In the beginning of their relationship, Jack did all the talking. Jill was happy to listen because Jack knew so much and he was entertaining. But over time, it became exhausting only listening. Jill wanted a dialogue…

Sounds like a number of relationships we all know, but the difference is that this commentary Is about television (one to many) and social networks (many to many). It frames the evolution of broadcast (TV) advertising in a compelling and fun manner.

This animation was created for an advertising conference held in Istanbul for the international advertising, marketing and public relations agency, Ogilvy & Mather.

Advertising: A Love Story from Isaac Woodby.

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Jared Spool. You know him, you love him, and you can see him when he keynotes MX: Managing Experience on March 7th.

He’s graciously allowed us to repost this article so we can give you an idea of what his MX talk is based on.

The 3 Qs for Great Experience Design
By Jared M. Spool
(Originally published: Oct 06, 2008 here)

For more than seven years, we’ve studied how the great user experience teams succeed. We’ve looked at a variety of variables to isolate what it takes. We’ve looked at management structure, employed methodologies, best practices, and hiring qualifications. We’ve looked at team communication techniques, requirement gathering techniques, the target industry, and the geographic location. All said, we’ve inspected about 250 different variables for dozens of organizations across a wide variety of industries, educational institutions, and government.

As with most things, most variables don’t play a role. However, we found three key variables as being critically important: vision, feedback, and culture. Using these three variables, we’ve created corresponding questions to help us quickly rate a team’s experience design prowess. Teams that answer these questions well are far more likely to create great experiences than the rest of the pack.

Factor #1: Understanding the purpose of vision
Here’s the first question we ask: “Does everyone on your team know what the experience will be like interacting with your offerings five years from now?”

When the answer is affirmative, any team member can describe what the user’s experience will be like in five years. They’ll tell us a story, like this real one from a century-old insurance company:

“An insured home and car owner, having just had a tree fall on their garage, will log into the site, explain the damage, upload pictures, and get initial claim approval to start temporary repairs and get a rental car—all within a few minutes. Within the next 24 hours, inspection appointments and a detailed damage assessment are scheduled and reviewed, and the repairs are underway within 48 hours. All the payments are handled electronically from the insurance company, with a single NET-60 bill sent to the policy holder for the deductibles.”

This story is an experience vision. It outlines how the person, in this case someone who insures both their home and car with the company, can make a joint claim and quickly start the recovery process. Notice that the story doesn’t describe the specifics of the design or the system — that’s not important. What’s important is understanding the experience of the policy holder.

While this particular story may not sound that interesting or difficult to someone outside, for this organization it’s a radical departure from today’s experience. Their business units currently don’t talk to each other and pretend that customers don’t exist beyond their own individual products. So, this integrated vision shows a radical departure and eliminates much of the frustration caused by today’s organizational reality. For this organization, five years is aggressive for the substantial, under-the-covers changes that this vision will require.

We like looking five-years ahead because it gets beyond the immediate reactive requirements and starts considering what a great experience could be. If we only looked one year ahead, we’d be stuck with the current realities. If we look too far out, we get into the realm of science fiction.

Because everyone on the team has the same vision, they are all on the same page for what it takes to succeed. Think of it as a stake in the sand on the horizon. Everyone can see the stake and knows when they are taking baby steps towards it and when they are moving away. The stake can move at any time (and, for some organizations, does frequently), but that’s ok, since everyone can see the change and start moving in the new direction.

Struggling teams can’t answer this question affirmatively. They either have never considered beyond the problems of the day or everyone has a different vision. Working to have a solid vision that everyone shares will go a long way to help these teams.

Factor #2: Having a solid feedback mechanism
While the first question deals with where the team is going, the second question deals with where the design has been: “In the last six weeks, have your team members spent at least two hours watching people experience your product or service?”

We’re looking for teams that can answer affirmatively no matter when we ask. That means they are regularly watching the users and learning from them.

These observation sessions can happen in a variety of ways (and in the best organizations, the variety is wide). They can be usability tests or field studies. In each case, each team member has spent a minimum of two hours observing the current experience.

Note that we’re not talking about surveys or satisfaction measures. Those instruments are often flawed and only give a very small piece of the picture. In the best case, they can tell us whether users are frustrated or delighted, but they can’t tell us why. The team needs to observe the experience, in a detailed manner, to really get the information required to make the critical decisions.

Six weeks is an important period. In our research, the average team member works on an experience design project for twenty-four months. This means they’ll encounter a minimum of 16 separate experiences during their tenure, working out to be an average of 48 observations for a four-member team during that period. All of that detailed information can’t help but create better informed decisions in the design process.

Longer than six weeks and the exposure to the users starts to wear off. It’s far less likely that a team member will say, “What about when we saw Fred have problems with accessing multiple policies?” when Fred’s experience happened months before.

