(really) entrepreneureal

Silence is golden

I’ve definitely been quiet on here lately, since I started at EchoUser in June.  For my oft-updated blog presence, be sure to check out The EchoUser Experience, our company blog on all things experience design related.

I’d also encourage you to follow me on my EchoUser Posterous blog, where I point out the minutae from day to day that affect my…well, my life experience.  Think of it as a digest form of my brain

And finally, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter at @felixdesroches, my new aggregated Twitter feed for everything on experience, life, and sustainability.

A new lens, a new life

I definitely want to catch everyone up on what I’ve been up to over the last few months, but for now I want to talk about lenses.  Don’t worry, not eyeglasses, or the great work of the Scojo Foundation, but more life lenses.  It’s been awhile coming, but I’ve slowly started applying the (small d) design lens to everything I do: how to design a better solution? How was this experience designed? What does design mean to healthcare? How can I design a better life?

Once I came onboard at EchoUser, I finally gave myself license to use the “experience” lens, full time.

Whoah.

Everything, I find, is an experience. Catching the bus. Using my stove. Buying a movie ticket. Checking my email. Calling my bank. They say that when you’re a hammer everything’s a nail, and this case ain’t no diff’rnt, that’s for sure! Even the smallest interaction triggers a thought about experience design, such that I’m constantly thinking about it. Toilet paper holder too close to the loo? Experience design. Accidentally flip the high beams on while turning? Experience design.

Everything, it seems, is an experience, and I can’t wait to share mine. Word.

Photo from Bob Fornal @ Flickr.

It really isn’t a difficult concept to grasp: the presence of a smile is a strong indicator of happiness (at least in the moment).

So many product designers and marketers just don’t get it.  If your product and/or service doesn’t include the option – nay – the requirement that I smile at some point, there really is no point.  Paul Annett at Clearleft gets this, and lays it out clearly in this presentation (which is designed to elicit smiles).

A friend of mine who works as a Cafe Mistress at a local java joint recently made me smile tremendously when she mentioned that for every customer who comes in without a loyalty card, she puts the coffee credit (which eventually results in a free coffee) into my account.  It’s not her job to do this, but since we’ve become friends, she did it anyway.

Lesson learned? Treat all customers as friends (and they will eventually become them).  And I don’t know about you, but if making my friends smile isn’t priority numero uno, then I don’t know what is.

It’s funny how big companies whose business revolves around customer service often fall flat on the issue.  Just take a look at Dustin’s revision of the American Airlines site that got so much traffic, and its clear that even some of our oldest companies are finding it hard to keep up with the changing times.

Turns out that BlueShield has the same problem and my recent ER visit is a case in point.  You would think that the service and insurance providers are experts at making sure that they get paid on time, but this isn’t really true.  Take, for example, my attempts to get new ID cards sent to me: the BlueShield customer portal is actually pretty slick, with a relatively clear layout, but with one major flaw – there is no “Change Address” option!  Speaking of which, there is no “View Current Address” option, either, so I have no idea what information they have on file.

This means that I actually have to call the main number, which I did this morning – to make sure that I actually receive the recent claim that I have pay.  BlueShield has decided to use an automated voice recognition system, which I think is an awful idea, mostly because they are so hard to get right.  Other than sounding patronizing half the time, you’re forced to interrupt the operator with answers to his (and it was a he) questions, which feels unnatural and makes for stilted dialogue.  Anyway, once I’ve gone through a few questions I’m told that my call will be “answered in the order it was received”. But once again, I have no idea how long I have to wait! At least providing a message along the lines of “average wait times are XXX minutes” would help a lot.

Then I make a blunder: I say “ID cards” as a menu selection, which then shunts me over to an automated ID card sender – which is a problem, because they still have the wrong address on file.  With no idea how to go back to the main menu, I hit “0″ and hope for the best.  Luckily, I guessed right, and a nice guy called Jonathan answers the phone about a minute later.  He changes my address in about 2 minutes, which is great, but makes me repeat all the information I used to log in online – this doesn’t really make any sense, but I roll with it anyway.  Jonathan then puts me over to another department to verify my claim, and I’m diverted off into the depths of BlueShield.

Finally, a woman called Michelle picks up, asks me for all of my information (again!), and then asks me what I need. I tell her the story about my address on file being incorrect, my inability to change it online, the nice chat with Jonathan where he changed it for me, and my current chat with Michelle to make sure everything is in order.

Turns out that Michelle’s office isn’t integrated with Jonathan’s, so the recent updated address doesn’t show up on her system.  Further, she has to forward the new address that I give her to “Member Services” to make sure that I get an explanation of benefits.  It seems a little dumb that none of the offices within BlueShield integrated their data and customer management systems.

