The Greenbrier hired Resort Technology Partners (RTP), the industry-leader in resort marketing, to create a new website to support their renovation efforts. RTP subcontracted me to create the UX strategy & design for the project and I happily joined their outstanding creative team.

One of the most significant challenges for the Greenbrier was to attract an entirely new generation of visitors who knew next to nothing about the excellence of this 233-year-old resort, while also catering to the tradition and reserved elegance demanded by the “old guard,” long-term patrons. Additionally, the Greenbrier had grown over the years to include not only the vacation destination, which encompassed the hotel, casino, spa and golf facilities, but also a real estate community and health clinic, each of which had their own brand, website and organizational structure.

After performing a comprehensive content and usability study of the multiple websites, I spoke at length with sales and marketing staff within each organization. We quizzed the Greenbrier customer service team about their history of typical customer questions and challenges, and carefully reviewed analytics of the existing website.

Several brainstorming sessions with RTP staff led to a UX strategy of “modern elegance” and a site architecture that effectively integrated the disparate business units under a single, overarching brand umbrella.

Additional conversations with the client addressed the challenges of creating and maintaining a large amount of content in an organization that was already strapped for time and resources. We envisioned a content strategy that utilized third-party solutions to create their interactive maps in both the resort and real estate business.

After thorough development of user personas, scenarios, site map and page schematics, the visual design team at RTP, under the masterful direction of Creative Director Margaret Cyphers, took over and created a completely new online experience for the Greenbrier’s target audiences. By artfully combining traditional visuals and modern technology, we developed an experience that would appeal to both old and new customers, while perfectly supporting the resort’s renovation theme of “The Greenbrier Re-Imagined.”

The client was incredibly pleased and their re-opening activities proved to be a wild success. Our project’s greater impact is with the resort’s web customers, with online revenue increasing 300% from $1M to $4.5M last year.

Per my usual process, we set out to learn as much as possible about the business and their target audiences. The project was originally intended to create a single design that would accommodate customers in more than a dozen countries spread around the world, each with distinctly different shopping cultures, internet usage styles and connectivity infrastructures. This “one size fits all” attitude, along with severe time and budget constraints, would prove challenging throughout the project.

After meetings with the corporate brand group in Bentonville, AR, we learned that Walmart was in the process of transitioning not only their visual brand and tagline (Save money. Live better.), but also the environmental design of the customer experience in their retail stores. Their new theme of “wider aisles” in the retail stores directed our subsequent visual designs for the global site. More importantly, we used these corporate brand materials to remind the entire team of these new values while designing the user experience of the new global e-commerce website.

Customer research efforts were brief, utilizing existing video and transcripts of interviews and focus group sessions performed previously by the corporate branding group. These were also used to remind both Walmart and Deloitte technology teams that the target audiences were not typically young, technologically-savvy, early adopters like themselves.

The team spent long hours developing the functional requirements for the complex e-commerce design. Walmart’s “ship to store” and “multiple shipping address” policies created significant challenges for the checkout experience, but working closely with Deloitte’s retail experts resulted in ground-breaking solutions. I served as the “voice of the customer” in these sessions, ensuring that the customer experience was protected and enhanced with innovative solutions.

UX design then proceeded quickly, as I mentored a group of Deloitte consultants to document the personas, scenarios, user flows and subsequent site maps and page schematics. Creating an effective information architecture and logical hierarchy for the product catalog was complicated by Walmart’s organizational structure. And their desire to generate additional revenue by selling home page banner ad space to unrelated, third-party brands provoked a particularly vocal discussion about user-centric design.

Creating a collection of “best practices” that applied to all customers in the wildly different cultures around the world was another fascinating challenge, and I vocalized my cautions and caveats about the resulting design. When the single UX design was adapted to each country, the amount of localization and globalization needed to produce a meaningful and usable shopping experience for the different audiences would be significant.

In the end, we created a e-commerce website prototype that exemplified the new Walmart brand and presented a greatly improved UX that led a high-level client executive to remark that he wanted this new design to replace the current American walmart.com website. It remains to be seen if this design will be utilized globally, though several aspects of the final design have made their way into Walmart’s Canadian website.

