All projects: Gel, Jobs, Gootodo, Games, Uncle Mark, Goovite, Blog, Bit Literacy

Introduction to this Newsletter, 2005

Jan 10, 2005

This is my annual opportunity to tell new readers, and remind veteran readers, what Good Experience is all about.

Premise 1: Any business can measurably improve its metrics by examining, and improving, the experience it creates for its customers.

Premise 2: People can enrich their lives by becoming aware of the experience they get from businesses, technology, art, architecture, culture, and other experiential arenas.

Premise 3: The best way to learn about good experience is to *have* a good experience.

Good Experience, then, is an invitation for both companies and customers to think about experience - what's created, what's received - and how to find, create, and recognize good experiences in the world. I try to make the newsletter itself a "good experience," to help drive home the message.

The newsletter does focus on customer experience in business, though Fun Stuff and an occasional column reach to larger issues outside the business world. Other Good Experience projects outside the newsletter, like the Gel conference, focus the spotlight on good experiences anywhere - not just in business.

I find that good experience is easy to learn but difficult to teach. This is why I consider myself a facilitator, not a guru. While I have some experience and ideas to offer, the real knowledge comes from other people in the process. For example, at Creative Good, we build our consulting projects around the listening lab, a research process that puts customers in the leadership position. This Is Broken is built from reader's submissions. And at the Gel conference, the real learning comes from the speakers (and, increasingly this year, the attendees themselves).

There are four types of items you'll find in this newsletter, week to week:

1. How-to tips on improving customer experience in business

2. Perspectives on customer experience in general

3. Bit literacy, today's essential skill in the workplace and life (instead of the outdated "computer literacy")

4. Events, projects, and other opportunities for readers to get involved

Below I've listed the main items recently mentioned in each of those four buckets:

- - -

1. How-to tips on improving customer experience in business:

Tips on moderating listening labs

The multi-phased approach (customer experience whitepaper)

Organizational dynamics (The Most Important User Experience Method)

How to Become the VP of Customer Experience