I say as much to Michelle:

It’s interesting that you guys don’t have integrated accounts, dont’ you think?

To which she replies:

It would be so much easier!

And to top it off, I initially opted in to participate in a customer feedback survey after my call, but as luck would have it, once Michelle signed off the system hung up on me.

BlueShield: listen to your employees and get rid of your crappy system!

Word.

This is why I love our President.

I came across an amazing site today from designer Dustin Curtis.  It’s a personal look into his thoughts, life, and design work.  Part portfolio, part blog (even though he has a separate blog), part expose and manifesto, it’s an amazing work of art that kept me captivated for over an hour.  An hour.

An hour.

For someone firmly embedded in the Gen-Y I-have-a-2-second-attention-span mindset, that’s amazing.

The interesting part for me is that it highlighted the tension inherent to personal design sites: on the one hand, they need to showcase a designer’s personality, her work, her approach, and her success.  And sometimes the best way to do this is to act like everything but a portfolio site – lots of personal flavor, random musings, and beautiful (often non traditional) design elements. On the other hand, the site is generally supposed to generate awareness around the designer’s work, with the overall hope that this awareness (through cross linking, comments, forwarding, etc.) will eventually lead to paying work.

So it has to look like a duck and sound like a duck, but bark like a dog.  What gives?

I just read an article about Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame) in the latest issue of Outside magazine.  Other than the fact that I love Rowe’s quirky, aw-shucks sense of humor and general approach to life and all things feces, I was struck by one of the quotes highlighted in the article (which happens to come from a FastCompany article):

‘Follow your passion’ is the worst advice you can give someone… Had I ever even bothered to define what that was, this never would have worked out.

Definitely an interesting thought, especially because us Gen-Y-ers are consistently egged on to follow our passion and hearts wherever they might take us (and chances are that won’t be any of the dirty jobs Rowe gets to try out).  This is interesting, too, because it turns the “find your passion and you will be happy philosophy” on its head.  Rowe goes on to point out that every single person he profiles, from the gourd maker to the fish farmer to the sewer cleaner to the ostrich raiser, first found something they could do well, and then, with a dollop of time and a pinch of patience (and oftentimes poo), built a solid passion around it.

What’s so contrary about this statement is that it re-imagines passion as something to be nurtured over time. Not as the flash-in-the-pan, go-down-in-flames-with-nary-a-care-in-the-world passion that we read about in books or see on the silver screen.

I, for one, am not sure whether Rowe has it right.  Sure, he became really good at one thing (off-the-cuff humoristic monologues on any topic under the sun) and managed to turn it into something meaningful, but his story does creak a little under scrutiny: first, the dirty jobs he takes as proof-positive that a seemingly dull task can engender passion envision a future where everyone does menial work.  So, what, that ex-day trader should take up goat castrating because he happens to be good with a blade? I exaggerate, but the point needs to be made: well-paying labor that is at first blush a little boring does not necessarily make sense for the average person (or, indeed, passion make).  Second, it took Rowe 47 years to “make it”; how is that for a lesson to teach others? Wander along aimlessly for half a century and then you might find your passion?  There has to be a better, potentially faster, way.

For the time being, I’ll stick with passion for passion’s sake.  How about you?

The latest issue of Inc chronicles the meteoric rise of Tony Hsieh and his now uber-successful and well-known company, Zappos.  The gist of the story is that Hsieh has managed to create a culture that rewards independent, creative and most importantly, empathetic behavior.

I spent the first part of the article skeptical that such an open, daring and, frankly, risky, culture is even possible.  In a company where the CEO takes vodka shots with new hires to test their mettle, you’ve got to wonder how long everything will last until there’s a lawsuit, or someone who takes offense at this kind of behavior.

Once I had accepted the reality that such a fun culture indeed is possible, and helps a company and its people thrive beyond belief, I spent the rest of the piece wondering if Hsieh can do all this only because he’s successful.  He was successful (financially) before Zappos, and my assumption is that when you have a lot, losing a little isn’t a big deal so you don’t mind taking risks.  But then I realized that the more successful Hsieh becomes, the more he technically has to lose – so there goes that theory.

In the end I came away a little ashamed that I kept trying to find reasons for why Hsieh built a company the way he has.  Financial reasons, critical reasons.  The truth is that when I get down to it, I totally understand Hsieh’s approach and would definitely rather risk offending a potential employee than dread waking to a company I don’t love.

