Originally released January 7, 2021

Guest

Nate Rogers

Vice President, Transformation Acceleration

OhioHealth

Summary

Nate Rogers, Vice President of Transformation Acceleration at OhioHealth, joins Designing Next to speak about his journey, which has taken him from guiding marketing strategy for a top retailer to leading innovation in healthcare. In this episode, Nate speaks with Chad & Steve about healthcare’s transition from being provider-centric to consumer-centric, what he has learned in his two years leading innovation at OhioHealth, how his innovation team engages associates across the organization to be part of their problem-solving and design thinking process, and why Nate believes that healthcare could soon leapfrog other industries in terms of leading with consumer-centricity. 

Show Details

In our first episode of 2021, we focus on transformation and innovation with Nate Rogers, who is Vice-President of Transformation Acceleration at OhioHealth, a large hospital and health system based in Columbus, OH with 35,000 employees serving 47 Ohio counties. Nate has had an interesting journey to his current role leading innovation and transformation at OhioHealth. Before joining OhioHealth, Nate had spent the majority of his career working in retail - specifically leading marketing strategy and innovation at Victoria’s Secret. He was recruited to OhioHealth for a leadership role in digital marketing - specifically to bring a consumer-centric approach to the organization. Since then, Nate has ascended into a new role, leading the innovation team at OhioHealth - a team that truly acts as an internal innovation consultancy across the organization. 

Nate has learned a lot in his time leading innovation at OhioHealth, and in this episode, he shares insights and practices that are valuable to all leaders in innovation and beyond. Look forward to hearing:

• How OhioHealth and healthcare as a whole have evolved from being provider-centric to consumer-centric
• How the OhioHealth innovation team operates - from how they prioritize initiatives to the design-thinking approach they bring to their initiatives. 
• How Nate and his team apply a design-thinking mindset and empathetic approach to both internal and external audiences at OhioHealth. 

We’re grateful to Nate for sharing his experience and knowledge with us. It’s a great episode.

Originally released December 17, 2020

Guest

Michael Hoffman

Author

Customer Worthy, Why and how everyone in your organization must Think Like a Customer

Summary

Michael Hoffman, author of the book Customer Worthy, joins Designing Next to talk about how organizations should approach thinking like a customer in 2021. In this episode, Michael speaks with Chad and Steve about developing a holistic definition of your customers across divisions and silos, the most significant ways he has seen COVID-19 impact customer experience, and how Michael sees the customer experience space evolving in the next 3-5 years.

Show Details

We can all agree that 2020 has been a year unlike any other. Currently (in December 2020), we’re looking at two divergent situations. On one hand, it’s concerning that COVID cases are currently spiking in many places across the country. But, as we recorded this episode, the first vaccine doses were being shipped and administered, bringing hope that we could be on a path that returns us to some sort of normalcy in 2021. Of course, none of us know what that might be and how it will affect our organizations, or how it will affect the customer experience we provide and the experiences we will be designing. In spite of these many unknowns, customer experience, experience design and innovation leaders need to forge on. 

This episode's guest will share valuable insight around how leaders can approach 2021. Chad and Steve speak with Michael Hoffman, author, customer experience guru and customer technology futurist, and founder of the customer strategy and customer value firm ClientxClient. His book, Customer Worthy, Why and how everyone in your organization must Think Like a Customer, is the synthesis of his work with major brands, executive teams, and innovators where he honed the elements of the CxC Customer Experience Matrix presented in the book. That matrix provides companies with a converged strategic, financial and technologic framework centered on the customer. We’re going to talk a lot today about what CX framework and thinking like a customer will mean in 2021 and beyond.

In this episode, Michael provides us all with a lot to consider moving into 2021. Look forward to hearing:

• How Michael’s CX matrix works across divisions and silos to develop a holistic view of the customer.  
• The most important Customer Experience impacts Michael has seen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• How Michael sees the customer experience space evolving over the next 3-5 years.

