Top Themes of The X-Mentor 2023
1. Emotions Matter
The Big, Bold Statement that emerged from The X-Mentor in 2023 is exemplified by a statement from Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Howard Tiersky. When I asked Howard about the connection between emotions and business outcomes, Howard dropped the mic with this declaration:
In Issue #4 of The X-Mentor | Emotions, I reveal why emotions play a crucial role in human perception and how perceptions drive human behavior, including all economic behavior. Customers buy emotionally and justify logically, as most Salespeople will tell you if they know their job well enough. That’s why the most impactful GTM strategies are deliberately designed to key on human emotion. It’s also why the most impactful customer experiences produce that “WOW!” emotional response. When Design solves the right problems for customers it also solves the most important problems for the business. That’s why Good Design is Good Business and it’s why The X-Mentor is all about The Business Impact of Design!
2. Journey Economics
If emotions are the #1 driver of business outcomes, then why aren’t more Executive Leaders relying on Experiential (i.e., emotional) metrics to steer their organizations? According to Trent Rossini, Managing Director and Co-Founder of inQuba, a leading Journey Orchestration platform, it’s likely because Executive Leaders don’t experience what the customer experiences. Trent states:
Executives have a completely twisted view of their customer experience.
My favorite new term coming out of The X-Interview with Trent is Journey Economics. We discussed why Journey Economics is a “Holy Grail of where CX needs to go.” And Forrester Research’s Maxie Schmidt agreed, stating: “That’s where the business case for CX has to go.” Thus, I expect Journey Economics to be pivotal in making the business case for CX & UX.
3. Co-Designing with AI
What does it mean to work smarter with “humans in the loop” with AI? AI has been a force multiplier for change this year and we’re all looking very closely at the implications for impact on our jobs and how co-creating with AI will change our roles. At a glance, it looks like designers will be elevated to more conceptual and strategic level work. The X-Mentor will be looking closely at this in 2024.
In our X-Interview with Katrina Alcorn, Chief Design Officer and former GM of Design at IBM, Katrina reflects on her “MAXED OUT” experience as a working mom and envisions how AI can potentially help us live happier, healthier, more productive lives. We also discussed the potential impact and implications for organizational design, and what life might look like coexisting with AI. Katrina stated:
The Human Race is discovering this new form of intelligence that really could make our lives easier. And if we capitalize on this opportunity, we have this potential to rediscover what is meaningful to us as humans.
4. Design as Business Drivers
It’s been a year of change for CX & UX Design. To the surprise of no one, that change has been met with resistance. In many ways, it’s been a battle between long-term initiatives of CX vs. “short-term greed driven initiatives” of corporations. CX is losing that battle against the short-termistic mindset. But Journey Economics can turn this situation around completely.
Designers feel threatened by pressure to prove they add value to the business. There’s also increased expectations that Design manage the performance of their work. To get ahead of that situation, Design Operations will need a plan for how Design will contribute and advance the objectives of the business. Every other area of the business has a plan, so the expectation should be no different for Design. It’s “wake-up time” for Design, time to rise and shine as leaders of your business.
“You need a plan for how your design team and design operations are going to contribute. Every other area has a plan, so it should be the same.”
That’s a quote from Peter Bull, Chief Technology Officer at River Logic, Gartner’s Magic Quadrant Leader in Prescriptive Analytics. In our X-Interview Peter explains why Design is one of the “preeminent lead indicators" for driving business decisions. Peter describes how Design Leaders can solve the disconnect between leading and lagging indicators:
New in 2023 was the introduction of The X-Interviews which offers in-depth insights on The Business Impact of Design and behind-the-scenes stories told by industry experts who candidly share their sage advice and provocative opinions. As a Researcher at heart, I’m always looking for diverse and challenging perspectives to fuel authentic and sometimes controversial conversations that lead to new ways of thinking and problem-solving. I could not be more grateful for and delighted with the awesome line-up of professionals who contributed to The X-Interviews this year. Here’s a summary of what you’ll discover when you dive-deep into The X-Interviews.
Peter describes how Senior Management place their trust in lagging indicators like revenue, cost, profitability, retention, etc. because they’ve proven in the past to help shape decisions. But there’s a catch, Design should be one of the preeminent lead indicators of performance. Discussion topics include:
Karen Holtzblatt is an Experience Design pioneer known for her contributions to HCI and Contextual Design. Karen is the CEO of InContext and winner of the first ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Award for Practice. Karen tells her story of how Contextual Design grew out of a question that she was asked by John Whiteside at DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation). Discussion topics include:
Bart is a Founder, Chief Revenue Officer, Author, and Award-winning High Growth Sales Leader. Bart shares his insights and perspective on how Business Leaders and Designers can work better together to improve collaboration across organizations. Discussion topics include:
Doug Powell is an Executive Design Leader, Consultant, and Producer & Host of This Is A Prototype: The Design Leadership Podcast. Doug tells his story about IBM’s Design Transformation starting from when he joined the company in 2013. He also gives us an interesting top-level history of Design at IBM. Discussion topics include:
Trent is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of inQuba. He’s a Customer Journey Orchestration expert who’s helping large corporations reach their goals by visualizing the end-to-end customer journey to gain a deeper understanding of the customer’s journey. Trent reveals the “Holy Grail of where CX needs to go.” Discussion topics include:
Dr. Maxie Schmidt is Vice President, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research and is a Customer Experience expert. Maxie leads Forrester’s research on CX Measurement and Value for Customer. Maxie talks about her personal CX career journey and how that shaped her views on CX. Important Note: Maxie agrees that Journey Economics is where the business case for CX has to go. Discussion topics include:
Dr. Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., is a usability pioneer in UX. Jakob and his long-time business partner, Donald A. Norman, who coined the term “User Experience,” founded NN/g (Nielsen Norman Group) in 1998. Dr. Nielsen established the discount usability movement for fast and cheap iterative design and is also an ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award winner for Human-Computer Interaction Practice. In this career retrospective, Jakob and I discuss his most durable ideas and contemplate the future of UX in context of highly disruptive technologies like AI. Discussion topics include:
Tom Greever is a Design Leader and is best known as the author of the popular O’REILLY book, Articulating Design Decisions – Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience. Tom and I discussed his book and how Articulating Design Value can give Designers the tools they need to have successful Business Value Conversations with their business counterparts. Discussion topics include:
Howard Tiersky, the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance which was listed by Forbes as “One of the ten most important business books of 2021.” Howard and I discuss the power of emotions and how it drives customer behavior, which measurably leads to business outcomes. Discussion topics include:
Katrina is an Author, Chief Design Officer and formerly GM of Design at IBM, where she led a global practice of 3,000 designers who created award-winning products, services, and experiences powered by AI for customers across various domains and industries. Katrina shares her story of becoming MAXED OUT as a working mom and how AI can help us be Everything Everywhere All at Once. Well, potentially. Discussion topics include:
Editor’s Note on 2023 and Looking Ahead to 2024
It’s been a pivotal year for Designers and the way they see themselves in relation to the companies they work for. There are some excellent conversations happening in the broader CX & UX Design community as we head into 2024. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more Executive Leaders talking about the economic impact of design. We are also seeing more and more Designers talking about Design Strategy and driving business impact. As more CX & UX Designers step-up to lead human-centered businesses, especially in this Age of AI, we can expect to see some bright spots emerge in the year ahead.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Greg Parrott is The X-Mentor and publisher of The X-Interviews.
If you know someone who has a great story to tell about The Business Impact of Design, please contact The X-Mentor: Greg@theXmentor.us