Monday August 22, 2005

Recap: Experience Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design

Quick! What do training facilities for counterterrorists; a school for children with special needs; Eastern Mountain Supply retail stores; Faneuil Hall Marketplace; Kodak Headquarters; Paramount Studios; Gillette Field; the National Archives; the Museum of African American History and Sun Microsystems guest-facing centers have in common?

For three days in August 2005 the architects, media designers, brand strategists and others who have a role in crafting the experiences in these spaces put their collective heads together at Harvard's Graduate School of Design to talk shop. But the discussion wasn't about walls, plasma screens or form following function. The issue at hand is an emerging style of architecture referred to as "experience architecture" -- one in which function follows story, and the guest experience rules.

That's right: no conversations about specific styles, technologies or special effects. This was a group of mostly architects trying to crack a broader nut -- how to see, design and build "spaces" as a translation of a client's story.

In this brave new world, the architect or designer is translator, not a CAD expert. Early client conversations focus on content, ideas and emotions more than they do about load-bearing walls or permit applications. There's much more of a focus on business strategy, guest perceptions and customer goals than there is on matters of personal taste.

If you're reading this and you're thinking "sounds like brand strategy," you're getting warm. And if those three questions that Marty Neumeier made famous are running through your head, you're smokin'.

So. Is this architecture or brand strategy? I'd have to admit, as one of the few non-architects in the room for those three days (and the only one whose job lines up in a formal brand organization), the question certainly popped into my head for just a flash on the first day, me thinking this is brand work, reserved for brand people. But of course that's a reactionary, territorial move that gets us nowhere -- it just doesn't matter what role you're in or who's doing it. What matters is that the work is being done -- that the right people are on the right seats on the right bus. And here we were, making sure those seats were filled (labels be damned).

And so, over the course of three days presentations were given, conversations grew and ideas were born. It's why we do this, isn't it? Throughout this week, I'll be recapping some of the more resonant memes, probably in drive-by, bullet-point fashion, for the sake of sharing, openness and all that good stuff that you know Sun is about. In the meantime, you're encouraged to let me know what you think.

Before I drop off, though, it's apropos to close on the same note the conference just so happened to close -- which was a reminder to make our work inspiring. All of it. No matter what we do and how we do it.

Chances are you're reading this because you have a role in brand or experience design or something similar. If that's you, then you know most of us spend much of our time pondering how to make things like feature lists relevant to customer needs, noodling around with user profiles, brand strategies, and mashing it all together in the form of something that'll be desirable enough to buy. But at the end of the day -- just like so much architecture, interiors, even products and services -- none of it truly means much in the bigger picture.

That's why we point to places like the Sagrada Familia, the Grand Canyon or even the US Holocaust Memorial Museum as some of the most significant experiences on earth: because they connect us to something bigger. Whether that something is our own selves, humanity as a whole or a touch of the divine, these places lack any obvious signs of a "feature list." They're bigger than that. And we all crave those connections, don't we?

Our challenge as "experience producers" -- whether we're in software development, architecture, brand, or facilities management -- is to translate those features along similar lines. To stop selling stuff, to stop seeing things through the superficial lens that is merely bottom-line driven, to stop assuming anyone cares about Brand X. And to start understanding what really matters to your customers through the lens of something bigger.

Chances are most of us really are working on something that makes the world a better place. Once we've identified what it is, we can begin to tell that story in a meaningful way. Sounds mushy, but if you don't start with the ideal end in mind, you never get there. Good luck.

In the meantime, keep an eye on those companies and spaces I mentioned at the top of this entry. I have a feeling we'll all be seeing something interesting happening in the next 6 to 18 months.

( Aug 22 2005, 03:45:58 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]