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Andrew Lacanienta: [00:00:00] And are we setting people up, the human beings themselves, are we giving them what they need in order to be able to participate and experience the outcomes that we want them to experience, right?
Podcast Host: Is changing. For most humans, change is uncomfortable and challenging to address. Financial and political uncertainty, friction with back to office mandates, and challenging hybrid workplace collaboration. Not to forget, important environmental, social responsibility, and governance initiatives combined with the rapid pace of digital transformation and the need for human-centered AI integration.
Change is happening and fast. This rapid change has highlighted the need for increased speed to innovation and long-lasting change adoption [00:01:00] in many organizations. Whether you are a startup working on agile process or a mature organization navigating change within existing complex structures, the skill set and need to adapt has never been more vital.
The team from Strategy Table wanna help the wider world understand the need and approach to meaningful and impactful change management, helping organizations navigate disruption and make change accessible. It often starts with a meaningful conversation. This is Accessible Disruption.
Anthony Vade: Welcome to another episode of Accessible Disruption, where we ask challenging questions like, what is experience design anyway? Why should we pay attention to it? And how can we create moments that impact how humans interact within the world? Uh, I'm Anthony Vaide, one of the co-founders and co-hosts of Accessible Disruption and The Strategy Table, and of course, joining me is my other co-founders and co-hosts, [00:02:00] Tahira Endean and Ryan Hill.
And of course, special guest for the summer, we have our intern, Corvin Dahms, joining us as well. Uh, we're gonna jump into a topic that is near and dear to all of us, and a connection that we made through this experience design world. Uh, but before we do, as is so often the custom, Tahira, who is Andrew to you?
Tahira Endean: Uh, that is such a big question. So in 2018, I went to the College of Extraordinary Experiences, or what we call the Castle, uh, for those who have been, and, uh, Andrew was my host prefect along with Catalina. And when I met Andrew, I just assumed that we wouldn't be friends. I would just hang out with all of the other ladies my age who were also in the Castle, who also had kids, and it would just be a great learning experience, but it just became so much more.
And so as our [00:03:00] host prefect, Andrew was just one of the smartest people that I'd ever met, um, and really helped guide our journey through the Castle experience. It wasn't his first rodeo. Um, and by the end of it, we were literally holding hands and skipping across the Castle floor. So now we have to be friends forever, and we also had the opportunity, uh, in maybe the next year, we were at MPI World Education Congress in Toronto, and both of us were part of a Dear World project.
Um, so we had to tell a story in four minutes, which was incredibly difficult to do, but also probably one of the best talks I would say that I've ever given. So when people say they need an hour, I can assure them that they don't. So, um, really that's a lot of stuff. But, uh, Andrew is truly an amazing human, father, husband, coworker.
I've, I've met your coworkers. I met them actually at Skift, where I met Corvin last year, [00:04:00] and they were just so excited that I knew you that I was immediately their friend. So that's the ripples of energy that you bring, and we're excited to talk to you today about all things experience design.
Andrew Lacanienta: Yeah, stoked to be with everybody.
Anthony Vade: Okay. Well, with that in mind, uh, Andrew, first question for you, in four minutes or less- ... tell us a story about Dr. O and, uh, what experience design means to you.
Andrew Lacanienta: Well, okay, if we're gonna start with the castle, um, I remember my very first time going was in 2016, and I remember seeing a trailer. Matt Durden, who was my mentor at the time in grad school, sent me this trailer, and it was Joe Pine talking about this castle that he was going to and he was gonna speak at, and I thought it was fake, to be honest.
I was like, "This has gotta be a joke." Like, "Th- this is too good to be true." Um, long story short, I emailed them, got in two days later, was on a plane, uh, and was there, and, and was work trading to be a participant. One of the first tasks they had me do is to [00:05:00] dress up like a goblin and to go on the bus to go pick up people from the airport, 'cause that was...
It was like full immersion, right? As soon as you jumped off of the plane, uh, y- you know, you were in a different time, place, or set of circumstances, and I happened to be one of the goblins that, that caught you. So I remember I was wearing a hat, I'll have to send you guys a picture, a silly hat. I had dreads and a beard.
I was wearing this funny, raggedy outfit, and I remember sitting on the bus, and I was chatting with one of the founders, Paul Bilenchia, and I was like, "I don't know about this, Paul. Like, I feel pretty outside of my comfort zone. Like, I don't really know if I'm supposed to, to be doing this." And he looked at me straight in the eyes and he said, "Andrew," he's like, "the things that we do for extraordinary experiences."
Then he just patted me on the back and sent me on my way And that's stuck with me forever. Um, and I think that there's so much truth to that, right? It's like the [00:06:00] things that we do for extraordinary experiences, not only to have the extraordinary experiences, but to create, curate, and facilitate them for others is amazing.
And I think, uh, everyone on this call and probably everybody listening has either done something, facilitated something, or participated in something that was either incredibly uncomfortable or incredibly mind-blowing or something, like, totally special or out there, but those were the truly memorable experiences.
And I think when we think about experience design, it's being bold enough, and it's being intentional enough and strategic enough to make those choices to create experiences that last in people's memories forever, just like that one did.
Anthony Vade: It's so funny that you mention the goblins because that was... In fact, there, there, there was a funny moment, uh, that I had my year that I went in 2019.
First, first of all, we arrived at the bus stop that was gonna pick us all up, uh, and the bus was delayed because the B- Berlin Marathon was on or something. And so we all got [00:07:00] stuck, and the bus was really delayed, and we're all standing around awkwardly, and we started questioning, was this by design? Was this a moment that we were all having a bit of in, you know, a bit of turmoil?
Will we, won't we get there? And, and the friendship, the bonds that we made in that moment of uncertainty and discomfort, of not knowing if the bus was gonna come, if we'd all been conned, uh, or what was going on, uh, it created a really weird bond. And then when the goblins did turn up because the bus finally made it through traffic, it shifted it again.
