Being creative ain’t easy. There is something about putting yourself into your work that can be hugely rewarding, but also massively exhausting. Doing something without putting your heart and soul into it can come with its own drawbacks, but at the end of the day the results of your work are not tied directly into how you see yourself.

For people who consider themselves to be creative and work in creative roles, the sense of burnout can be real.

At the same time, creative work can be invigorating and rewarding in the right context, giving the right leadership, and working for the right clients.

This is what Mack Garrison was trying to create when he founded Dash Studio, where they make videos that matter. Dash is a ‘high-end animation and motion design studio that believes in the power of creativity and community.’ This is one of the lessons that he learned in the 9 plus years that Dash has been doing business. A big part of their success comes from community: communities of creatives, communities of partners, communities of supporters, and frankly communities of communities.

In fact, you could say that creativity either comes from, or at least is enhanced, by community.

As part of their effort to create community, they have their annual Dash Bash event, June 11-13, 2025.

If you are interested in motion design, or just interested in meeting some great people in Raleigh, NC, check it out. Great speakers, workshops, and social events.

Dash Studio - https://www.dashstudio.net/

Dash Bash - https://www.dashbash.net/

Mack Garrison LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mackgarrison/

I never expected the term “branding” or “brand” to be part of my lexicon, but here we are in 2025 where it seems that “branding yourself” and “what is your brand” are common concepts to discuss. Trying to figure out which version of me will “land” or resonate with not just my “audience”, but anyone.

Iconic brands are something that seem to last forever in our minds. What are some of the iconic brands? Apple. Coca-Cola. IBM. Lego. McDonalds. Doesn’t mean that we even like or use these products. But we for sure recognize those brands.

Another one of those iconic brands is Harley-Davidson. You might not ride a motorcycle, but you know what Harley-Davidson is and what it represents.

But it is not as if Harley-Davidson has been one brand throughout its existence. It has gone through some different iterations of what it is, and how it is seen. But within all of those changes has been a constant of what it was trying to represent.

To explore the brand known as Harley Davidson, we welcome Ken Schmidt to the ExD Studio. Ken originally wanted to be in advertising, but ended up in public and investor relations. His journey in the profession saw him end up as director of communications for Harley-Davidson, where he was involved in the company’s turnaround.

Part of that turnaround involved changing the perception of Harley-Davidson, while also keeping the perception of Harley-Davidson. Harley has been around since 1903. It was doing exclusive production for the military in World War II. When some of those soldiers returned, they wanted to still ride motorcycles. And some of those soldiers had a bit of a hard time re-integrating into polite society. Thus we get groups known as outlaw motorcycle clubs, and movies that imprinted that connection in people’s minds.

Now Harley-Davidson is the motorcycle of a very diverse customer base. You can’t characterize the “Harley rider” other than a person who like comfort, aesthetics, reliability, and yes even noise as part of their riding experience.

We cover a lot of ground in this chat, including voice of the customer, inclusive design, branding and identity, the psychology of choice, and the challenges of changing how you are seen while trying to keep who you are. We also talk about his book “Make some noise: The unconventional road to dominance.”

I will also add that this conversation was before Harley-Davidson publicly announced it would rollback “DEI initiatives,” including partnering with pride festivals and connections with diversity-related groups.

In terms of how it relates to my conversation with Ken, this last paragraph from Harley is definitely relevant:

"We believe having both a broad employee and customer base is good for business and that ultimately everybody should experience the joy of riding a Harley-Davidson. We remain committed to listening to all members of our community as we continue on our journey together as the most desirable motorcycle brand in the world."

Ken Schmidt: https://kenspeaks.com/

Ken Schmidt LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-schmidt-5b08115/

"Make Some Noise" book Link

The New Year is a great time to reflect on our past, and to think about what we want to accomplish in the upcoming year. After all, it is the season of the Annual Performance Review!

Whether in our personal or professional lives, it can be hard to identify what is important in terms of our evaluations. How do we know if we are making progress toward our goals?

The same can be true for companies. What are the metrics that indicate our success? What are the expectations we are trying to meet? How do we stack up against others? What are the benchmarks that we think matter, versus the ones that actually matter?

To explore this question and more around customer experience, we welcome Michelle Spaul. Michelle is a customer experience management consultant with her company Delta Swan. Michelle has a wealth of experience in CX, with the simple goal of trying to make things better for customers. As many of you listening will know, behind that simple goal lies a complexity that can challenge most organizations. Therefore, it is a good thing that Michelle has a background in manufacturing systems engineering. We talk about how that education prepared her for working as an experience engineer.