It’s a great episode! Check it out.

Note

Link to download Michaels book, Customer Worthy, Why and how everyone in your organization must Think Like a Customer, and CX matrix: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ab103d3f79392e40afeab79/t/5d44a49b9b602f000121fc2e/1564779679788/Customer+Worthy+by+MR+Hoffman.pdf

Originally released December 3, 2020

Guest

B. Joseph Pine II

Author

The Experience Economy: Competing for Customer Time, Attention, and Money

Summary

B. Joseph Pine II, co-author of the pioneering book The Experience Economy, joins Designing Next to talk about what the experience economy means in these unique times. In this episode, Joe speaks with Chad & Steve about how organizations have adapted their experiences during the pandemic era, what hybrid digital and physical experiences could look like in the post-pandemic future, and why Joe believes that the transformation economy could eclipse the experience economy in the not-so-distant future. 

Show Details

The term “Experience Economy” entered the lexicon for many in 1998 when B. Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore wrote the article “Welcome to the Experience Economy” in the Harvard Business Review. They followed that up in 1999 with the book that many in the experience design world are familiar with - The Experience Economy: Work is a Theatre & Every Business a Stage. While over 20 years have passed since the publication of the book, it’s core tenants remain strong and continue to inspire and guide leaders across industries. In this episode of Designing Next, B. Joseph Pine II joins us to discuss what the experience economy means in these unique times. 

In addition to The Experience Economy, Joe has co-authored three other books and is also a renowned speaker and consultant to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups. He has addressed the World Economic Forum, the original TED conference, and the Consumer Electronics Show. He has been a Visiting Scholar with the MIT Design Lab and a Visiting Professor at the University of Amsterdam. He has also taught at Penn State, Duke Corporate Education, the University of Minnesota, and UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management, and today is a Lecturer in Columbia University’s Master’s Program in Technology Management in the School of Professional Studies.

Last year, Joe and James Gilmore re-released The Experience Economy with a brand-new preface, in which they make an even stronger case for experiences as the critical link between a company and its customers in an increasingly distractible and time-starved world. 

In this episode, Joe shares thoughts and insights about the experience economy that are more relevant than ever. Look forward to hearing:

• Why experiences as an economic offering are not a fad, but a fundamental change in the fabric of the economy.
• Real-world examples of how some organizations have adapted their experience for the pandemic era. 
• What hybrid digital and physical experiences might look like in a post-pandemic future. 

• The important role that employee experience plays in the experience economy. 
  

We’re thrilled that B. Joseph Pine II joined us on this episode to share his unique perspective. We’re sure you will enjoy it as well. 

Originally released November 12, 2020

Guest

Bill Staikos

Head of Customer Experience

Freddie Mac

Summary

Bill Staikos, Head of Customer Experience at Freddie Mac, joins Designing Next to talk to us about the relationship between customer and employee experience. In this episode, Bill speaks with Chad & Steve about the importance of breaking down silos to bring employee experience and customer experience leaders together, the most important CX and EX metrics that every experience leader should be monitoring, and how he ties CX and EX data to business and financial metrics in a meaningful way.   

Show Details

The idea of aligning customer experience and employee experience has been a topic that has been discussed quite a bit over the last few years. But, what does it really mean to align the employee and customer experience? We all inherently know that if we have a superior employee experience, we’re much more likely to have a superior customer experience. After all, companies that lead in customer experience have 60% more engaged employees, and study after study has shown that investing in employee experience impacts the customer experience and can generate a high ROI for the company. We can all agree that sounds great, but for many the question is how do you operationalize it? 