So we went from z- some form of discomfort in unknowing where we were going to be or wh- where we... how we were gonna get there to then these strange little goblins running around, uh, freaking us all out, and we made a different kind of relationship with them 'cause at first, to your point, I was like, "What, what are these goblins doing?
And don't ha- what's the context to a business event, experience design or not?" Like, uh, and then slowly I got to know those goblins and went, "Hang on, these are actually really intelligent people" when [00:08:00] there had been this character between us, and then started to talk about, okay, what makes things extraordinary?
And, and, and maybe we start there. How, how do we even define an experience as being truly extraordinary? What, what are the markers?
Andrew Lacanienta: Well, if we wanna get super nerdy- Yes ... which I'm always down to do- There's a, there's a framework of, uh, like experience typology that comes from some of my friends at Brigham Young University, um, Matt Durdin and co.
They're doing really incredible research there. But, uh, when I was in grad school, we're working on a theory and framework of, of experience typology that was doing just this. And that it was trying to kind of identify what is the difference between, uh, an ordinary and an extraordinary experience. And so in this typology, um, and I wanna note too that in these experiences, none of them are better than the other, right?
They all just do different things. And it started with the crux that, like, not everything needs to be transformative, [00:09:00] right? I think we got to this place where everyone wanted a transformative experience. Everyone wanted it to be immersive. Everything had to be mind-blowing, and it's like, but no, right? Like, if brush- if, if brushing your teeth was mind-blowing, if, like, breakfast was mind-blowing and everything was transformative, we'd all be exhausted by, like, 9:30 in the morning, right?
And same goes at our, at our experiences, whether we were doing a conference or a company kickoff or an onboarding in your HR department, right? If everything is extraordinary, it's just not gonna hit, and everything needs to be its own thing at varying levels of energy. Um, and that's where this typology was born out of.
Um, so if we, if we separate between ordinary and extraordinary, the ordinary side is really only one type of experience, at least in this framework, and they called it prosaic. Um, and a prosaic experience is meant to be like brushing your teeth. It's meant to be very autopilot, right? Um, like, uh, going through TSA, hopefully should be an ordinary experience.
It should be [00:10:00] autopilot. You should be able to walk through, show them your ID, not have to think much. Uh, registration at a conference, same thing. Should be very autopilot and ordinary. Now, on the other side of things, we get into, like, things starting to be extraordinary. Um, and the first one on the typology is called an engagement experience.
An engagement experience is just that. It's engaging. It, like, requires your brain to be active and awake and paying attention in some way, shape, or form. Um, a simple example of that could be, like, if I'm on Google Maps and I say I'm going from point A to point B, I need to be engaged at least. I need to be able to look at the map, see where I'm going, take steps in a certain way, avoid a pothole, et cetera.
Like, I'm just paying attention The second type of experience is a meaningful experience. And meaningful experience, I will say that these each build on each other. So a meaningful experience is both I'm engaged, but also I have some type of emotional connection or resonance with what's happening. Okay?
So I'm feeling amounts of joy, [00:11:00] um, or awe or excitement, like I'm engaged a little bit. Okay? We can start to think of, uh, the opening moments of a keynote, right? When the lights are flashing, the music is turning on, they're telling an inspirational story, like they're connecting to my heart space, and I'm feeling emotionally connected to that experience.
The next level, if you will, is, um, memorable, right? So we're engaged, we've got emotion, and then with a memorable experience, we're starting to lean into discovery now. So this is a moment of discovering something new, uh, whether that's meeting a new person, uh, learning a new point of view, learning a new way to engage or be.
Um, we're now discovering something new about ourselves or others. There's, there's learning involved And then the peak is a transformative experience, right? And the transformative experience is connected to change or behavior change. So I've been engaged, I am, have an emotional [00:12:00] connection, I've learned something, and now something is actually changing.
Um, so from, from like a really nerdy or academic point of view, those are kind of, that's what makes an extraordinary experience. They all fit within that category of either being engaging, um, meaningful, memorable, or transformative, uh, in that realm. And I think how we incorporate and use those in our experiences is super important, right?
We might not even need a quote unquote "transformative experience" at our event or at our moment, but how can we, uh, push the dials up and down and say like, "Great, let's... Registration can be prosaic." Then we need a couple of engaging moments, and maybe our, the peak of our experience is just emotional. We're just trying to make an emotional connection.
We're not trying to necessarily transform anything. Um, and so being intentional about the types of extraordinary experiences that we incorporate in and throughout our moment can be really impactful.
Ryan Hill: Everything you were talking about, I, I remember [00:13:00] reading and was profoundly enlightened, I guess, as I was reading through Designing Experiences, which talks through, I mean, and it almost said it means that's it.
Uh- Yep ... what can I use these principles of this knowledge for? Like, if I understand the experience hierarchy from your perspective, both as an academic and a practitioner, um, how can I apply these outside of the field of events?
Andrew Lacanienta: That's a great question, Ryan, and, and honestly when, when I was in academia and speaking at conferences a lot, many of which were, I was shepherded towards by Tahira.
So Tahira, thank you for shepherding me in all the ways. Um, but my goal was kind of to teach people and, and evangelize, if you will, that everyone is an experience designer, and I still hold that, that thought very true. It's like, honestly, it's funny. I'm at, I'm at GBJ now and we do events. Like, I only do events and conferences, but I never thought, I never identified as an events person ever, um, because I, I firmly believe still to this day that experiences and experience [00:14:00] design transcend events, right?
If you work at the USPS, the postal service, you are designing experiences for people. If you are head of HR, you are designing experiences for people. If you build content for social media, you are designing experiences for people. If you are a teacher, you are designing experiences for people. If you are just a stay-at-home parent, you are designing experiences for people, and I shouldn't say just, 'cause we all know that's the hardest job out there.
Anything that we're doing is an experience, or it can be, right? And I firmly believe that. Um, and so I guess to answer your question, Ryan, even just thinking about if I have a day, I have a two-year-old named Sage. So if I have a day with Sage, I could very easily think about how these five different types of experiences might fit into our Saturday.