She describes how her work on the price of oil informs her systems approach to CX. We discuss the importance of a shareholder mindset that creates value for not just customers, but all who are impacted by the business.

We explore how her first job with Phillips around preventing customer returns turned into listening to what customers said, and how that is the foundation of any CX work.

Finally, we talk about how there are a lot of different areas of feedback that we can find if we only look. And that if you get defensive about the feedback, you are missing an opportunity to grow.

Michelle Spaul LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-spaul-customerexperience/

Customer Experience Management Consultant - https://customerexperienceconsultant.co.uk/

"The Price of Oil" - https://www.amazon.com/VFUU-Price-Oil-Michelle-Spaul-ebook/dp/B01D7CTTEK

One of the ways that I describe experience design, and more specifically for the purposes of this episode customer experience, is by asking people to imagine the worst customer experience that they have had. And unfortunately for all of us, there are a lot of them.

It is probably easy to remember the bad experiences. But what about our best experiences. The times that we felt cared for, appreciated, thought of, where someone did something that made us feel valued.

The job of the experience design and CX profession is, in part, to make the positive experiences common and make the negative experiences exceedingly rare.

There is a lesson in Buddhism "that life is inherently full of suffering and that it's impossible to live without it.” But even though life is full of suffering, that doesn’t mean that our customer experiences have to be.

To talk us through these points, we welcome Valerie Peck to the Experience by Design studios. For those in customer experience, Valerie Peck is a well known thought leader. And for sure Valerie has some thoughts about the state of CX and whether companies really care about customers despite their vocal assurances.

We talk about creating experiences versus pushing products, and how being solely about profit can lead to cutting experiential corners. We discuss whether companies really want to have a relationship with their customers, or just perhaps a passing acquaintance. When companies give customers surveys, do they really want to know what customers think? Or is a survey the best way of doing nothing?

Valerie has thoughts on CX consulting and the challenge of working with clients that don’t get it, and frankly don’t want to. We explore companies like Southwest and Boeing who “got it”, only to lose it in the pursuit of profit at the expense of experience rather than because of it.

Finally, Valerie describes applied customer intelligence, the upcoming CX reckoning, why companies should be more like minor league baseball, and how she helps companies stop abusing their customers so that they come back

Valerie Peck LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/valerie-peck-4b143/

Many months ago now, I had the chance to go to the WNDR Museum in Boston. If you google that, it will come categorized as a “tourist attraction.” but it is a lot more than that, especially considering that I wouldn’t classify myself as a “tourist” since I live outside of Boston. More specifically, and even importantly, WNDR is an interactive art museum with immersive art installations. And it was very interactive and immersive. There were a lot of great exhibits that invited you to engage and become surrounded by the creations that were provided there. Whether you are a tourist or not, it is definitely worth a visit.

So it was a very pleasant surprise to find that my guest today actually had an installation at the WNDR Museum. It was this very cool outdoor-type of building where you could be with others and experience an audio and visual immersion of rain and lightning. One of the fun things about it was that you were there with strangers, basically arranged in a way that you were experiencing it together.

I didn’t know that when I first met Leigh Sachwitz to discuss being on the show. But it was one of the, dare I say, “wonderful” things I found out about Leigh and her work with her Berlin-based company flora&faunavisions (FFV). I got to learn about their award-winning work on projects like the Ring Cycle, a digital opera that creates an immersive experience of the work by Richard Wagner. I also learned about her work on the Utopian Garden, described as a story-based immersive, interactive show where participants can tour the world. She described their Flying Up Sparrows event in China, where Buddhist paintings were brought to life.

Finally, she explains their work behind the Genius DaVinci Show that just opened up in Florida this past November. “This exhibition invites you to step into Renaissance Italy to explore Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpieces and inventions up close.” And the great thing about this is the way that educational and entertainment come together to form what Hip Hop artist KRS-One described as “Educatinment.” Or, in Leigh’s words, how do you create experiences that draw people into the moment and produce, empathy, emotional connection, and curiosity.

We covered a lot of other ground, including the science of immersive experiences, how we can co-create our futures together using these kinds of experiences as a prompt, how we can inspire our imaginations to unlock the possibilities of ourselves, and the intersection of Detroit and Berlin as hubs of techno music.

