My post on “users as nodes” inspired me to convert my paper on in to a web viewable version. It’s no mean feat going from microsoft word to the web 
I would like to summarize this into a white paper at some point, its a rather academic piece right now, better than nothing though, I hope.
Monthly Archive for March, 2003
I proposed in the past (in a MBA paper) that one of the only sources of sustainable competitive advantage in e-business was to leverage network effects (see Reeds Law, the power of group forming networks).
And I just found a fascinating reference (Songs of Experience: Everyone’s a User) to the idea that a common feature of experience design across multiple industries is the idea that users should be treated as “Nodes” (by Azeem Azhar who keeps a blog), in other words there participation in the network can influence the network. Now if the number of user nodes actually influenced the value of the network “by design” then that could lead to significant competitive advantage. (continue for a longer version with examples)
Continue reading ‘users as nodes’
Associating experience design or user experience with competitive advantage is an attempt to try and increase this young disciplines standing in business. It is also driven by a belief that business is changing and that companies that understand the broader experience a customer has with them will drive financial performance. Companies that are able to understand a customer and exceed a customers expectations at every turn will win. Amazon, Ebay, and Starbucks are developing what I would characterize as unassailable competitive positions through understanding the customer experience is everything.
The question of how disciplines gain legitimacy, standing, resources etc. in the business world is a fascinating topic.
Disciplines come about to solve problems or achieve goals, Marketing came about because in the 50’s mass-production actually began to outstrip demand. Business had a lot of products and not enough customers, they needed to develop a bigger market.
Experience Design I think is joining the rest of the design community in asking the question or making the statement, if you like, “We are very important to your business, more important than you think”. Design faces a long history though, of being pushed around by marketing folks and account managers and implementing things that might have been better if the designers had been involved at the beginning of the process.
Why? Read on…
Continue reading ‘Legitimacy of emerging disciplines’
I don’t believe that Experience Design or competing in the experience economy is necessarily about providing the best experience. I find that in the Experience Economy (Pine and Gilmore) they focus too much on the theater and glamour of an experience and not so much on the satisfaction of a need or, the delivery of a promise. I don’t think you can talk about a satisfying experience unless you talk about expectation, a yugo might provide a vary satisfying experience if it manages to deliver beyond the level of expectation that has been built through communication, pricing, information, Word of Mouth etc.
Don Norman did a poll of some people on a user centered design list about products people “loved”, under web sites many people professed there love for google. It exceeds peoples expectations with little fuss or muss.
Title:
Competing on experience
Possible Questions:
How do company’s achieve competitive advantage using experience design?
What are the aspects of customer experience that lead to competitive advantage?
How do companies understand/analyze the competitive landscape in the experience economy?
Description:
Is there a framework for analyzing a company’s delivery of a user experience?
Much has been said about the experience economy, experiential marketing, experiential branding.
The theories of the experience economy and experiential marketing propose products can no longer compete on price and consumers are not making purchase decisions based on feature and function, but on more intangible experience. A company brand is no longer monolithic and static, it is a compilation of all experience that a person has with a company.
What can be divined from theory around experience economy, experiential marketing, experience design, that can be used to analyze the competitive environment
How do companies understand the new competitive landscape if they are to compete on experience.
Continue reading ‘My dissertation proposal’
I’m currently working on a final dissertation for an MBA in design management, my topic being how user/customer experience effects the way companies need to look at the competitive landscape. The idea being to look at contemporary theory like experiential marketing (bernde schmitt), experience economy (pine & gilmore) and then look at some more well established strategic concepts like Porter’s work on the nature of competition and see how experience design can lead to competitive advantage.
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