You can read about the Johnson O’Connor philosophy at their website, or via the book “Your Natural Gifts” [Margaret E. Broadley]. My understanding is that O’Connor has determined that there are a basic set of core aptitudes that a person either has in abundance or does not. Each person’s aptitudes are part of their genetic makeup, and do not change over time. The key to professional success and/or happiness lies in finding a career that aligns with your personal collection of aptitudes.

Over two days, we were tested in a wide variety of ways, usually timed and with a test administrator. The tests explored a diverse range of exercises from manual dexterity to rhythm memory to “wiggly block” stacking, all intended to discover in which particular aptitudes we excelled. The overall experience was outstanding and mind-opening, as we were eager to gain some meaningful self-awareness and the JOCRF staff were wonderfully friendly and highly competent about their system.

As it turns out, I’m already doing a job that is close to my ideal path. In high school, I intuited that a career in architecture was the way to go, but ended up studying electrical engineering in college. That first instinct was spot on, according to the JOCRF results. Other possibilities include medicine/surgery, scientific research, urban planning, archaeology or music composition. Anything that uses my combination of convergent thinking, numerical, spatial, auditory and memory aptitudes would leverage my particular strengths and provide a rewarding career. Without telling the JOCRF staff what I currently do for a living, they informed me that I was highly suited for a job that observed multi-dimensional environments, diagnosed problems and developed solutions to fix them. I’d like to think that the VIBE process represents those aptitudes exactly.

Ironically, my wife the architect tested highly in the “Designer” pattern. Perhaps we could merely switch business cards and be done with it. The best part of the experience may be that we both became aware of aptitudes we didn’t think we had, as well as “missing aptitudes” that explained some frustrations in our current professional lives. Now comes the challenge to use my particular aptitudes to diagnose and fix those areas of my job that aren’t exactly aligned to those same aptitudes. Physician, heal thyself.

Especially interesting for me was how this “research” project was very much akin to the efforts that I strongly recommend to my clients. Very often, I push companies to use research methods to discover whether their products, marketing efforts and end-to-end customer experiences are designed to be in alignment with what their target audiences want and need. Now I find that I am the customer, with my set of wants and needs (professional satisfaction and happiness), trying to determine if my “customer experiences”, or choice of career and work environment, are in tune (vibing?) with those desires.

How “self-aware” are you about your customers and their wants, needs and passions? When was the last time you “tested” them to determine if the experiences you provide to them are in alignment with their particular “aptitudes”? Are you creating VIBE with them, or do you need to tweak and adjust your brand experience to narrow that gap? You should find out immediately. And if you need the assistance of someone with convergent thinking, numerical, spatial, auditory and memory aptitudes to help you diagnose your situation, now you know who to call.

Two fascinating books have held my attention for the past few months – “Fortune’s Formula” and “The Prisoner’s Dilemma”, both by William Poundstone. Both delve deeply into game theory, information theory and risk management, explaining these complex concepts via fun-to-read stories about such colorful characters as Bugsy Siegel, Warren Buffett, Rudy Giuliani, Meyer Lansky and Ivan Boesky. The real characters behind these theories and principles include mathematical luminaries John von Neumann, Claude Shannon, Ed Thorp, John Kelly and John Nash – their stories are even more engrossing because of the immeasurable effects their thinking has had upon all facets of the world.

“The Prisoner’s Dilemma” is a historical overview of game theory, primarily focusing on John von Neumann and his development of this controversial topic. If you only read through the experiments and puzzles that von Neumann and his colleagues created to explore how humans deal with logic, greed, rational and irrational behavior, you’ll be sufficiently entertained and enlightened (and probably hungry for more). The stories about the personal lives of the mathematicians provides a even deeper understanding of how difficult it has been for the world to determine any practical applications of game theory.

“Fortune’s Formula” builds further upon these topics and takes on information theory, tying together the concepts of blackjack and hedge funds via the “Kelly Criterion”. More complex mathematics are explained via fascinating stories about gangsters, MIT professors and Wall Street gamblers of all kinds.

I found a wide variety of relevances and connections to the practice of brand experience strategy and design, especially when they relate to customer research and risk management (see my blog article “Betting Blind”) and irrational customer behavior (read about dollar auctions in “The Prisoner’s Dilemma”). Hopefully, you’ll find connections to your world as well – enjoy.

