Afleveringen
-
About Simon Ong:
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-ong-89095b12/
Website: https://kingsmen-int.com
email: [email protected]
Bio:
Kingsmen Creatives / Singapore / Deputy Chairman / Co-founder
Simon Ong oversees the strategic planning and development, as well as the creative and brand standards, of Kingsmen, a leading communication design and production group with 18 offices spanning the Asia Pacific region and North America. One of the Groupâs two founders, he has significantly contributed to its growth.
Simon is actively serving in the creative industry and is currently an honorary advisor to the Society of Interior Designers Singapore and a member of Singapore Interior Design Accreditation Council. He served as the Chairman of the design sector of Singapore Workforce Development Agency, and a board member of SHOP!, a leading Association of Retail Environments in USA. In 2019, he was inducted into the SHOP! Hall of Fame in recognition of his significant contributions to the industry. Most recently, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Interior Designers Singapore for his substantial contributions to the design industry.
An ardent advocate of education, Simon currently serves as a board director of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. He served as a member of the Advisory Board to the School of Design & Environment at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Temasek Polytechnic School of Design, and a member of the Design Education Review Committee, Singapore (DERC). He was the former Chairman of the School Advisory Board of Cedar Girlsâ Secondary School, and Vice-Chairman of the Potong-Pasir CC Management Committee.
Simon graduated with a Masterâs Degree in Design from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of South Australia.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to Episode 88! of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast and my conversation with Simon Ong the Deputy Chairman & Co-founder of Kingsmen Creatives in Singapore..
* * * *
As we come to a different phase of our professional life you get to thinking back over the years that you invested in growing something
that it was hard but it was also fun
it was challenging and it was sometimes desperate
sometimes you felt elation sometimes you worried about how we're going to pay the next bill
there's a cycle of experience in 50 years of growing a company like that is worth reflecting on and saying âyou know we have had big wins and weâve made mistakes
we've learned a lot about ourselves and how to grow a business - how to remain relevant.
I think the relevancy issue means having a sense of empathy tapping into the zeitgeist around you and saying i need to relate to that because if i don't Iâll become irrelevant and i can't i can't communicate
The challenge is put to new leaders and old to listen, be introspective, be flexible to adjust to the sometimes overwhelming sea of change between now and next.
You hopefully get better at saying both been there done that and been there not doing that anymore period.
When early in my retail design career I had, I guess I would call her a mentor, Jackie Glanz the president of a store fixture manufacturing company called MG Concepts and I recall her drilling into me some core lessons about business and marketing, namely
respond to the e-mail or phone call - immediately don't wait because everybody's time is valuable not just yours and it's a sign of respect of the other individual to get back to them right away never burn a bridge especially in the context of a retail community that once you reach a certain level everybody knows everybody else and word travels fast.Maintain your industry friendships even when they are halfway around the world. Because you just never know when you're going to come into a situation where reaching out will make the difference between growth and stagnation, or success and failure or a door opening up or door being closed.
It could be with some of those relationships that you never actually do business with them with the mutual support and the benefit of connection extends beyond a project or profit in the physical sense but sometimes is more valuable in a sense of community already perhaps spiritual way the people along your path make a difference.
I have often shared with people that I certainly like working on projects but in the end it's relationships that I value most.
I'm sure all of us have worked on what we would presume to be great projects but the relationship chemistry just didn't work and it made what was presumed to be wonderful more woeful.
And the reverse⊠where projects were of average scope or prestige and ended up being prized because of the people
there was a sense of community, a shared responsibility, a willingness to extend beyond what was asked for and to bring something new to the world even though it wouldn't end up winning a prize in design competition or being on the cover of a trade publication.
You stayed doing one thing long enough and you actively engage in the community of your profession working with other leaders to define ideas or policies or grow an emerging cohort of young designers and architects into roles you also begin to have in a certain sense your own brand which is very much about what you believe in not necessarily what the things you bring into the world look like and certainly not a logo.
Beyond the image is the intention, the ideological orientations that drive what you do every day that ultimately give meaning to the things that you focus your time on and that you hope other people align with.
Having a point of view that drives your decision-making matters.
And for the individual, as well as large international mega brands, it is important that what you do and what you say are aligned. When these two things are at odds, it's not hard to see the disconnect, and trust and credibility are critical foundational elements to long term relationships Whether those relationships are personal between you and your work colleagues or between you and your clients.
In a crowded marketplace where many professional firms offer the same services and you might say are equally as good at providing them what is the differentiating factor between a client choosing you over the next guy?
Sometimes, it's simply a feeling a feeling about how the relationship might progress through the phases of a project is the best way to know if the project will be successful...
And this is where we bring in my guest on this episode Simon OngâŠ
Simon Ong is the Deputy Chairman & Co-founder of Kingsmen Creatives in Singapore
He oversees the strategic planning and development, as well as the creative and brand standards, of Kingsmen, a leading communication design and production group with 18 offices spanning the Asia Pacific region and North America.
After 50 years in the experience design industry, Simon is still actively engaging and is currently an honorary advisor to the Society of Interior Designers Singapore and a member of Singapore Interior Design Accreditation Council.
He served as the Chairman of the design sector of Singapore Workforce Development Agency, and a board member of SHOP!, a leading Association of Retail Environments in USA. In 2019, he was inducted into the SHOP! Hall of Fame in recognition of his significant contributions to the industry.
Most recently, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Interior Designers Singapore for his substantial contributions to the design industry.
An ardent advocate of education, Simon currently serves on multiple academic helping to shape the curriculum of young designers entering into the Experience design industry.
I got together with Simon at Euroshop in Dusselddorf, Germany and sat down for a conversation about his career path, growing a business, design thinking and more.
I am grateful to having Simon both share his experience and to have known him for half of his 50 years in the business.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT NAOMI CLARE CRELLIN:
Naomi Clareâs LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/naomi-clare-crellinWebsites:
storycraft.education (Company)
belongingplaybook.com (Company)
storycraftlab.com (Company)
Email: [email protected]
BIO:
Naomi Clare Crellin is a visionary leader who excels in transforming intent and insights into actionable, accessible strategies.
As the Founder and CEO of Storycraft Lab, she specializes in refining big ideas and concepts into meaningful and measurable experiences. Naomi is adept at mapping strategic processes that guide both teams and clients from development through delivery, helping to define goals, refine messages, and measure the impact of the stories crafted.
Her expertise lies at the intersection of spatial experience and messaging, having collaborated with a diverse range of organizations including Microsoft, Motorola, Bloomberg, the IFC, the Smithsonian, the Human Rights Campaign, and many more.
Beyond her work at Storycraft Lab, Naomi has served as an adjunct faculty member, bringing her passion for education into the classroom. She partners with organizations dedicated to making the world a better place, inspiring students to harness their creativity and curiosity. As an empowering educator and experience strategist, Naomi is committed to helping others succeed.
She finds immense joy in co-creating with teams, generating engagement, and telling stories through interactions. Her dedication to collaboration and innovation is at the heart of her work, and she loves the impact she and her teams create together.
Naomi Clare Crellin is not just a leader but a catalyst for change, fostering an environment where ideas flourish, and meaningful experiences are crafted.'
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to Episode 87! of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcastâŠ
In every episode we follow our catch phrase of having âDynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts.â
And as we continue on this journey, weâll continue to invite guests on our journey that are thought provoking futurists, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.
Weâll talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections between our mind-body and the built world around us.
If you like what you hear on the NXTLVL Experience Design show, make sure to subscribe, like, comment and share with colleagues, friends and family.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is always grateful for the support of VMSD magazine.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. I think the IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Today, EPISODE 87⊠I talk with Naomi Claire Crellin is a visionary leader who excels in transforming intent and insights into actionable, accessible strategies. Her work uses story as a vector towards belonging.
Naomi believes that a well-told story builds trust and genuine peer-to-peer connection in audience advocacy. This in turn bolsters personal growth and psychological safety; encouraging participants to take calculated risks towards innovation.
Weâll get into all of that in a minute but first a few thoughts...
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites:
https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
Bio:
David Kepron the Retail Studio Principal for the architecture and design firm Little (https://www.littleonline.com). He is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
-
ABOUT JOE PINE:
Joeâs LinkedIn profile; linkedin.com/in/joepine
Websites:
strategichorizons.com (Blog)
StrategicHorizons.com (Company)
strategichorizons.com (Personal)
SHOW INTRO:
Today, EPISODE 86⊠I talk with Joe Pine Joe Pine, an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups alike...
* * * *Iâve been in the world of retail place-making for a few decades. 3 would qualify as âa fewâ I guess. I took a detour for a few years in the late 20-teens, shifting from retail design into the play space of hospitality â a wonderful diversion.
The transition was transformative to be sure. I got to re-imagine what I knew about customer experience place making in terms of retail stores and turn my lens towards another fascination â hotels.
The interesting thing that emerged was the recognition that in the world of retail everyone, brands, and retail designers and architects alike, were all going on about experience.
Now this in and of itself was curious because Iâd been designing stores for a couple decades, and I couldnât recall one client who had ever come to the game and said â âhey lets create a really miserable experience for our customersâŠâ ââŠLetâs make it hard to understand the assortment, hard to read the labels, bathe the product in bad lighting, have people walk the store not being able to find the thing they came in for, etcâŠâ
Not one.
Ironically though, while many clients never asked for that, we have all had the experience of that exactly being the case in many stores we go to.
So no,⊠creating a bad experience was never the strategy. We retail designers always sought to create places where positive experience was key. The stuff was important to be sure, but the experience - the emotional residue of the retail interaction - was what was critically important.
The stuff was supposed to deliver on what it purported to do, fit well, wear well, not break down, taste good, make you feel better, whatever⊠it was supposed to work. Otherwise why buy it?
In some cases, the stuff just had to deliver on its practical, functional level, it didnât need to give you more than that. It was a commodity that lived up to its promise.
In other cases the stuff delivered on function but gave you oh so much more on an emotional, socio-cultural, psychological, spiritual, level⊠and all of that is about brand relevance and emotional impact of owning the thing â what it says about you.
Itâs like looking at the difference between a paper bag which you could get for about 5 cents and a Birkin bag for which youâd drop $50,000. They both provide the same functional use â they carry other stuff â I think we could make a pretty sound argument that that is true. But now the Birkin bag, well⊠it is supposed to offer you so much more about who you are, and what tribe you run with and a host of other non-tangibles that deeply connect us to a brand. Things way beyond function.
And if the paper bag got wet and fell apart, well⊠you could be confident that for the price of the Birkin bag you could literally get a million replacements.
The interesting thing about the stuff, or services, in retail places whether a commodity or something altogether magnificent and magical was that in either case we had to wrap it in positive experience. Mess up the experience and youâve damaged the relationship. And repairing that rupture can take some time.
So, experience matters because the overt and subtle messaging that accompanies a shopping trip is important in fostering the long-term connection between a customer, product (or service) and the brand.
The value proposition that determines my choice of one brand or retailer over another canât just be they have lots of whatever it is at low prices. Price point and SKU count are not differentiators in an economy where you can get virtually anything on Amazon and have it delivered to your door and, as a brand or retailer, you are hoping to engage an emerging cohort of customers who craves more than getting a good deal.
Now... the interesting thing about hospitality is that industry never really sold stuff. You didnât take home the hotel room (at least not until more recently). You took in, and took home, experience - the body memory and emotional residue of being there. Your stuff, as it were, was a camera full of images and tchotchkes bought along the way during the trip that serve as a conduit or a link to, or a trigger of memories and emotional responses to experiences previously lived.
You donât bring home the hotel room, though you can now buy the Westin Heavenly bed and all of the linens â I have often wondered why, if I love the room dĂ©cor, I canât just walk around with my phone and point it at QR codes on everything and in a flash have the whole thing purchased and sent off to my home or apartment to redo the guest room â or my own bedroom for that matter?
SoâŠin the end retail sells stuff and wraps it in experience and hotels only sells experience though the industry is starting to get it that selling stuff may extend the brand experience beyond the hotel stay into your homeâŠ.
Another interesting distinction between hospitality and retail is time.
In the hospitality world you spend an overnight or maybe a few days immersed in the brand experience. In a retail store dwell time is often measured in seconds or minutes. This matters because it suggests that retail has to come on strong and be impactful quickly, capturing interest and trying to hold it. Everyone in retail knows the longer the stay the more conversion â larger basket size. Get customers to linger longer and their consideration of other things that were not on their primary shopping list begin to be a little more interesting.
There are environments that sell spectacle, the digitally immersive environments that we see emerging into the market like Moment Factory Lumina walks, meow wolf, the Monet digital experiences and things like Artechouse. While they are visual captivating, what is being sold is time in the form of 20-minute shows and 2 hour walks in a midnight forest.
Time is the currency of experiences, and more companies should figure out how to charge for it. The both challenge and opportunity here is that in an economy that seems to be time starved because our attention is so fractured into micro moments, time and attention are intricately intertwined.
And the rules of basic economics are at play suggesting that the more scarce something is the more expensive it becomes to acquire it. Customer acquisition when pedaling time becomes a costly endeavor. But then time seems to pass by without notice when experience is built on a good story. All good experiences engage the imagination in narrative. We are built for story more than logic though we have believed the at later is the dominant prowess of our species.
And stories directly effect our neurobiology in remarkable ways that allow the narrative to come alive in us. Remember, that we came to understand the world through dance, rhythm and stories told around fires for millenia - even before language became a prime vehicle for expression. Our affinity for story is deeply woven into our very beings. So, all great experiences are built on great stories.
Narrative manifest become brand experience places.
These places for selling goods and services are like stage sets for stories to unfold.
I love the theatre and have always felt that retailers and brands should instruct their sales associates to act out their parts in the brand narrative and embrace the idea of theater as a customer interaction strategy.
Iâve always thought of the theatre as something into which I dove for a time, becoming full emersed in the story and emerged somehow changed. I learned something I didnât know previously, saw the world from a different point of view, I would become one of the characters in the story and was, may be, in some way transformed.
Certainly during the performance, I was definitely in and out of body state â no longer me. The world beyond the story unfolding in front of me disappeared for a time.
And so great experiences can also be transformative...
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT JOE BAER:
Joeâs LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/joe-baer-4479385
Websites:
zengenius.com
visual911.com
Email: [email protected]
BIO:
Joe is the Co-Founder, Creative Director, and CEO of ZenGenius, Inc., an experiential design firm specializing in visual merchandising and event design. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Joe brings over three decades of mastery in innovative leadership and creative direction to the design, visual merchandising and special events industries.
He has extensive knowledge of the customer journey from working in stores for decades and is a seasoned public speaker who has traveled the world to inspire and educate others through the art of visual merchandising, design and special events.
Additionally, Joe has contributed his retail know-how to multiple publications, authored The Art of Visual Merchandising: Short North, and created one of my favorite events in the retail industry the Iron Merchant Challenge, a popular interactive visual merchandising competition held annually at the International Retail Design Conference.
Joeâs passion for the world of design is evident in his role as President of the PAVE Global leadership board - a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation with the mission to support, connect, and inspire the next generation of professionals in the retail design, visual merchandising, and consumer environments industry.
He also holds Advisory Board roles at Columbus College of Art and Design and VMSD Magazine.
SHOW INTRO
Welcome to Episode 85! of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcastâŠ
In every episode we follow our catch phrase of having âDynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts.â
And as we continue on this journey, weâll have guests that are thought provoking futurists, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.
Weâll talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections between our mind-body and the built world around us.
If you like what you hear on the NXTLVL Experience Design show, make sure to subscribe, like, comment and share with colleagues, friends and family.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is always grateful for the support of VMSD magazine.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. I think the IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Today, EPISODE 85⊠I talk with Joe Baer of Zen Genius an experiential design firm specializing in visual merchandising and event design. Joe had spent more than 3 decades working the in the retail industry bringing visual merchandising know-how to the creation of emotionally resonant branded places. Visual merchandising is allot more than simply making things look good in a store. Itâs very much about 3D storytelling, sensory experiences, emotions and making places sing as Joe explains.
Weâll get there in a minute but... first a few thoughtsâŠ
* * * *
Monique worked in the visual merchandising department
she was the director there and I was the director in the interior design department
our two programs ran concurrently we shared some students across our programs but we seldom actually shared lunch
And so it was slightly strange but intriguing that she invited me to have lunch with her across the street from the college at a little Thai place
We sat down, talked about students and then - more as a throw away - she said âthey want me to go to SingaporeâŠâ
And I waited for the next sentence.
âBut I don't really want to go to Singapore.â she said. âI'd have to leave here. I'd have to leave my son who's thinking about collage a few years and I'd really just prefer to stay in Montreal.â
And then there was a silence.
âSingapore?!â I said.
âI don't even know where Singapore is. That's in Southeast Asia, right? â
âyeah, it's like on the other side of the world.â she said.
âSounds exotic. I'd go for sure. Besides, I love Chinese food. I could eat it every day.â
âReally?â she said .
âSure, why not? I'd love to go. I love the whole idea of adventure.â
âWell anyway,â she said, âI donât know what they are going to do if I donât go. Itâs to be the Director of the visual merchandising program in an international fashion school and theyâve got no one else who could do it.â
âNo seriously, Iâd go. I mean I have no idea about what you do and⊠Iâm a guy and that means genetically I actually donât like shopping and Iâve only ever designed the escalator and fountain at the Eaton center.
But let them know that Iâd do it.â
We finished lunch, climbed over the snowbank of freshly plowed snow, crossed the street to get back for afternoon classes and a few weeks later I was walking down the stairs of a plane in the stultifying humidity at Changi airport.
Monday morning, I was the program Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School ⊠in Singapore⊠and⊠I had no idea what I was doing but knew my career had taken a significant and abrupt turn.
The world of retail design had found me, and I never looked back for the next 20 years.
Over those 20 plus years I learned from some masters in retail design and visual merchandising. I arrived in New York after a year, spent an afternoon with Gene Moore, was introduced to Peter Glenn and ended up working with Joe Weishar New Vision Studios. I spent the next four years listening to and watching Joe talk about visual merchandising practice as both art and retail strategy.
For Joe Weishar visual merchandising wasn't just a display tactic but was a creative discipline that blended art, design and retail psychology.
He merged visual perception and design principles and he would layout a store or a wall with the same mechanics of laying out a composition of a painting â proportions, scale, focal points. He celebrated Visual merchandising as an art form that shaped memorable experiences rather than simply placing products on the shelves
All of those basic art principles were things that I was deeply familiar with. I had been in private art studios that my parents put me in at the age of nine because they recognized my passion for painting.
I had gone to architecture school and spent the first eight years of my career doing traditional architectural projects â museums, libraries, houses, schools⊠that sort of thing and I taught the design same principles of scale proportion, balance, color, harmony and how you could use those things ultimately to tell a story to students in a Collegeâs interior design program in Montreal.
Even in those early years of my career in the late 90s, I was learning that retail stores needed to be engaging the senses, and we should be thinking about creatively implementing textures, variations in lighting as well as sound and scent and not just focusing on what customers would experience with their eyes.
I was learning that the senses were conduits for emotion and memory - that if you implemented design principles and thoughtful sensory-based visual merchandising elements correctly, that they would help to fill shopping baskets and engage customers in long-term relationships with a brand.
These sorts of environments that engaged the senses would increase loyalty and invite return visits because, in the end, the store was simply a backdrop, a theater set for the full-bodied experience of a brand where main feature was the merchandise.
If you thought of merchandise as elements in a composition and wrapped them in memorable display moments, it could make stores sing.
This sort of thinking positioned retail as experience design rather than a purely commercial layout. The goods were a necessary part of the equation to be sure, but as I working through the foundational years of a retail design career, I saw that great retail places were more than a depository for stuff to be consumed, they had a palpable emotional resonance, they had soul.