Mom's gonna be gone. I'm at home with Sage all day. Um, this goes back to human-centered design, right? Everything that we sh- we do in experience design should be focused on the human or the audience or whoever it is we're designing for. [00:15:00] So I would first take into consideration where Sage is at. Uh, oh, last night, Friday night, he stayed up super late, so tonight or the next day is going to need to be a little bit slower, a little bit more easeful.
We're gonna need to think about the nap and the other pieces, and that's what's gonna help me design my, my journey, if you will, my experience journey for Sage. So if I know that he's maybe a little sleep-deprived, we're not trying to do any, like, big learning or transformations today. We're gonna be mostly in the autopilot and engaged mode.
Maybe seep into, like, emotion a little bit, right? And get some, like, happiness, some joy, et cetera, and I would design the day in that way. I would make sure that getting up, that getting dressed and eating breakfast are going to be relatively prosaic, right? Autopilot. We wanna just get in, do it as quickly as we can, kind of get on to the next.
Um, I would wanna make sure that maybe some of the meals later in the day can be fun with a two-year-old, so, like, let's bring some engagement in. Let's, like, see [00:16:00] if we can throw Cheerios into each other's mouth, or let's see if we can go out to the farm and harvest some of our own food. In that way, maybe we lean into, like, a memorable experience, where we're doing a little bit of learning, right?
Like, "Sage, we can eat these raspberries. We can eat these strawberries, but we can't eat these other berries that are growing on this bush that are just random berries that might make your stomach hurt." So again, small moments of each thing that would work towards whatever our end goal of the day was, which sometimes on a Saturday with a two-year-old is just making it to the end of the day without a breakdown.
Tahira Endean: I wanna take that two-year-old example of a day in the life of and think about what happens at an event, right? So what happens at an event, we have arrived late the night before probably. Indeed. Um, or we've arrived in time to go to a welcome reception, then stayed up late 'cause it was nice to see everybody at the welcome reception.
Mm-hmm. And then in the morning, yay, there's yoga at 7:00 AM, so I'm gonna go do some... I'm gonna get about six hours of sleep of not very good [00:17:00] quality. I'm gonna get up in the morning. I'm gonna go to yoga, and then I'm gonna go and find the coffee and muffin or croissant or something else with zero nutritional value, not setting me up for the day.
And then I'm gonna go to the general session. The music's really loud, so I can't talk to anybody, and it's kinda dark and kind of bright at the same time. And then I'm gonna be expected to pay attention to a keynote speaker, and that keynote speaker could be the greatest speaker on the planet, but how am I supposed to pay attention when I'm tired and nutritionally deprived?
And then I'm gonna go into... I'm gonna go look for coffee. I'm gonna go to a breakout where I'm gonna try to be engaged. I'm gonna go to lunch, which is either gonna be salad with protein because somebody has thought that they're on the salad and protein train, or it's gonna be pasta. So either way, I'm still a little bit challenged nutritionally or I'm hungry.
So... And then it goes on to the dinner, and at what point are we not taking those basic how do I take my two-year-old through a meaningful, memorable, [00:18:00] engaging day, um, and apply some of those really basic life lessons to designing the basics of our event, let alone the other things? How do we do this better?
'Cause we... Now we can't even get to creativity, collaboration, and innovation, which I know we wanna still talk about, but we need to-
Anthony Vade: And Tahira, that's a massive question because all I was picturing was me throwing Cheerios at a CEO's mouth- ... to try to engage them in the afternoon, so.
Andrew Lacanienta: I mean, arguably that would be a great time, right, Anthony?
Like-
Anthony Vade: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Lacanienta: I think, Tahira, what you're hitting on is, like, there's this table stakes understanding that we all need to acknowledge about experiences like this, right? That many of us are traveling often. We're up late. We're hungry for connection, so we're... And we're also very poor in terms of our time resource, right?
We're required to be a ton of places, uh, at once, and oftentimes, to your point, some of those things aren't really serving us, nor are [00:19:00] we nourished enough or prepared enough to participate in the ways that we're required. So I think it's really interesting to think about if we're in the same spaces like conferences and meetings, what we're requiring of people versus what we're giving, and are we setting people up, the human beings themselves, are we giving them what they need in order to be able to participate and experience the outcomes that we want them to experience?
Right. Uh, as an example, this last week I was at, uh, a, like an ELT meeting for Project Worldwide, which is like the kind of h- the, the larger holding company of George P. Johnson, and oh my God, I've never felt so nourished, um, at like a week-long meeting than I have here. Um, to your point, Tahira, it was, it was exactly that.
We started with yoga in the morning. Um, we had a couple of sessions, but they gave us what we needed both in terms of [00:20:00] connection, in terms of yoga, in terms of food and sustenance, in terms of break, in terms of places to be, in terms of, um, the connection with the right people, in terms of the types of experiences that we had throughout the day so that it wasn't just taking, but it was also deeply giving, right?
Um, again, we were really focused on the humans and what they needed so that they could turn up and show up for the creativity, the collaboration, and all of those pieces. So I think it's really important to... You know, we, we say meet people where they're at often. I don't know that we really do that as well as we could, right?
We say the words, but then when we design an experience, and to be fair, lots of these experiences have so much to offer that they're trying to offer all of the things, but maybe offering less is really what the people need, right?
Tahira Endean: Editing plus micro events.
Andrew Lacanienta: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Anthony Vade: Maybe this gets us into the analytical side of experience [00:21:00] design, too.
Do most humans know what they need, or are they stuck in what they want, and how might we better understand what human need is through experience design?
Andrew Lacanienta: I would argue that most people don't know what they need, and I, and I'd use myself as a prime example. I think when we're in this mode similar to what Tahira exemplified earlier, we're m- we're often moving too fast to know what we need, right?
We very seldomly slow down enough to check in with ourselves, with our mind, with our heart, with our body, and say, "What do I need right now? Like do I need food? Do I need to go to the bathroom? Do I need to just like sit down and, and rest? What do I actually need?" And I think that we are often as human beings across the spectrum inside or outside of events, we are moving too fast to often know what we need.
