September #CX Briefing 2019

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I left the Media Lab in 2008 after originally trailing the career path of Muriel Cooper and then later being inspired by “The Audacity of Hope.” It was on the heels of my beginning to wonder about how higher-education worked, and also seeing how industry was fusing design and technology in a whole new way. I wanted to get to the heart of how design exists in the world — and then found myself in the heart of the technology industry in Silicon Valley somehow. Along the way, I’ve noticed how much ethics and inclusion increasingly matter — I hope to bring that energy deeper into the CX universe.

Four Things That I’m Thinking About CX

* The word “design” is a curious one because it’s a known word to C-suite executives, client service folks, industry analysts, front-end developers, back-end developers, empowered product managers, disempowered product managers, management consultants, brand strategists, agile project managers, and also the folks who call themselves “designers.”

* There’s a varying degree of importance ascribed to the word “design” because, like all words, it means something different depending upon who is using the word and *when* it’s being used in the process of creating value for a customer, client, user, patient, constituent, buyer, seller, and any of the organizational roles I mentioned just above.

* Because there’s a long history of design needing to “fight” for its existence alongside other disciplines to be perceived as equally valuable to CFOs, I find that design debate erupts when we consider the entire system of value creation and when/where design can/should play a material role on a team. Why? Because there’s a history of its oppression.