After a few years of trendiness, high-stakes professional poker has been relegated to late-nights on ESPN 8 (“The Ocho”). But businesses large and small continue to take wildly unnecessary risks on their brands in this same “betting blind” manner. Unfortunately, the results are about the same. The savvy, cunning experts who know both the odds and their competitors’ “tells” come out on top while the impatient, foolish rookies lose their entire stake and go home with their tails between their legs.

A few recent projects have all had one remarkable characteristic in common – brands willing to make enormous assumptions about their customers without actually talking to them. They launch million-dollar initiatives in the dark – betting blind – with only their “gut instincts”, personal viewpoints and sheer chutzpah to guide their product designs, marketing efforts and other brand experiences.

Note that these are the very same clients who claim that they don’t have the same marketing budgets they had in years past. They assert that they don’t have the money to spend on customer or market research. But in bypassing that effort, they end up wasting even more money launching in the wrong direction with the wrong message to the wrong targets.

What’s often worse is that the people making the assumptions are nothing like their target customers. Gen-Y, Amazon.com-loving computer programmers usually don’t empathize well with Gen-X, middle-aged mothers of three who shop at discount superstores. Computer whiz kids at high-tech Manhattan agencies usually can’t put themselves in the shoes of digitally-challenged, suburban forty-somethings who are looking for a better way to rent movies.

Why would you bet your stack of chips before the cards are dealt when it’s just as easy to look at the flop in order to determine your true odds and course of action? Why would you increase your RISK by ignoring or refusing data that would give you a tremendous advantage against failure? What is the logic here?

This phenomenon is not new, as evidenced by the existence of applicable maxims galore. “Penny-wise and pound foolish” describes those who would skimp on the basics and miss out on larger opportunities. “Measure twice and cut once” is the carpenter’s mantra to save money by putting in extra thought before risking irreversible mistakes. Perhaps the venerable Ben Franklin said it best: “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

Simply put, there is no substitute for solid market intelligence. Note that this doesn’t require large budgets, but merely clear, rational and EFFICIENT research and analysis activities. Once prospective customers are clearly identified, brands that perform surgical focus group sessions, surveys and even individual interviews learn a great deal about how their customers view the product/service category, product alternatives, competitors, brands, influencers/recommenders and all of the intangible aspects that affect buying decisions.

A recent brainstorming session for our own marketing efforts resulted in a clarified brand assertion : “We think before we create.” Just as many clients jump to action before performing sufficient discovery and strategy efforts, we’ve come to realize that many of OUR competitors do the same thing. If you watch television commercials (does anyone actually do this any more?), you’ll quickly see the results of that kind of process. Misguided, mis-targeted, miscommunicated mistakes abound. It seems obvious that these brands and their agencies didn’t actually talk with any customers before creating this drivel.

If you like gambling, go for it. Hopefully, you’ll guess correctly and win the big pot. But if you’d rather make your bets knowing that you have the best hand and are practically guaranteed wild success, we can help. Let us work with you to “think before you spend” and gain an advantage of your competitors through effective, efficient customer research and analysis. Give us a call and let’s get started.

Lately, I’ve been fascinated by the group dynamic in this room with its twelve cycling stations. Getting that many cyclists to agree on a single course can be challenging, but the more interesting negotiations revolve around a much larger issue. What music will we play on the sound system? In fact, many riders are so particular that they’ll plug in their ear buds and crank up their own playlist to 11, blocking out all other competing sound. The reason? When you’re struggling to beat your personal best from the last training session, inspirational music can be the difference between pushing through the pain and giving in to the temptation to quit. The right music inspires the right behavior.

During the recent Vancouver Winter Olympics, AT&T launched their “Team USA Soundtrack” campaign where customers could text and download songs recorded exclusively to inspire and support the American athletes. To explain their choice of “The Champion in Me” for the soundtrack, Brad Arnold from 3 Doors Down said, “It’s got energy, it’s a song that I think that if an Olympic athlete were out training and they had their iPod on, it might be a track that they were actually listening to, and when I was writing the lyrics to the song, I tried to keep that in mind.”

