Holistic experience design: the next frontier for education communications?
The thing with frontiers is that they call to us and they scare us at the same time.
Sometimes we know what the frontier looks like and it feels within reach. Sometimes it’s one big mystery, like the depths of outer space or the unexplored ocean. That calling has been luring me for some time now, and so the next leg of my journey begins…
Over the last few weeks you may have noticed that we’ve started to talk about a shift of focus at Pickle Jar Communications towards experience design consultancy. We’ve been drip feeding our thoughts about this, but today I want to say more and to really set out what this means for us.
But first, and if you choose to read no more of this post, here’s a two minute video all about this…
Frontier hunting at Pickle Jar Communications
Since I founded the company in 2007, I’ve made it my mission to always seek the next frontier as we evolve our thinking and our services as a company. It’s gone something like this:
In 2007 that frontier was social media, embracing the power of community and understanding how to manage fear within our institutions of the power of everyone having a voice online
By 2010 it had shifted from fear management and risk mitigation to fully harnessing the power of collective content experiences. Social media consultancy became less about understanding platforms and risk, and more about powerful storytelling and combining it with strategic objectives
Towards the end of 2011 we journeyed to the next frontier and really started to make our mark as content strategists. This was driven by recognition that meaningful digital engagement needed a cohesive approach to planning content
In 2016-2017 our frontier became content modelling and content operations. This was a big one for us. It required us to venture outside of being just great storytellers to also think like engineers, taxonomists and information managers. And with the focus on content operations we really ventured into understanding the people and process barriers and challenges to implementing a powerful content strategy. The foundation of ContentEd in 2017 was a big part of that journey
Now in 2021 we’re on the journey to the next frontier: holistic experience design.
But experience design isn’t new, right?
Well, yes and also no.
The phrase “experience design” really isn’t new at all. In fact, we’ve been doing it as part of and in parallel with content strategy work for years. UX design, UX research, UX writing - these disciplines are reaching - or have reached - a state of maturity. Of sorts. Because almost always the UX discipline is restricted to single channels (like the organisation’s website) or individual products. And it’s typically limited to digital engagement or digital products and experiences.
That’s where we are taking a departure with experience design. We are taking on the challenge of seeing it holistically and wholly. We are making a commitment to exploring full audience experiences, across all touch-points, not just those on a particular channel or within the remit of a particular team or person. Online and offline, mass and individual, seen and felt, doing and being… we plan to see it all.
For years (in fact my whole career) we’ve seen how a poor experience with one touch-point can dismantle the great experience that an audience member may have had across multiple other touch-points. And often the people with whom we work feel powerless to make the change because the experience might be out of their remit or out of their control. What we politely call “out of scope” is also the Wild West of audience experiences. It’s the frontier that’s right in front of us, and the one that feels scary to venture towards.
Going further and deeper with brand and brand consistency
If it sounds a lot like developing a consistent brand, you wouldn’t be entirely mistaken. This is that. And some.
For a number of years now we’ve worked on the receiving end of inadequate brand strategies. They might (or might not) set a powerful top level vision for how an organisation wants to be seen or positioned, but the work to bridge that over to reality - to lived experience - is lacking or missing altogether.
Through our content strategy work we’ve strived to provide that bridge between brand and lived experience. But if the “experience” that we’re influencing is just the website or a social media platform, it’s not going to go far enough to really make the fullest of dents on the whole audience experience.
So, our flavour of experience design is also about getting real with brand and truly propelling it from a set of ideas and standards into an holistic lived experience across all touch-points.
This includes your own experience as a member of staff, and in the ways that you work.
How many universities, for example, claim in their brand strategy to be innovators, brave, trailblazers in new thinking, pioneers, disruptors, or something similar? And yet when we explore the working practices and culture we often find ourselves stuck in a pattern of following what others have done before and risk averse decision making structures.