Many struggling teams have never had a single member observe the experience of using their design, even though, in some cases, millions of users interact with the design every day. In other cases, they only get data from indirect sources or they’ve had limited exposure during their tenure. When this happens, each member of the team can only talk to their own experience of using the design, which is very likely to be at odds with how real users experience it.

Factor #3: Living a culture that relishes “failure”
The first two questions are straight-forward and make sense, from a strategic perspective. You have to know where you’re going and you have to know what you’ve already built. The last question, on the other hand, can seem counter-intuitive: “In the last six weeks, has your senior management held a celebration of a recently introduced design problem?”

In most organizations, problems are not cause for celebration. However, in a culture that pushes for frequent small changes, problems become opportunities for improvement. Teams that answer affirmatively have established a culture that not only accepts failure, but relishes it as a way to learn about the users and their needs.

At a major software corporation, the CEO regularly holds parties to give out a valued award, shaped as a full-size life preserver, to individuals who have created “learning opportunities” by introducing a problem into the design. Of course, the CEO acknowledges that the problem wasn’t introduced intentionally. But, because it made it into the design, the organization learned important lessons they can use going forward. Receiving the life preserver award from the CEO has become a high honor within the company.

For example, a technology company recently experienced a massive server outage as, upon the release of a highly-desired new feature, millions of users tried to upgrade simultaneously. While the server outage was a major embarrassment (reflected in the press and on Wall Street), it was because of a successful marketing and design campaign for highly-desired functionality. Despite the momentary crisis, the organization simultaneously learned how to create desirable enhancements while also learning the impact that it has on their infrastructure — both valuable lessons they’ll refer to for years to come.

The best organizations hold these celebrations frequently, because they are constantly learning from their mistakes. By making the learning process explicit, through their acknowledgement and reward, the culture starts to look for it. As the old saying goes, “That which is measured gets done and that which is rewarded gets done well.”

Struggling organizations do not hold celebrations of what they perceive to be design problems. Instead, they’ll punish the “culprits” and put new product-preventing policies in place to stop it from re-occurring. Soon, the original stimuli for these policies are forgotten and the organization is doomed to repeat the mistakes.

Driving Towards Improvement
The neat thing about these three questions is their applicability to constant improvement. Teams can self assess and look for opportunities to answer the questions better.

A good team may have a start to the vision, but hasn’t communicated it to everyone who has influence over the design. The team may occasionally get feedback on their current experience, but hasn’t seen anyone recently. And there’s always opportunities to highlight the latest things they’ve learned, even if it was a difficult learning process.

While further research could show there are other factors that influence a team’s success, it’s clear to us that these three factors are critically important. Fortunately, improving them has little downside, making them a serious candidate for any amount of investment the organization can afford.

There is no issue worth you getting up and taking action. You have no power anyway. Go back to your Xbox. Keep playing Doom. Go get some porn- its much more exciting.

You probably aren’t even registered to vote, so why bother? Get stoned instead! Watch another episode of American Idol…

Why are u still reading?!

OK…Okay! You’re so damn pushy… Find out if you’re even registered. That would be a good start…

Commission members said they knew Bailey was thinking about getting rid of the buildings to keep horses there, but they had hoped to negotiate with him to try to find a way to save them.

In a startling event that was divinely timed to coincide with the Carbondale Historic Preservation Commissions presentation to the town’s trustees, Tom Bailey destroyed a house and barn that represented the unique history of the Carbondale area. Our presentation to the mayor and trustees was focused on the need for immediate action and financial support of historic preservation. Our commission has been in existence for over a year. In that time we have created our by-laws; developed internal procedures; obtained state grants; achieved Certified Local Government status; produced both our historic design guidelines and the economic incentive/planning perspective… in short- we’ve been busy.

We are laying the foundation for a commission that we hope will have a long future in this valley. On the day of our presentation to the new trustees, which included three newly elected individuals, we received word of the loss of a unique structure originally built in circa 1875. The following is the article in the local paper with a link to a PDF of the print version.

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Aspen Daily News, July 18, 2008

CARBONDALE — Long before this town was known for its swanky restaurants or groovy Mountain Fair, it was known for its potatoes, and Eugene Grubb was the potato king, traveling the world to both gather and spread new varieties of spuds.

Until recently, Grubb’s century-old Victorian home stood on the edge of town as a reminder of those days. Then, several days ago, the 20th-century potato king’s home and adjacent barn were razed by 21st-century financial wizard Tom Bailey, the billionaire Janus mutual fund founder turned cutting horse impresario, known locally for moseying into town on horseback and tying up at his downtown lot while filling up at a local watering hole.

“I just assumed — I guess I shouldn’t have — that he would take steps to preserve the house,” said Jean Perry, whose grandparents, Crystal River Valley ranching pioneers Bob and Ditty Perry, lived in the house before they sold their ranch to Bailey in 2006.