It was remarkable to me then, as a young retail architect, that we were designing with the purpose of sellingâŠbut it was more than that. Great stores fulfilled basic needs, desires and dreams. They were places for relationship building, with people as well as brands.
They were story telling places that helped to message group belonging, wellbeing, connection and status. They were places where displays werenât random; they were meant to guide customers through a narrative journey. Every element was intentional, geared towards telling a brand story that invited the customer to participate in the storyâs unfolding.
All of the effort that the designers, merchants and visual teams put into making the store wasnât just about âmaking it look good,â but making it work well.
The design and visual strategy had to be grounded in retail metrics and customer behavior. In the end, our job as co-authors of this retail experience script was to move product.
We would calculate merchandising units per square foot. We thought about how product would flow through a department from delivery to markdown and how adjacencies were critical â why groups of products were located next to what other products.
We knew how many units had to sell in a department to make the financials work. There was business behind the beauty. Visual merchandising was a silent seller as author Judy Bell would say.
In my early years, we didnât think too much about what happened to all the stuff after the store had aged or the season had changed. Graphics, fixtures and display items shifted along with the seasonal changes, holidays or special promotions. And a lot of it just got trashed.
We began to think more deeply about the sustainability factor of our work and the impact of retail place making on our environment. It was no longer acceptable that the disposable economy would direct the design of store without any consideration for how it was eventually ending up in landfill sites.
Lighting, manufacturing processes, materials, and lifecycles came under more scrutiny. These days, thinking about the sustainable nature of how we design and build stores is very much at the forefront of our thinking from the get-go. Design firms are becoming B-Corporations whose mission is to be better stewards of our little blue dot.
Along the way, teaching - both our clients as well as students in design programs - was something that never left the radar. What had been the precipitating moment - going from teacher to running a visual merchandising program at an international school in Singapore - would remain key to my professional experience.
And this is where we can bring in my guest Joe Baer into the story. Joeâs story is so familiar because it is so similar. While we came to the retail world from different angles, our paths have many parallels and similarity in purpose â despite being from different orientations in the retail place-making paradigm.
Joe is the Co-Founder, Creative Director, and CEO of ZenGenius, Inc., an experiential design firm specializing in visual merchandising and event design.
Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Joe brings over three decades of mastery in innovative leadership and creative direction to the design, visual merchandising and special events industries.
He has extensive knowledge of the customer journey from working in stores for decades and is a seasoned public speaker who has traveled the world to inspire and educate others through the art of visual merchandising, design and special events.
Additionally, Joe has contributed his retail know-how to multiple publications, authored The Art of Visual Merchandising: Short North, and created one of my favorite events in the retail industry the Iron Merchant Challenge, a popular interactive visual merchandising competition held annually at the International Retail Design Conference.
Joeâs passion for the world of design is evident in his role as President of the PAVE Global leadership board - a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation with the mission to support, connect, and inspire the next generation of professionals in the retail design, visual merchandising, and consumer environments industry.
He also holds Advisory Board roles at Columbus College of Art and Design and VMSD Magazine.
Joe leads with passion, purpose, pure joy and believes in celebration so I see our conversation as a celebration of Joe Baerâs commitment to his retail industry involvement.
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites:
https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron the Retail Studio Principal for the architecture and design firm Little (https://www.littleonline.com). He is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon.
I caught up with Bryan at the SHOP Marketplace event in Charlotte and chatted about his focus on shaping what comes next in digital signage and experiential design.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT JENNIFER:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejenniferwalsh/
Websites:
https://www.walkwithwalsh.comBio:
For nearly 30 years, Jennifer has been at the forefront of transformative movements in beauty, retail, & biophilic design. As a consummate innovator, she has been dedicated to reimagining the human experience, whether through pioneering retail concepts, creating immersive outdoor experiences, or driving biophilic design solutions across industries.
In the 1990s, Jennifer founded Beauty Bar, the first experiential omni-channel beauty brand in the U.S., introducing open-sell environments, curbside service, and menâs skincare departments, concepts that reshaped how people shop for beauty. This trailblazing work integrated biophilic principles long before they became mainstream, earning recognition as an industry innovator. After selling Beauty Bar ultimately purchased by Amazon in 2011, she continued to build groundbreaking businesses and brands, always staying ahead of the curve. Another first was created in 2014 with Pride & Glory, a collegiate beauty brand.
Today, she guides large and small scale biophilic design projects to create spaces that promote human flourishing. From Recharge Rooms to retail spaces, homes, schools, and urban landscapes, her work transforms environments into ecosystems of opportunity. All inspired from lived experiences. Jennifer helps organizations leverage the neuroscience of nature to enhance experiences, foster resilience, and build deeper connections within their organizations.SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to Episode 84! of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcastâŠ
In every episode we follow our catch phrase of having âDynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts.â
And as we continue on this journey, weâll have guests that are thought provoking futurists, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.
Weâll talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections betw een our mind-body and the built world around us.
Weâll also have guests who are creative marketing masters from international brands and people who have started and grown some of the companies that are striking a new path for us follow.
If you like what you hear on the NXTLVL Experience Design show, make sure to subscribe, like, comment and share with colleagues, friends and family.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is always grateful for the support of VMSD magazine.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. I think the IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Today, EPISODE 84⊠I talk with Jennifer Walsh who for nearly 30 years, has been at the forefront of transformative movements in beauty, retail, & biophilic design.
Jennifer is an innovator, and has been dedicated to reimagining the human experience, whether through pioneering retail concepts, creating immersive outdoor experiences, or driving biophilic design solutions across industries.
Talking about biophilic design isnât new on the podcast, this time though we bolt on retailing, neuroscience and experience.
This conversation is more introspective and looks at oneâs motivation to change to considering our environments and biophilic design from the point of view of sense of well-being and personal growth.
Weâll get there in a minute but... first a few thoughtsâŠ
* * * *
If you go back to the early episodes of the podcast, youâll come across Bill Browning. Bill and I connected while I was working the hospitality industry and focusing my efforts on the redesign of the Westin guestroom and lobby design strategy.
Billâs world is Biophilic â both literally and philosophically, may be even existentially. He literally wrote the book on Biophilic Designâs 14 principles, which now includes a 15th with the addition of âAwe,â and he has written a more recent publication with Katie Ryan called âNature Inside,â it is a terrific handbook to implementing Biophilic design principles in built environments.
I think a lot about the design of places where nature has been completely eliminated - think major downtown cities in any corner of the world.
It is also not lost on me that when I sit working in my Home Office I have the extraordinarily good fortune to lookout on 2 1/2 acres of green space with a rolling hill down towards a creek that when it rains particularly hard overflows and becomes a small river in my backyard.
But this point of view to my backyard and the way I feel sitting on my deck having a morning coffee is not just about the warm feeling of my cup in my hands but that there are key principles of biophilic design at play - namely refuge and prospect. Being exposed daily to these perspectives towards a forest at the back of my property I have an immediate body sense of calm, wonder and awe.
I see sun rises to the left of my property and sun sets to the right. The re are Canada geese that, like clockwork, fly over my backyard every fall as they migrate South. Iâm attuned to the textures and colors of the sky and the varying degrees of light intensity - bright and brilliant and dreary and diffused.
All of these features of a natural world have the effect of putting me at ease.
In the past few years, I've begun to connect that mind body experience, the somatic experience of natural places, with what I understand about neuroscience and our long evolutionary history of living the largest proportion of our human development among trees - in a real jungle versus the concrete ones that we have now built all around us.
It's no surprise that the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku â forest bathing â is actually therapeutic.
When we immerse ourselves in a forest atmosphere, using all five senses to connect with nature, we are promoting stress reduction and well-being. Slowing down, and taking mindful walks, appreciating sights, sounds, and smells is so good for us and yet many of us, especially those who are city dwellers, rush from place to place making sure to stay on the clock moving from one appointment to the next and filling our schedules every day with a mind-numbing number of things to check off on our To Do List
Taking a moment to disconnect from technology calms the mind and body and has proven benefits like lower stress hormones and boosting immunity.
The multi layered, highly textured and colored natural environments that we have evolved from, are often being replaced by environments of banality that actually have deep psychological effects when we are continually exposed to boring buildings.
Bringing this intuitive sense, that natural environments support well-being, into the design of built environments, and intentionally creating places that reference biophilic principles, often proves very hard to do in a world where efficiency and productivity leading to increased profitability are what we are taught to drive towards as a reflection of success.
Many times, adding plants to a space is an afterthought, like decoration, to make things look better - but they are not really being incorporated as a strategy for building environments to enhance well-being. Interestingly though, when people learn more about how to apply biophilic principles, beyond simply introducing plants as a nod to creating more nature-based experiences, they begin to also understand that their assumptions about adding additional cost may not be well founded.
If you consider designing with nature in mind from the get-go, incorporating principles of biophilic design in the places we build as part of the strategy, then managing the costs is totally achievable.
Anthropologie stores are a great example of introducing living green walls to their stores. Too be sure, these are not without expense both in their implementation and maintenance but the effect of walking up the grand staircase with this green wall rising from floor to ceiling across multiple levels feels wonderful. I still remember one of my first experiences in the Anthropologie store on Regent Street in London and have since sought to find similar experiences in other retail stores around the world.
Design ideas like the green walls in Anthropologie stores is a conscious, intentional, move that enhances experience as well as environmental air quality. We simply feel better when we were places like this and if that turns into reduced absenteeism of associates or increased customer visits then⊠all the better.
There's no question that being under a wash of fluorescent light standing on hard surfaces or sitting in cubicles is perhaps one of the worst ways to be productive and happy in our workplaces. I would imagine that sales associates in Anthropologie stores generally feel better than in big boxes with uniform high intensity lighting, relentless aisles of merchandise, hard surfaces and stale air with no natural sunlight.
Full disclosure, when I look back over my career of designing retail places, very infrequently has the design team spent time considering what it would be like to be a sales associate in one of these places. Standing for hours on end in environments that are depleting leads to poor interactions between sales teams and customers.
Seems kind of obvious but when people feel better in their workplaces, they're more likely to translate that to positive interactions with guests. More positive interactions with guests could naturally lead to larger basket size and increased number of return visits. All good if you're a retailer
And yet, we seldom see retail places that fully embrace ideas that support well-being through the strategic introduction of biophilic design principles.
New disciplines in the world of neuroscience like neuroaesthetics are beginning to be more widely accepted in the design community and there is a broader recognition about the positive effects of creating environments that apply principles of biophilia that enhance a sense of well-being. And while there is a growing trend of wider adoption of neuroaesthetics we need to keep on beating the drum about environments that are actually good for us.
This is where the story leads to my guest Jennifer Walsh.
In the 1990s, Jennifer founded Beauty Bar, the first experiential omni-channel beauty brand in the U.S., introducing open-sell environments, curbside service, and menâs skincare departments - concepts that reshaped how people shop for beauty.
Jennifer says that she just wanted people to feel good when they came into her store and she somehow intuitively knew that introducing elements of biophilia, though I'm not sure that we actually even had a name for it back then, into her store, would attract people, have them stay longer and return more often.
Jenniferâs integration of biophilic principles, long before they became mainstream, earned her recognition as an industry innovator.
After Beauty Bar was ultimately purchased by Amazon in 2011, she continued to build groundbreaking businesses and brands, always staying ahead of the curve.
Today, she guides large and small scale biophilic design projects to create spaces that promote human flourishing.
In retail spaces, homes, schools, and urban landscapes, her work transforms environments into ecosystems of opportunity. All inspired from lived experiences. Jennifer helps organizations leverage the neuroscience of nature to enhance experiences, foster resilience, and build deeper connections within their organizations.
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites:
https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron the Retail Studio Principal for the architecture and design firm Little (https://www.littleonline.com). He is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon.
I caught up with Bryan at the SHOP Marketplace event in Charlotte and chatted about his focus on shaping what comes next in digital signage and experiential design.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT BRYAN:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/bryanmeszaros
Websites:
openeyeglobal.com (Company)marketscale.com/industries/podcast-network/experience-by-design/ (Experience By Design Podcast)experienceunitedsocialclub.com (Experience United Social Club)email: [email protected]
Bio:
Bryan Meszaros is a 25-year veteran of the digital signage and experience design industry, known for blending innovation with measurable impact. As the founder of OpenEye Global, he proved that a small, focused team can deliver big results and helped shape the early evolution of digital engagement.
He later made history as the youngest President of SEGD and the first with a digital centric background, while also contributing to the Digital Signage Federation and Shop! Association to advance industry standards.
Bryan is also the founder of the Experience United Social Club (XUSC), an international networking series all about bringing together creative minds from the AV, digital signage, and design industries to share ideas and collaborate. With global experience across Europe and APAC, he has spoken at major events including EuroShop, ISE, InfoComm, and DSE, and regularly contributes to leading industry publications.
Dedicated to pushing boundaries, Bryan remains focused on shaping what comes next in digital signage and experiential design.
SHOW INTRO:
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to Episode 83! of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcastâŠ
In every episode we continue to follow our catch phrase of having âDynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts.â And as we continue on this journey there will be thought provoking futurists, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.
Weâll talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections between our mind-body and the built world around us. Weâll also have guests who are creative marketing masters from international brands and people who have started and grown some of the companies that are striking a new path for us follow.
If you like what you hear on the NXTLVL Experience Design show, make sure to subscribe, like, comment and share with colleagues, friends and family.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is always grateful for the support of VMSD magazine. VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. I think the IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience. SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Today, EPISODE 83⊠I talk with Bryan Meszaros founder of EpenEye Global. Bryan is a 25-year veteran of the digital signage and experience design industry, known for blending innovation with measurable impact.
Naturally, in a world that is increasingly digitally mediated, Bryanâs business is significantly focused on the emergence of Artificial Intelligence as a tool in his experience place-making toolbox.
Weâll get to more of how Bryan sees the use of AI in digital applications in brand experience places in a minute but... first a few thoughtsâŠ
* * * *
I grew up on Star Trek. They original version with Shatner as Captain James T Kirk. These were the sightly campy years in black and white but wonderfully prescient in foretelling what was to come.
I used to say that my father, who lived to the ripe old age of 97 was so into it that was holding out until he could just beam up through the transporter to the next phase of his existence. We all watched, my 4 brothers and I every week, my mom? Well not so muchâŠ
I got used to thinking about digital communication, robots, space travel and technology integrated into our lives facilitating everything from washing dishes to extending lifespans.
There isnât a day that goes by now where my media consumption doesnât include something on the evolution of Artificial Intelligence. Both the amazing and the alarming.
How it will make workplaces completely different replacing much of what we now do with human brain and brawn with algorithms and computer chips that can fit 1000 computers from the old Star Trek days on your fingertip.
How it is changing the way human brains are wired, though when it comes to our neural networks that trundle along at a speed ridiculously slow compared to the digital pace of change that is exponential and moving at the speed of light.
How as a visualization tool it is becoming indistinguishable from real life people and places. Creating deep fakes that are so good at impersonating humans that avatars are no longer cartoonish but facsimiles of us that are, well, exactly like us - but whose knowledge base is the compendium of all human knowledge that can be accessed on the internet and provide cogent answers to well-crafted prompts and have them served up in a few seconds.
âThe times they are a changinâ but at a pace that even Dillan couldnât have imagined. Donât even get me started about when we finally, and I donât think it is going to take too long, get to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and what that portends for humankind.
I am often concerned for my sons and the world they are growing into as young adults. I wish sometimes that theyâd have had the experience of growing up in the 60âs and 70âs when times were simpler â but of course they werenât really. Every decade has itâs messes â sometime beautiful sometimes not and sometimes each of these ends of the human experience spectrum were happening at the same time.
What we are experiencing now is evolution at a revolutionary pace. A slow simmering flame has exploded into a blast furn ace of change propelling us all, whether we like it or not, on a path that at times seems to be heading towards the edger of a cliff.
Concerned? Well youâd have good reason to be.
But then again, if you accept the Ray Bradburry adage of sometimes while standing at the edge of the cliff âyou need to jump and build your wings on the way downâ, may we all then transform in midflight into some sort of lemmings with wings.
The subject of AI has surfaced a number of times on this podcast notably with data visualization artists like Refik Anadol and architect artist Samar Younes, spatial computing specialist and near futurist Neil Redding and Synchronicity Architect Justin Bolognino. Each of these creators and theorists shape the AI narrative to their own ends, each of them proclaiming the virtues and vices of the technology.
Uses of AI in design and architecture, as well as other industries, is multifarious and, I would admit, well beyond my more general appreciation for using it as an ideation tool and writing assistant in my everyday work.
In the world of experience design there are at least 2 ways - although I would guess many more - to look at it:
- on a very basic level there is the physical integration of digital media facilitated by Ai and then there is actual content that ends up on the digital interface â be it a touch screen kiosk, a display array in a sports bar or an enormous multi-story wall in Times Square.
Getting these screens to work with the environment is always a challenge. Mainly I believe because they come as an afterthought rather than an integrated design solution and part of a digital experience strategy.
In the second case of content, one size does not fit all.
Places and people are different. The same content being played on those screens all day are visual noise detracting from overall experience rather than enhancing it. These days, every minute of every day things are changing. Why should digital content on screen of any size and shape be any different?
If purveyors of brand experiences are not changing content to adapt to customers everchanging needs across the journey, digital content simply becomes part of the visual texture of the environment slipping into irrelevancy and lending nothing to the embodied memory of a place.
This is one area Ai is able to change the game â creating content to meet customer needs more directly.
Now it would be difficult, if not impossible to change digital content in Times Square to continually meet the needs of the thousands of people in that digital epicenter in New York. But then we all carry cell phones â person digital devices.
All of those phones are geolocated. Each of those those has an address â a personal identifier about who it belongs to and bunch of other information about you â personal, financial, home address, etc.
Are a bunch of guys at google looking at you individually as you make your way across Times Square â not really â but your Hazel and Gretel trail of ones and zeros from purchases, GPS searches, app use, etc., etc., tell a lot about you should anyone want to do a little digital forensics.
The idea here is that we are giving up this information every time we turn our phones on. That information isnât snatched from us without our consent (generally) itâs in our service agreement terms and conditions â that impossibly long text that most of us scroll through to the end and click âagree.â
But that information could be used to make your path across Times Square more relevant to you. Perhaps your device communicates with other devices or screens and changes the content that you see.
This isnât quite Minority Report yet, where Tom Cruise courses through a store and the displays are talking to him because they recognize his retinas â but it is possible to create messaging that is more personalized to you, specifically, as a customer.
Digital signage can change either on the wall of as shelf signage.
It is about recognizing your customer and understanding that they are used to creating experience narratives that are more relevant to them because they, in part, have contributed to their making. Want to stay relevant to your customers, new or old? Support their collaboration in the shopping journey offering up opportunities for them to write themselves into the narrative. Story and strategy must be connected. Doing good by your customer is about building a relationship and Ai can support that effort but including engaging digital content that recognizes them as individuals, with relatable and relevant messaging.
But the whole enterprise needs to be seamless. Sometime I think that the best tech is the tech you donât see, but it think it is also perfectly OK to see it if there are no disconnects in journey. Signature moments in the customer journey have to link up so the customer follows the bouncing ball from their first connection point through the purchase moment and then beyond.
And this is where this episodeâs guest comes into the picture.
Bryan Meszaros is a 25-year veteran of the digital signage and experience design industry, known for blending innovation with measurable impact.
As the founder of OpenEye Global, he proved that a small, focused team can deliver big results and helped shape the early evolution of digital engagement.
Bryan was the youngest President of SEGD and the first with a digital centric background, while also contributing to the Digital Signage Federation and Shop! Association to advance industry standards.
He is also the founder of the Experience United Social Club (XUSC), an international networking series all about bringing together creative minds from the AV, digital signage, and design industries to share ideas and collaborate.