We try to answer that question in this episode. We’re joined by Bill Staikos, Head of Customer Experience at Freddie Mac and the host of the podcast Be Customer Led. Not only will we compare notes on hosting podcasts, but Bill is also going to share his knowledge and experience about aligning customer and employee experiences at large organizations.  Bill’s background has taken him to organizations such as Chase, Credit Suisse, and American Express and his experience includes research & insights, data & analytics, leading UX/Design, transformation, and developing products for operational leaders to help them make the right decision on how to improve the customer experience. He has a lot of insight to share. As you listen to this episode, look forward to learning:

• The importance of breaking down silos to bring employee experience and customer experience leaders together.
• The most important CX and EX metrics that every experience leader should be monitoring.
• How Bill ties CX and EX data to business and financial metrics in a meaningful way.
  

Bill’s experience and strategic insights are incredibly valuable for all of us. We hope you enjoy the episode. 

Originally released October 29, 2020

Guest

Colin Crowley

VP, Customer Experience

Freshley

Summary

Colin Crowley, VP, Customer Experience at Freshly, joins Designing Next to talk to us about his experience building a customer experience infrastructure. In this episode, Colin speaks with Chad & Steve about the process he used to build a customer experience infrastructure within a start-up environment, the steps he and his team took to build and operationalize the five pillars of Freshly’s customer experience, and his approach to finding the right balance between AI, automation, and humanness in customer experience.

Show Details

When Colin Crowley joined Freshly as the VP of Customer Experience five years ago, he inherited a team of one. His first job was to build the infrastructure of Freshly’s customer experience capability. This job was not without its challenges - creating processes, procedures and a culture from scratch is never easy, and is even more difficult in a start-up environment. However, his effort has proven successful as Colin now leads a CX team of over 200. And Colin joins this episode of Designing Next to share his wisdom. 

Colin’s path to Freshly has been a bit non-traditional. Before starting at Freshly, Colin started in the world of national security, serving as a researcher and editor at prestigious think-tanks in Washington D.C. He then transitioned to CX, spending six years working at the e-commerce giant TicketNetwork and finishing his time there as AVP of Consumer Transactions. Beyond that, Colin is also a produced playwright who has been recognized in over 50 national and international playwriting contests and whose plays have been performed/produced across the United States. 

As you might imagine, we could speak to Colin about a multitude of subjects, but of course, we chose to really focus on his CX expertise in this episode. When you listen to this episode, you can look forward to learning: 

• How Colin approached building the infrastructure of Freshly’s CX effort in a start-up environment.
• How Colin and his team brought operations and customer experience together - so both groups could better serve their customers. 
• How Colin starts with the customer when he integrates AI and automation into the customer experience. 
  

Colin shares a lot of great ideas and insights in this episode. We hope you enjoy it. 

Originally released October 15, 2020

Guest

Anastasia Zdoroviak

Director of Customer Experience

DoorDash

Summary

Anastasia Zdoroviak, Director of Customer Experience at DoorDash, joins Designing Next to talk with us about DoorDash’s approach to developing and continuously improving a differentiated experience. In this episode, Anastasia speaks with Chad & Steve about how DoorDash manages the distinct experiences of its three key audiences (consumers, dashers, and merchants), how they measure the consumer journey and prioritize pain points, and how cross-functional teams design and implement solutions at a rapid pace.

Show Details

On-demand meal delivery is a relatively young concept. It has grown consistently in the last few years, but its growth has been tremendous in the last six months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The category has become a very competitive space, and as a result, customer experience is a very important differentiating factor. In this episode, we learn how DoorDash is approaching customer experience with their Director of Customer Experience, Anastasia Zdoroviak.

Although many of us are consumers of on-demand delivery services like DoorDash, we may not stop to think about how the experience goes beyond customers like ourselves. The Dashers and merchants that DoorDash serves are key audiences as well, and as Anastasia shares with us, a change to one audience's journey often impacts every audience they serve. Anastasia also shares how DoorDash built their customer experience team, and how they work to understand and improve the journeys all of their audiences take. 

When you listen to this episode, you can look forward to learning: 

• How DoorDash combines quantitative, qualitative, and behavioral data to better understand audience journeys.
• How DoorDash customer experience teams use human-centered design practices to rapidly innovate, design, test and roll out new experiences.
• How cross-functional teams across DoorDash collaborate as they continuously work to evolve the experience of all their audiences.