Um- I think oftentimes we're striving for what [00:22:00] we think we want or what we believe the rest of the world wants, uh, or what we should be doing or what we should be looking like when we're at an event or what we should be doing. We should be connecting, we should be networking, we should be attending the keynote, et cetera, et cetera.
Tahira Endean: I'd love to hear actually from Ryan about, you know, how are we designing our lives for busy people, and then, and then you have to go out, you know, when you go to an event, you're going out to do, like, hardcore training. How are you being... You know, are you- Hmm ... giving as much as you're getting in those scenarios?
Ryan Hill: That's a good point. So when I think about designing experience, like designing life, I guess, uh, that includes those, those highs and lows, I, I think that where I go wrong, even just kind of curating my own life experiences, is being realistic about what I can accomplish in that time, right? And I think that's just a skill that I've always lacked.
I mean, I have the best of intentions, but my follow-through sometimes is just a matter of energy and time. I'm not as young as I used to be. I don't have the same level of stamina. I can't go till 1:00 o'clock in the morning and then be up at 5:00 and be fine. So I think that was a, that's a struggle. And I [00:23:00] think energy management i- is what I've come to realize is, is the bigger problem.
And then communication. I might design something or plan something at work, for example, like a, a training pathway, uh, and I think I've got all the pieces of, of information that I need, like, hey, this is what this particular section wants to accomplish, this is what this department wants to achieve, uh, here's how we're gonna do them both at the same time.
Uh, but a new detail or a new piece of information that I'm not aware of throws that whole thing off or makes it seem like I'm not being considerate of everyone's needs, right? Those are the struggles that I have. I can't imagine being very successful if I had to design or, you know, oversee designing of a, a large scale experience if I didn't have all the pieces of information that I felt like I needed, or worse still, that I thought I had all the information and then I missed some major piece of intel that threw the whole thing off or threw it all into jeopardy.
Andrew Lacanienta: Yeah, and I-- Tahira, I think one thing that comes up for me too is it's easy for us to think like, oh, we'll just design less, right? Put less into the agenda, create more space. But I think it's worth noting that there are- I don't know. It's not about designing less, it's about designing more [00:24:00] opportunities, right?
For varying, again, back to the human-centered design, for more types of people. So there are 100 and d- there are 100 different types of people with different goals and with different desires, so how do we create more accessibility, I think, for more types of people and all types of moments? Because surely if we take out, let's just say like, okay, well, we're trying to simplify, we take out a bunch of content, there will surely be people who are like, "Oh, wait, I really wanted to, you know, see this person, or hear this person speak, or learn about this thing."
So it's less about slimming the content or the experiences and more about creating varying types of moments so that, you know, if I need to recharge in order to fully show up for my partner, uh, event later that evening, I can do that, and there's a place for that to happen on site so I don't have to go back to my hotel room and do whatever, whatever.
Um, but that we're, we're thinking about and designing moments for all of these different types of [00:25:00] people and types of experiences so that everybody can get what they need and be nourished in the different ways that they need to be nourished.
Ryan Hill: I think that you have to put a little responsibility onto the participant, right?
And I say this as the irresponsible participant myself, right? Actually, just to harken back to the College of Extraordinary Experiences and, uh, my exp- my time with Paul and Klaus, there was a emphasis they put on that year, they called it the love of missing out, right? They were very deliberate up front about acknowledging that, like, it's gonna be impossible for us to all go to all the things that we wanna go to in this very short time that we have together, and it can be disheartening because we are stressed about the fear of missing out.
And also, there was a big wellness push that year, so for our year there was no alcohol. And they brought in these, like, really great chefs and, and artisans that, that created this, like, organic foods, and then they made these, like, really special drinks in the apothecary that were all, like, different, like, mushroom derivatives.
It was, it was pretty great. 'Cause there was a big focus on the wellness of the events or, you know, or, or, like, designing the experiences to, [00:26:00] to promote healing and, you know, all that. So there we emphasize the love of missing out, right? And I think that was great. Uh, and it made sense while I was there, but then when I left I just went to my first IMEX and I felt like I had to be at all the things.
I wanted to go to all the things. And that's gonna be the case for me every single time. I want to try to do as much as I possibly can do in that time, and I end up burning, running myself into the ground, burning myself out. So there's a little bit of a, a give and take. Like, we can design all these opportunities, right?
But then we also have to accept that there's gonna be people like myself who are really responsible about managing that time, you know? And I'm better about it now that I'm a little bit older. But if you give me an all you can eat buffet, I'm going to do my best to sample a little bit of everything if I can.
Even if it means I'm gonna be sick to my stomach later, right?
Andrew Lacanienta: And you bring up a really great point, Ryan. It's like back to human-centered design, right? Is if we understand our audience and if, if the people who are designing the events understand you, Ryan Hill, as a person and they say, "Okay, great.
There's gonna be 10,000 people here who objectively who want to do everything. How do we then [00:27:00] create, instead of a normal buffet at Las Vegas, how do we create, like, the bite-sized buffet," right? This is a b- this is now a buffet of bite-sized experiences so that we know, we know that the people who are coming, they can have everything they want.
They just get a little taste of it, which is zero waste. People don't feel bad about not getting to taste all the food, um, and they get all those experiences. So again, it goes back to, right, like if we can understand our people and we can design the experiences around what they want and need, then everybody can be happy in one way or another.
Anthony Vade: The whole idea of liminality and these in between moments and in between spaces, I think in particular as we're talking about the use of the infrastructure and the spaces we bring people into, but then also how that aligns with their mindset. And, and I'd be interested to know both- Those two perspectives and how you've used that or what thoughts you have.
Uh, and, and, and I thought of how technology's been used, as a quick example, for the [00:28:00] space before the experience, you can now go online and even get AI to curate the sessions you should go to and the people you should network with, and you can do some pre-reading or watch a talking head video of Anthony Wade talking about his session to decide if you want to go and attend it, or if that's one of your joyful missing out moments, um, ahead of time.