With global experience across Europe and APAC, he has spoken at major events including EuroShop, ISE, InfoComm, and DSE, and regularly contributes to leading industry publications.
Bryan likes the idea of staying dedicated to pushing boundaries, so he is a natural fit for the show.
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites:
https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon.
I caught up with Bryan at the SHOP Marketplace event in Charlotte and chatted about his focus on shaping what comes next in digital signage and experiential design.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT DINA TOWNSEND
Dina's Linkedin Profile: linkedin.com/in/dinatownsend
DINA TOWNSEND BIO
As Chief Sales Officer at Mamava, Dina leads the Sales Organization with energy, optimism, and a genuine passion for building connections. She is rooted in the belief that strong business acumen and a meaningful mission can be seamlessly intertwined. After a purpose-driven career pivot from Digital Signage Technology to Mamava, she channels her expertise into propelling sales for this mission-centric company. Beyond her professional endeavors, Dina is a former skydiver, a hobby homesteader, an avid college football fan, and a well-intentioned, albeit average, golfer.
email: [email protected] | 802.347.2111 (o)
Website: www.mamava.com
Say yes to dignified lactation spaces! Be a heroâhere's how you can help.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to Episode 82! of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcastâŠ
In every episode we continue to follow our catch phrase of having âDynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts.â And as we continue on this journey there will be thought provoking futurists, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.
Weâll talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections between our mind-body and the built world around us.
Weâll also have guests who are creative marketing masters from international brands and people who have started and grown some of the companies that are striking a new path for us follow.
If you like what you hear on the NXTLVL Experience Design show, make sure to subscribe, like, comment and share with colleagues, friends and family.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is always grateful for the support of VMSD magazine.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. I think the IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Today, EPISODE 82⊠I talk with Dina Townsend Chief Sales Officer at Mamava a company whose mission is to create a healthier society through infrastructure and support for breastfeeding.
And, along with partners who share in in their purpose of celebrating and supporting breastfeeding, Mamava is moving closer to creating a future where there is a dignified lactation space anywhere a parent may go.
Weâll get to my discussion with Dina in a minute, first though a few thoughtsâŠ
* * * *
A few episodes back I had Claire Coder founder and CEO if Aunt Flow on the show. That was an interesting conversation since we crossed what I think were a few boundaries (at least for me) and we talked quite candidly about menstruation. Not just about the biology of womenâs monthly cycle but about the fact that there are many women who have faced the scenario of getting their period unexpectedly and not have pads or tampons to meet them in their moment of need.
Enter the company Aunt Flow who provides free feminine hygiene products in public restrooms, schools and other public buildings and to Fortune 500 corporate headquarters - for which tens of thousands of women are eternally grateful.
This conversation with Dina Townsend, I guess you could say, falls in the Aunt Flow camp of subjects.
Breast feeding moms was not a subject that I had on the list of things to address on the podcast. But here we are nevertheless with a subject that piqued my curiosity because the company Dina works for, Mamava, checks most of the boxes in our Dialogues on DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and he Artsâ catch phrase.
First offâŠI did not know there was something called the âPump Actâ. For the curious out there, a little internet searching comes up with this:
ââŠThe PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, enacted in December 2022, expands workplace protections for nursing employees by requiring employers to provide reasonable break time and a private, non-bathroom space for pumping breast milk for up to one year after a child's birth.
This law allows for legal action if employers fail to complyâŠâ
Now⊠Dina will contend that many employers do in fact provide such a space and also that a janitors closet with a folding chair would be in line with the requirements.
Sure, a closet meets the description of a âprivate spaceâ but it wholly underserves the needs of a nursing mother in terms of experience.
I am aware that there are widely divergent views on the whole subject of breast feeding â we are not going to go there â except that Iâll say that I fully line up behind my wife who breastfed our two sons.
My discussion with Dina moves from the necessity to provide environments for nursing mothers to breastfeed their infants while in public places to the buying power of mothers who statistics indicate make an enormous amount of the buying decisions in households to how tying Retail Media Networks - RMNs â to Mamava pods serve a triple bottom line serving People, Planet and Profit. Itâs a way of shifting our thinking about business from âHow much money did we make?â to: âDid we make money in a way that benefits society and the environment too?â
Nielsen, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Harvard Business Review research tells us that Women drive 70â80% of consumer purchasing decisions in the U.S. and that is even for products they donât personally use. And that their annual global consumer spending, is $20 trillionwhich, by the way, is a number projected to rise to $28 trillion. In many households, women make or heavily influence91% of new home purchases, 92% of vacation decisions, and 80% of healthcare choices says research by the Yankelovich Monitor, Marketing to Women Conference data.
And Millennial and Gen Z mothers are even more influential: they control about $1 trillion in direct annual spendingand are primary decision-makers for food, home goods, education, and entertainment â says research by the Pew Research Center.
So, women and moms are a force to be reconned with in terms of buying power and why Mamava pods are more than an economic discussion. The behavioral and psychographic aspects of them is important as well.
Women increasingly valuebrands that support family life, caregiving, and inclusivity and so features like Mamava pods in retail locations or corporate HQs or parental-leave policies have brand-equity impact.
We have known for some time that brands that are considered authentic exhibiting genuine empathic concern for their customer and employeesare major drivers in establishing brand affinity and purchase decisions.
The BabyCenter âState of Modern Motherhoodâ report says that â 9 in 10 mothers say they are more loyal to brands that âunderstand the challenges of motherhood.â
And then there is momâs digital influence. Pew Internet studies explains thatâ80% of moms research products online before buying and that 60% follow parenting or lifestyle influencers for purchase guidance.â
When you combine these factors with the emergence of Retail Media Networks, RMNs, you have a value add to placing Mamava pods in places that do not actually take up any more space on the sales floors of a store than is already being occupied with stuff that does support the brand experience or selling anything.
Use to be that when digital screens came into the retail world, we had kiosks as wayfinding devices.
Then a proliferation of screens emerged in the market where walls were more digital wallpaper crowding the environment with content and, in my opinion adding little to experience, arguably creating a shopping experience with more visual distraction and diminishing the overall experience. Painting the environment with the broad-brush stroke of digital media is often ineffective in capturing and retaining attention and doesnât lead to the positive results we think it does.
That said, well considered application of digital media like those found on Mamava pods creates an opportunity to provide messaging to customers that could be more like a public service announcement, like âget your flu shot here today,â or a focused marketing piece that invites customers to consider a particular product that they may not have thought of prior to arriving at the store.
So, you might ask why this matters to retail design
Women and mothers arenât just your average everyday consumers, theyâre key decision-makers shaping the social expectations of brands and spaces.
Retailers, airports, and workplaces that provide amenities like Mamava pods, family restrooms, or flexible shopping experiences are responding directly to data-driven insights like:
Increased dwell time and spending when caregivers feel accommodated.Higher brand loyalty and word-of-mouth among mothers.Positive CSR â Corporate Social Responsibility - and inclusivity signaling which is important for both consumer and employee attraction.If you have recently traveled through an airport, you may have already come upon a Mamava pod or maybe you have seen their âbenchâ version in a retail store.
Fed up with pumping in bathrooms and borrowed spacesâMamavaâs co-founders, Sascha Mayer and Christine Dodson, applied their decades of expertise in design and brand strategy to solve a problem that was largely invisible: the lack of lactation spaces in workplaces and public spaces and as a result, the Mamava pod was born.
Tying together the Mamava pod, and its various incarnations, and retail media needed some savvy about how to create an effective in-store media application that wouldnât end up as just another screen in an already overwhelming environment.
Enter Dina Townsend.
As Chief Sales Officer at Mamava, Dina leads the Sales Organization with energy, optimism, and a genuine passion for building connections.
She is rooted in the belief that strong business acumen and a meaningful mission like the Mamava brand platform can be seamlessly intertwined.
After a purpose-driven career pivot from the world of Digital Signage Technology to Mamava, Dina channels her expertise into propelling sales for this mission-centric company.
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites:
https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT CHRISTIAN DAVIES:
Christian's LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/christian-davies-fcsd-3728a513Websites: https://www.bergmeyer.com
email: [email protected]
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianthdavies/
Christian Davies Bio:
Davies brings 30+ years' experience as a creative leader, working with brands across the globe, from disruptive startups to the very top Fortune 500 contenders in retail, experiential, beauty, fashion, hospitality, technology, luxury, and more. His veteran status includes over 100 national and international design awards (15 of which earned top honors for Store of the Year Awards), including a five-time winner of design:retailâs Retail Design Influencer as well as a coveted Retail Design Luminary award.
As a Chief Strategy Officer for Bergmeyer, strategic innovation and design leadership define Davies role, stemming from a robust background in creative direction and design thinking. His approach harnesses the power of diverse, interdisciplinary teams, developed through hands-on experience in various roles across a wide variety of companies throughout his career. As Chief Strategy Officer, steering the business strategy and our passion for innovation encapsulates my daily mission.
Prior to Bergmeyer, Davies served as Managing Director of the Creative Marketing Group at Verizon, Creative Vice President of Global Design and Innovation for Starbucks, Executive Creative Director of the Americas at Fitch, and Vice President/Managing Creative Director at FRCH Design Worldwide.
Also See: https://www.bergmeyer.com/people/christian-davies
SHOW INTRODUCTION:
Welcome to Episode 81! of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcastâŠ
What started at a pivotal moment during the COVID pandemic in early 2020 has continued for seven seasons and now 81 episodes.
This season we continue to follow our catch phrase of having âDynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts. In the coming weeks we have some terrific conversations that are both fun and inspiring.
They are going to include thought provoking futurists, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.
We talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections between our mind-body and the built world around us.
Weâll also have guests who are creative marketing masters from international brands and people who have started and grown some of the companies that are striking a new path for us follow.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is grateful for the support of VMSD magazine.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Today, EPISODE 81⊠I talk with Christian Davies. We actually recorded this discussion months ago and Christian wondered if publishing it now was still relevant.
I assured him it was, since Christian tends to unearth issues that are future forward - things to be mindful about should we want to address the issues we all face as individuals or societies or as architects and designers making places and things as we serve as our clients creative sherpa guides bringing ideas into the built world.
Now⊠Christian has been sitting atop the heap of 80 conversations as the most listened to episode since we recorded our first talk a couple years ago. So, I thought, well why not do Christian Davies 2.0?
Christian does not disappoint - never has â over a couple of decades, Christian has consistently drawn audiences and colleagues into conversation, sometimes challenging, and always brilliant and things that drive design thinking. His matter-of-fact English attitude to the world of design is sometimes a âno holds barredâ reality check that makes you think twice about the truths you have held dear.
His drive towards excellence is irrepressible. That makes him, some may say, demanding because I think he expects that we all give a damn about what we are brining into the world. And why not? We all share space on this little blue dot and, we had better get it, and soon, that we are part of a vast ecosystem of interdependencies.
We cover a lot of ground in this open-ended conversation â Iâd not expect less from Christian - And here is a few thoughts on subject areas we touch onâŠ
1. Entropy:
Entropy is a scientific measure of disorder, randomness.
Astrophysicist and other cosmologists have postulated that our universe is continuing to expand to a maximum state of entropy from a moment in time, the beginning of the Universe that they have called The Big Bang.
There's lots of great content that you can certainly dig up on what happens when the universe finally expands to maximum entropy and all particles are spread out evenly within the unimaginably large space of the universe. It's suggested that of course this maximun expansion will take something like 10 to the 36 or 37 power years in other words trillions and trillions of years. A very very long timeâŠ.
But for now, the way I try to think of it is things will expand and eventually slow down as they all spread out to be evenly distributed throughout the universe⊠seems reasonableâŠ
It's kind of like imagining the initial moments after a massive explosion. Things spread out pretty quickly from the epicenter of the explosion and as they're flung far and wide, particles eventually slow and if you think of it in terms of entropy they all reach maximum randomness.
I kind of think that right now, today, considering that the scientists think that the universe has only been around for 14 1/2 billion years or so, that we're kind of right at that very beginning stage of the explosion and things are moving faster and faster away from the epicenter of The Big Bang.
This is interesting if you think that the universe will continue to be expanding for a few trillion years so right now yeah, we're kind of sort of in the one second after the explosion time frame. Anyway I am not an astrophysicist and some of these enormous ideas still leave me scratching my headâŠ
If we look at today, and everything around us, it certainly seems that things are speeding up and becoming more distributed, more random.
I know I've talked about the whole idea of the pace of change in a number of episodes but I find this really interesting because, as I discussed with Christian, it's really hard to design into a future state when you consider that the sands beneath your feet are always shifting.
How do we know which step is the right one? How do you know when we step on solid ground or drop forever into a bottomless voidâŠ
I think the challenge here for designers is that, at least for a time, we need to have a sense of stability and order. The challenge is, I think, is that we're moving to an increasing rate of change where stability and order might be elusive to say the least.
2. Moments of human connection make experiences great:
I think as we speed along and never ending sea of change perhaps one of the things that we can hang on to, a stake in the ground if you will, will continue to be our ability to maintain our relationships.
Change has a funny way of, well⊠changing people. And, one of our jobs will be to keep up with changing expectations of brands and their customers. One thing is sure, as we scream along this ever changing path, relationships will remain as one of the fundamental qualities of great experiences.
Both brand experience architecture and the means with which we engage with brands will change to meet evolving expecations but, my expectation, (or maybe it's just my hope) is that humans still stay at the center of it all - Since at least for this short little time that humans have been in existence, we have relied on the empathic connection between individuals to help create meaning and connection to the world around us as well as the things well as the things we simply buy.
And I, like Christian, believe that in the end, when you look at successful projects in our long design careers, the good ones, I mean the really good ones, we're not just because we received a great brief with an inspired client who had a vision of changing up the world,
but that the teams we were connected to both on the consultant and client sides were also great. There was something that clicked.
There was a gel in communication, respect and collaboration that drove these projects forward.
Some may have heard me say before projects will come and go but the relationships are really what make the work great. I'd rather lose a project than trash the relationshipsâŠ
3. Three things that facilitate success stories in the world of retail place-making:
So, if you're going to look at success stories over a career full of projects, when you look back at what really made them great was, of course that they were successful from a financial point of view, that they drove increase customers and deeper brand relationships and better revenues all those things are important indicators of success but that there are things that are required to make all of that happen. One would be that there's a big idea someone at the helm of a brand or business that has a thought about doing something different breaking out of a traditional way of bringing goods or services to market, of serving a customer in a different way and technology is often being a facilitator of that.
There was coffee long before Starbucks. There was getting from A to B lby horse, camel, richshaw, long before Uber. There were places to stay along the Silk Road before Airbnb. And if you had a shaman in your village you could likely find out where you ame from and where your future was going to be long before there were anything like 23&Me or ancestry.com.
In some ways the goods or services have not really changed. How we get them in the hands of customers has changed and that has often been facilitated with new technologies.
4. AI â as a new tool for ideation and the âwhyâ behind design:
One of those technological advances of course that everybody is talking about these days is artificial intelligence.
AI it's both causing a lot of excitement about what it sees has to offer in the short term, becoming a new tool in the architect and designers toolbox for ideation as well as causing a lot of concern about what happens to humankind when we finally get to general AI or super artificial intelligence.
I am both excited and increasingly aware of influences that it will have on the job market, delivery of goods and services and other parts of the ecosystem like education and manufacturing etcetera etcetera.
But if we just for a moment set some of the anxieties aside and simply look at as a tool for imagination and engagement with clients fostering the collaborative process of ideation, it has extraordinary potential to change the game of how we designers and architects work with our clients and create ideas about bringing their goods and services to market.
There's a lot of opportunity and uncertainty about what happens when you turbocharge the creative process with AI tools.
In the end though, at least for now, the question remains - is that there is a human at the helm of prompt curation?
The output is only as good as the input that I'm able to suggest as a prompt. If not⊠garbage in â garbage out.
This of course is interesting because it puts the initial burden still on people to be able to articulate their vision in language and use AI tools to refine the visualizations and other content that emerges from using them.
As we use these tools they make things faster but I also sometimes wonder about whether they simply make us lazy and remove our thinking from the process.
So Christian does talk about the idea of the drawings or images being very compelling but also needing to ask, and answer, the question of âwhy this particular approach or output is relevant and connected to the brand or customer that we're trying to serve?
In the end itâs not about the âwhatâ of things that make solutions to design challenges great but more and more about the âwhyâ you're doing certain things.
Itâs about the process by which you got to the solution rather than simply the solution itself.
Don't get me wrong the solutions to the challenges are sometimes very satisfying but what I'm ultimately interested in is the thinking process that led you to along this pathway⊠it's the journey not just the destination that's important in the creative processâŠ.
And I think it's ever more important to our clients in the design world that they're looking for people who are not just production oriented but who are also focused on guiding them through an uncertain future
5. B-Corporations:
And this in a way leads us to the part of our my discussion with Christian about how his company Bergmeyer has recently become a B-Corp.
A B-Corporation is a for profit company, but it is certified by the non-profit B Lab Global and the whole idea is that it seeks to meet high standards for social and environmental performance and accountability and even more so transparency in the ways that they are doing business in support of being good stewards of our environment.
In the changing sands that we're all standing on, as entropy increases and uncertainty continues to unfold in front of us, there is certainty that our planet is also in peril as climate change continues to wreak havoc on environmental systems.
These B-corporations are seen as a force for good who work to balance profit with a commitment to both people and our planet. What differentiates them from other traditional companies is that they prioritize the social and environmental impacts of their business while at the same time not discounting the fact that they still are in business - that they are accountable to stakeholders as well as shareholders.
The stakeholders can be considered as all of us because as companies continue to pull resources out of the ground and push the byproducts of industrialization into landfills and oceans all of our lives are at stake.
All right then that's a not so brief summary of some of the ideas that Christian and I riff on in our conversationâŠ
Let's dig into some of the detailsâŠ
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites:
https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT APRIL RINNE:
BIO:
My North Star: Helping people and organizations understand what's on the horizon â and how they fit into it.
I decipher signals of change, help leaders and teams improve their tolerance for uncertainty, and scout new insights and opportunities in a world in flux.
Over 25+ years and 100+ countries, Iâve been exposed to a wide range of companies, cultures, business models, leadership styles, and norms. And Iâve seen time and time again: Every organization, every team, and every individual struggles with change and uncertainty in some way. Even before the pandemic, and especially today. Weâve all had different experiences of change, and we could all use some help with the unknown. Leveling up our relationships to change and uncertainty is the opportunity of our lifetimes.
My career portfolio includes futurist, speaker, author, advisor, global development executive, microfinance lawyer, investor, mental health advocate, certified yoga teacher, globetrotter, insatiable handstander, and ambassador of joy. Along the way I've been named one of the 50 Leading Female Futurists in the world, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a member of Thinkers50 Radar and the Silicon Guild, and one of the earliest Estonian e-Residents. I'm also the author of the international bestseller Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change.
My journey to Flux has been deeply personal. It began with the death of both of my parents in a car crash when I was 20. My entire life flipped upside-down. And today, there is nothing I enjoy more than sharing with others how I learned to see differently, find meaning, and strengthen my Flux Superpowers -- and how you can do so, too.
Aprilâs LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilrinne/Websites: https://aprilrinne.comBUY THE BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Flux-Superpowers-Thriving-Constant-Change/dp/1523093595
email: [email protected]SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to Season 7 of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast â Episode 80!
What started at a pivotal moment during the COVID pandemic in early 2020 has continued for seven seasons and now 80 episodes.
This season we continue to follow our catch phrase of having âDynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts. In the coming weeks we have some terrific conversations that are both fun and inspiring.
They are going to include thought provoking futurists, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.
Weâll talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections between our mind-body and the built world around us.
Weâll also have guests who are creative marketing masters from international brands and people who have started and grown some of the companies that are striking a new path for us follow.