AT&T benefitted by associating their brand with musicians like Sheryl Crow, Chris Brown, Goo Goo Dolls, Queen Latifah, Nelly and Taylor Swift, as well as with the Olympic athletes. This campaign was a brilliant example of “sonic branding” that targeted customers’ sense of hearing in a way not done in the silent campaigns of print and (most) online advertising. It appealed to our desire to support “Team USA” as well as to be inspired by the athletes’ competitive drive for the gold. By listening to a common, inspirational soundtrack, customers connected with the musicians, the athletes, and – AT&T hopes – the brand.

QUESTION: How could your customers be influenced by music? What do your customers hear when they are in your physical store and does it inspire or annoy them? How well do you support your “visual” marketing and advertising campaigns with “audio” ingredients? What does your brand sound like?

Intel’s “sonic logo” has become such a large part of their branding that they are now airing TV spots with their employees singing “Bom bom bom bom!” in unison. (If you could read that and hear the music, you should recognize the power of long-term, consistent branding.) Starbucks Entertainment creates and sponsors a wide variety of CDs that reinforce their coffeehouse culture. But who has the better music experience, Pepsi or Coca-Cola?

Want more? Read about the retro bands whose music peppered the recent collection of Super Bowl ads. Check out Richard Jankovich’s analysis of how Crayola’s adventurous use of relatively unknown musicians is supporting their brand of “creative energy.” Or see the “Top Ten 2009 Song Commercials” at splendAd.com.

The bottom line is this: When your customers think of your brand, what do they hear?

Consultants: We think you need to integrate your global supply chain, move assembly overseas, and accelerate inventory velocity.

CEO: Great! Do it!

Consultants: [Confused looks on faces, then smirks and laughing]. Sir, we don’t actually do what we propose… we just propose it.

Perhaps I find this so amusing because of my experience working with “big firm” consultants and others who charge astronomical fees to deliver thick reports full of vague ideas, trite platitudes and hundreds of meaningless buzzwords that sum up to say practically nothing. At least in this TV spot, the consultants mention tactics, but in all likelihood these are broad, undefined concepts that come from their standard playbook of “strategic solutions.” (I worked with one “big firm” consultant who described a multinational, e-commerce platform for one of the largest retailers in the world as “a turkey sandwich.” I’m still not sure what that means.)

This old commercial came to mind recently after a conversation with a colleague who was finding that clients were having difficulty understanding exactly how his firm was different from other “interactive design agencies” who pitched themselves merely on the merits of their tactical execution. The problem sounded very familiar, and I realized that I had also been spending too much time and energy marketing myself as a “strategist” and “problem-solver” without clearly explaining what I actually “do” for my clients in the long run. As I often tell clients, we must be very careful what we assume our customers know and don’t know, and telling them too much is far better than telling them too little.

As a point of differentiation from UPS’s fictional consultants, I actually do things. Just like any other brand consultancy, interactive design firm, advertising agency or similar company – though likely far more effectively and far less expensively – I create actual, tangible websites, email & e-newsletters, advertising, printed collateral (brochures, etc.), social/viral/guerilla campaigns & events, logos & brandmarks, taglines & product names, real-time/mobile apps, physical store designs, employee guidelines & training, and a wide variety of other types of tactical marketing executions that make a significant impact on your actual bottom line.

Obviously, I work with some very smart partner-colleagues who help with the creation and production of all these deliverables, and each of them is an expert in their field with significant experience in executing brilliant ideas on paper, screen and airwaves. But most importantly – and the true differentiation between me/us and those other firms – is how I develop the sound strategy to determine what direction all of these deliverables should take a client’s brand and customers, then direct the execution experts to create outstanding deliverables. To read more about the process by which we can work together to develop a visionary, innovative brand experience strategy for your business, please see The Secret Formula.

We can actually do great things together, as opposed to merely delivering a list of vague proposals that you have to execute yourself. And you can be confident that our “doing” will result in tangible results that make your business far more successful in the right direction, for the right reasons, and with the right customers. Give me a call and let’s get started.

Naturally, you have to be leery of any “reality” program that obviously has camera crews following the players around their environments. What employee would possibly be able to ignore the cameras enough to display poor judgement or behavior at their place of business? (Apparently in the next episode, a Hooters manager does exactly that.) But then again, that’s not the point of this endeavor. Employees that actually do a great job in spite of various challenges from “corporate” are discovered by Mr. O’Donnell, who realizes quickly that the decisions coming from his office, under the guise of “productivity improvement”, have made these employees’ work lives very difficult.