The other thing I've seen that's been interesting is these micro sessions in foyer spaces. So it's not in the meeting room, it's not in the traditional keynote space, but as you're transitioning from one space to another, you can interact with some content. Not maybe a traditional lecture, but some form of content.
What ways have you seen organizations use those kind of interstitial, liminal, both mental and physical spaces to help smooth over some of these transition points?
Andrew Lacanienta: I think Salesforce's Dreamforce does this really well. Um, one of the, the first example that comes to mind, which is one of their kind of marquee moments, is if you're familiar with the Moscone Center in San Francisco, [00:29:00] there's three kind of large buildings, and there's...
Howard Street is down the middle, a big main thoroughfare, main street in San Francisco. And Dreamforce, for the longest time, has been known for transforming that thoroughfare into Dreamforce National Park. So there's turf on the ground, there's a gigantic waterfall, et cetera, et cetera. And that is kind of the ultimate in-between space, if you will, right?
Between their expo, between campground, et cetera. And they have created a very intentional, uh, very large, probably very expensive, right, space, because they know that that matters. They know that the in-between moments hold water, they hold weight, and they're important They know that we need a place to sit down, a place that is, like, relatively, um, product and demo-less, right?
There's not a lot of, like, sales things happening in this space, if any. Um, this is a space to [00:30:00] rest, to relax, to recharge. And when we think about those in-between moments, Anthony, it's interesting because people don't leave, right? They don't need to go back to their hotel to, uh, to recharge, or to, to pause, or to work, or to do a thing because that moment is so curi- And that happens throughout the Dreamforce campus as well, um, but on Howard Street in that space, in Dream Park, as they call it, is that moment.
And so people can stay. People can... To, to Ryan's point, they can continue to indulge on the buffet, right? Because they don't need to go back to their hotel. They don't need to go far away or elsewhere. We're able to keep them there where the action is, but also give them what they need to pause and recharge.
Anthony Vade: Which is fascinating, 'cause so often we think of those kinds of spaces as the nice-to-have. We're more focused on what is our catering space, what's our meeting space, what's our keynote plenary room gonna look like, and, and we go, "Oh, yeah, if we have enough budget left over, [00:31:00] we'll put some plants in the foyer."
But the regenerative nature of that, and I think also the reflective and community-based reflection to have this infrastructure in place to support that is, is a, a massive opportunity.
Andrew Lacanienta: Yeah, absolutely. It's like, it's a really beautiful yin and yang, right? It's like we can have content, the best content of the best luminary speakers all day long, but if we're not giving people moments to, like, to pause and to distill and synthesize what they're learning, to put it into practice, to write down the notes, to, like, to pause, then it's all going in one ear and out the other, right?
It's like we need to give people what they need to be able to show up and pull in the information that we're giving them. I
Anthony Vade: can give you another example from a project from some years ago. We were dealing with an occupational health and safety within a large primary industry group, and we gathered them around because they had to have some challenging conversations about loss of life in a very industrial space.
And, uh, brought all these leaders into a space. We told an immersive video [00:32:00] storytelling piece to really give them a bit of awe in the moment and feeling of being part of something big. We then sent them off into small groups of four to dissect what they just learnt and make it applicable to their teams that they lead.
And then we forced them to sit down, and I actually learnt this from the college as well, we forced them to sit down for 15 minutes of mandatory silence to reflect, and gave them a journal book with which to write things. And of course, we aggregated all of this with technology on the back end so we could get all the sentiments afterwards and create a great white paper for them.
And then the thought was, we'll bring them back into a big group sharing conversation, and my team pushed back on me. The, the design team said, "Uh, it just feels... after a deeply personal moment." And we, we decided, no, actually, we should go to lunch. We should sit them all down and they should break bread around a table and talk about their reflection in a more casual environment.
And that was the one moment when we looked at all the results afterwards that everybody said that sharing around the table was the moment that created that [00:33:00] transformation for them as well, and we almost fell into the trap of scheduling a meeting.
Tahira Endean: Well, and I think that when we look at, um, that idea of breaking bread, our two biggest costs in events are often audiovisual production and food and beverage, and we waste so much of the opportunities around food and beverage by not making them intentional, by just making it a buffet line or making it a to-go thing or, um, programming content over the table.
You know, there's so much opportunity to genuinely break bread and have different conversations, and we can help to guide those conversations at any time of the day to make it, um, such a richer experience for everybody, and more of a investment or value from the food versus just feeding people. Um, and I think that that's something we really also need to be looking at clearly.
You know, I'd love to hear from Corvin about what do you wanna know [00:34:00] about Andrew's journey?
Corvin Dams: It's interesting 'cause people always talk about some industries have to fear for their existence, uh, because of AI, et cetera. But looking at it from that everything in life is an experience, doesn't that make it, like, the industry or the job that's never gonna go away 'cause it's never gonna be out of light 'cause it's always gonna be there 'cause no AI can take over experience design or, or can it now?
How worried should we be about that?
Andrew Lacanienta: Yeah, that's a really good question, Corvin. Um, especially with as rampant and big as AI is, right? It's like it's so intertwined in everything that everyone is doing. And to your question, like should we be afraid, I say absolutely not, right? Um, are there aspects of AI that are...
we should be aware of and careful about? 100%. Do I think it's going to take our jobs? No, and this is why. Because [00:35:00] I think the world we live in is very scary and weird, right? There is, there's, there are awful things happening all across the globe to a variety of different kinds of people. Um, and I think more than ever- People wanna be held, and they wanna be seen, and they want to, to experience joy.
They w- they wanna just feel something, right? And I've known for a very, very long time that experiences, experience design, experiential, however it is we wanna frame it, that that is how we help people feel things, um, both the good and the bad, right? Sometimes we need to provoke, and it needs to be a little bit, like, dark and juicy and, and hard, and that's okay 'cause those things are important, too.
Sometimes it is just pure joy, and sometimes it is about learning and some of those other things. But experiences are how we help people feel things, [00:36:00] and I feel more confident than ever because of that, that experiences, experiential, experience design will never go away, right? This is an innate beautiful facilitator of, of emotion, and experiences are, are key to that.