And I don't know, maybe there will be a couple of mystery guests that will just shake things up and give us a perspective on things that we've never thought about before.
As in the past couple of seasons, we are grateful for the support of VMSD magazine.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
So, fasten your seat belt weâre in for some good timesâŠ
Today, EPISODE 80⊠I talk with April Rinne whose North Star is helping people and organizations understand what's on the horizon â and how they fit into it.
April deciphers signals of change, helps leaders and teams improve their tolerance for uncertainty, and scouts new insights and opportunities in a world in flux.
As well as being an excellent hand stander, (check out pics of her doing handstands in places all over the world on her website), she is also the author of the international bestseller âFlux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change.â
We will get to her book, some of the key ideas and so much more in a minute but first a few thoughtsâŠ
It seems to me that over the past few seasons I've tended to talk about the idea of âthe pace of changeâ a lot.
I'm beginning to think it's a little like my unnatural fear of sharks (thank you Steven Spielberg) and that I keep on talking about them and seeking out images of them on Instagram as some sort of cognitive behavioral therapy to get me better with the idea that I can actually go swimming in the ocean and not feel afraid of Spielbergâs Bruce sneaking up on me.
I seem to talk about change a lot for a few reasonsâŠmaybe because, I will confess, that I don't think that I was actually good with change for years. I was pretty set in my ways about having a plan and making sure the plan was followed.
I got significantly bent out of shape if the plan didn't go as, well⊠planned.
If we were off on our timing, if something was late or if some spontaneous moment interrupted the calendar and I was going to have to re-adjust, it took me sometimes quite a while to recalibrate and get with the ânewâ program.
And then there was the spring of 2020 where, wellâŠeverything changed.
No doubt for someone who wasn't so good with the idea that things could change on a dime and a path you had so expertly crafted into the near future would just disappear in front of you,
I came to understand that there were three types of change:
the change that's innate - you know built into the system of everything the seasons the sun rising in the east and setting in the West and that kind of change that if it didn't happen you would think something was significantly wrong with the universethere was the change that we choose that gives us a sense of agency the kind of change we actually like more than others because we get to determine where it's going and what it actually means for usand then there's a kind of change like the COVID pandemic that is thrust upon you and in those moments shifting circumstances open a door to uncertainty that sense of clarity and purpose dissipates into a swell of unknowns and deep discomfort settles in making everything seem tenuous.That kind of change, I would hazard a guess, not many of us are fond of.
That sort of change demands an openness to confront the necessity of things we have often held so dear or the veracity of things we've believed in about ourselves and others.
This type of change asks us to embrace the unknown and find an opportunity for transformation in the ambiguity.
This kind of change is the kind of change that requires you to stare long into the face of hard questions, discover inconvenient answers and make challenging decisions.
That kind of change, turns out, is where all the growth is.
That kind of change is embracing the Robert frost poem of the âpath not travelledâŠâ
The thing is⊠as I think Iâve said before⊠it's easy for us to fall for nostalgia.
It's cozy. It's welcoming and reassuring because it's familiar and it's easy to continue to keep doing the same thing that we have always done because, for some, there's security in choosing the familiar in preference for going on an adventure.
I love that one scene from The Hobbit where Bilbo Baggins, after refusing to go on the trip with the dwarves, finally gets it that maybe there's something in it for him, a growth opportunity, and he runs after the company exclaiming to neighbors, when asked where he was going, that he was âgoing on an adventure.â
But there's a strange paradox in all of this and that is; we both avoid the perceived danger of the unknown because the unfamiliar signals potential dangers and our neurobiology is geared to sounding the alarms when the unfamiliar lurks nearâŠ
while at the same time being driven towards novel and the unexpected because that's where our brain ultimately finds learning opportunities (should we care to pay attention).
There's no point in continuing to pull a covers over your head and hope that the uncertainty will pass because it's quite likely that when you reemerge whatever the challenge was it will still be there
and you'll open up your eyes and feel a like Dorothy and you not being in Kansas anymore,
because while you were conveniently not paying attention, the world was swept up tossed upside down and blown into a new reality in the context of the ever-increasing pace of change that we are all now exposed to.
Of course, all of the speed that we're exposed to these days is forcing cultural shifts to happen, some of which we are not neurobiologically or evolutionarily adequately adapted to. Remember, it's taken a few billion years to get where we are. We can't expect that we'll be able to keep up with the mental machinery we now have. (Another challenge to talk about another time.)
As we move into a new experience paradigm of continual change, failing fast and continual iteration may become âde rigeurâ because constant change will demand it and make it mainstream. In order to remain in sync with change, we will have to find a way to get right with the idea of change.
This presents a particular problem for leaders of all sorts who have been traditionally looked upon to be able to divine the future and help lead their teams with certainty into a near ordistant future state.
How do leaders maintain a sense of trust and engender followership from their teams when they may legitimately be unsure of where their businesses might need to go as the ground shifts beneath their feet?
All of this suggests a need for extraordinary flexibility when trying to plan a pathway through a period of unprecedented change.
That flexibility in large part comes not from our ability to develop some sort of control over the pace of change in the outer world - those things that are happening around us - but trying to find a sense of calm and flexibility within our inner world - to adjust and find a way to be in relationship with change rather than imposing our will on and resisting change as it comes to us.
This is where I get to introduce April Rennie, author of the book âFlux: 8 Superpowers For Thriving In Constant Change.â
April's highly readable book landed on my desk during the COVID pandemic when I was struggling with trying to adapt to the unknown.
Her idea of flux is looked at as a noun and a verb;
in the case of a noun, FLUX could be considered as âconstant changeâas a verb FLUX can mean âto learn to become fluidâWhat April really focuses on however is 8 Superpowers that help you to develop what she calls the âFLUX Mindsetâ
- âthe state of mind that allows you to see all change whatever it is, the good the bad, the things that you have control over and the things you can't control, the expected and the unexpected, and see all of it as an opportunity to learn to grow and improve.â
For April Rinne, the idea of change and living within a world in flux, as about seeing it as a space of emergent possibility.
That has a lot to do with feeling OK with being lost, being comfortable with not knowing.
This may mean letting go of old scripts, narratives that just don't fit anymore but that you've come to rely on as a way of explaining, or explaining away, circumstances of your life.
Perhaps we need to embrace a mindset of change that is closer to indigenous wisdom than perhaps other more wired cultures on our planet.
It's not that we control nothing, but that we shift our view to be in relationship with change.
April suggests that when we can be in relationship with uncertainty there's a kind of a dance, a push and pull, and that indigenous cultures seemed to have a keener sense of relationship - a relationship with themselves, with one another and with Mother Nature.
Our conversation leads to the invitation to see the value in our interdependence to each other and the world around us ( even if the world is in a state of FLUX ) and that we work on growing our appreciation for and prioritization of fostering a positive relationship with change.
If we can, the healthier we will be, both individually and collectivelyâŠ.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT JAIME SCHWARZ:
BIO:
Jaime Schwarz is an award-winning copywriter and creative director, having worked with over 100 brands at NYC agencies before starting his entrepreneurial journey.
In 2017 he authored the world's first NFT-focused patent and launched BrandTherapy.coach, a product market fit-focused consultancy built on the technique of letting the brand speak for itself.
After co-founding seven startups and consulting for dozens more, in 2022, Jaime pivoted into the web3 world by using AI to literally teach brands to speak for themselves and co-founding The TeamFlow.Institute using team intelligence to maximize the momentum of decentralized teams to create the Company Betterment Industry.
He also co-founded ParallelWorlds.us and positioned it as the world's first spatial transformation company. Since then, once his patent was granted, he has been building MRKD as an IP-founded venture focused on empowering the IP economy through co-creationism.
He serves on the board of Wayfinders on the Hudson, is an advisor to XRSI.org, and lives in Hastings on Hudson with his wife and two boys.
Jaimeâs LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/jaimeschwarzWebsites:brandtherapy.coach (Company)jaimeschwarz.com (Portfolio)calendly.com/getbrandtherapy/30min (Other)Email: [email protected]SHOW INTRO
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast EPISODE 79 ⊠and my conversation with Jaime Schwarz an award-winning copywriter and creative director, founder of Brand Therapy and a number of other ventures.On the podcast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
he NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Jaime Schwarz spent years work in the fast-paced world of New York advertising agencies where he came to deeply understand brands. Since then, his entrepreneurial journey has led to patent awards, and a few business ventures that truly bring things to the NXTLVL.
Weâll get to all of that in a moment but first though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
OK so where to start on this one...
You know⊠I try to lead teams by being authentic and transparent. Candid when it matters to get to the heart of the matter and circumspect when sharing the whole story it might not be appropriate.
But thinking about my interview with Jamie Schwarz makes me sit back in my chair and consider what I think I know.
I think I know a little about a lot and I say that not lacking humility, but I've been always compulsively curious about stuff. All kinds of stuff.
I like to know why things work the way they work, how people got to the places they got to in their careers, how history unfolds and the story of culture is our told and retold. And all sorts of other stuff.
I like reading about quantum physics but will confess I still get confused about how traveling at the speed of light and coming back to your origin will mean that you come back years in the future while the passage of time for you may only be a few moments.
I loved the movie interstellar.
I don't know things like that just sort of confused me, but they fascinate me nevertheless.
I digress.
I think I probably know a little bit about enough and in some cases it just might be that I know enough to be dangerous as the saying goes.
One of the motivations to doing the podcast is that I get to speak to lots people who are just way smarter and tuned in than meâŠand I generally add here that the bar is actually set pretty low because there are so many really smart people in the world.
I like studying about the things that I try to engage in conversations about. I'll read books, watch hours of online content â presentations, speeches and interviews. I'll dig up articles and make sure that I show up ready to go for a conversation.
Early on in the podcast series I had someone thank me for showing up well prepared. I just sort of thought that that was my responsibility to make sure that if someone was offering their time to have a discussion that I would have done my necessary background preparation to make it worth their while.
Some interviews I sort of set as stretch goals - people who I want to talk to because they have deep insight on areas that I am interested in but in which I may not have more than an intermediate or novice education.
My wife, a veteran of print and television journalism, a multi-book author, strong advocate of radical listening and who also has the uncanny ability to see way beyond the immediate conversation would always say to me that when in discussion you need to leave the interview questioning whether you know more about the person at the close of the conversation than you did when it started.
That's an interesting starting point when entering a conversation because it sets the basic premise for who's doing the talking - how much listening is going on and how you listen not to simply add your own opinions, solve the problem or give advice, but to dig deeper in your understanding, resulting in better attunement.
I will confess that sometimes I am fully aware that my enthusiasm for subject matter leads to jumping in, offering personal experiences and contributing ideas. Conversations can chase multiple ideas, but I also think that's a result of what I consider as associative thinking - one idea connects to another and sets off a cascade of related or interdependent subjects. And then a whole array of rabbit holes lay before us. Each one leading to a delightful journey. Oh now which one to choose â why not all â letâs go!
I have come to use these introductions to podcast interviews as replacements of a sort for a blog I used to write for VMSD magazine called âBrain Food.â
I take the time to consider what the conversation with my guest is about and set to musing on ideas that emerged in the conversation. Some of them are personal, stories that resonate deeply with personal or professional experiences. Others are thought bubbles that I offer up for further investigation.
I think that most of this episode is like thought bubbles. It covers the nature of branding and relationships with consumers, trust in marketing and storytelling, NFTs and creating derivative works and related IP legal issues, Web 3.0, Deconstructivism, co-creation in a digital mediated world, Ai and collective intelligence, the pace of change, art and digital twinning and the inherent value of co-creative works, quantum computers and hacking bitcoin, object permanence in the digital space⊠and, and, and you get the idea.
There is so much here that you might say it lacks focus, but I think it actually offers up the idea of complexity in our fast-paced digitally mediated world where interdependencies reign, everything is connected to everything in one multi-dimensional system and to what end it is sweeping us along.
We can come to these various rabbit holes of conversation because Jaime Schwarzis an award-winning copywriter and creative director, having worked with over 100 brands at NYC agencies before starting his entrepreneurial journey.
In 2017 he authored the world's first NFT-focused patent and launched BrandTherapy.coach, a âproduct market fit-focusedâ consultancy (about which he speaks in our talk) that is built on the technique of letting the brand speak for itself.
After co-founding seven startups and consulting for dozens more, in 2022, Jaime pivoted into the web3 world by using AI to literally teach brands to speak for themselves and co-founding The TeamFlow.Institute using team intelligence to maximize the momentum of decentralized teams to create the Company Betterment Industry.
He also co-founded ParallelWorlds.us and positioned it as the world's first spatial transformation company. Since then, once his patent was granted, he has been building MRKD as an IP-founded venture focused on empowering the IP economy through co-creationism.
I could have prompted Jaime with any of these subjects and just sat back and taken it all in.
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT CLAIRE CODER:
BIO:
Claire Coder (Forbes 30under30) is a 28-year-old Thiel Fellow and founder and CEO of Aunt Flow. On a mission to make the world better for people with periods, Aunt Flow stocks public bathrooms with freely accessible tampons and pads. Through Claireâs leadership, Aunt Flow launched patented tampon & pad dispensers in 60k+ bathrooms and raised $17m+ in venture capital.
Coder launched her first company at age 16, designed a bag for Vera Bradley that sold out in 24 hours, and has her own line of GIFs. After getting her period in public without the supplies she needed, at 18 years old, Claire dedicated her life to developing a solution to ensure businesses and schools can sustainably provide quality period products for free in public bathrooms.
Since 2016, Aunt Flow has worked with thousands of businesses and schools, including organizations like Google, Princeton University, Netflix, and 30+ professional sports stadiums, to offer freely accessible period product dispensers, filled with organic cotton tampons and pads.
Aunt Flow has donated over 7 million organic cotton tampons and pads to menstruators in need since 2021.
Claireâs ultimate goal in life is for any menstruator to walk into any bathroom and never need to worry if they start their period, because Aunt Flow period products are freely available!
Claireâs story has been featured in TeenVogue, Forbes, Fortune, and she starred in TLCâs Girl Starter Season 1. Claire speaks regularly surrounding her advocacy work, starting a social enterprise and journey as a female founder. For more information, please visit
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairecoder/
Websites:
clairecoder.com (Personal)goauntflow.com (Company)SHOW INTRO
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.EPISODE 78 ⊠and my conversation with Claire Coder the Founder and CEO of Aunt Flow.
On the podcast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
When Claire Coder was 18 years old she was at an event and she used a public restroom. While there, she discovered that she had unexpectedly started her period. And⊠she didn't have a quarter.
Why she would have needed a quarter and what happened as a result of not having one is the subject of an exceptional entrepreneurial trajectory that has changed woman's public bathrooms around the country.
Weâll get to all of that in a moment but first though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
What if you had an amazing idea that you knew was a no-brainer, an idea that provided something deeply necessary, but it seemed that everyone had overlooked it.
What if you had a moment of insight from a personal experience that chartered out a clear path for providing a product and service that seemed to satisfy the deeply under met needs of more than 50% of the population?
And what if when you took this moment of clear mental insight to a group of venture capitalists explaining that this was not just an idea that would not only satisfy a certain customer need but that could be an extraordinarily profitable business operation but when you asked for their involvement, they simply said⊠âNOâ.
And what if you heard âNOâ 86 times when trying to get people interested in supporting your idea. Would you give up? Would you have already given up after the 1st or 10th or 50th âNOâ? And what if you happened to be an 18-year-old young woman with this vision and enthusiasm and the subject of your VC pitches dealt with menstruation and woman's public bathrooms... How far do you think that would have gotten you?
I could focus in on this intro by talking about the thing that we don't talk about, at least as a guy I can't imagine me and my guy friends would have ever talked aboutâŠas a teen, young man or frankly even today.
Which is to say⊠women and monthly periods.
I could focus in on this somewhat taboo subject of a naturally occurring bodily function that we somehow sweep under the social discourse carpet, despite that more than 50% of the population has one every single month.
Or I could talk about the strange discomfort that comes up because somehow, we've made this discussion something to be ashamed about or talked only about between mothers and grandmothers and their daughters.
The strange irony here is that the other 49.53% of the North American population will end up living with, perhaps marrying and having children with the 50+ percent of the population who has their period every single month and yet, we'd prefer not to talk about itâŠ
But, if I did focus on those subjects, which by the way are not unimportant to talk about, it would potential we derail another story about a passion for entrepreneurship and the overwhelming need to address the needs of a population who are wholly unserved.
It takes a lot of guts to be an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is not easy. In fact, there are a lot of people who would say youâd simply have a few screws loose to actually want to be an entrepreneur.
It's highly risky and you carry an extraordinary amount of responsibility. Everything from fundraising and decision-making, planning operations, accepting both successes and failures.
When the entire enterprise is your baby, and relies on you as the key driver of the big idea, it can be incredibly emotionally taxing. The working hours can be extraordinary too. If we think that an average work week is neatly packed into 40 hours, an entrepreneur may end up spending twice or maybe even three times that amount in trying to get their business off the ground.
..and there's constant pressure to keep on pushing forward. One success does not necessarily guarantee the next and so there's this cycle of continuing to push and to make forward strides create product extensions and to expand the brand footprint that is unrelenting.
This is especially true if folks have lent you money to get your big idea off the ground.
There's also a great degree of isolation that can emerge on the entrepreneurial path. You, and often you alone, are focused on birthing your brainchild, developing it and bringing it to market. This âchild rearingâ, if you will, often happens in times of extraordinary uncertainty and ambiguity.
In the current state of the world we live in today, ambiguity is the name of the game. What with the pace of change exponentially increasing, government shifting the rules of the game with tariffs and regulations, funding cuts and banning more that 250 words that according to PEN AMERICA are no longer considered acceptable including:
advocacy, abortion, all-inclusive, biologically female, community equity, DEI, female, inclusive, sex, sexuality, vulnerable populations, and woman or women, just to name a few. So if your big idea is squarely focused on women, menstruation and period products, I would imagine itâs tricky.
So, this means that you have to be built for understanding the pace of change the ability to flex and move and be resilient when things don't happen to go your way. Like for example if you are launching a new product line and a COVID pandemic hits that effectively shuts your business down.
You could stop and pack up shop and be done or you could be resilient and change direction asking âwhat do people need right now?, and turn what you thought was going to be a business into a completely different thing that was not at all what you had planned in the 1st place.
As an entrepreneur, you also have to wear many hats. You are at the same time the company owner, marketing and sales rep. You're dealing with HR issues, product design and materials sourcing and assortment planning.
You're often doing customer service and trying to keep them satisfied while dealing with shipments that go missing or supply chains that get disrupted, because of say tariffs, for example, when your products were coming from out of the country and all of a sudden now they are more expensive than you had anticipated.
And you have to be good, I mean really good, at dealing with rejection and failure.
Most entrepreneurs face repeated setbacks, investor rejections, failed launches or people who just don't get what you're trying to deliver - or straight out don't like what you're trying to deliver - and reject your product and actively work against you to shut you down.
Resilience and a sense of purpose when faced with strong headwinds is an absolutely essential feature of being an entrepreneur.
You want to become an entrepreneur? Then you had better show up at the game with a load of mad skills so that you can weather the multiple impending storms.
Now⊠don't get me wrong, it's not all doom and gloom. It's not all uphill struggles like Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down again.
Entrepreneurship can be incredibly rewarding. It can bring something that you are passionate about into the world. Maybe it's something that had never existed before. Maybe it satisfies the need that is self-evident but others just haven't seen it yet. But to play in the arena of entrepreneurship you need to be able to recover from failures and keep moving forward regardless of whatever the setbacks were.
Because they are inevitable.
No one skates happily through entrepreneurship and starting a company without stuff just going off the rails from time to time. And that requires an amazing amount of intrinsic motivation and drive. Youâve got to be able to get up every morning and go get it.