A message left with Bailey’s personal assistant through his real estate agent was not returned.

The loss highlights the changes in Carbondale over a century. Potato fields now sprout million-dollar mansions. The potato magnate has been replaced by a mutual fund giant.

With an estimated $1.3 billion, Bailey, 71, is ranked as the 897th richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine. He left Janus in 2002 to raise cutting horses in Carbondale. A frequent rodeo competitor, he owns the 200-acre Iron Horse Ranch along the Roaring Fork River, masked from Highway 82 by a wall of trees.

Bailey is among about seven Colorado billionaires, including Charles Ergen, Phil Anschutz, John Malone, James Leprino, Pat Stryker, and Thomas Marsico. Others with Colorado ties include Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, ranked No. 15, who recently bought a home in Wildcat Ranch and also owns a home in Snowmass Village proper.

Perry, who is president of the Mount Sopris Historical Society, said she was saddened when she drove by Monday and saw the home she used to visit as a child, and lived in for a time, had recently been destroyed, along with the adjacent barn. Her aunt had lived in the home until the sale. “There are so many grants he could apply for,” said Perry, who admitted the house had fallen into disrepair. “I don’t understand why it was necessary to tear it down.”

The demolition came as a blow to the town’s Historic Preservation Commission, which has been working to find ways to protect Carbondale’s historic buildings. Nothing it could have done would have stopped the demolition, though. The turn-of-the-century Grubb home sat outside of town limits in Garfield County.

This undated photo shows the old Grubb house, located off of what is now Highway 133 south of Carbondale.

It couldn’t have done much had the home been in town, either. The commission’s guidelines are voluntary. They offer some incentives for keeping historic buildings, but they can’t keep owners from tearing them down.

“We can’t paint Tom as a total villain,” said architect Ron Robertson, a member of the Historic Preservation Commission. “Yeah, we can. I’m trying to be diplomatic, but it’s pretty disappointing that it can happen.”

The spacious home sat just south of town on Highway 133 by the Division of Wildlife fish hatchery. Commission members said they knew Bailey was thinking about getting rid of the buildings to keep horses there, but they had hoped to negotiate with him to try to find a way to save them.

“It’s a serious blow,” said Suzannah Reid, the staffer working with the commission. “The whole ranching context, the image of the ranch house and barn and agricultural fields is really disappearing from the valley, and Garfield County in particular. Any loss on that scale is a pretty big loss.”

The home was partly significant for its style — a fairly rare two-story, late-Victorian ranch house that represented a certain level of prosperity, Reid said. The home had a spacious attic, a turret and pitched eaves over upstairs windows.

But it was also significant for its former occupant. Grubb stood at the center of Carbondale’s reputation as a top potato producer back when the town raised more spuds than Idaho.

“It was just devastating to the committee,” Robertson said. He noted that he had hoped the commission might find a way to save the structures, possibly moving them elsewhere. “I wish I could run the film backwards to put them back up,” Robertson said.

To the commission, the destruction underscores the vulnerability of other historic buildings in Carbondale. The roster includes an old livery stable, the Odd Fellows Hall, the downtown Dinkle building and several Victorian homes and barns.

The commission, which operated on a shoestring budget last year, put forward the idea of mandatory protections, but town trustees and Planning and Zoning Commission members opposed them, as did some town residents, who saw them as too onerous for a low-key town that wanted to avoid the bureaucracy of upvalley Aspen.

Instead, the commission has tried to create incentives for protecting historic buildings — such as zoning variances, tax rebates and loans. A mandatory demolition stay in the town’s historic core delays the wrecking ball to give town officials time to negotiate with landowners, but nothing can prevent owners from destroying or changing historic buildings. And because the Grubb home lies outside town limits, town regulations would not apply there anyway.

This article clearly relates how the concerns of ranchers, land holders and environmentalists are overlapping. The energy companies have overstepped their privileges. Privileges that were given to them by the Bush administration in a manner that circumvented the will of the people. So much of the work done by the Clinton Administration has been reversed to make way for a sell-out of the people’s common areas. Our interests are of no concern. The energy companies know how to get what they want. They know how to manipulate Washington, Denver, the counties and the private land-owners. They set their sites on a target and have the resources to flood the system with money and favors.

It is my opinion that the Bush Administration, eager to return the favor of their donors, are destroying public and private lands without regard for the long-term environmental and social impact. My family has been approached by Gunnison Energy (a Koch company) and spent six hours with them hearing their arguments for why drilling on our land would be such a benefit. They showed us other drilling wells and the “man-camps” that monitor them 24/7/365. Their enthusiasm for their jobs reminded me of a drunk who is so delighted with his inebriated state that he has no awareness for the harm he commits.