And humans will never not need that, right? We will always need those types of experiences, and AI will never be able to, to create the types of experiences that we need to feel something.
Corvin Dams: So quite interesting 'cause I was thinking about that earlier. AI has the tendency to always try to make things perfect, to get the perfect answer, you know, try to find everything i- that's out there in terms of information to provide you with the perfect answer.
Is there such a thing as a perfect experience, or are experiences naturally, do they need to be imperfect to feel like an actual experience or... 'Cause I, for example, would think that, um, experience need to be almost somewhat imperfect to feel [00:37:00] natural 'cause otherwise it feels staged, if that makes sense.
Andrew Lacanienta: Totally. I think there's a couple of pieces to this. I know
Corvin Dams: this might go over time whatsoever.
Andrew Lacanienta: This is great. I think there's an, there's an essence, like co-creation is a really important part of experience design. Right. Give people the opportunity to participate, to play, to have buy-in, et cetera. And any time you, you bring in any amount of co-creation or participation, um, the imperfectibility, if you will, or what could be perfect changes because you have now handed over the steering wheel in some way, shape, or form to your participants or your attendees, which to your point, creates a different type of perfection, right?
Right. I think perfection can be so, uh, subjective. There's no objective perfection to an experience. Um, but if I had to classify it, it would be was the intention of the experience met, right? Like as an experience designer, we should often be thinking about what is the key purpose of this experience, um, what are [00:38:00] we trying to accomplish, what is our job to be done, uh, what emotions are we trying to bring out in people.
Um, and often that will be a key indicator of, of s- maybe success versus perfection, right? Um, but then also to the point of the, the human truth that everyone is gonna experience something different, right? Even if we're designing an experience for joy, it might be deeply triggering for someone else, which then to them maybe it wasn't perfect.
But I think if we design it as designers with intention and it's experienced in a way that, like, takes people somewhere and again gets people to feel something, then I think that we can feel as though we accomplished something. Maybe it won't be perfect, but I think that, that that's okay.
Anthony Vade: To build on that, we often talk about, uh, the experiences we create almost forming a reflection of that organization, of that brand, of what they represent to the world and, and, and you see that in there.
But I think there's a reflecting that happens in the individual experiencing it [00:39:00] who then sees themselves in that brand or sees themselves in that message, and they take on that element. So if they come into it with some trauma or they come into it with a negative feeling, no matter how much you perfected, and I put it in commas for the listeners, uh, no matter, no matter how much you perfected the experience or tried to craft the discomfort out of it, the individual still brings that to that experience.
Yeah. And to be that micro adjustable for every individual is almost impossible, and I don't even think an AI could do it, even the most advanced version of it. And so our, our unique value proposition as experience designers is the ability to be far more adaptable and more agile to the human experience and understanding it, uh, and stay ahead of what the AI is.
Because the humans that we're dealing with and ourselves are evolving at such a rate that, that good luck catching us 'cause we keep changing every second by second based on the influences that, that, that we have. Uh, we're gonna take a short break in this episode 'cause we've just been unpacking [00:40:00] a lot of really great information.
But I, I would like to come back to, to Tahira's question, 'cause you have had a storied path to, to be one of the leading experience designers in the world, and we'd love to hear a little bit how you took that student days through academia and into the business world. But of course, if you wanna listen to that straightaway without any ads, if you wanna, uh, join the additional conversations, head on over to strategytable.co where you can sign up for your seat at the table and engage in interesting conversations just like this one.
We'll be right back shortly.
So welcome back from that short break. We have Dr. L, and we've had a couple of doctors on now, so we're excited to have another PhD, uh, join us on Accessible Disruption. But Andrew, tell us a little bit, especially for Corvin now graduating, coming out of his marketing [00:41:00] course, what was your academic journey like?
How did you make all these steps to, to be one of the leading experience designers in the world?
Andrew Lacanienta: You know, Anthony, it was a s- as with most things in our lives, right, uh, it was, it was not fully by design. It kind of like tumbled its way through. When I was doing my undergrad, I was at Brigham Young University, uh, in Utah, and at the time they were experiencing kind of a rebrand and creating a department for w- experience design and management in the, the business school And I still remember to this day where I was in this very large auditorium of students, and the class I was in was called Creating a Good Life Through Experience Design.
And it was just like a, it was like the entry level, kind of everyone has to take this class, and we were reading a packet of excerpts from different books, and one of them was The Experience Economy, the original Experience Economy book, Joe Pine and Jim [00:42:00] Gilmore. If you haven't read it, we're gonna see it right here.
You should. It kind of feels like experience design Bible in many ways. And I remember this, uh, this economic progression they talk about of coffee beans, right? And how these coffee beans, we looked at them as a commodity, how our economy changed from a commodity based economy to a goods based economy to a service based economy, and eventually an experience economy, and that's kind of like their intro to the book.
And I just remember as a young college student sitting there and my mind just kind of slowly exploding and being like, "This is it. This makes perfect sense." I always felt like kind of a service oriented human. I liked to like serve and help people. I was like, but if services are time well saved, right?
And experiences are time well spent, so why would I just save somebody time when I could create a moment where they choose to spend their time, money, and resources in because it betters them and it makes them have a fuller [00:43:00] life? So I was just like hooked from that moment. I knew I wanted to do something around experiences or experience design, but I didn't know what else to do with that.
I mean, to, to my point earlier, everything is a, is an experience. I'm like, "Oh, well what does this mean? How do I, how do I make a career out of this?" And as any like, you know, I don't know, 19, 20-year-old kid is thinking, we don't know. And so I ended up getting my degree in experience design and management from BYU, and at the time I was teaching, um, and, and facilitating meetings, and someone said, "Well, if you really like teaching and you really like experience design, why don't you become a professor?"
And I was like, "Huh. That's an interesting idea. Like, sure, why not?" And, you know, talked to my professor, Matt Durdin, at the time, and kind of like started to understand what that would look like, and then he's like, "Oh, well, it's not just teaching, it's research," and so I started doing some experience design related research.