And youâve got to be able to get up and do it without anyone behind you saying âgo team goâ pushing you to do it every single day.
You might need an accountability buddy. That would be good. But in the absence of that person or group, you need to be able to be incredibly disciplined and willing to get back in the ring every day.
You also have to have a certain level of risk tolerance. In fact, I would say you probably have to have a very high level of risk tolerance. No one in the entrepreneurial world makes it by being a wallflower; by being risk adverse and not wanting to step out into traffic and navigate all of the oncoming traffic.
And while dancing your way through the crosswalk in oncoming traffic, you have to be pretty flexible and be willing to pivot in an oftentimes volatile environment. You also have to believe in your vision and have a well-crafted strategy to get you to the top of the mountain.
Successful entrepreneurs can generally see a much bigger picture than other people. They see opportunities where others simply see closed doors and that often means when hearing ânoâ you donât implode like the Wicked Witch of the West when water was thrown on her, but you ask questions.
Not just questions about âwhy?â but also âwhy not?â.
You have to be conspicuously curious and have a compulsion to keep on asking questions, never being satisfied with the status quo.
Your interpersonal skills also have to be incredibly well honed. You have to be good at networking, slapping backs, shaking hands and making people feel like they're the only people in the room who matter to you. You've got to be good at networking and pitching and you have to be an incredibly good leader which suggests that you have to be an effective communicator and be emotionally tapped in. Your EQ, as well as your IQ, has to be highly tuned.
You have to carry a certain level of confidence without being arrogant.
You have to believe in your ideas while staying open to feedback; weeding out what is good commentary and bad commentary.
âŠwhat allows you to maintain a connection to your brand story and the products or services you believe need to be brought to market while at the same time always finding a balance between taking in what people say as constructive criticism and dismissing other commentary that doesn't seem to fit or takes you off track and away from your vision.
And all of this brings us to the story of Claire Coder who at 18 years old goes into a public bathroom at an event and discovers she started her period.
In an effort to have period products that met her in her moment of need, she goes to a dispenser on the wall and discovers that in order to get a tampon or pad she has to have quarter and who really carries quarters around in their pocket anymore? At that moment Claire is faced with accepting the only option available which is to go to the free roll of toilet paper on the bathroom stall and create a makeshift tampon.
At that moment Claire decides that if toilet paper and paper towel are offered at no cost in public bathrooms why should tampons and pads cost $0.25.? and why is it that the box on the wall, that has likely been there for decades and that may likely not work in any case, an acceptable solution?
Claire Coder was selected as one of Forbes 30under30 and is the 28-year-old founder and CEO of Aunt Flow.
On a mission to make the world better for people with periods, Aunt Flow stocks public bathrooms with freely accessible tampons and pads. Through Claireâs leadership, Aunt Flow launched patented tampon & pad dispensers in 60k+ bathrooms, 150 universities, 600 schools, 28 Fortune 500 companyâs offices and raised $17m+ in venture capital.
After getting her period in public without the supplies she needed, at 18 years old, Claire dedicated her life to developing a solution to ensure businesses and schools can sustainably provide quality period products for free in public bathrooms.
Since 2016, Aunt Flow has worked with thousands of businesses and schools, including organizations like Google, Princeton University, Netflix, and 30+ professional sports stadiums, to offer freely accessible period product dispensers, filled with organic cotton tampons and pads.
Aunt Flow has donated over 7 million organic cotton tampons and pads to menstruators in need since 2021.
Claireâs ultimate goal in life is for any menstruator to walk into any bathroom and never need to worry if they start their period, because Aunt Flow period products are freely available!
Claire Coder was the opening keynote presenter at SHOP Marketplace 2025 and I caught up with her after her presentation to have a chatâŠ
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT CHARLES LEON:
CHARLES' LINKEDIN PAGE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chleon/
COMPANY WEBSITE: charlesleon.uk
CHARLES' BIO:
Writer and Illustrator of Sketch Journals, including The Kew Sketch Journal.
International Speaker and Trainer on the Creative Process and how Applied Innovation actually works.
With more than 30 years experience in design, and an extensive knowledge of neuroscience and the working of the creative mind, I bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to helping Organisations and Individuals overcome Innovation Stagnation and achieve Creative Breakthrough.SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.
EPISODE 77⊠and my conversation with Charles Leon.
On the podacast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
he NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
On this episode I connect with Charles Leon who has 30 years experience in design, and an extensive knowledge of neuroscience and the working of the creative mind.
Weâll get to all of that in a moment but first though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
When I was nine years old my mom put me in a after school art program in a small little studio a few minutes walk from my school.
Every Thursday afternoon, after my regular school classes were done, I would walk down the street, sit in an art studio and learn how to paint in oils.
For the next 10 years this was a welcome change in my daily routine that became in some sense a safe place. A place where all the world's troubles or the typical challenges I was having as a teenager would disappear and I would spend a couple of hours focused on painting.
My mom had recognized early on that I was pretty handy with a pencil and very interested in creative expression. She did her very best to make sure that I was continually engaged in creative processes whether it was doing Ukrainian Easter eggs or sketching and drawing or baking creative Christmas cookies.
She was always there pushing the go button on creativity. As it turns out, she was actually a pretty good artist herself and later in her life she began doing decorative painting which she became exceptionally adept at and the house was full of wonderful pieces of her craftsmanship.
My interest in art followed me through the first few years of high school and finally landing in a place where it was just time to decide where I was going to university and to which program I would go.
My mom, recognized that I was firmly sitting on either side of the creative and scientific fence, 1 foot firmly in both worlds, and she suggested architecture since it seemed to combine both of my interests.
While I was studying to be an architect I took every single drawing and painting course that I could possibly take, whether they were weekly freehand drawing studios or evening classes or sketching schools.
These courses during my university years were a safe place there I had more confidence than in doing pretty much anything else.
But it really wasn't until those years in university under the tutelage of a great art teacher Gerry Tondino that I really began to understand drawing and painting.
It wasn't so much that I was learning technical aspects of drawing or painting but that I was more learning how to see rather than simply look at things.
Gerry would say, âonce you learn to see and draw what you actually se, rather than what ou think you see, the drawing takes care of itself.â
I had deep respect for Gerry Tondino and I think I really finally learned how to deeply appreciate the world around me to see the color, texture and value relationships. To understand how objects exist within a context and it wasn't specifically the thing you looking at but everything around it that helped to define its edge.
In college I would continue to take afterschool watercolor courses thinking that it was more convenient than painting in oils since there was a technical challenge of oil painting taking much longer to dry.
There was something about the immediacy of watercolor that I liked. You had to think fast and plan. Watercolor was the process of painting in the shade and shadows leaving the white of the paper as the light and highlights. In oils, or now acrylic which I use almost exclusively, you are starting from the dark tones and building in layers to bring out the light.
In watercolor there was equally some unpredictability and a learned skill of being able to get certain effects like running a clean wash of graduated blue for a sky over a background or how some pigments we opaque and others transparent, or how colors would interact with each other as water spread across the paper.
I was taking workshops once and the teacher said to me âwell it's clear you can draw and you've got, you know, a good hand, but I guess the question really is what do you want to say with the work that you createâ
That was a whole different way of thinking that I'd never really spend time with prior to that moment. I painted and drew simply because it was fun.
What did I want to say?...
And so I began to think pretty significantly about what message I wanted to convey or rather what stories the things that I drew or painted I might want to share with other people.
It was interesting when I began to study architecture and think about design of places and things that I was drawn to the same question about what the architecture meant and what stories it would hold over the years that people would use it.
I was always fascinated with traveling and standing within old buildings and wondering what the people wore when they were visiting here hundreds of years ago.
What would they talk about. What was the news of the day or the politics what secrets were being not told as people visited and who came and went from within a buildingâs walls.
As I moved along my career, thinking about the stories that buildings would hold, it's perhaps not surprising that I somehow serendipitously end up in the world of brand experience place making,
that the places that I would create for retailers would be imbued with a brand narrative and that somehow the buildings, stores or hotels would need to be able to demonstrate that subplot about who the intended user was, what their story was and how the place was a physical expression of both the person and the brand.
Another experience while an architecture school was with a visiting professor and while I don't remember the exact project we were working on, I do remember her saying a phrase including the word âhodologicalâ
Hodological refers to the study of pathways or connections. It's used in fields of neuroscience sometimes thinking about the pathway and connections between neurons and synapses how signals move from one place to the other how information is shared across brain functional areas â
In psychology it talks about things like paths in a person's life space
and in the world of philosophy it might be considered to take in things like the interconnection between ideas a pathway between thought exercises and where one thought leads to another and what conclusions we might draw from that that decision making tree
in terms of geography itâs really is about actual paths, walking paths for example, connection paths between geographic locations thing like trade route paths
The interesting thing about the word hodological is not just that all these years later I clearly recall that word but that it also seemed to me that the idea of âtransitionâ - moving from one place to the other - was very much a part of experience - that we don't stand still in buildings or public squares or on streets, we move and as we move, we naturally have a different experience at every moment.
Sure, there's a gestalt experience of being in Times Square for example but every time we take a step our perspectival view of the context around us ends up changing and every moment technically speaking is also new,
We're are clearly taking in some constants in sensory input but our point of view within that context ends up changing.
I love this idea of walking through space and experiencing it differently with every step. Every step is a different vantage point to learn something new to see something from a different angle.
In a broader sense, my fascination with the nature of change totally aligns with the idea the early -learned term â hodological.
Pathways of change.
Change through experience or experience through change.
We may think that buildings donât change, but they do, albeit in some cases slowly. And over their lifetime they may be experienced be multitudes each one leaving and taking away a story.
Transitions are important. I might suggest that all the good stuff happens in the in betweenness of moments in time, places and things. Transitions are where learning lives.
Transitions become important as experience makers.
So, things like stairs become fascinating places for architectural study.
It's not surprising that many of the great architects also spend time designing stairways so that transitions between floors were less about a practical matter of moving your body up to a different level, but could be seen as an opportunity to experience new things along the way.
An experiential moment that requires the personâs commitment, to willingly give them self over to the idea of change.
Cities have memories and our bodies have memories of cities. Buildings have memories and our bodies have memories of buildings.
I have expressed before that I believe that there's very much a âgive and makeâ of experience - that we interact and share with the built environment around us and it affects us as well.
We and the environments we spend time in are deeply connected and our experience lives within us, within our bodies, not just within our heads. Our experience of building leaves within us a body memory, a narrative residue of how we felt while in one place or another.
If you look at buildings overtime and understand that they've been used for years, they too have held countless numbers of stories of people that used them. Where they came from. Where they would go back to. Maybe they were transitioning through for a moment. Maybe they were lost and ended up taking a wrong turn and discovering something new.
Those stories of buildings are interesting because it gives a life to architecture beyond stone, steel and glass.
And this is where my guest Charles Leon comes into the story.
Charles is a writer and illustrator of Sketch Journals, including The Kew Sketch Journal.
He is an international speaker and trainer on the Creative Process and how Applied Innovation actually works.
With more than 30 years experience in design, and an extensive knowledge of neuroscience and the working of the creative mind, Charles brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to helping organizations and individuals overcome Innovation Stagnation to achieve Creative Breakthrough.During the COVID pandemic Charles had a challenge simply staying inside while all of us were held up in our homes for months.
With sketchb ook in hand, Charles saw London England as a hodological space â one to be experiences not in the scientific, objective and measurable sense of streets of a certain distance ad width, buildings of a certain height, pathways connecting purpose driven users or as seen from a 3d person sense
but more in the Jean-Paul Satre sense aptly described in Satreâs essay, "Sketch for a Theory of Emotions," where his city was to be experienced in a lived-existential subjective sense.
One in which he would travel daily, which sketchbook in hand, not always sure about the destination but certain that the path would be one of discovery, connection, and collecting through drawing and painting the memories of the buildings he encountered along the way.
The output of these wanderings yielded 5 volumes in drawings and paintings of learnings about the buildings, their architectural details as well as the stories they revealed from within their wallsâŠ
* * *
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT NATALIA OLSZEWSKA:
NATALIA'S LINKEDIN PAGE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalia-olszewska/
COMPANY WEBSITE: improntaspace.com
EMAIL: [email protected]
NATALIA'S BIO:
Natalia is a versatile professional with a foundation in medicine and neuroscience, dedicated to applying neuroscientific principles to architectural design. She adeptly connects these two realms, striving to improve our built environment by making it more human-centered and conducive to well-being.
Furthermore, Natalia is an accomplished researcher and practitioner in the field of neuroscience applied to architecture, specializing in evidence-based and neuroscience-informed design. She garnered invaluable experience during her tenure at Hume, a pioneering architectural and urban planning firm founded by Itai Palti, where she led the 'Human Metrics Lab.' Natalia lent her expertise to design projects for prestigious clients such as Arup, Skanska, HKS Architects, EDGE, the Association of Children's Museums, the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, Google, as well as numerous individual clients.
Her interdisciplinary approach transcends boundaries, allowing her to craft built environments that foster individual well-being across various dimensions - social, psychological, and cognitive. Natalia's co-founding role at IMPRONTA, a consultancy specializing in health and well-being design, underscores her commitment to leveraging neuroscience and applied sciences in architecture. Since 2020, she has also been contributing to the NAAD (Neuroscience Applied to Architecture) course at IUAV University in Venice.
Natalia's educational journey is characterized by a distinctive blend of backgrounds, encompassing medicine from Jagiellonian University and Tor Vergata, neuroscience from UCL, ENS, Sorbonne, and neuroscience applied to architectural design from UniversitĂ IUAV.SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.
EPISODE 76⊠and my conversation with Natalia Olszewska.
On the podacast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience. SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
On this episode I connect with Natalia Olszewska is a versatile professional with a foundation in medicine and neuroscience, dedicated to applying neuroscientific principles to architectural design.
Weâll get to all of that in a moment but first though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
For a while now I have had a fascination with the connection between buildings and brains.
While I loved psychology, and studied it before getting into architecture school, it occurred to me in the middle of the 20-teens that buildings, or the environments we design and build, have a direct effect on our psychology.
There are places in which we feel good or bad or uneasy or exhilarated, or a sense of awe or agitation. There are places where we feel calm, and others that make me feel ill at ease.
And all of those feelings have a body sense to them as well. Heart rises or decreases. I sweat more or less. My chest feels tight or relaxed. Cortisol, adrenaline, norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, and other neurochemicals and hormones are released and coursing through my body as I experience places. And many of these hormones and neurochemicals being released into my blood stream I have little control over. My brain-body reacts to environmental stimuli and biochemistry does its thing.
Buildings may make me feel certain way, induce certain emotions, that we may think are just about your thoughts, brain activity, but at the core, our body too is in a relationship with conditions in the environment.
We feel architecture with our bodies, we donât just intellectually experience them in our heads.
The experience of buildings, and our emotional reactions to them, is as much a âbottom-up processâ - our bodyâs sensory processes taking in stimuli from the environment - as a âtop-downâ process â our brains processing that sensory information and making decisions about who we should behave in response to them.
Our bodies and brains are in continual dialogue with the world around us. In fact, through a process of neuro plasticity, our brains are wired partly in response to our experiences. Yes we are hard wired through our millions of years of evolution to have what we consider innate responses to the environment and then there are those neuronal connections that area direct result of experiences in the here and now.
As you listen to this podcast, your brain is creating new wiring shaping the neural pathways that allow for learning and behaviors.
And as we repeatedly experience something, those pathways are reinforced facilitating understanding. Those pathways recognize patterns in our experiences, and they are codified so that when we experience them again our brains are not continually trying to decipher every element anew.
If it werenât for our brainâs ability of recognize patterns and anomalies in them, we would live a life of extreme ground hog day and would likely be immobilized with the processing necessary to analyze every element we encounter every moment of every day. Over millions of years some of these patterns have become deeply ingrained in our neurobiology. They are part of our brain structures that allow us to react instinctually.
You might say that some of them operate âbelow the radarâ of our conscious awareness. But because they are not front row center in our awareness doesnât mean that they donât have an influence of our mindbody state.
Colors, lighting, materials, geometries, visual patterns and spatial arrangements, to name of few, have an effect on us. We might not necessarily pay attention to these elements of our environment as we move through it, but they have an effect on us.
We may not consciously feel the influence of these things, but the effects are there, nevertheless.
Acute angles, loud sounds, bright fluorescent lights, certain colors and texture patterns, repetitive and banal patterns, things devoid of detail and out of scale with our human body all have an effect on our sense of well-being.
University of Waterloo cognitive neuroscientist Colin Ellard has worked for more than three decades in the application of psychology and neuroscience to architectural and urban design. His work illustrates the impact of âboring buildingsâ on how we feel and our sense health and well-being. We humans, it turns out, function and feel better in environments of physical and visual intricacy. We seek our variety and complexity, layered environments that pique our curiosity and sense of intrigue.
And yetâŠfar too many of our built environments at simply banal.
Ellard says the - âThe holy grail in urban design is to produce some kind of novelty or change every few seconds,â âOtherwise, we become cognitively disengaged.â
Imagine for a moment what is happening inside our mind-bodies when we live 8 + hours in a sea of detail-less white cubicles under a blanked of fluorescent lights. We might think this is an efficient office space, but we are creating brain numbing environments and at the same time asking people to reach optimal performance in the workplace.
We may wish hotels guests a good night sleep on a heavenly bed and then we fill the room with light that completely counteracts the production of melatonin telling our brain that it is still daytime and to stay alert.
And⊠we have built city block after city block of repetitive, banality. Efficient to build, very economical yes, but a boredom inducer for the brain.
Now this doesnât mean that every environment needs to be a rollercoaster for the senses nor be pristine and bucolic. In fact, some environments are better because they are wellâŠmessier.
Charles Montgomery, author of Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design suggest that successful design is about âshaping emotional infrastructure.â Montgomery argues that some of the happier blocks in New York are âkind of ugly and messy.â
The energy of New York can be both energizing and exhausting.
It would be perhaps unfair to heap the responsibility for inhabitantsâ psychological and physical well-being entirely on buildings but given that we now spend the overwhelming proportion of our days enclosed in them, it stands to reason that they have a clear effect on how we feel.
For whatever itâs worth, Aarhus, Denmark is the worldâs happiest city, according to the London-based Institute for Quality of Lifeâs 2024 Happy City Index. The Institute for the Quality of Life identified five categories it believes have the most direct impact on happiness, including citizens, governance, economy, mobility and environment.
Based on these factors, Aarhus, Denmark, achieved the highest score, particularly excelling in governance and the environment. I think Copenhagen also held the title at some point I believe due to its building stock being human scale, detailed and varied engendering intrigue and visual delight.
And this is where this episodeâs guest Natalia Olszewska comes into the story.
Natalia went to medical school but always had a fascination with architecture. When on a trip to the Venice Biennale it clicked for her that she could combine both of these interests considering that neuroscience could be linked to how buildings make us feel.
The rest as they say is historyâŠ
Natalia adeptly connects these two realms, striving to improve our built environment by making it more human-centered and conducive to well-being. Natalia is an accomplished researcher and practitioner in the field of neuroscience applied to architecture, specializing in evidence-based and neuroscience-informed design.
Her interdisciplinary approach transcends boundaries, allowing her to craft built environments that foster individual well-being across various dimensions - social, psychological, and cognitive. Nataliaâs co-founding role at IMPRONTA, a consultancy specializing in health and well-being design, underscores her commitment to leveraging neuroscience and applied sciences in architecture.
Since 2020, she has also been contributing to the NAAD (Neuroscience Applied to Architecture) course at IUAV University in Venice a city that is most definitely not boringâŠ
* * *
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The next level experience design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT LOUISA WHITMORE:
TIK TOK:
LOUISA'S BIO:
Louisa Whitmore is an architecture content creator on TikTok with over 350K followers, as well as the host of the cable television documentary series âThe Nature of Design.â
A former commentator for the USModernist podcast, Whitmore has also worked as a live radio host and PSA producer at CHMA 106.9FM, the local radio station at Mount Allison University, where sheâs currently an honors student studying international relations and French.