How many of you have ventured to suggest a new idea, only to be asked by senior management to prove that others are doing this first before they’ll support your idea? Those “innovative” brand values quickly dissipate when we venture to be the first to do something new.
Depth + breadth = transformational audience experience
I’m kinda tired of seeing user journey maps that only show a website path, and at best nod to something that happens offline in an over generalised way. They might offer depth, but no breadth.
And I’m kinda tired of seeing brand visions and strategies that are so broad sweeping that they light a fire of excitement with their lofty language and inspiring words, but it quickly dulls and burns out when we dig deeper. They might offer breadth, but no depth.
We’re going after both. We’re developing ways of bringing both depth and breadth. And it starts with exploring what’s really in our way…
From “we can’t do any of it” to “but we can do this…”
The biggest shift of all as we venture into this frontier is going to be cultural.
We buy into a lot of institutional stories of impossibility, or “we can’t”. Our institutions have been telling these stories for so long that we’ve accepted them as the truth.
But they’re not the truth. They’re just a story. And the belief that we can’t change things has us stopped at even looking for ways to try. Just because we “haven’t” or we failed before, doesn’t mean we “can’t” or we “shouldn’t”.
At the start of 2019 I got serious about training in ontological coaching and becoming a true student of ontology: the study of how we are being. It’s opened my eyes to the ways in which we exist in an institutional context of can’t and should stories. They’re reinforced by silos, by org charts and hierarchies, and by stories of how it’s gone before. They’re held rigid by committee structures, tradition and fierce protection of our domains and the things that we can control.
Proof trumps play. Permission trumps forgiveness. And can’t trumps curiosity.
So one of the first conversations I fully expect to have as we begin new consultancy contracts with you all to explore experiences and experience design will be something like this:
“Yep, we really want you to take a look at experience design, but we mustn’t look outside of the website/comms team/marketing materials because that’s not under our control. And the teaching and learning experience is totally out of bounds.”
And it’s those scope conversations that are the very reason why we are advocating for holistic experience design. And we’re willing to work with you to lay the foundations that will have it go differently. That’s why we bought coaching into our portfolio. And ontological coaching in particular can make all the difference.
So, this is going to require a shift (and we have the tools and skills to help you with that) from the instinctive “we can’t” to the more curious and productive “but what can we?” If we start from “but we could…” and allow ourselves to play in the space of what seems to be impossible, we might just access whole new set of possibilities that we can actually work with.
We’re the ones to work with
This is a bold claim. There are many brilliant agencies working in and with our sector and our industry. But we will be the agency to work with for organisations hungry to really grasp experience design, and organisations who are truly committed to transformation.
Why? Because we’re bringing together a powerful combination of skills.
Rich Prowse takes on the new role of Director of Experience Design, a role dedicated to developing and advancing this discipline. I’ll partner with Rich and bring my skills as a leader and ontological coach to help push through the cultural and individual barriers that get in our way. Our research team bring the power of passion and deep curiosity to really see not just what our audiences are doing, but also to get nosey about how they’re being about it too and what they’re not telling us. And our content and design teams are ready to design the vision and the materials to bring those experiences to life.
Over the coming months we’ll be announcing even more initiatives, products and services designed to support you to make these shifts.
So, if this leaves you in any way hungry for such an approach, talk to us. We can start simply from “I’m curious about that, Tracy…”.
Be amongst the first to bust up that frontier with us. And if you’re reading this thinking “oh that all sounds too idealistic and not really possible where I work” then maybe now is the chance to take a look at seeing things another way to open up new possibilities.
We’re here for it. And, always, here for you.
Experience Design 101: a free workshop - 14 October 2021
Join us for a free workshop on 14 October, Experience Design 101, to start your thinking about how to apply this discipline to your organisation. The workshop is free for up to two people from each organisation to attend, or we will happily deliver it in-house for your whole teams or organisation for just £999 + VAT.
Learn about the Experience Design 101 workshop and register to attend.