The optimism of #Purpose & science of #design in forging #digital customer experiences! Opinions my own!

1. The elasticity of experience ; trust and transparency triumphs ease (pre pandemic times – the focus were on frictionless and seamlessness. Here, the public sector either triumphed or faltered. Think about it- the most basic of experiences, rendered services by an elected government is to first protect its citizens. That translates to literally, saving lives during current times. The age of heroes – when the world needs saving. It becomes so apparent who the true leaders amongst us are. Don’t forget, leadership isn’t a rank, it’s the very moment you decide to take care of those around you – it’s the closest thing to being a parent . Most government’s did their part to save as many lives as they could – then it was about jumpstarting economies. Through these times (even know as we emerge ever so slightly from the cave), we held (global) hands and believed in magic again; the magic of the human connection. The belief that we generally do good, choose good – the belief we can be a force for good. It really shows, it’s so acute, those that have pivoted – those that really believe.

2.  FutureBack. Simply put, the temporal sweet spot for innovation has irrevocably shifted. Short termism was laid out bare. The world suddenly realised what was (more) important; gambits of the past taken,  nadirs of the human spirit are amplified. This widening chasm of experiential dissonance (trust) is happening at an alarming rate, much like how our polar ice caps are melting. We have been scaling the post-war S curve all this while. We were grounded on tenets of optimisation, doing more with less, cutting costs and making things hum (hum in factories!). Our leaders (even those today) have been trained (rightfully) to put profits before people. To be spreadsheet warriors. They’ve been taught by their supervisors before them to do the same, they were promoted bcos they did things well (efficiently). But being placed in that position (especially today, during current times) isn’t easy. It’s so apparent for all to see the shortcomings of the last century, the great industrialists of the past – an era that screeched to a grinding halt, hastened by the pandemic. To plan is to act on the future, today – and to do that, we need to first paint an impressionist picture of the future; doesn’t need to be perfect but lucid enough for us to believe (so that others might too!). The process is non-linear and non rote. It’s hard to break the present forward tendency (that our current leaders have inculcated) – nothing wrong with that, just to be aware the few of us needs to be future driven – and it’s almost religious (with all the naysayers trying their best for statusquo). It’s really easy to do, well, nothing. In pursuit of happiness, progressing to the summit can be more important than summiting itself. We need the future, we need to progress and we need to believe.

It’s not about millennials wanting instant gratification, it’s not about that.

Rather it’s about existentialism and the future or humankind – our great cities, industries, enterprises . We simply lost touch, how to connect with humankind. Driven by greed/passion and the self individualism, we nary a second stopped to think where all this (for the past hundred years) was bringing us. It’s time to reconnect..

3. Transactions into experiences. Governments across the world upped the ante on experience – and rebuilt, cemented trust; some leapfrogged the private sector IMO. But then again, it’s authentic. It’s the why, less the how (it was done). We had to save lives, preserve jobs, jumpstart the economy – all very noble, but if done wrongly (in a way that erodes trust), the effects can be significant e.g. receding economic barometers akin to the wealth of nations. These are, as they say, unprecedented times. But what does that mean exactly? We are at the tipping point. So many tipping points – not just about the climate. Trust is truly the currency of the new/post pandemic economy . It was before – we didn’t pay enough attention. It will be always . There’s hyper collaboration, borne out of survival in the industries. We will be the ecosystems of ecosystems, transcending geographical boundaries and human made borders, breaking limits. What we can imagine, will truly be real – as Picasso once said. To be a global citizen of this new brandished world, we need a trust passport and experience will be only lingua franca- and genuine gracious acts of good. These acts will be the premier human experiences that we will come to crave and need (to survive). Everything else will be transactional, processes to adhere to, ones soon obsolete or automated. If a transaction doesn’t morph into a interaction and ultimately an experience – it will never escape the time horizon (point of no return) of automation and low value-ness.

To discuss traits of transactions, interactions and experiences is another post of mine.

4. New ways of working. Real estate, travel and the services industry took the brunt of the blitzkrieg. We suddenly realised (overnight) that we could achieve alot of things , much more than the post war S-curve leaders (present forward captains)  would have us know. We didn’t really need those corner offices, rooms/cubicles (+other industrial age comforts) to function. In fact, some teams functioned  better as multidisciplinary contributors collaborated, pods coalesced and hierarchies flattened.

We need to jump onto a better world S-curve. Not everyone will make it. And those that don’t will have to face obsolescence. Industries will be eradicated, merged, coalesce and reinvented . Along with it jobs, and skills . Underpinning all this of course, is the way we work. Borderless. Skills aplenty – acute global competition, imagine competing against artisanal and mastery in whichever art, science, tech – they will come from the brightest in China, India, anywhere really. So be good, so good, at doing something – you can pay others to do the rest. Not easy, bcos we will need to be artisanal. Lifelong mastery is the only way – Bushido conduct of our chosen fields. Ikigai. I draw an example: big box retailers have nearly been wiped out- in their wake, the specialist boutiques/brands like Uniqlo, and now in more recent times, Amazon. Everything will be headed the same way, and timelines will hasten post pandemic. It’s a rat race previously – it’s quicksilver now. And these cycles will becomes faster, and faster- shedding mass (obsolete players) in this infinite game. In this game we only play to better ourselves.

I worry that the majority of the workforce isn’t equipped with the right skills – but before even that, without the right thinking. To first be aware this is the pandemic of our times. I don’t feel our current cadre of leaders are losing sleep over this. They’re still busy justifying their own salaries and rooms and worldly possessions. Nothing wrong with that (they’ve “earned” it much as their forefathers have) – but don’t forget that that was the post-war S curve we are talking about. The physics of current day post pandemic economics just doesn’t compute the same. The book titled “What got us here, won’t get us there” seems apt. Again, it’s not a millennial, age thing. I’ve team members much younger thinking the same, and “mentors” from past that are still heavily vested in present forward thinking. Nothing wrong with that. We just need a (re)balance.