She enjoys telling stories, and is passionate about sustainable design.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.
EPISODE 75⊠and my conversation with Louisa Whitmore.
On the podacast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
he NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Louisa Whitmore is a TikTok creator phenom whose content is about architecture. With almost 400 thousand followers her no holds-barred, straight from the heart and to the point commentary about the buildings she loves and loves to hate, brings a user experience point of view and accessible critique into the mainstream.
Weâll get to all of that in a moment but first though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
The great thing about doing this podcast is it gives me an opportunity to rethink some of the assertions that have held to be true and cross check whether in fact they are immutable or whether there is room for challenging myself and maybe digging into some subtleties and nuances⊠and seeing things a different way.
Like for example the idea of criticism â who does it and its valueâŠ
I have to admit I haven't been particularly fond of the idea of critics for a very long time. This would be generally true of the kind who dole out the negative kind of commentary.
Years ago when commenting on something, I think it was some art piece, and my son said to me ââŠdad why is it that you never really say you hate anythingâŠâwhich I sort of thought was kind of funny then.
I think I responded ââŠwell because I don't really hate anything⊠I try to always view things from the other side - a different point of view. I try to get beyond the visceral reaction and look to design principles and comment from a place of applying principles to the work and see how they line upâŠand then make a comment that is based yes on whether I simply like it, the colors, shapes, energy, feeling , may be a message it is trying to impart AND whether I can see the value in it based on principles determined to be generally accepted by experts in the domainâŠâ so yeah I donât really hate thingsâŠ
If I apply the idea of casting judgement on art, music, architecture⊠it got me thinking⊠againâŠ
What is the value of judgement? Is it to determine the appropriateness of something to a particular context or challenge?
I have my favorite architects and artists and musical performers, I like different styles and periods.
But I donât listen to heavy metal (though my sons love it). I donât know that I can say that I hate it. Perhaps I just donât understand it and maybe if I did, it still wouldnât jibe with me.
It just doesnât go in my body well. Itâs a sensory mismatch.
I donât hate it â It makes me agitated. So, I just donât listen to it.
And I guess you could say the same thing for certain genres of art.
For example⊠I'm not particularly crazy about a lot of contemporary art.
I have a hard time understanding a performance artist dipping her hair in paint and swinging aloft from a rope while her hair drags across a canvas and the painting while on lookers wrapped in dimly lit light bulbs stand slightly by selling for millions of dollars⊠it isn't something I quite get.
And I know that authorized replicas of the Marcel Duchamp sculpture called the âFountainâ - which is a urinal - sell for somewhere between 3 and $4 million each
and here's the kicker... apparently because the original has been lost the financial the value of the original piece is unknown and might be considered as being priceless.
I don't know⊠it sort of leaves me just trying too hard... knowing I'm falling profoundly short of ascending to the intellectualized rarefied air that somehow makes this sort of thing makes sense.
And I also suspect that if I'm voicing these concerns or questions that I am likely to get a lot of people commenting that my remarks point out my ignorance, that I just don't understand and I would âŠwellâŠagree with them.
Iâm ok with that. Really.
And I think I'm not alone in this category of not understanding contemporary art and the extraordinary prices that contemporary art paintings fetch at auctions
and then again maybe if I did, I still wouldn't spend $25 million on a Rothko painting.
The thing about critics, I think, is that we entrust these individuals with being in the know, of having deep insight, knowledge or experience into the making of the art.
That these are people who understand its value and relevancy to culture and somehow able to unfold the deep meaning in the work whatever format the creativity comes in and to bestow upon us their opinion as if it is fact.
The challenge of course is that I think there may be an ignorance in the public and that the deeper inner meaning of things is somehow held in reserve for the creators of the work or select few who follow it.
But I've always had a challenge with the idea that the critic seems to have the extraordinary power to completely destroy the creative work as well as raise it to high levels of adulation and praise.
I think that in some ways we have come to trust to the critic as certainly knowing more than we do and therefore what they say about a particular piece of art or architecture should be taken as truth and the presumed value of the creation lies in whether their commentary is positive or negative.
How many people have not gone to see a movie because it only got 2 stars⊠and who said it should only have two stars?
Maybe I would have found the comedy hilarious⊠but not the critic.
I often don't even check reviews by the masses on restaurant or hotel booking sites and if I do read the reviews, I do it very carefully.
I look to see what it was that these people did or didn't like. What it was that made their experience a must see or a definite red tomato.
Personally, I dig to see if there is anything at a lower level that suggests what was driving the positive or negative review? What it was in this message that this particular critic is trying to convey?
I've often thought that to be able to criticize art or other forms of creative invention you'd have to understand what it was the maker was intending to convey.
You'd have to understand the basic ideas, for example, of composition to be able to determine whether a Jackson Pollock or a Kandinsky or a Basquiat was worth all the fuss and on what basis you were making the comments about the work.
I guess itâs not all critics that I have a problem with but maybe more those who simply present negative opinions.
And itâs not like I should even care that critic X didnât like thing Y. It was their opinion. Okay so they have an opinion.
The challenge is the uninformed may come to accept the opinion as fact and turn away from somethings simply because some one says its not good.
I guess the role of the professional critic is to study and assess the value of a creative work and pass judgment on the product based on facts and logical assertions. This is kind of like knowing a bit about composition before offering an opinion the write something off.
It seems to me that the idea of a critic is to connect ideas, arrive at reasonable conclusions and perhaps open avenues for discussing new directions and fostering an awareness of ideas and cultural trends.
It also seems to me that the role of the critic is to challenge our general assumptions about things to get us to look more deeply at our assertions and to get us to not simply accept things at face value but to continue to search for excellence, challenge the status quo, in all of the things that we bring into the world so that we don't fill it with the mundane or banal.
There's something about the critic as âeducatorâ - increasing our collective level of understanding of things, pointing out where things might likely be improved and offering positive commentary on what might be a series of next steps in order to develop the output and make it better - that I align with.
And I know that the idea of making it âbetterâ is full of all manner of subtext and necessity to consider contextual considerations⊠âbetterâ for whom, for what and why?
And maybe this is where I mostly land on the idea of the value of the critique is that of using constructive criticism for the value of enhancing people's understanding of a particular subject or giving the creator tools to go back to the drawing board, so to speak, and make it better.
Jazz master saxophonist David Liebman wrote a concise piece on his website called âThe Critic Dilemma: Criticism vs. Reviewâ. He describes many of the same ideas about whoâs making he comments, are they objective facts or subjective opinions, and why should we trust one criticâs opinion over another? Liebman differentiates between critique and a review:
ââŠWhen the writerâs opinion and taste is the focal point, this constitutes a critique. On the other hand, a review should be the dissemination of information with the desired intention being elucidation. The idea is that with this information, the listener is equipped to form his own opinionâŠâ.
And this is where this episodeâs guest Louisa Whitmore begins to fit into the story.
When Louisa was 16 years old she began to share architecture commentary on Tik Tok. She blew up the social media sphere with posts that were personal and occasionally pointed.
She came at her critiques of buildings not from the expert or architectural practioner point of view but from that of the user, the general public mindset.
She didnât profess to be a building expert, to have deep knowledge in construction but rather to simply be part of the general public who experienced the built environment every day but who had little to nothing to do with how buildings got there in the first place.
Her negative commentary on 432 Park Avenue - the luxury condo building designed by Rafael Viñoly and SLCE Architects â lit up the digisphere with 100s of thousands of followers lining up behind her to voice their impressions of this building.
Most of them not very good I might add. Which was actually ok since there was a ton of press â not particularly good I might add â about problems with the building. Now, Louisa didnât know about these issues about the engineering, the building swaying (which would be natural by the way) and other problems but felt vindicated nevertheless with the press that effectively substantiated her intuitive feelings about this super-tall condo on the Central Parkâs edge.
I see her posts more like David Leibmanâs construct of the âReviewâ â ââŠthat with this information, the listener is equipped to form his own opinionâŠâ.
And opinions her followers had. 1000âs of them.
In the spirit of ââŠthe dissemination of information with the desired intention being elucidationâŠâ Whitmore turned her attention to projects thatfocused on Biophilia and how buildings with ample integration of plants seemed to simply feel better.
Her noteriaty on Tik Tok, articulate whit, intuition and ability to articulate the âperson on the streetâsâ perception of the built environment, landed her the role as host of âthe cable television documentary series âThe Nature of Designâ.
Over the course of a number of episodes Whitmore tours properties talking about biophilic principles and with the support of a variety of experts ranging from architects to neuroscientists she dives into the science of how buildings with a biophilic approach effect our well-beingâŠ
Whitmore is called a teenage architecture critic. While her rise on social media platforms may have been based on the building she loved to hate, it seems that she is using her notoriety to review and elucidateâŠ.
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The next level experience design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT TREVOR BULLEN:
LINKEDIN PROFILE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-bullen-6b55b615/
DUNWOODY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY: https://www.linkedin.com/school/dunwoody-college-of-technology/
TREVOR'S BIO:
Trevor is the Dean of the School of Design at Dunwoody College of Technology. He is an award-winning architect with over 25 years of professional experience. He has significant international experience; working on a wide range of architecture, landscape architecture and planning projects in Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States. In addition to his role as Dean, Trevor has taught architectural design at the Boston Architectural College, the City College of New York as well as the University of Minnesota and is a frequent guest critic at schools of architecture nationwide.
Prior to joining Dunwoody, he was a Senior Associate and Director of Operations at Snow Kreilich Architects, the recipient of the 2018 AIA Architecture Firm Award. From 2000 to 2016, he co-founded and led an architecture and planning studio on the island of Grenada, completing more than 30 built projects. The work of his firm has been published extensively in journals and books as well as being exhibited at the 2021 Architecture Biennale in Venice.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.
EPISODE 74⊠and my conversation with Trevor Bullen.
On the podacast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Trevor is the Dean of the School of Design at Dunwoody College of Technology. He is an award-winning architect with over 25 years of professional experience who believes that design and teaching architecture is synonymous with discernment.
Weâll get to all of that in a moment but first though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
When I think back to my architecture education, it seems like another universe to todayâs practice. And then again, in some ways it is much the same.
Architecture school was 4 long years of hard work and all-nighters that, at the time, we wore as a badge of honor. It seemed that there was never enough time to do what we were being asked to accomplish. Or maybe I was trying to do more than was necessary to fulfill the learning objectives.
I certainly felt I had a lot to prove since it had taken me a couple of years to finally get accepted into the program after not doing particularly well at calculus and linear algebra in junior college. I also took extra math in fifth grade.
Yeah⊠math wasnât my thing.
Or at least it wasnât my thing until I had a good tutor in second year who helped me understand that I was visual spatial learner and if I could draw or make models of the problems they would all make sense.
Seeing algorithms⊠my eyes would roll back in my head.
AnywayâŠI stuck with it, took every drawing class I could, loved design studio and managed the engineering.
I was proud to graduate from the McGill School of Architecture school, go on to study for my licensing exams - another series of all-nighters â pass and be able to enter the profession of reserved title and call myself an âArchitect.â
I was proud to wear the traditional pinky-finger white gold ring with 7 notches in it representing the 7 Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin. Ruskin was an English polymath â a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. The Seven Lamps were seven principles which Ruskin viewed should be reflected in a building: Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, and Obedience.
The white gold ring was a tradition of McGill 4th year architecture graduates, as symbols of having legitimately put the time in, done the work on the design thesis and survived it.
In those days we drew our projects by hand and built models in the workshop. We got our hands dirty. There were 4 years of design studio projects that, in the real world, would take months or more, and we were trying to get them done in weeks.
Back in those days, the mid 80âs, Computer Aided Design was emerging as a new tool. I remember that we had to take a class in computer programming â I think it was Fortran or something â and we had dinosaur computers that some students were playing around with to create drawings.
In the mid-80âs email didnât exist, or not to students in any case,
Cell phones had just arrived with the Morotrola DynaTec 8000 which was the size of a brick and weighed almost the same,
We used this thing called a fax machine that magically sent images across the telephone wires and could print it out on the other end on thermal paper (which you didnât want to leave on the window sill, because it would fade away),
The blue print shop was an ammonia fumigated workplace where diazo prints, as they were technically called, were actually blue hence the term âblue prints.â
We used pencils or ink pens on paper or mylar, and if you screwed up you actually used an eraser to rub the error out and you drew it again.
I remember one of my first summer jobs in an architecture office, I was quickly assigned renderings due to my love of drawing. I had made some mistakes when plotting out a perspective using the Plan Projection Method, and I was erasing what I had drawn. One of the principals came by my desk, stopped, watched and then remarked âhey⊠we hired you to draw not eraseâŠâ and then walked away.
NiceâŠ
Our go to reference books were by Francis D.K Ching â ah⊠the drawings and hand lettering in âArchitecture Construction Illustratedâ, or âForm Space and Orderâ
And⊠the social media, google, Ai and computer generated 3D modeling didnât exist.
It wasnât until around 2005 or so that Facebook became popular and the iPhone came out in 2007.
Then the world seemed to shift on it axis and life as we know it was on the path towards Artificial General Intelligence and all of the miraculous - and scary - things we are now so familiar with shaped our everyday lives.
The world sped up and the way I learned in university was both a thing of the past and then again it wasnât.
Many of the ways architecture is taught are similar to my experience. Courses are taught as individual, disaggregated subjects, that graduates have to piece together in actual life experience. A wholistic approach to learning the discipline of architecture is not generally the norm.
Which when you consider all of the components of a building it is a challenge since everything is connected to everything and the amount of âeverythingâ in a building can indeed be overwhelming if you try to consider it all at the same time.
The number of professional and skilled labor disciplines is enormous. And most of us simply see buildings as âfait a complisâ â completed works - with no idea what actually had to be wrangled to go from concept to completed construction.
Going back to social media and the internet for a moment, students now have never known a time without ubiquitous access to the worldâs information through the internet.
The tools for designing buildings have changed.
One could say it is easier to some degree now.
Computer programs manage all of the interrelationships between engineering, architecture, building systems, interior design elements, as well as the cost estimating, construction management and more.
It is also easier to rely on tools to think for you and disconnect you from discernment â one of the key features of the architectsâ role in puting a building together.
And this is where my guest on this episode comes into the frame. Trevor Bullen is the Dean of the School of Design at Dunwoody College of Technology.
Trevor is an award-winning architect with over 25 years of professional experience.
He has significant international experience, working on a wide range of architecture, landscape architecture and planning projects in Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States.
In addition to his role as Dean, Trevor has taught architectural design at the Boston Architectural College, the City College of New York as well as the University of Minnesota and is a frequent guest critic at schools of architecture nationwide.
He believes in introducing real world problems into the architecture curriculum so that students begin to understand the relationships between theory and practice as well as that good projects are built on good relationships between architects and their clients.
He suggests to students that new tools should not supplant their discernment â
That key to their success as a professional will be their ability to consider the multitude of factors in building design, determine what matters and to not let the remarkable tools that are afforded us through the development of computer aided design relace their voice.
Trevor pushes the idea that great advances in visualization with Ai should not be and end in itself but a means to that end.
The tools should be a part of the process not the end point in the evolution of a concept and that their personal voice, point of view, vision should not be lost in the use of the app.
And in Trevorâs experience, oh what a voice students of today have.
Projects are influenced by subjects of racial equity, restorative justice, indigeneity, political orientations, sustainability and climate change and more.
And this, it seems to me, is what architecture has always been partly about â the 3-dimensional representation of cultural ideologies.
Architecture and ideas are inseparable.
Buildings stand as testaments to what we believe, want to influence and aspire to. They are much more than the materials that bring them into being or the space planning at accommodate human interactions. They are epicenters of human relationships imbued with stories and meaning.
That said, it brings to mind the famous quote by Marshal McLuhan - "The medium is the message."
McLuhan suggested that the way information or an idea is communicated, like in a television broadcast, newspaper, social media post or I dare say architecture, has as much impact on the message itself as the content of the message.
I think that this suggests that the form of communication, even if the form of architecture, significantly influences how the message is perceived by the audience.
In architecture parlance â I think Mies van der Rohe phrased it as âForm Follows Function.â
If beyond utility, architecture is made to convey ideas, then its Form, Space and Order are brought together as a 3-dimension embodiment of them.
Thinking back to my architecture education, the tools of todayâs professional practice have drastically changed and some of my classmates when on to other careers other than being architects,
but the education we got then gave us a understating of the interconnectedness of things and the ability to solve multilayered challenges while wielding stone, steel, glass, light all forged into a unified whole by learned discernment.
Teaching discernment is not just in the service of good building design and construction, it is a life skill as emerging students navigate the volatile, unpredictable, complex and often ambiguous world that face them beyond their architecture degree.
* * *
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT MARDI NAJAFI:
LINKEDIN PROFILE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mardi-najafi-rdi-idc-772b1328/
MARDI'S BIO:
Mardi Najafi is an award-winning, multidisciplinary designer with over 30 years of experience at the forefront of the design world. A visionary leader in the field, Mardi believes that design has the power to evoke emotion, create unforgettable experiences, and leave a lasting impact. His work spans a diverse range of high-profile retail environments, from intimate boutiques to large-scale, branded experiences for some of the worldâs most iconic companies, including Coca-Cola, Adidas, Virgin Mobile, Telus, Loblaws, Penguin Random House, Keilhauer, and Versace. His global portfolio reflects his ability to blend innovation and cultural context, with projects across Paris, New York, Toronto, and beyond.
As the Principal, Chief Creative Officer, and Retail & Hospitality Practice Lead at SDI Design, Mardi is passionate about pushing the boundaries of design to craft immersive, transformative environments that captivate audiences. Known for his attention to detail and his ability to seamlessly merge art and commerce, he excels at creating spaces that are not only visually striking but also deeply meaningful and engaging. His work continues to redefine the retail landscape, setting new standards for brand experiences that resonate long after customers leave.
Beyond his design practice, Mardi is an active voice in the industry as an accomplished speaker, educator, and panelist. He is deeply committed to fostering innovation, sharing his expertise with the next generation of designers through mentorship and his involvement in various professional advisory committees. A lifelong advocate for education, Mardi has taught at prestigious design schools around the world, inspiring students and shaping the future of the design community.
In 2023, Mardi was honored as the first Canadian inductee into the Retail Design Institute's prestigious Legions of Honor, recognizing his exceptional contributions to the field. He is also currently serving as the President of the Retail Design Institute Canada, where he continues to shape industry standards and advocate for the advancement of design excellence.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.
EPISODE 73⊠and my conversation with Mardi Najafi.
On the podcast, our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Mardi Najafi is the Principal, Chief Creative Officer, and Retail & Hospitality Practice Lead at SDI Design.
We discuss his life of growing up the son of an Iranian diplomat, a professional path through the fashion, exhibit design and retail industries and how teaching is about giving back to young designers in their fledgling careersâŠ
Weâll get to all of that in a moment but first, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
There are interviews that I have done over the past 73 episodes that have been specifically about a personâs work,
There have been those that have been about a brand or product category,
Or the study of neuroscience and its role in experience making,
Weâve delved into art and creativity, leadership, climate issues, and many other subjects.
And there are other interviews that I have done that focused in on a personâs career path, how their experiences brought them to where they are today. In these cases, I often find that my guest and I identify how serendipity stepped in front of them as they careened through a career, how taking the road less traveled lead them to creative professional journeys that were unexpected, and how a shift in their mindset resulted in profoundly rewarding roles at companies or with personal and professional relationships.
