5 days: 5 issues. Experience Academy Issue 1 - Pancake metrics |
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In the words of Philips’ Josephine Green: we are going from pyramids to pancakes. We have to leave the pyramid which was all about one truth that has to be communicated downwards from the top, and go towards the pancake which is more about equality and networks. This also means that values, behaviors and organizational principles have to change.
By looking at the differences between the pyramid and the pancake, you can learn to approach things differently. For example: success. According to Webster, success is the ‘accumulation of wealth, power and prestige/status’. But this actually is a very pyramid-like way of thinking. Because in the world of pancakes, success might in fact mean something completely different, like the maximalisation of people’s wellbeing. And then you would also need other metrics because what is measured is usually what is going to be managed.
Also market research is based on false assumptions as was explained by Ep Köster. It is only focused on the short term and first impressions, and is very transactional. First impressions (for example of new products) are based on surprise, and predict almost nothing about later preferences. People are often asked to weigh things and analyse them etc, which is completely unnatural behavior. It makes people think rationally and causes them to switch off their feeling brain. We feel before we think according to Dan Hill, so we should be measuring what people feel if we really want to know how they value something, and we shouldn’t ask them for their rationalized responses afterwards.
Without the appropriate metrics, it’s impossible to ask the right questions and to manage experiences in an appropriate way. The challenge is still how to measure immaterial values. Or as Einstein once phrased it: Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts. May this be an invitation to discussing what the ‘new’ metrics might or should be.
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Yes - as someone interested in re-defining the experience of a town centre, through bottom up change, i am keen to understand what metrics would give any ideas real and communicable traction. proving that change has been for the good is the new battleground in this post credit-crunch world. the first out of the blocks in devising these new metrics will transform lots of rules for both business and government. let’s face it both are so self-serving and in need of a humanity overhaul. one doesn’t need to look any further than Barak Obama and his campaign - the campaign for “you”.
Changing behaviour of voters and consumers is something that will happen as soon as such metrics can be devised, and the first to do so has the opportunity - as long as a worked example can be used as evidence - to create a new form of governance. But it all needs to revolve around REWARD. small change plus metrics plus reward equals big behavioural change, with a very long tail.