Country music trumps merino socks - How can we create the experiences that people really care for?

Posted by Dan Mohr on 24 December 2011 | 0 Comments
Tags: radical redesign team, caring project, ageing

Christmas has been approaching so fast this year, hasn’t it?  It seemed like December has been under a time lapse rushing to become history. At the radical redesign studio our thinking & doing  caps have been focused on creating the Insights & Opportunities report of the caring project (to be released in January).

Evenings and weekends we’ve spent in look & listen mode in the “ethnography zone” with people in Salisbury and Unley. Those many impressions and thoughts during the intense days of December helped me frame a first hunch to a question that I’ve been schlepping with me: If during the look & listen phase we get to deeply understand people’s life as it play out every day, how can these insights then facilitate experiences that work for people in the creating phases?

It seems an answer to this question might be just under the Christmas tree.

My Christmas shopping of gifts and experiences for the family suffered badly this year. A case of too little too late. While I speak regularly with my family and long-time friends, based in Europe, I haven’t spent much time hanging out with them. We speak about our lives, rather than live them together. So I found it hard to put myself in their shoes, what could help them with their plans for 2012? What experience could give them joy in the new year? Weren’t it for a few tip offs from people around them the stockings would have looked awfully vanilla – timeless pairs of socks that would be little more than trade ins come Boxing Day.

In contrast, it was so easy to think of small but meaningful surprises for the people that have been very happy to share a sliver of their life with me during the last few weeks. People like Leon who is an expert in repairing trailers and find precious metals in old appliances to be sold on to the recycling yard. Or Barbara, a proud Scottish lady who likes to teach her parrots how to speak, and is an expert in preparing tasty short bread, haggis and other delicatessen. Or Daphne who loves decorating cakes but hasn’t done so for many years and firmly believes that cupcakes aren’t sold at up and coming purveyors of specialist patisseries.

I’ve started to understand where people are coming from and where they want to go. Leon likes for instance spending more time line dancing at the country music or to enjoy a nice bottle of Shiraz with friends. Barbara loves a voucher for delicatessen and for trips to meet people again who share her wicked sense of humor. Daphne likes an assortment of cupcakes with fancy frosting and her husband Dudley likes that ticket for a day of respite at the car races to soak in the action and the hypnotising noise.

During the times spent together a little magic happened. Tuning a classic V8 with layers of dust on its bonnet with Dudley in a fully kitted out work shop with cob webs, or spending time with Leon at the country music were the stepping stones to grasp their ideas of what a good day in their life looks like. With this experience in mind it is then possible to work out not only what they’d like more of in their lives but also what would make a good gift for them -  a gift that gets them closer to their idea of a good life.

So next time I want to fill the stocking of someone that I care about I’ll better make sure I first understand through experiencing where they come from and where they’re going to avoid that vanilla pair of socks experience.