I love discussions about serendipity â how our life paths seem to be guided by novel circumstances that were unforeseen, yet when confronted with them, we found a moment to step aside from our pre-determined story, one that we might have created with specific objectives, a place to be at some future moment, and in the midst of new circumstances, a choice was to be made about what the next move would be without really knowing where it would lead.
There seems to be some magic in this process â a sense of wonder that keeps the creative spirit alive. There is also a good dose of courage needed at the nexus of ânow and next, when a calling summons new thinking and a re-evaluation of our pre-suppositions about how things are supposed to be now, or in the future, need re-evaluation.
I think it is often the case with creative paths or projects.
To start out knowing where you are going would suggest that you have you have already been. To start out with the end in mind creates a path of production, of doing, rather than one of seminal discoveries along the way.
There is something in the unknowing that I believe maintains the creative path as an adventure, one where in the doing of the thing we are continuously discovering rather than just in production mode.
In the discovering, we remain engaged, learning, exploring and the path is laid out as we move along it. However⊠being in a place of unknowing, can be fear inducing since I think we so often like the assuredness of the pre-determined and predicable.
I have found this particularly true in teaching at universities in design fields. Students donât like the unpredictable so much. Many prefer the determinism of knowing where their projects will eventually end up. But I think in taking this approach we short circuit the opportunity to discover something new â something we could not have predicted but when discovered, results in a sense of awe that shifts our perspective and maybe our purpose.
And I think it takes courage to follow a set of rules about designing something, call it strategy, and let the rules of the strategy guide the process. As we pursue the path of the work the rules help to guide decisions that make the next step self-evident. Then the next, and the next and so on, until a conclusion to the process meets the requirements of the design brief.
Assuming the strategy is well founded, you can rely on the rules to guide the process and decision-making. Along the design path, all decisions can be cross-referenced against the strategy and the outcomes that donât align with the determined set of rules can be set aside in a preference for the ones that best exemplify them.
Then there is the emergence of circumstances that throw you a curve ball â conditions shift within which you have little control â and your path necessarily changes. The resilience and the flexible mindset that is required in these moments are factors that influence your ability to adjust â to find yourself in a place of positive transformation or maybe to simply survive.
I have found that the key to positive transformation is to keep saying yes to serendipity. To loosen the rigidity in my mindset and welcome the unexpected.
It can be a struggle because I have generally been geared to knowing where Iâm going. I donât mind saying that I have long preferred the predictable over the mercurial.
It is at times not easy, but these moments of re-alignment with new realities can be the success factor supporting our determination to keep going and to leverage the ânewâ for the purpose of re-making ourselves. I think that in this, there is a sense of agency. I think that we are, in fact, in little control of anything but for our own reactions to adversity or the everchanging circumstances of life.
Perhaps this is the proverbial âmaking lemonade out of lemons.â When life gives you lemons⊠you know⊠make lemonade.
And this is where the life path of my guest in this episode comes in. Mardi Najafi has had a colorful host of experiences influencing his professional path.
Having grown up the son of an Iranian Diplomat, he was schooled in multiple countries including Iran, France and Russia.
He was conscripted into Iranian military service and made a friend with whom he, after his release from service, created a business bringing watches into Iran. That adventure eventually allowed him to earn enough money to buy his fatherâs release from prison and ironically lead to a career in design.
After a building a successful professional track record working in Europe, he landed in Canada where he fostered his interest in retail design.
In 2023, Mardi was honored as the first Canadian inductee into the Retail Design Institute's prestigious Legion of Honor, recognizing his exceptional contributions to the retail design field. He is also currently serving as the President of the Retail Design Institute Canada, where he continues to shape industry standards and advocate for the advancement of design excellence.
Mardi Najafi is an award-winning, multidisciplinary designer with over 30 years of experience at the forefront of the design world. A visionary leader in the field, Mardi believes that design has the power to evoke emotion, create unforgettable experiences, and leave a lasting impact.
His work spans a diverse range of high-profile retail environments, from intimate boutiques to large-scale, branded experiences for some of the worldâs most iconic companies, including Coca-Cola, Adidas, Virgin Mobile, Telus, Loblaws, Penguin Random House and Versace.
Mardi is deeply committed to fostering innovation, sharing his expertise with the next generation of designers through mentorship and his involvement in various professional advisory committees.
After having a few conversations with Mardi, I would say he lands squarely in the camp of actually following Robert Frostâs âRoad Not Takenâ welcoming the discovery born of lifeâs moment of significant change - even when it is uncomfortable.
* * *
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT TARA HAASE HIEMINGA:
LINKEDIN PROFILE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-haase-hieminga-48124621/
TARA'S BIO:
Tara Haase Hieminga is the Elevated Shopper Experience Global Lead at Mondelez International. With more than 12 years at Mondelez he has previously held roles such as Senior Manager Shopper Marketing & In-Store Merchandising, Sr. Manager Design & Digital Engagement. Prior to Mondelez, Tara was at Kraft Food Group as the Design Strategy Leader and before that, she worked for Mars as the Brand Manager, Candy and In-Store Marketing Manager for Snackfoods.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.
EPISODE 72⊠and my conversation with Tara Haase Hieminga.
On the podacast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Tara Haase Hiemanga who is the Global Lead for Elevated Shopper Experiences at Mondelez.
She is using an understanding of neuroscience to enhance customer experiences across a number of the Mondelez brands. What brands are those, well there is a pretty big list but let me just say a few of my favorites â OREO, Toblerone, Cadbury, Wheat Thins and I could go onâŠ
Weâll get to all of that in a moment but first though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
Back around 2008, 9 and 10 my wife was studying interpersonal neurobiology with Dr. Dan Siegel.
I used to come downstairs and listen to her and all the videos she was watching and various conversations she was having and I was often saying âwow that really replies to the work that I'm doing in trying to create retail stores.â
As I listened it became clearer and clearer to me that I could perhaps rely on the lessons of understanding neuroscience as being the core driver to customer experience rather than simply thinking of it in terms of psychology, demographics and culture.
What fascinated me then and still continues today is the idea that â there was something beyond simple psychology that we would be able to use to design better stores something that would relate to almost all humans in terms of how they understood environments specifically how they would look through product assortments, identify key item presentations, understand graphics, and how color, pattern and texture would all come together to either hinder or help decision making in the shopping aisle.
Interestingly, back in the day, it took me a little while to get into architecture. I'd had a great time in junior college but my grades weren't great so I ended up enrolling in a Bachelor of Science in psychology which I was fascinated in anyway because I wanted to understand human dynamics but, I also had a sense that there was something deeply rooted and not just how buildings looked from the design point of view and but how they made people feel from an embodied / sensory point of view.
And so, when I finally got into architecture a lot of my thinking about design was about how these places that we were creating would have qualities about them that would make people feel a certain way.
I sometimes used to say that I didn't care whether you loved it or hated it (of course I hoped you loved it) but I wanted to make sure that you felt something as you were experiencing some place.
And that later in my retail design career that you were satisfied with the experiences as well as the things that you bought in the store.
In 2012 I did a presentation at global shop that was ostensibly about emotions and how we had to begin to understand that creating stores was about building emotional relationships and long term connections and then the awareness of how empathy played into this equation.
This single presentation was a turning point in my career because someone came up to me at the end of it and said ââŠthat idea should be a book.â
And so, taking that as a signâŠI was on my way to immersing myself for the next couple of years in writing âRetail (r)Evolution: why creating right brain stores will shape the future of shopping in the digitally driven world. â
In the book I really dug into the nature of shopping as a cultural phenomena; it's power across the ages to tie together ideas and commerce
the growth of shopping places around the world from the intersections of silk trade routes to the mega malls of North America and I also dug into brain science.
In fact over a third of the book deals with understanding functional areas of the brain and how if we we're able to appreciate more how our gift in perception through our body was directly tied to our emotional connections and long term memory could be used - that all shoppers and retailers would be better off.
I tried to explain it this way: imagine you're in your car - what I'd like you to do is write down 5 things that make the engine of your car run now if you're actually in your car while listening to this, do not start to write down these five things but hold them in your head as an idea what are the five things that make your car engine run? OK got 5 of them?
Now, I want you to think about your brain and think of five things that make you run - through your engine - in other words your brain.
The strange thing is and I've done this at multiple presentations around the world people are more apt to be able to describe 5 things that make the engine of their car run where they might spend 2 hours a day in rather than being able to identify more than two things that make themselves run ( the functional areas of their brain) that they spend 24hrs a day in.
I also put forward the following proposition:
- if we understood that all of our behaviors, thoughts and feelings are run by our brain-body connection, how is it possible that we could be designing stores and not have any clue about the very thing that is so influential in making decisions in the shopping aisle and our willingness to maintain relationships with the brands we love?
So, it became a little bit of a career mission to bring the understanding of neuroscience to the retail design masses hoping that they would understand the power of the brain-body and design and creating effective selling spaces.
Now, the other influence here was the emergence of digital technologies and how that was fundamentally changing the way our brains were being wired.
With the idea that the more you use a functional area of your brain the more you maintain its wiring between neurons and the less used something is the more though the brain goes on a wonderful topiary garden creating extravaganza trimming away neural pathways that are not being used.
This whole subject is referred to as âsynaptic pruningâ and fits together neatly with an idea around âneuroplasticityâ - how your brain changes over time in relation to the things that you're exposed to in the patterns of behavior you engage in.
So my premise then was: - if you are increasingly not using certain areas of your brain related to the exercise of empathy in face to face embodied interactions with other people like we continually do by communicating through our digital devices, what does that mean for the pathways for empathy in our brains and how we communicate with others?
If stores were about empathic engagement, we might have a significant challenge ahead of us.
In other words, if we are communicating less and less in embodied, face-to-face ways, what happens to the neural pathways built for empathic connection if we are using them less?
Does synaptic pruning play a role here eventually diminishing our ability to engage in empathic extension?
This became particularly interesting when you began to look at an entire cohort of emerging customers whose lives were very much directed by their interaction through social media that works and the digital devices they held in their hands.
That is the subject of a bigger and equally interesting conversation which I'll save for another podcast but for now letâs continue to focus on trying to understand what actually motivates people in the shopping aisle there have been fantastic studies that I came across the work of Baba Shiv and how decision making was made in the shopping aisle in relation to the potential for customers cognitive overload how they decided to choose one thing or another or the work of Sheena Iyengar who did a famous study of jams and the idea that a huge selection did not infact increase more purchases and satisfaction in the products chosen.
There are now a heft of studies that are available that continue to reinforce the fact that people's behavior in the shopping aisle is not fully conscious. Much of it happens below the conscious awareness radar.
We are driven by our emotions and our collective history of hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution that gear our brains, regardless of culture, religious or sexual orientation political affiliation or where you live in the world, that we all to some degree are reacting from the same baseline of brain activity in the brainâs functional areas that we all have.
Over the past 10 years there have been a number of organizations that have emerged focusing on the relationship between neuroscience and the built environment.
The ANFA - the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture would be one of them.
Another would be the Neuromarketing Science and Business Association whose conferences around the world bring together neuroscientists, designers, architects, retailers and brands to talk about the influence that neuroscience could play in creating more effective shopping places.
So, I am a huge advocate for trying to understand how we work and the neural mechanisms that influence our behavior beyond our psychology.
The whole idea here is that if we knew a little bit more about how your brain worked, you might likely not do some of the things you do as an architect or designer creating retail or brand experience places thinking it matters when in fact it's completely off of the awareness radar and probably has little influence on how people react while in stores.
And so we come now to my interview with Tara Haase Hiemanga who is the Global Lead for Elevated Shopper Experiences at Mondelez.
So⊠when I say Mondelez you may not know the parent brand but I'm quite sure that you know some, if not all, of these brands and products that might be in your diet every single week.
The Mondelez brands include: Cadbury chocolate and Dairy Milk, Chips Ahoy cookies, Clorets, Halls, the famous Oreo cookie, Philadelphia cream cheese, Ritz crackers, Tang apparently the drink that the astronauts used to have back in the day, Wheat Thins and Toblerone.
Do you know some of those brands?
Yeah I thought you probably did.
Last spring I was attending the SHOP Marketplace event and onto the stage comes Tara Haase Hieminga and a consultant from the company Sellcheck.
They proceeded to talk about how they were using neuroscience to enhance shopper experiences across their assortment of products.
Now if you've ever walked down the snack aisle at your local grocery store, I am quite sure that you are familiar with the sea of merchandise that exists there.
Hundreds of brands all selling within the same category and the question is how does a brand stand out or how do you as a consumer, if you don't already know your brand that you want to buy, decide to buy anything?
If you follow the neuroscience, it can be quite a challenge for the brain to unpack most of what's in that shopping aisle.
On the other hand, if you consider neuroscience you can begin to understand how people make decisions about what they want to buy and be able to do things in terms of your packaging, your product positioning, shelf graphics, the language you use on your packaging to enhance the likelihood that customers will give you deeper consideration and maybe buy more than they anticipated.
And that's exactly what Tara, Sellcheck and Mondelez is doing across their portfolio brands. They have begun to see the incredible impact of implementing neuroscience principles to the design of their packaging, point of purchase presentations and shelf displays so that the customers that they have, or ones they hope to acquire, will be attracted to their product, understand the messaging and end up with more than one bag of snacks in their shopping cart.
I wish that Tara and I would have had hours to discuss the intricacies of neuroscience and shopping behavior and how it relates to the design of products and in store presentations.
This is a subject that I believe all of us should have intimate knowledge.
Since I have never met a retailer who wanted to have a bad experience for their customers, I would suggest that implementing a deep understanding of our innate neurobiological hardware is critical.
* * *
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT RON THURSTON:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rthurston/
Websites:
Retail Pride book: https://www.amazon.com/Retail-Pride-Celebrating-Accidental-Career/dp/1544515928
OSSY: https://www.useossy.com
Retail In America podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retail-in-america/id1618323713
Ron Thurston's Bio:
Ron Thurston's life mission is to celebrate, elevate, and empower the people and spirit of the retail industry.
With over three decades of leading retail stores and operations for top American brands like Gap, West Elm, Apple, Tory Burch, Bonobos, and Saint Laurent, Ron has honed an extensive skill set in retail strategy, management, and innovation.In January 2024, Ron co-founded OSSY, a forward-thinking retail recruiting agency. This venture is dedicated to addressing the biggest hiring and recruiting challenges in retail, reinforcing Ronâs unwavering commitment to the industry.
As the best-selling author of RETAIL PRIDE, Ron inspires retail professionals to embrace their unique career paths. He also hosted the RETAIL IN AMERICA podcast and tour, journeying across the nation in an Airstream trailer during 2022/2023 to uncover and highlight the remarkable stories and individuals in retail.
Ron also serves on the Advisory Boards of several rapidly growing retail tech companies, including Ometria, Butterfly, and YOOBIC, lending his expertise to drive their success.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.
EPISODE 71⊠and my conversation with Ron Thurston, retail veteran, best-selling author, podcast host and man on a mission to celebrate, elevate, and empower the people and spirit of the retail industry.
On the podacast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
In this 70th episode I talk with Samar Younes is a Beirut-born hybrid artist, futurist, and creative catalyst whose work embodies a transcultural approach.
Ron Thurston has spent years opening stores for major internationally recognized brands and knows a thing or two about a career in retail. In our talk we dig into the shifting the mindset of retail being an accidental career to one of choice, about with you should be proud.
Weâll get to all that in a moment but first though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
Throughout my career in the retail design world I have often heard this statement âI never planned to be in retailâ.
And it's often said with some slight lilt of apology, that in a way somehow as an architect it was somehow not taken quite as seriously as the design of public buildings or housing or other things that architects with a capital âAâ do.
What's more, when I entered into the retail design world, quite by serendipity I might add, I came into the design of stores by way of visual merchandising. I was the resident architect of a small 4 personn design and visual merchandising consulting firm on 36th street just east of Park.
Working with a couple of seasoned pros, I learned that visual merchandisers were often regarded simply as window trimmers and I don't think quite got the respect that they were due for the power they had in shaping the retail experience for customers.
Often seen as the silent seller, visual merchandising was a key component to how the customer journey unfolded in a shopping experience. Mannequins and other displays in the store added that extra flavor to the store as a stage set in which the merchandise was the principal actor.
Architecture wasnât unimportant, but it wasnât the be all and end all of the in-store experience. You could have terrific architecture but if you couldn't get your assortment planning right department layouts an in store messaging you were likely not to perform quite as well.
It was through my first employer and mentor Joe Weishar of New Vision Studios in New York that I began to really understand the power of visual merchandising in the store designers toolbox
and that it couldn't be simply left to be an afterthought but had to be integral to the initial strategic design thinking of how a store would be laid out.
Where those special moments of surprise and delight would occur often had little to do with architecture but a lot to do with theatrics, art, marketing, graphics â in short, storytelling.
Going back to that comment a moment ago about serendipity finding me and putting me firmly in the world of retail design, it does very much align with the often heard message that âI didn't plan to be in retail.â It is in fact true, that one now is an architecture I had no awareness and probably no interest in designing stores for a living.
But, that said, I actually had no shame about being in retail.
Retail combined all the things that I loved:
stage set design, industrial design architecture, marketing, consumer behavior, trend analysis, fashion and advertising - all of these disciplines came together in the experience that a brand or retailer would provide for their customers.
The fact of the matter is, that the exchange of goods and services otherwise know as âretail,â is one of the key cornerstones of cultures around the world.
Exchange has always been tied with ideas and that makes it extremely powerful. And, these ideas change over time influenced by the comings and goings of merchants and trends and technologies.
It seems to me, and this comes from someone who was educated trained and licensed as an architect, that retail locations are probably more frequented by the general population than are the major civic buildings that would have been typically called âarchitectureâ in the past.
Think about it, when was the last time that you went to a post office, a library, an Opera House, a government building, a church, synagogue, or mosque or a courthouse?
When did you last walk the campus of a university or visit a museum?
And I am sure that there are some of you who will say well I did all of those yesterday but I'd also hazard a guess that they would be in the minority.
now, when was the last time you went to a store a shopping mall a department store or used your phone to buy something from Amazon or some other online company?
The point here is that shopping is so deeply ingrained in our everyday lives that it's inextricably tied to how we come to understand the world around us.
Shopping places therefore are important and even though many people who work in the retail space find their way there as a transition between the end of one semester and the beginning of another.
Students or younger members of our society are not the only people who find meaningful work in retail and who ultimately end up building their entire careers around working for retailer or brand or some company in the design and construction industry who's connected to designing and building stores.
And somehow our society has often placed a judgment on what type of retail you might likely be engaged in.
I have often heard the position that price point of product is somehow equated to pride in a sales associateâs work or price of products being a precursor to better service but this should not be the case. Experiences in retail stores should not be better if the products it sells are expensive.
Service should be excellent across the product price spectrum of retail experiences.
In fact we've all probably had experiences where being in high priced stores did not render necessarily better service.
The point is that you need to strip away what you sell and deliver high levels of experience regardless of the product or the service that you're providing to your customers.
Providing great service often has to do with how people connect to others and the level of emotional intelligence that sales associates bring to their job every day. Which also suggests that the way we train sales associates in customer interaction protocols might likely be less about the rubric of sequential steps on how to connect â first you do this, say that, then do this, and say that â but might likely be more effective if you train on why we all need emotionally resonant, empathic connection â how empathy is built into our collective DNA.
And this is where my guest, Ron Thurston comes into the story.
Ron suggests that empathy, curiosity and focus translate into every job in retail. He believes that we need to teach human connection rather than sales training. I would bet that most of us can spot the âsales pitchâ a mile away. We could almost speak the script because we have been exposed to it too many times.
Ron Thurston's life mission is to celebrate, elevate, and empower the people and spirit of the retail industry.
