entertainment are coming into close contact.

On this episode of Experience by Design, we welcome Nathan Lachenmyer and Sadiya Akasha from Sitara Systems. Nathan and Sadiya think of themselves as ‘curiosity creators,’ creating museum experiences that draw people into exhibits so that they can become engaged in their content.

A major part of their goal is to achieve education through entertainment. Additionally, they seek to establish education as a pathway to action. Rather than preaching, we can think of their work as reaching. There is a difference between being lectured at versus talked to, and their edutainment approach helps to reach those who are indifferent to topics like climate change and get them engaged.

We had a lot of fun in this convo, especially considering they were talking on different lines but in the same room next to each other!

One of the things that we know as social scientists is that people need connection. It is not that we want connection, or would prefer connection, but that we need it to be part of our lives. Some of the foundational figures in sociology were all concerned with the onset of isolation and disconnection that came with industrial society. Durkheim looked at anomie. Marx looked at alienation. Even today we see works like Putnam’s Bowling Alone and many others who see the ways in which we are more and more disconnected even though technology can bring us closer and closer together.

It leads one to wonder whether loneliness is not just a bug of modern society, but rather a feature of it. All of this was of course increased during the pandemic when people not only felt isolated, but were in fact isolated. Social distancing only reinforced the sense of distance people already felt prior to the pandemic. Even in Scandinavia, which is supposed to be the happiest place on Earth, people are still unhappy. And this unhappiness and disconnection can put us in survival mode. In the end, if all we are doing is surviving, can we ever be living?

We are excited to welcome Unni Turrenttini. Unni is a best-selling and award-winning author, international speaker, and loneliness and connection expert. Her work is about helping people find deeper connection and belonging, so that they can thrive in their personal and professional lives. What’s really powerful about our conversation is Unni takes us not only into the realms of how to talk about belonging and connection, but also how to articulate their importance in and for businesses (you know those places where adults spend most of their time) and what it means to create experiences around belonging such as optimizing the organization for the employee as a person.

The home buying process is not great. And while it might not ever be great, it should be better than it is. While home may or may not be where the heart is, the home is definitely where the stress starts. The whole venture of buying a home is a pain from start to finish. Anyone who has been through this knows what I’m talking about. The financing, the searching, the bidding, the waiting, the closing, the moving, the unpacking, and maybe eventually the settling. Oh and of course the upkeep. So what should be something that creates excitement and joy can end up being full of anxiety and dread.

Today’s guest is Liz Rossof, who has approached the home buying process from more of a punk rock perspective. Being an art student of the 1980s, she is not your typical real estate agent. Or maybe she is. All depends on what you think it means to be a real estate agent. And historically, it hasn’t necessarily meant great things.

The real estate industry has been full of situations like red lining, block busting, segregating, swindling, and profiteering. There is a lot out there that tells these stories.

But Liz is trying to approach it from a different perspective. Rather than helping people buy houses, she is trying to get people to find homes and communities. We talk about this approach with her website the Denver Nook. We explore what it means to humanize the realtor experience. We use a customer experience framework with a performance art aesthetic to come up with something that works for those who in many ways are at their most financially vulnerable.

And we talk about how cheetah prints can be part of the realtor uniform, but you can still rock it in your 50s. Finally, we discuss how your house never looks as good as it does the week before it goes on the market! So folks, clean your house like you are going to sell it if for no one else but yourself.

There is the old saying that ‘necessity is the mother of invention.’ This could be the slogan for education in the pandemic world. All educators were thrust into a situation that many vowed they would never do: teach online. But what could we do? It wasn’t like there were a lot of options. We had to make due with what we had, and hope that it worked better than we hoped.

At the same time, it isn’t like learning online, or from videos, is new. We might even think that television shows that teach us how to make a recipe, build something, fix something, or do something new all are meant to bring learning to the masses. Today we can find the same kinds of content on YouTube, or TikTok, or a website. There is no shortage of online learning opportunities.

The bigger challenge is how do educators create content that connects with changing audience preferences. What might work in a 80 minute class is not necessarily going to translate as an 80 minute video. Attention spans have shortened based on content that is consumed online, in 140 characters and 30 second increments. How do we then design educational materials that can maintain engagement and result in learning?

To help us explore the creation of learning content in the age of distraction, we welcome Tim Slade. With a degree in criminal justice, Tim used to work catching shoplifters. Today, he works with educators and professional development leaders on how to create better learning experiences.

We talk about the importance of microlearning, or chunking smaller bits of larger lessons.

We also talk about how educators shouldn’t suffer from shiny key syndrome, meaning that we shouldn’t be taken in by new technologies just because they are new. We need to focus on what creates learning opportunities, while at the same time thinking about how to fit those opportunities into packaging that works.

Finally, we talk about how we need friction in the learning process, and too much convenience and efficiency through technology can be bad for learning.

Here on Experience by Design, we like to think we are experts, or at least pretty knowledgeable, about the concept of culture. A couple of PhDs and training in ethnography will at least yield a working understanding of culture, as well as how it permeates all aspects of our lives.

Regardless of how ubiquitous, it also is hard to nail down in terms of what it means. Just like a fish probably doesn’t notice the water until it is out of it, we don’t notice culture until we are in a different one, or it is really really bad.

One way to think about culture, especially organizational culture, is chemistry. How do the elements mix together? What are the reactions? Are any of them adverse? Explosive? Caustic?

Luckily to discuss all of this is a person with a chemistry background, as well as expertise in customer experience.

Karl Sharicz is founder of Horizon CX, as well as the author of CX-PRO: A Practical Guide for the New Customer Experience Manager. Along with all of this, he also launched his own CX certification course.

But as he will tell you, good CX is about much more than the customer.

We talk to Karl about his systems-based approach to CX. We explore how to evaluate organizational culture through the interview process. We also discuss the potential impacts of technology on customer experience, and how it doesn’t necessarily mean improvements for customers. Finally, we talk about how it is important that we focus on servicing customers versus servicing metrics.

It might seem like an obvious statement, but different kinds of environments require different kinds of designs. Thinking about my kids for instance. As they got older, their tastes and interests changed, which as a result changed their room decor. One of my daughters is always seeking to ‘level up’ her room schwag, looking for design ideas to reflect who she is as a person, and who she aspires to be. Perhaps we can all identify with this part of adolescence. The posters, the black lights, the hanging beads, the lava lamps. Maybe even an Iron Butterfly silk wall hanging. 

So regardless of what kind of environment we are talking about, we need to think about what would be the best design for that environment. A classroom is different from a doctor’s office. A law office is different from a lingerie store. A movie theater is different from a mortuary. 

How then might we design interior environments to support the experiences we are trying to create and encourage?

Today in the Experience by Design Studio, we welcome Carolyn Boldt. Carolyn has over 40 years of experience designing interiors for commercial industries, and is the Co-Founder of CrossFields, an interior design and architecture firm. 

One area in particular she works in is chiropractic offices. We talk about how she approaches her work in general, and how designing chiropractic offices provides unique challenges and opportunities. She describes how she tries to help her clients attract their ideal customers through the spaces she creates. 

We also talk about her online course on design and how to create the proper environments for the best experiences. There are three to six thousand decisions that have to be made in order to open an office, and her course helps to manage that process. 

It is a great conversation about how she went from decorating Barbie Playhouses to doctor’s offices, how the space stations led to a career designing interiors, and how if you are not designing intentionally, you are doing it wrong.