I’ve seen this exact phenomenon many times over the years, especially when working with large, Fortune 500 companies who are trying to implement intranet portals to improve their productivity and reduce operational costs. Time and time again, after returning from discovery sessions with employees around the world, I’ve presented stories, quotes and images to unbelieving and startled executives. By merely taking the time to ask customers (employees) what they need to do a better job, we end up with revelations and epiphanies that make dramatic advances far beyond any previously expected gains. But how much better would the results be if executives actually made these trips with me?

Since meeting with Tom Young, one of Nike’s “Lean Gurus”, in Bangkok a few months ago, I’ve been exploring the worlds of Lean Thinking, Six Sigma, Design Thinking and other modern-day productivity philosophies and how they mesh (or clash) with the Creative Problem Solving ideology that has guided my career. One of the lessons from Lean Thinking concerns the tool called the “Ohno Circle”, invented by Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno in the 1950s. Ohno would draw a circle on the floor of a manufacturing plant and direct the plant’s president to stand in the circle for eight hours to observe all of the problems and waste occuring right before his eyes. The exercise is almost always a complete shock to the executive, who rarely has even a vague grasp of what’s going on at the ground level of his own company.

In spite of Toyota’s monumental quality and brand problems of the moment, using the Ohno Circle is an incredibly sound methodology that was employed brilliantly in CBS’s “Undercover Boss”. Perhaps the “undercover” aspect made the exercise even more effective as it may have offset the common effect of seeing behavior change solely because it is being observed. In any case, this new reality show starts to scratch the surface of a wide range of problems with American business and how it is currently structured, managed and operated, as well as the broader implications about how employees are motivated, rewarded and punished.

As seems to always happen, experiencing “Undercover Boss” comes at a time when I am simultaneously enjoying a related learning experience. I’ve just completed reading the book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” by Dan Pink, in which he describes how the business world needs to move towards “Motivation 3.0″ and actually provide employees with reasons for working beyond the traditional “carrot and stick”. In “Undercover Boss”, Waste Management COO O’Donnell discovers that his employees don’t need to be “spied on” or “threatened” for being late, or even offered bonuses for “above and beyond” performance. He finds employees who regularly overachieve without reward, who have a great attitude while cleaning port-a-potties, and who inspire others to work harder even though they endure the hardship of dialysis.

Though it wasn’t stated explicitly in the show, I hope that Mr. O’Donnell continues his practice (though openly, now that his cover is blown) to travel to Waste Management facilities and work with his employees in jobs all across the enterprise. Hopefully, he’ll also make it part of his executive staff’s regular jobs to do the same exercise in their own divisions. And in the end, it will likely result in higher productivity, quality and job satisfaction (retention) across his company. Good work, Mr. O’Donnell and good luck.

As for the rest of us, the challenge is clear. Without the trailing camera crews, visit your far-flung facilities and get your hands dirty at the ground level of your organization. Ask your employees what they want and need with the same fervor that you (hopefully) ask your paying customers what they want and need. In all likelihood, you’ll make people happier, achieve higher productivity, improve retention, safety, morale and in the end, profitability.

And if you find that your intranet is part of the problem, give me a call – I’d love to stand in the Ohno Circle with you and help identify and solve your problems.

As you can see from my work history description above, I love change. Professionally, I love helping companies change from “the way we’ve always done it” to new ideas, concepts, products and methods that actually work, that their customers buy, and that are highly profitable. The business buzzword du jour is “innovation”, though it’s becoming a tired and overused word from misuse and abuse. Even the meaning of the word has evolved from “introducing something new” to “the application of inventions or new ideas to real-world practice”. The ideas exist all around us and merely need to be applied to business problems to create solutions. Sounds easy, right?

But twenty years of working with clients has taught me one thing above all others. Nearly every client I’ve ever known is (secretly) resistant to change. They say that they’re not, but when all is said and done… They fear that change might fail and they’ll be blamed. Seems fair enough with job security such a precarious concept these days, but it also seems as though no one is willing to risk doing something that might be wildly successful. Even though there are hundreds of business books telling the same stories about failures leading to phenomenonal successes, most firms seem to be willing to rest on their laurels and eke out another one percent of growth each year. It’s no wonder we’re all stuck in a recession. But here’s the naked truth:

If you’re not making waves or rocking the boat, you’re dead in the water.