Anastasia provides a lot of interesting insights throughout this episode. We hope you enjoy it. 

Originally released October 1, 2020

Guest

Jim Kalbach

Head of Customer Experience

Mural

Summary

Jim Kalbach, Head of Customer Experience at Mural, joins Designing Next to talk with us about developing and maintaining a culture with remote and distributed teams. In this episode, Jim speaks with Chad & Steve about what the pandemic taught him and the team at Mural as their business grew quickly over the last six months, what organizations need to do to establish and maintain a culture in a remote work environment, and why remote teams can be just as effective - or even more effective - than in-person teams. 

Show Details

There has been a common theme in almost all of our episodes as we’ve discussed experience design, innovation and transformation - and that theme has been the importance of culture. As a lot of work has become remote as a result of the pandemic, building and maintaining culture has become an entirely new type of challenge for many of us - especially since it is so key to successful innovation and transformation efforts. 

This episode’s guest, Jim Kalbach, brings a wealth of experience and expertise in managing remote teams to Designing Next. Jim is Head of Customer Experience for Mural, a cloud-based digital workspace for visual collaboration. Before Mural, Jim worked in various design-related consulting roles for large companies, such as eBay, Audi, SONY, Elsevier Science, LexisNexis, and Citrix. He is also an accomplished author of three books on topics ranging from web design to journey mapping, with a fourth to be published soon.

We could likely speak with Jim for hours across a range of subjects, but in this episode we focused on something that is relevant to so many of us during these times - building and maintaining a strong culture in remote environments. Jim started building and leading remote teams long before COVID-19 came along, so he has a lot of wisdom he can share with us. 

When you listen to this episode, you can look forward to learning: 

• What the pandemic taught Jim and the team at Mural about their business as they grew so fast over the last six months.
• What organizations need to do to establish and maintain a culture in a remote or distributed work environment. 
• Why Jim believes remote or distributed work can be just as effective or even more effective than in-person work.
• Why Jim doesn’t like the term “human resources.”
  

Jim shared a lot of interesting thoughts and concepts in this episode. We hope you enjoy it. 

Links

Jim’s TEDX talk: Jazz improvisation for radical collaboration

Jim’s books: 

Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience

Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Creating Value through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams

The Jobs To Be Done Playbook: Align Your Markets, Organization, and Strategy Around Customer Needs

Originally released September 17, 2020

Guest

Jennifer Ishiguro

Vice President of Research, Experience Design and Service Excellence

ATB Financial

Summary

Jennifer Ishiguro, Vice President of Research, Experience Design and Service Excellence at ATB Financial, joins Designing Next to talk with us about the role of humanness in digital transformation efforts. In this episode, Jennifer speaks to us about why most current approaches to transformation do more damage than good, the importance of understanding how motivations drive people and drive change in transformational efforts,  and why she believes we should eliminate the term “change management” from our vocabulary. 

Show Details

There are very few organizations in the world that have not attempted some form of digital transformation - it is an initiative that most of us have experience with. Yet, after 20+ years of digital transformation, many efforts still fail. Why is that? We explore that question in this episode of Designing Next with Jennifer Ishiguro, Vice President of Research, Experience Design and Service Excellence at ATB Financial.

Jennifer’s background has been at the intersection of Digital, Design and Business for her entire career. As her graduate studies have added behavioural science to her expertise, her perspective on digital transformation has evolved. She has become even more focused on understanding how human-focused, behavioral approaches can not only help to drive business results, but connect with customers and team members alike. In this episode, we speak to Jen about her role at ATB Financial, and how she brings a human perspective to their transformation efforts. 

When you listen to this episode, you can look forward to learning: 

• Why current approaches to transformation do more damage than good
• The importance of understanding how motivation drives people and drives change in transformational efforts
• Why Jen believes we that the term “change management” doesn’t set the right tone for the humans who are part of transformation efforts
• Why Jen prefers to use the term humility instead of empathy 
  

Chad and Steve learned so much from Jennifer during this episode, and we know our listeners will as well. 