Leigh Sachwitz - http://leighsachwitz.com/

flora&faunavisions - https://www.florafaunavisions.de/

The original goal of those in the field of usability was pretty simple: to make products and environments that were more usable for those who were interacting with them. By looking at how to make better products, there was the potential to make life better as well. If greater profitability could be gained through these efforts, then great. At the same time, this was not necessarily the primary goal. Profit was not to be done over people. Rather, profit would happen when people were happier with their products.

There has been a shift in usability, however. Part of that shift lies in the name itself, which is now known as user experience (or UX). Coined by Don Norman during his time at Apple, UX went beyond just how ‘usable’ a product was. Rather, it referred to the totality of the experience that a user had with the product (which could include usability but was not limited to it). Still, though, the goal was to make things better, if just in a larger scope.

Some things have changed when it comes to UX. Don Norman has criticized contemporary UX as not being ‘real’ ux in the traditional sense. There have been other critiques as well, especially around what is known as ‘dark patterns.’ This kind of UX work uses social science and design to create environments that are manipulative and aimed primarily (or solely) on profit. Or, what might be considered to be the antithesis of UX.

Karen T. Lin also has some thoughts on the direction of UX today, and what might need to be done to fix it. Karen has worked as a Chief Experience Officer and Head of UX for startups and financial institutions. More importantly, in my opinion, she initiated the #StopUXErasure effort which is aimed at restoring UX, as well as reducing the tech supremacy which impacts our lives in negative ways.

We talk about a range of issues related to experience design and user experience, including:

• Product dictatorships – uphill battle in UX in terms of advocating for human-centered design in a company. A lot of the battle is with the power in the company (IT or development). Trying to convince them, if you give up some of your control or power, does that allow us to find out what people actually want
• Profiting because of positive experience rather than at the expense of experience
• What does it mean to have a human and user centered ethos
• The power and politics inherent in design processes, and why it is important to act on behalf of those who are at risk from negative intent

As American troubadour Bob Dylan said, “The times they are a changin’.” I’m recording this one week after the 2024 presidential election. Without delving into the specifics of any particular outcome, one thing that is clear is there are going to be some major changes.

Change can produce a lot of anxiety and uncertainty, even when there are positive changes taking place. It can feel overwhelming, especially when we lose a sense of control over the future.

In reality, there is very little that is in our control. There is a saying that we can’t control people, places, and things. I can only control my reaction to these things, and take the action that I can.

But what action to take? What can and should a person do when the options of action feel limited?

To discuss these topics, we have Donna Dupont. Donna is the Founder and Chief Strategist in Foresight & Design for Purple Compass. Donna has a Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation, which she has applied in healthcare, environment and sustainability, and generally helping organizations think about and plan for the future.

Donna and I talk about:

• the process of future and foresight planning,
• why it is important to maintain a sense of agency during times of massive change
• the place and importance of emotion as part of our planning,
• why doing future planning can sometimes feel like therapy, and
• we talk about how the foresight planning process is a vital part of designing positive futures.

Purple Compass https://www.purplecompass.ca/

Donna Dupont https://www.linkedin.com/in/donna-dupont/

Today we have a fascinating discussion lined up with Alex Nathanson, a technologist, artist, and founder of Energy Transition Design LLC.

In this episode, we'll explore the intricate challenges and opportunities that come with solar-powered technology, particularly solar roof tiles and the broader adoption of renewable energy solutions. Alex will shed light on the high costs and extended installation times that make solar roof tiles less competitive compared to traditional solar panels. We'll also delve into the socio-political dynamics that shape renewable energy adoption and the importance of visibility and awareness in promoting solar technology.

Alex emphasizes the neutrality of solar power, advocating for an unbiased approach to its adoption and the crucial role of actively designing equitable, renewable energy infrastructures. His work, which blends art with themes of energy and sustainability, offers unique insights into how solar-powered art can engage communities and inspire collective action.

Additionally, Alex will share details about his new book project aimed at providing practical design methods for creating solar-powered art. We'll also discuss the significance of interdisciplinary teamwork and the idea of integrating technology within cultural contexts to ensure sustainability.

Stay tuned as we journey into the intersection of art, technology, and climate action, and learn how intentional design can drive meaningful changes in our approach to renewable energy.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-nathanson-2a1727160/

Website - https://alexnathanson.com/index.html

Solar Power for Artists - https://www.solarpowerforartists.com/