Core to his philosophy is to stop referring to your career in retail as âaccidentalâ because you diminish you own power. Its ok to say âI choose to be the best sales associate, leader or stock person and I am proud of my role in the world of retail.â
With over three decades of leading retail stores and operations for top American brands like Gap, West Elm, Apple, Tory Burch, Bonobos, and Saint Laurent, Ron has honed an extensive skill set in retail strategy, management, and innovation.
In January 2024, Ron co-founded OSSY, a forward-thinking retail recruiting agency. This venture is dedicated to addressing the biggest hiring and recruiting challenges in retail, reinforcing Ronâs unwavering commitment to the industry.
As the best-selling author of RETAIL PRIDE, Ron inspires retail professionals to embrace their unique career paths. He also hosted the RETAIL IN AMERICA podcast and tour, journeying across the nation in an Airstream trailer during 2022/2023 to uncover and highlight the remarkable stories and individuals in retail.
I was happy to catch up with Ron Thurston after his key note presentation at the SHOP Marketplace event and sit down for a great talkâŠ
* * *ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
ABOUT SAMAR YOUNES:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samaryounes/
Websites:
bio.site/samaritual
www.samaritual.comBio:
Samar Younes is a Beirut-born hybrid artist, futurist, and creative catalyst whose work embodies a transcultural approach. As the visionary behind SAMARITUAL, a multidisciplinary creative studio, she weaves multidimensional narratives at the intersection of humanity, technology, and nature. With over 20 years of experience as an artistic director and brand strategist, Samar blends generative AI with artisanal craftsmanship and ancestral wisdom to create immersive experiences that challenge stereotypes and envision nuanced futures.
A Central Saint Martins alumna, Samar's work explores global south futures, otherworldly narratives, and interspecies harmonies through three interconnected spheres: Creator, Catalyst, and Cultivator. As a Creator, she crafts visionary artworks and installations that blur the lines between art, fashion, and architecture. In her Catalyst role, she provides strategic foresight and cultural alchemy for organizations navigating our evolving world. As a Cultivator, she nurtures future creativity through her Imaginalogy hybrid future edu lab, empowering individuals with tools and perspectives to thrive in an ever-changing creative landscape in the age of AI.
Samar's transcultural perspective allows her to seamlessly integrate diverse cultural influences, creating a unique aesthetic and transcultural language symbiotic to her diasporic and third culture experience. Using a neuroaesthetic lens, she celebrates kaleidoscopic identities that resist binary categorizations. Through SAMARITUAL, Samar fosters interconnectedness, radical imagination, and visionary world-building, inviting us to participate in crafting inclusive, sustainable narratives that bridge ancestral wisdom with speculative futures.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.
Well here we areâŠSEASON 6âŠour 70th episode. And weâve had some great interactions in the first 69.
This season will be no less engaging.
In the coming weeks weâll have artists, architects, authors and educators. We dig into tech issues with people who make crafting a digital future their lives work. Scientists who will expand our understand of the way we work and how the environments around us work on us.
These dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
In this 70th episode I talk with Samar Younes is a Beirut-born hybrid artist, futurist, and creative catalyst whose work embodies a transcultural approach.
Samar blends generative AI with artisanal craftsmanship and ancestral wisdom to create immersive experiences that challenge stereotypes and envision nuanced futures.
First though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
At the core of this podcast is the idea of fostering âdynamic dialogues on data DATAâ an acronym to include Architecture, Design, Technology and the Arts.
Of course, the idea of talking about DATA is that it's a double entendre that allows me to dive into subjects about the impact that a data-driven society has on a myriad aspects of our human experience.
Since writing my book âRetail Revolution: Why creating right brain stores will shape the future of shopping in a digitally driven world,â I've had a persistent interest in studying how technological advances are reshaping the way we interact with each other and the world around us.
The impact on various industries - commercial enterprises like the retail and hospitality worlds where I have built a 30 year career. And I've often chosen to discuss how artists and creators of all kinds can wield this amazing tool of data as a new medium for the creation of places where we can interact and connect in relevant ways.
At both a city level or small footprint retail store level, I've looked at how digital technologies have grown beyond touch screen interfaces and wayfinding devices to fully immersive environments that deeply affect the way we experience a brand, a product assortment, entertainment venues, a night out for dinner a hotel museums or librariesâŠthe list could go on.
In many of my discussions with guests in previous seasons, when we've talked about the emergence of digital technologies, there have been the obvious concerns about how AI and super intelligence could begin to replace humankind.
While I don't discount the possibility of those dystopian views being possible, I've tended to land on the side of thinking about technology and its extraordinary capacity for creating and making - or for âmaking right,â some of the things that design, even though some of the things that we have designed into the world have been extremely successful in supporting human advancement, have resulted in other challenges that we now face like the global climate crisis.
We've looked at how technologies have been used for pure entertainment as well as applying technology to new approaches in farming. Weâve had guests with whom I have talked about how technological advancements in neuroscience have allowed us to understand more about how the human brain's capacity to spontaneously create, as in a jazz improvisation, and how that is even possible.
Across the 70 episodes that we've published we've intentionally cut across a wide range of subjects. That has been intentional because I happen to believe that everything is connected to everything - that we live in a world of intricate interdependencies where nothing exists in a vacuum and everything in some way either directly, physically, or energetically impacts everything else.
And so, when we talk about things like artificial intelligence, we don't do that in a vacuum either. My guests tend to understand the interrelationship of these extraordinary advances in technologies and that they are derived from a human hand or a human brain.
This idea of the touch of a hand is important to me because I've always believed that there's something magical in making.
That one of the clear defining features of humankind is that we are makers - that we make things that make other things.
I've said this often before - birds make nests and so do the great apes but they don't make nests that create other nests on their own.
I think that when we look at AI, there's often this idea that artificial intelligence is this deep dark cold entity. Perhaps we tend to paint it that way in dystopian movies the capture our imagination and our strange propensity for thinking about destroying ourselves - but I'd rather talk about how artificial intelligence and the hand of the artisan can collaborate to make things that have never existed before and how that collaboration is a critical component to envisioning the new possible.
If you begin to interact with things like ChatGPT and Dall E or Mid Journey, creating visualizations of things that you initially write as prompts, you begin to see what is possible from machines hallucinating but the even those outputs don't exist entirely on their own. They require a human to start the ball rolling.
Sitting a the keyboard, I need to be able to initially imagine something and then write a text-based prompt that will effectively give instructions to the AI upon which it builds an imaginary reality.
And so, it's not exactly true that there is some robotic process at work entirely devoid of emotion and feeling when using Ai tools as way to generate inspiration.
We can introduce emotion - one of our foundational human qualities - into Ai created content and see what emerges from the machine when asked to represent the emotional experience of a place or things.
Ask Mid Journey to create a light blue box and it will do a spectacular job. Ask the ai to create a visual representation of the emotions felt when opening a gift from Tiffany and thatâs an entirely different output.
We can infuse the prompts with emotional content and when we do, the output can be really fascinating.
I think we've often turned to art and in its many forms as expressions of emotion. Sometimes the things that we can't put into words are somehow better expressed through dance, music, painting or other graphic visualizations. And yet when we think about places of human experience it seems that art is often considered decorative rather than part of the strategy.
Now⊠I know that that's not entirely true and cannot be used as a sweeping generalization because certainly there is architecture that in its detailing is considered high art and that the artful design of places it is very much part of the overall experience.
Think of places created for the purpose of the enactment of religious rituals or other public or cultural institutions.
Remember the Mies van der Rohe quote âGod is in the details.â
I think there is something magical and mystical about the maker who take materials and transforms them into places and things that have not been before. And now we have new materials in our palette of things to use.
Data is a new medium, yet it doesnât exist alone in the tool box. When we combine âhand intelligenceâ with artificial intelligence, the skill of the craftsman with the collective intelligence of the masses, we are in for some really interesting creative futures.
This is where my guest Samar Younes comes into the storyâŠ
Samar Younes is a Beirut-born hybrid artist, futurist, and creative catalyst whose work embodies a transcultural approach.
As the visionary behind SAMARITUAL, a multidisciplinary creative studio, she weaves together multidimensional narratives at the intersection of humanity, technology, and nature.
With over 20 years of experience as an artistic director and brand strategist, Samar blends generative AI with artisanal craftsmanship and ancestral wisdom to create immersive experiences that challenge stereotypes and envision nuanced futures.
Samar explains that her work explores otherworldly narratives, and interspecies harmonies through three interconnected spheres: Creator, Catalyst, and Cultivator.
As a Creator, she crafts visionary artworks and installations that blur the lines between art, fashion, and architecture.
In her Catalyst role, she provides strategic foresight and cultural alchemy for organizations navigating our evolving world.
As a Cultivator, she nurtures future creativity through her Imaginalogy hybrid future edu lab, empowering individuals with tools and perspectives to thrive in an ever-changing creative landscape in the age of AI.
When seeing Samarâs work, I am transported to a new place where imagination plays. She is a creativity maven who wields the tools and touch of an artisan and the deftness of a data scientist in making the new possible.
I was lucky to sit down with her at the SHOP Marketplace show to talk about the worlds of artisan craft and its new creative partner in artificial intelligenceâŠ
* * *ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
-
About Angela Gearhart:Angelaâs Profile: linkedin.com/in/angela-gearhart2024Websitesangelagearhart.com/ (Portfolio)mediamaxxcom.net (Company)greendogbotanics.com (Company)
ANGELA'S BIO:
Angela Gearhart, known for creating transformational brand experiences, tackles mission-critical challenges facing brands today. Where there is a gap between brands and their customers, they risk both revenue and relevance. Angela's deep understanding of consumer behavior and her ability to harness the synergy between marketing, sales, and technology, allow her to develop strategies that bridge the gap, igniting growth and fostering brand loyalty.
By optimizing the human-physical-digital experience, she enables brands to disrupt and connect across consumer touchpoints. During her tenure as VP of Connected Brand Experience at Sleep Number, disrupted the mattress category, driving the company's growth from $300M to over $2B, with her team earning over 30 retail design, innovation, and technology awards.
As a trusted advisor and influencer in the retail industry, Angela has earned accolades including recognition as a CSA Top Woman in Retail, Remodista Women2Watch in Business Disruption, Retail Innovator by Retail Touchpoints, and Design Influencer by design:retail Magazine.
Angela is a Founding Partner at Media Maxx, which specializes in accelerating brand growth through ecommerce partnership marketing and retail strategies. Additionally, she serves as Executive Practice Director at AAG Consulting Group, where Angela leverages her insights into buyer dynamics and retail technology landscapes to deliver effective positioning strategies for B2B retail tech firms. She also contributes her expertise to advisory boards for Retail Touchpoints, Goldstein Museum of Design, IRISCX, and Digital Signage Experience.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.
These dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and humanâs influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
In this episode I talk with Angela Gearhart a retail industry leader who spent 20 years at Sleep Number Corporation as the VP of Connected Brand Experience changing the way co nsumes shopped for beds by integrating relevant technologies to enhance the shopping experience and foster deeper relationships between the brand and its customers.
First though, a few thoughtsâŠ
* * *
Off the top of our discussion, this is the sentiment that my guest Angela Gearhart expressed as we dug into a conversation about the nature of retail what it is really about.
No doubt, when you think about retail there is indeed buying involved, but it is so much more than that. In the exchange of goods and services there is an intangible factor to long-term customer life-time value⊠a relationship.
Shopping is less about stuff than a deep interpersonal connection built on our need to be in social groups. The sense of belonging and that the relationship establishes context and meaning to our lives is key.
Is that too much to put on the back of a retail experience?
I donât think so.
For millennia, shopping has been connected to the sharing of ideas as well as the exchange between parties, you give me something and I in return I give you something.
Shopping is ultimately more than getting stuff.
While I think it's certainly true that factors like price point and overwhelming product assortments and some logical sequence of getting people into the store moving them through departments exposing them to products and getting them to buy has been a prominent way to think about, retail I think that it's ultimately more than that.
In a world where shoppers don't have to go to the store because of the modern emergence of digital technologies allowing for convenience shopping from any place anytime from the palm of your hand, the question becomes what is it that drives people to go to the store?
I don't think it would be that just price or having lots of it whatever it is I want would be the only motivator.
I think what customers really want will be for their products and services to be imbued with both utility and significance.
The design of entire experiences will become a critical factor in making shopping places relevant in a world where you have ubiquitous access and abundant choice. But beyond providing products, services and experiences that are beautiful and maybe even transcendent, I think shoppers will desire, as they have for centuries, the feeling of connection, a relationship, being valued and that they can find meaning in the shopping aisles as well as the dry goods and sundries.
In the end we are social beings bound to an innate need to come together in community to cooperate, to share and to use our imaginations to create. Over millennia, these parts of us really haven't changed but the ways we satisfy these needs have been in continuous evolution.
Advances in technology have modified the speed of change moving it from a generational evolution and incremental steps to something more akin to revolution - something that happens very quickly. The pace of change these days is exponential.
So, the way we see technologies and its relationship to interaction and engagement in retail places will be a fundamental driver to how we now expect experiences to unfold.
We have these devices in the palm of our hand and we will likely continue to expect that what we do from the power of our palm - which gives us a sense of agency and control over a developing customer journey narrative - will be something that we also want to do while I'm in the store.
Emerging customers want to interact with technology in a way that is relevant to them - to engage in a way that changes the experiences so that it's focused on them.
Personalization and customization will be key drivers to how we end up creating meaningful retail places in the near future.
This is super important to understand because an entire generation of emerging shoppers who are digitally enabled and very savvy are interested in creating brand relationships that reflect their own personal ideologies.
It won't just be whether or not the things they can get will be inexpensive or easy to access. Ease and convenience will simply be table stakes.
Shopping or the idea of trade and commerce have been simply embedded in our evolution.
Over twisting trade routes across continents, through sprawling bazaars, across the counter at a general store, through the mail or making a purchase with your smartphone on a street corner, shopping has always given us away to make meaning of who we are, how we interact and how we live.
So yeah, I think shopping experiences have always been more than simply getting stuff. Shopping has at its core is an exchange forging trusting relationships and connecting to the world beyond us.
Shopping whether it was in the intersections of silk trade route, the Greek Agora or in today's mega shopping malls has given us a way to connect to our families, our communities, our nations and the world and in doing so we add ourselves to that intricate weaving of our personal and cultural human tapestry. Shopping is part of our cultural orientation.
I think we can look at places like the Greek agora as an ancient version of a social networking site.
When you were going down to the market to get eggs and bread you were likely passing people on the way and overhearing conversations about what was happening in your community. The town crier did not stand out in the middle of a field some distance from the city he was there on the proverbial soapbox informing people of the important information of the day in the town square - in the cultural epicenter of the town surrounded byâŠshopping.
Great retailers have it embedded in their corporate DNA that people drive their business and that their business is equally promote ideas and ideals.
I think more so than ever before it's become critical to understand that for brand to remain relevant it's not just about what you sell but it's about what you stand for that is most important.
So there's meaning attached to the stuff we buy it says a great deal about who you are and how do you feel about social or environmental policies. What we take away from the shopping experience is far more than the stuff but a profound and intangible element of interaction which we've come to call the âexperienceââŠa body memory.
Stores have naturally become the three-dimensional embodiment of the brand and a venue for interacting and emotionally connecting with people.
So how people feel about the time they've committed to shopping in a retail place is a best indicator of whether or not they'll in fact make a purchase and be committed to come back over and over again. In the end it's not so much about the stuff they get but the positive feelings they hold about the people they interacted with and that helps to make shopping experiences more memorable.
I know that I have had, and I'm sure that you likely have had too, experiences where a great interaction with the sales associate has helped you either make a decision about buying something or making you feel fabulous in that new black dress or that outfit.
Positive memories of shopping also enhance the willingness to share that story with other people and become advocates for the brand.
In the recounting of the experience you share feelings about the people you interacted with - how kind they were - how they seemed to tune into what your needs were in the moment.
And in the best case scenario, it's more than just following a well crafted customer engagement protocol where a script is laid out about how to speak to a customer. There are some brands where the associates simply have it in them to know how to connect and make you feel great once you've arrived in the store.
And of course this is not a new idea in the creating a great shopping experiences but this intangible nourishment of their relational right brain through personal connections helps promote the likelihood that customers move from shopper to customer and it also fosters a willingness to keep on coming back.
If you're in the retail design space - for years we've used Apple as the example of it not necessarily being about this stuff.
The experience is not about an inexplicably broad assortment of products in Apple stores. They have very few products displayed on any of the iconic Parsons tables. The key driver to the Apple shopping experiences about the interaction you have when you walk through the door and you meet someone in a blue shirt who asks you how they can help and their then technology facilitates the relationship.
And that is a key part about the integration of technology and retail stores. Technology in retail stores needs to be in the service of something that I call âTECHNEMPATHYâ - the use of technology in the service of empathic extension.
If you're not using technology to build the relationship then it's digital wallpaper and not really of much use.
Now⊠it is true that immersive digital experiences can be exceptionally captivating and I do think that we will eventually end up with stores that are somewhat like the holodeck using AR and VR.
I also think that digital experiences will somehow reflect back to us my personal emotional neuro-biological - inner mind-body state. But technology can't only be for wow factor. It has to be for engaging people in relevant ways where it facilitates a relationship between me, the product and the store and the brand.
And this brings me back to the beginning of this introduction to talk about my guest Angela Gearhart who spent 20 years with Sleep Number Corporation changing the entire paradigm for how we bought beds.
Sleep number doesn't just have great technology in the beds that they sell you shifting your purchase from some commodity that you spent eight or so hours a day on, but to selling the idea that sleep was geared towards health and well-being. The benefits of a good night sleep â and how their bed could provide it.
According to Angela Gearhart technology needs to have a purpose in a retail store.
That could be to simplify the process and reduce friction or to have a wow experience but in addition to that, technology needs to help retailers understand more about their customer and connect to them after the purchase so that there is a continuous cycle of exchange of information where the relationship continues on beyond the time you spent working out the details of how your bed needs to be custom made to you.
So for about for Angela, the value equation needs to include things like ease and convenience but it also has to have meaningful benefits. The experience also has to be meaningful in terms of how the environment and the product come together to sell you more than just the product.
She also agrees that affordability will never not be part of the equation but if you can move people to understanding the deep benefits of the product beyond its functionality you're driving towards a different kind of relationship
In my conversation we touch on a number of factors for what Angela believes are the critical components for retail innovation where technology is a key determinant of building the relationship.
Angela Gearhart, is known for creating transformational brand experiences and tackling mission-critical challenges facing brands today.
Her deep understanding of consumer behavior and her ability to harness the synergy between marketing, sales, and technology, has allowed her to develop strategies that bridge the gap, igniting growth and fostering brand loyalty.
By optimizing the human-physical-digital experience, she enables brands to disrupt and connect across consumer touchpoints.
During her tenure as VP of Connected Brand Experience at Sleep Number, her work changed the mattress category, driving the company's growth from $300M to over $2B.
Her team earned over 30 retail design, innovation, and technology awards.
As a trusted advisor and influencer in the retail industry, Angela has earned accolades including recognition as a CSA Top Woman in Retail, Remodista Women2Watch in Business Disruption, Retail Innovator by Retail Touchpoints, and Design Influencer by design:retail Magazine.
Angela is a Founding Partner at Media Maxx, which specializes in accelerating brand growth through ecommerce partnership marketing and retail strategies.
AndâŠadding to that already impressive list of retail activities and accolades, she serves as Executive Practice Director at AAG Consulting Group. In that role Angela leverages her insights into buyer dynamics and retail technology landscapes to deliver effective positioning strategies for B2B retail tech firms.
Letâs dig inâŠ
* * *ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand âwhyâ, âwhatâs nowâ and âwhatâs nextâ. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriottâs âPremium Distinctiveâ segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazineâs Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundationâs Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New Yorkâs Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: âRetail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven Worldâ and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called âBrain Foodâ which is published monthly on vmsd.com.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL âDialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Artsâ wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.
- Laat meer zien