Unfortunately, “dead in the water” is how most businesses are weathering the current global economic crisis. The opportunity for dramatic change is tremendous right now simply because your competitors are petrified with fear. Customers are not spending with wild abandon as they have in years past, but they are still buying expensive and well-crafted smart phones, golf clubs, audio systems, bicycles, watches, e-book readers, designer vodkas, software, cookware, and hundreds of other INNOVATIVE products. And if the products aren’t particularly innovative, the marketing, advertising, sales and service of those successful products is. How has your business innovated lately? What’s new with you?

My new focus is to facilitate change.

I’ve spent the last several years researching consumer behavior, creative problem solving, crowd psychology, lean thinking, social networking, motivation, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, learning, brainstorming techniques and dozens of other relevant topics. I’ve attended training courses on facilitation, user experience design and brand strategy. Add that to a long career developing brands, marketing strategies and campaigns, information architectures, product names and user interfaces and some things have started to become very clear. The thought processes needed to achieve successful innovation are neither complex nor difficult, but are definitely unique. And when those pieces of the puzzle fell into place, the epiphany came.

Visionary, innovative brand experiences (VIBE) are created by being open-minded, honest, trusting and engaged with customers and logically considering their needs, desires and fantasies via a structured problem-solving process.

I’ve assembled a methodology using the ideas and processes of some brilliant thinkers and problem solvers. (Innovation is the application of invention!) I’ve spread this new thinking to highly-skilled colleagues with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working on past projects. And I started testing the new concept with customers of my own. The response has been overwhelming and we seem to have struck a nerve that is waking businesses up and getting them moving in the right direction. The results have been amazing and our ship is sailing along at a brisk clip, making waves and rocking like never before.

The direction is new, the methodology is new, the thinking is new, but all are based on the experiences, skills and knowledge gained from a lifetime of solid work. We’ve applied these inventions to practice and are innovating for our clients and their customers. Are you open to change? Give me a call and let’s get started.

How do you evaluate each possible guest? You may find yourself describing each one in these terms: The life of the party. The crashing bore. The one with the great stories. The one-upper. The sweetheart. The nosy one. The interrupter. The joke-teller. The loud talker. The funny one. The name-dropper. The smart one. The smartass. The salesman. The gossip. The flirt. The perfect guest.

It’s easy to boil down the essence of a potential guest into a few words that sum up their possible contribution to the party atmosphere. Certainly, it may not be fair to make such a narrow judgment of each person, but we all have opinions based on a history of experiences with everyone we meet. Those experiences form an overall assessment that can often be distilled down to a single phrase that describes a person’s personality.

When explaining the concept of “branding” to clients, it often relates to their everyday world in terms of “personality.” Everyone has one. Some are good and some are, well… less so. But if we’ve had any experiences with a person, we can easily sum up their personality in a few words. This is their brand.

Note that a person may have dozens of “brands” depending upon which of his acquaintances you ask. His mother will describe one brand while his ex-girlfriend will likely convey something completely different. The successful business partner may sing his praises while the disgruntled employee may curse his name. The more consistent a person’s behavior across the spectrum of their life, the fewer distinct brands they will have. Alas, those brands may or may not be the ones they want.

Just as companies try to define their brand, people try to manage their personalities and reputations. But both may find this very difficult to accomplish, as a brand is determined solely by those who receive the experience. Just because you want to be known as “the smart guy” does not mean that others will not perceive you as “the smartass” instead. The best way to define your brand is by paying attention to your interactions and experiences, not to your wardrobe, hairstyle, memberships, press releases, brochures or tweets.

A man is defined by his actions, not his words.

How has your company defined its brand? Do the experiences you provide to your target markets align with that desired brand? Are they consistent across all possible customer interactions and to every audience? Are you living that brand or do you say one thing and do another? Do your buyers see you in the way you want to be seen?

Would all of your desired customers invite your brand to their cocktail party? If not, why not? What experiences do you need to redesign to change their minds? How can you get from “no, I don’t think so” to “we’ve gotta invite him”? The party is starting. Let’s get you there.