Experience by Design

I think I am being honest when I say that I have never eaten at a Cracker Barrel. I may have once or twice in my life, but I honestly don’t remember. This is not out of any ideological reason or intentional decision. It just never happened. Never seemed like a place I would want to go when passing by. Given that there are four Cracker Barrel’s in Massachusetts, it is hardly an option. I don’t think I’m missing out on it, but you ca...

For parents who have school-aged children, it is the most wonderful time of the year when the children are gone from the house and return to places of learning, or at least someplace other than bothering their parents. We love are children dearly, but loving them when they are somewhere else is a welcome reprieve. 

Each new school year presents some amount of changes in how education is done. Part of this is rooted in our evolving u...

I am just back from a vacation that took me across three states, one Navajo reservation, and some federal land in the southwest of the United States. Departing the humid and heavily greened northeast to the dry and brown and red landscapes of the southwest was a major transition. I have never spent that much time in that part of the country, so it was, you might say, quite the experience. Traveling throughout the region really reve...

Throughout my career as a sociologist, I have come to the conclusion that people find sociologists annoying on a deeply personal level. Anthropologists have great stories about travelling to exotic locations. People seem to really appreciate psychology because they think it helps them to better understand why people do the things they do. Historians, while might be boring with their details and minutiae of past events, at least hav...

One of the things that I have come to thoroughly enjoy as a type of past time is the learning about the history of World War II in the Pacific theater. A book that I have been listening to recently is “Japanese Destroyer Captain” by Captain Tameichi Hara. It is amazing listening to give a version of things from the perspective of a Japanese naval commander who went through the Imperial Japanese Naval college at Etajima and then saw...

Being a sociologist means that there often are only so many opportunities to “do sociology” in a way that has impact. It is not that sociology doesn’t have value and practical applications. On the contrary, I would consider it one of the most useful and practical disciplines. But it can be hard to combine the opportunity to do practical application while working in an academic environment. I am very lucky that I found one such plac...

Stories are the ways that we can relate our experiences to others. It is the most primary form of human communication, which makes it kind of ironic that people seem to be discovering the importance of storytelling. Through stories things become memorable, or more easily remembered. Growing up going to Catholic school, I might have a hard time remembering the Ten Commandments or the Beatitudes, I could remember the gist of the para...

The Employee Experience MBA class that I'm teaching this summer is in full swing, with a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time. One of the things that I emphasize out of the gate is that employee experience is about optimizing the organization for the employee. Or, put simply, treat your employees like human beings, and treat them well. Shocking I know. But there is something about some organizations and business that ca...

Summer is in full swing, and with summer for academics comes the typical question, “Do you have summers off?” I can’t speak for all academics, but summers don’t mean the lack of work, but the shifting of work. We go from our primary focus being on teaching and into other pursuits that we don’t have time for during the school year. Typically that means research and writing.  For me, it is no different. I’ve been doing a lot of writi...

Happy Fourth of July to everyone out there, as I record this on the day before the 4th. For those in the US, this is the day that we celebrate our independence from the British. No offense to our British listeners. But to be fair, we are not alone in our desire to kick the British out. Nice to see that we could put that ugliness behind us. Now we are happy to closely monitor Royal Family news, refurbish British shows to suit our ow...

I’m currently working on a book called Experience by Design, and by currently I mean the last three-plus years. You could say it is a work in progress. But as the saying goes, “progress, not perfection.” When all you see is the goal, it can be hard to see the progress you are making. So making progress I am, and hopefully I’ll have something to share about that soon. If you would be interested in checking out drafts of chapters for...

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One of the things that I am starting to notice more and more is the difference between “getting older” and “feeling older.” Getting older is something that is unavoidable as long as we’re alive. But I find feeling older comes in waves. I am finding that seeing another child graduate high school is another moment in which I am impacted by feeling older. My daughter Hailey has reached the end of her high school years, which is more b...

Parenting children is definitely one of the hardest challenges that we can face in life. But as challenging as that is, it is nothing compared to reparenting your inner child. Some of you might be familiar with that turn of phrase. It refers to the process of dealing with childhood trauma, and “short-falls” in the manner in which you were parented in the first place, especially in relation to nurturing, support, care, and emotional...

I’m lucky enough to live in a spot where there are a lot of trails that I can enjoy whether running, walking, biking, and even snowshoeing if we get enough snow. No matter what I am doing, I have one simple rule: if there is a friendly dog on the trail, I must stop to pet it. The opportunity to pet and engage with random dogs is one of the things that just brings me a lot of happiness. It is hard for me to understand those who are ...

We are rapidly approaching the end of semester, which can only mean one thing: freedom. The end of the semester is always a weird time. It kind of reminds me of the end of a relationship where both parties have just had enough and know that it is time to move on. Let us conclude the business at hand and get on with our lives. Sure we can stay friends, and perhaps even hold out the potential of getting back together at some point in...

Springtime in New England is the worst. As I sit here on another cold and rainy “spring” day, I’m reminded of what I was told by someone when I first moved to Boston 25 years ago: “Springs in New England are wonderful.” I never trusted another word that person said after I experienced it for myself. 

Part of it is the waiting for something better that you hope is right around the corner in terms of sunny skies and warmer weather. An...

I always feel a bit bad complaining about getting older, because getting older is not a privilege afforded to everyone. At the same time, getting older does present certain challenges. I was able to get a glimpse into aging the other day when I went to get my eyes examined. Turns out that the middle of the day at the eye doctor is peak time for those who are, shall we say, of a demographic much more advanced than I. It definitely w...

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the great things about doing a show like this is the fascinating people I get to talk to who are coming at experience design from many different approaches, perspectives, and backgrounds. One of the groups that I perhaps enjoy talking to the most (no offense to anyone else) is artists. I’ve always admired the ability to turn imagination and passion into something that expresses one’s soul in a way t...