Originally released September 3, 2020

Guest

Rick Evans

Senior Vice President & Chief Experience Officer

NewYork-Presbyterian

Summary

The Designing Next podcast is taking some time off to start the year, so we’re sharing one of our favorite episodes from 2020. We’ll be back with new episodes soon! Please enjoy! Rick Evans, Senior Vice President & Chief Experience Officer at NewYork-Presbyterian, joins Designing Next for the conclusion of a two-part interview. In this episode, we shift our focus to the effect of consumerism on the patient experience. Look forward to hearing Rick discuss what he sees as the most important attributes of the modern healthcare CXO, the importance of the access to the patient experience and why delivering a strong patient experience requires organizations to break down silos to work together to deliver on patient and consumer needs. 

Show Details

The Designing Next podcast is taking some time off to start the year, so we’re sharing one of our favorite episodes from 2020. We’ll be back with new episodes soon! Please enjoy!- Steve & Chad In our last episode, we had a wide-ranging discussion with Rick Evans, Senior Vice President & Chief Experience Officer at NewYork-Presbyterian. We covered quite a bit of territory in that conversation, including building better cultures, scaling culture in large organizations and how Rick and the team at NewYork-Presbyterian navigated the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. 

In this episode, we dig into patient experience in the age of healthcare consumerism. As Rick was truly one of the first Chief Experience Officers in healthcare, he has a lot of perspective on the subject. As Rick shares with us, the patient experience extends far beyond the exam room or waiting room. From what it’s like to make an appointment at most hospital systems to understanding needs throughout the journey, we look at what makes up today’s patient experience from a holistic viewpoint. 

We really enjoyed our time with Rick over these two episodes. In the second part of our interview, you can look forward to hearing: 

• How Rick sees consumer expectations evolving in healthcare
• The role that access plays in customer and patient experience design
• What Rick believes are the most important attributes of the modern healthcare CXO
  

We hope you enjoy this episode of Designing Next, and learn a bit too!

Originally released August 20, 2020

Guest

Rick Evans

Senior Vice President & Chief Experience Officer

NewYork-Presbyterian

Summary

Rick Evans, Senior Vice President & Chief Experience Officer at NewYork-Presbyterian, joins Designing Next for the first part of a two-part interview. In this episode, our focus will be on the role of culture in delivering employee, patient, and consumer experience. Look forward to hearing Rick discuss building and scaling out experience-focused cultures at large, multi-location organizations like NewYork-Presbyterian, as well as the role culture played as NYP navigated - and continues to navigate - the unprecedented crisis of COVID-19.

Show Details

Rick Evans started his career in the non-profit world before transitioning into patient and customer experience work - almost before the discipline existed! In his career, he has led patient experience at two of the country’s most recognized hospitals - NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP) and Mass General - and is considered one of the most influential and innovative leaders in the patient and staff experience space. 

As you listen to this episode, which is part one of a two-part interview, you will be struck by Rick’s dedication to culture. When he rejoined NYP for the second time a few years ago, one of the first things he did was co-create a Respect Credo with leadership and staff. As you will hear in our interview, that Credo guides much of what Rick and the team at NYP does. It played an essential role as they navigated the unimaginable challenges of COVID-19 this past Spring.

There is a lot we can all learn from Rick, which is why our conversation will last over two episodes. In this first part of our interview, you can look forward to learning: 

• The lessons Rick has learned from building and scaling out an experienced-focused culture at large, multi-location organizations
• How the Respect Credo guides team members of all levels at NewYork-Presbyterian
• The role culture played as NYP navigated the unprecedented experience of COVID-19

We’ve been looking forward to our conversation with Rick since we launched the podcast. We hope you enjoy Rick sharing his experience and approach to culture - and we’re sure you’ll learn a bit too.