Forget the dread, a vodka shot hangover will do me fine.

Emergency Rooms have a really bad rap.  Drab, barren of any comfy furniture whatsoever, filled with sick people and, worst of all, usually painted an awful green color.  How fitting.  So when I hit the ER this past week for some stitches to the chin, I wasn’t exactly expecting to have a great time – but just how bad a time, even I would never have guessed.  And interestingly, it had nothing to do with the people – the admin people, nurses and doctor were all more than amiable – but more with the seeming total disregard for basic tenets of design that had gone into the place.  Here, in chronological order, are the design problems I encountered over the course of the evening:

7:35pm

I enter through the front of the hospital from the regular parking lot.  No need for real ER parking, since I’m not about to keel over.  Unfortunately, this means I have to “sign in”.  A quick gesture to my chin grants me automatic access, and I’m off into the bowels of the hospital.

7:37pm

I finally find the ER, which is so unremarkable that I almost miss it.  No sign in desk here, just a huge security desk that is so high I can’t tell if someone’s behind it.  Reminds me of a kids play fort.  Overall, it does nothing to make me feel safe, since I wonder what the security is meant to protect me against.

7:38pm

After looking around the micro waiting room, I eventually notice an unmarked door Read the rest of this entry »

Startup funding, in many respects, buys you freedom.  The freedom to work away unfettered by daily concerns like paying the bills and keeping the lights on.  The freedom to hire the very best and keep them.  The freedom to focus 100% of your attention and energy on one thing and one thing only: making your business work.

That said, funding also imposes restraints.  Accountability to investors means no more slow going, opportunistic growth.  There might be a little less fun to be had, too, since your major decision filter is now “will this help the business (make money)?” And if you want to work with people who are as passionate as you are, a good salary has a way of making it difficult to tell the committed apart from the ladder climbers.

So what to do – would you take the money?

There you have it: with little fanfare and barely a second to think twice, regret, or do anything differently, the first 25 years of my life have gone by (in a flash).

Poof. Zip. Bang. Done.

So now that the first quarter century is over, what lessons have I learned – or not – that I can apply to the next quarter?  Here’s a smattering that come to mind:

Awareness is key.

I sometimes feel like I spent the first 18 or so years of my life totally unaware of everything around me, of life’s infinite possibilities. Sure, I was consistently told to reach high (”You’ll be amazing!”, “You’ll do great things!”, “Dream big and you can do it!”), but it’s only very recently that I feel I have come to appreciate these truisms. Which leads me to the next lesson:

It’s never too late.

Ok, so I was late to the party.  Like the guy who gets pubes last, or the 40-year old virgin, I feel like I kinda missed the boat on some of this stuff.  Not all of it, to be fair (living in 10+ countries made sure that I got a leg up in many respects), but until recently I consistently felt like everyone around me had their shit together more than I.  These days, it’s not as if I’ve pulled ahead or anything, but more that I see that most of us are, at any one time, just as lost – or ahead – as the rest.  In many ways this is great because it means I get to grow with those around me, but in many ways it really is just the blind leading the blind.  Which brings me to this:

Lead where you can (because we’re all leaders, really).

Whether you’re flipping burgers at BK or solving the world’s problems at the IMF, leading by example should be your default.  There’s no time to sit back and agonize over every little detail – planning just enough to not be a total screw up is fine, but do keep in mind that life is short (so don’t waste it).  Of course, this means different things for different people (slow for one is fast for another), so remember this, too:

Just be nice.

To everyone.  Most of the time.  Because frankly, while life is too short to dally, it’s also too short to feel – or foment – sourness in any form.  I think we all fight this lesson every day: it’s always easy to be dismissive, curt, or cynical, so do the opposite!  I’m lucky because it’s part of who I am (I like to please), but I urge us all to spread a smile and make someone’s day, make another happy, where possible.

Which leads to the final thought:

Happiness is now.

Maybe yesterday. Definitely today. But certainly not tomorrow. I constantly fight this one: I want to iron out this kink or that; buy one thing or another; make more time, more friends, more money; find a calling, build a business; surf more, have more free time, meet more people, fall in love…

I look forward to all these things, and worry about them when I’m doing them, when that’s the last thing I should be doing.  They are definitely part of the key to my happiness, but they aren’t going to happen tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or next year.  The key to true happiness is recognizing that these things are all possible now.  That waiting for tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, will do nothing more than doom you to a life of “What if?” and “If only…”

Take chances, risk just enough to know you’re alive, stay true to yourself (recognizing that you change on a daily basis), and, as my mum always says, “everything will come out in the wash.”

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