Uh, I started teaching some courses, et cetera, and, you [00:44:00] know, continued on in that path and decided I'm gonna do this. And so to make a long story short, I graduated with my, um, my bachelor's. I did a master's degree at BYU as well, working with Matt, and then I went to, um, Texas A&M where I did, uh, a PhD in, in the same field as well.
And I think there's two points that I wanna point out. First, there is education that exists for experience design, right? There are a number of programs now across the country who have experience design programs, um, or experience design, uh, parallel programs. Brigham Young University is, is amazing, right?
They're really doing great. Um, Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, which is where I taught for a number of years, um, before starting with GPJ, they also have a really great program, and there's, there's many more, um, throughout the country. So it is now a very well-accepted discipline, if you will, right? Experience design and the varying fans of experience design, 'cause it crosses into so many different fields, are available.
Um, my [00:45:00] master's and my PhD weren't necessarily in, quote, unquote, experience design because that didn't exist, and so I think the point there to, to make and to remember is that you can design your future in any way that you choose, right? Um, even if you don't have an experience design degree in any way, shape, or form, you can continue on into grad school, and you can do a program in journalism or in, um, events or in hospitality or in any of these tangential fields, and you can tailor it to your needs and help you understand more about experiences, more about the different contexts in which they live in and continue to thrive in that way.
And I think the thing that's beautiful about that is that experience design, like we talked about earlier, is, uh, it's fieldless, right? Anything can be an experience. So if you go in with the lens of I'm doing a master's in culinary arts, this is the way I'm creating experiences is with food, you are still learning principles of experience design, right?
If you go into a [00:46:00] PhD in marketing, you can still frame that as a PhD in experience design and how you wanna think about experience design and how we're designing experiences and moments for people in the marketing realm, and I think that that's really important, right? Um, if that's something you desire, of course.
Maybe you don't wanna be an experience designer, and that's fine, too. Um, but there is a method and a mode of learning, um- regardless of where we are in the world or what we're trying to accomplish, that can help you become a better experience designer. I think in a- in addition to the original piece of, like, education, I think network is also a huge part of that, right?
It's not just about a formal education and who do I meet and what do I learn at a, at a educational university or an organization, but it's who we meet and who we continue to interact with. And being on this, this podcast in this moment is kind of, like, case in point in some ways, right? Like, I met Tahira at the College of Extraordinary Experiences in [00:47:00] 2018, and we still talk.
We're still close friends. Many of my, like, job opportunities or speaking engagements or, like, really interesting connections or freelance work have come through people that I've met or have come through Tahira or come through other experiences that I've had, and that's really, really important. Right now, for example, if, if you're not familiar, the WXO or World Experience Organization, also another great, like, experiential kind of hub of cool humans to be a part of who are doing similar work.
Um, the College of Extraordinary Experiences, like we've talked about many times, a really deep, rich community that knows how to nourish and how to give people what they need to thrive in the world. This IMEX community, right, that we've talked about earlier, too There are these different communities that serve different people in different ways, and it's just about finding your flow, right?
Where are your people, or the people that you align with most, um, or the people who have the types of, uh, experience and knowledge, [00:48:00] um, who can help you get to your next step as well. Um, and that's what community's for, right? We can accomplish a lot of things on our own, but when we have the, like, the love and the support and the guidance of many like-minded people with lots of other types of influence and experience, we can just become so much more and, and move so much further.
So if you don't have your community, like, find it. Um, and if you need to look around for one, ask us. We'll tell you. Like, you know, there, there are lots of good places to start experimenting and playing.
Anthony Vade: And shout out to, uh, Dan Berger. We recently talked about belonging and the value of having some place that you can belong and explore with other people.
A shout-out to David Allison in previous episode, where we talked about finding your community that shares your values. Of course, all podcast episodes you can listen to after this one. Um, but perhaps, Andrew, you can give us a little bit of a feel to this transition point coming out of your, your academia focus research and, and now moving into GPJ and one of the leading experiential organizations in [00:49:00] the world, one of the biggest event companies in the world.
What's that been like for you? Uh, how has, has that transition, um, felt, and, and how has, how, how has that organization welcomed your depth of expertise in this area into it?
Andrew Lacanienta: It's been really wild, and I think this is another example of how we should never be too attached to what we think the outcome is.
'Cause I was very... I, I thought for sure I was gonna get a tenure-track pos- job at Cal Poly, and I was just gonna be there until, you know, till I perished. That was it. That was, that was my end game. And, uh, you know, it wasn't that long before that, that shifted. Um, also a part of the story that's important is, like, follow love, right?
At the time, I was in love. I'm still in love, actually. Still in love. But in that moment, was in love, and, uh, the job at Cal Poly wasn't working physically speaking in terms of being able to be with, uh, the person that I loved. And so even though that felt like the job, the dream job that I always [00:50:00] wanted- We just practicing not being attached, uh, to the things that maybe don't matter, uh, lead to better things.
So I've been... So I was on a phone call with GPJ and Cal Poly at the time, and we were planning a big research project together. And, uh, it was announced on the call that I was leaving, and the GPJ person who was o- on the call with actually, like, sent me a message while we were on the call, and was like, "Well, what are you doing?"
I said, "I don't know. I'm just gonna be a farmer, I think. Like, my partner's a farmer. We're just gonna farm. I don't really know what it is." And she's like, "Well, let me introduce you to our head of strategy, um, and just chat." I was like, "You know, okay, sure." So I met with, uh, the strategy department and just chatted with them for, like, three months, honestly, and just like, just like this, having, like, friendly conversation 'cause I wasn't, I wasn't a strategist.
I was just an experience designer. Um, lo and behold, I was a strategist. I didn't know this. Um, but when I would talk to them [00:51:00] about, like, well, what does a strategist do? And as we talked about the mindset, again, and the lens in which we look through experience and experiential, it became very clear that I was a strategist.
And, and yeah, so quickly moved into that fold, uh, started working on, on the Salesforce Dreamforce work. Um, and it's been incredible. I've felt, again, I've felt seen, and I've felt held, and I have felt like I've been given belonging and opportunity. Um, we're starting internal, um, practices called Strat U or Strat University, um, where, you know, I'm able to tap into my academic roots and help to kind of codify and create typology across the global strategy practice at GPJ, um, and talk about, you know, what are our practices, and how do we show up, and what are our tools?
Um, what are the things that, that we're doing to make sure that we're kind of working across on, on the same level and bringing good strategy to the table for all these different [00:52:00] experiential, um, moments and companies and brands? And it's been really incredible. It's been incredible to feel part of something that is, in my opinion, the future of experiential.
To me, it's also just, like, a small piece of the pie. I've recently started to get more involved with some of the other, our sister agencies, like Motive and SpinFX, um, OS Studios, Argonaut. And there's just, like, oh my God, so many beautiful creative humans in the world offering so many good things, and it feels really cool to be part of an experiential network of people who are all have their eyes on the same prize, right?
Going back to what we talked about earlier, it's like people want to feel something, and I feel part of a very- intentional, deliberate network of people who are pushing towards that same thing. Like, I was looking at the website earlier, and it says, "Project Worldwide, a creative alliance for the ambitious."[00:53:00]
Podcast Host: Oh,
Andrew Lacanienta: I see. It's like, yes. Like, let's go, right? Like, let's be ambitious and big and bold about the f- things that we wanna bring to the world and the feelings we want people to feel. Like, let's lock arms and do it together. So it feels exciting.
Anthony Vade: Super inspiring there, and one of the things we do at the end of every one of these episodes is provide a call to action to our listeners to make sure they can take something away and actually apply it in their, in their everyday life.
Um, so I'm, I'm gonna do something weird. I'm gonna go first this time. Uh, yeah, I never do this. Uh, and, and so I'm gonna say that, that my call to action is building on that point, um, and my call to action is it's easy to look at AI and the doom and gloom and the potential loss of jobs and roles. We've explored that on this.
But I want everybody to take action and view it instead as an opportunity to start a conversation with more humans, and to bring more humans to the table, and use the data and use that [00:54:00] potential threat as an excuse to return to that human-centered stuff that did become platitudes in some organizations, some are definitely doing it, but really lean more heavily into that co-creation.
They got... That word got used today as well, but the deeply human co-creation, and start to apply true experience design to all aspects of life. So that, that, that's a big call to action from me. Uh, let's go with, uh, Tahira next. What's your call to action this week?
Tahira Endean: Uh, I'm going to say two things. One is be creatively ambitious.
That is good. You know, do that. And, uh, I'm gonna go back to the time in the castle, I'm gonna say seek out the treasures. So, and then- Mm ... hold on to them.
Andrew Lacanienta: Love that.
Anthony Vade: Corvin, do you wanna give us a call to action this week?
Corvin Dams: Think about every daily situation you have as more of an experience and how, how it could be elevated or how it affects you emotionally.
Anthony Vade: One, two. Ryan, and then we'll close out with Andrew. Ryan, what's your call to action for this [00:55:00] episode?
Ryan Hill: You know, I kinda... I appreciated when you were talking about building your own pathway, you know, academic or otherwise, right? Like, just because you didn't start in, with an undergrad in experience design or a related field, like you can still chart your own course into that field in the areas that you're interested and passionate about, and you just have to be deliberate about doing so.
Um, so I think that's my call to action is like if you wanna change your course, then be deliberate about doing so.
Anthony Vade: And Andrew, you can give us the final call to action for this episode. What's your inspiring suggestion to our listeners so that they can turn these wonderful concepts into real, actionable, impactful motion?
Andrew Lacanienta: Hmm. There's so many things. I'm gonna do two since Tahira did two. She gave me permission. Yeah. She did. The first is going back to the very beginnings of my time in experience design of shifting from e- services and time well saved to experiences and time well spent. My call to action is to make two lists- Make a list of your offerings and how they [00:56:00] might be time well saved.
What are you helping people do faster or quicker? What are you saving time for? And then draw parallels to experiences and time well spent. How can you shift your service offerings or ways that you're saving people time from a service oriented mindset to an experiential mindset, and give them a reason to spend their time with you, because time is scarce, right?
So how do we shift from time well saved to time well spent? I think that's one. The second takeaway is find your people. All right? Find the people who help you feel seen and held and celebrated. Find the people who are working towards the same things that you are, that have the same values that you do, or maybe push up against your values just a little bit, just enough, right?
And spend time with them. Give them what they need and receive from them what you need so that we can all work together, like Tahira said, towards a more creative and ambitious future.
Anthony Vade: Such a perfect way to [00:57:00] end another fantastic episode of Accessible Disruption. Of course, we're gonna have to continue this conversation with you in the future.
We're gonna create an excuse for that to happen. Uh, but we will also be sharing some more thoughts on this online at strategytable.co, so head on over to the website, grab yourself a seat at the table. You can check out a lot of the books that were referenced in our bookshelf as well. Those books are featured there if you want a bit of an overview, decide before you buy.
But we highly recommend picking up all the books referenced in this. I know... I think all of us have read those books, most of us multiple times, and are devotees of them as well. Uh, so don't forget to join that conversation, and please, don't let that conversation end here or on our website. Head on over to social media, follow us on those channels, connect with Andrew.
The links are in the description. Get this conversation going within your communities as well, 'cause it's important that these conversations are spread wide and far so that we can create more impact in the world, we can apply experience design with intention and with purpose, and we can have [00:58:00] conversations like this that lead to impactful change.
And with that, I'm gonna say thank you to our listeners, thank you to our, uh, our panel today, which really it is, and thank you to Andrew for joining us in another episode of Accessible Disruption.
Podcast Host: Accessible Disruption is written and spoken by Tahira Endean, Ryan Hill, and Anthony Vade. All content is developed in collaboration with the team at Strategy Table. Podcast production by Experience Design Change Inc. Find more information at strategytable.co.