STORYTELLING THE FUTURE: MOMENTUM MAKING FOR YOUR PROJECTS
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Creating and sustaining momentum in projects is critical to their success. 'PreViz’ is a powerful movement that is taking place in film and television, product development and architecture. The practice of ‘Pre Visualizing’ a future product or service is being adopted on a wide scale. Learn how to use storytelling and other momentum-making techniques to powerfully increase your effective quotient. Pre-visualization helps organisations frame the right problems, create a culture of making, start with ‘yes’ and look toward the headlines of the future.
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STORYTELLING THE FUTURE: MOMENTUM MAKING FOR YOUR PROJECTS
- 1. momentum making Dane Howard, Director Global Brand Experience, ebay inc.
- 5. 1.5x
- 9. how>we>work
- 10. Reactive>Proactive Disruptive workshops preVIZ as practice
- 11. online offline‗New retail‘ emerging Consumer behavior changing
- 12. ebay on mobile
- 13. ebay on mobile
- 14. no,but…
- 15. yes,and…
- 16. • 4 days • 20-40 people • 4-6 prototypes • 3 usability sessions • ‗Lots‘ of coffee Repeat if necessary… VIZkitchen Circa 2009-present
- 17. • Proactive group • Diverse skills • Manage ambiguity • Great environment • Facilitation ‗tasty bits‘… VIZkitchen
- 19. Small wins matter Small wins pave the way for bigger wins. A nudge in the right direction can lead to major *tipping points when you achieve critical mass. confidence — the expectation of a positive outcome that motivates high levels of effort — is built on one win at a time. *(per Malcolm Gladwell)
- 20. ―Why aren‘t we doing…THAT?‖ – Executive or Influencer or Customer
- 22. Extend the ‗Viz Kitchen‘ workshop format into a formal practice for ebay? How Might We…
- 24. Pre-visualize - is a function to visualize complex scenes in movie before filming.… it allows directors to experiment with different staging and art direction options – such as lighting, camera placement and movement, stage direction and editing - without having to incur the costs of actual production. -wikipedia
- 25. Pre-visualize - is a function to visualize complex scenes in movie before filming.… it allows directors to experiment with different staging and art direction options – such as lighting, camera placement and movement, stage direction and editing - without having to incur the costs of actual production. -wikipedia
- 26. A design & strategy team for ebay inc.
- 27. Why? Insight into the future differentiates.
- 28. Cross disciplinary team, divergent backgrounds
- 29. Skills Visual Design Film production/Editing Interaction Design Environment Design Business Strategy Communications & Media Workshop Facilitation
- 30. Vendors / 3rd parties Consultants Best of Breed New Insights Small team to Deepen Capabilities, Hone skills
- 31. Storytelling has a premium
- 39. 80% read the headline, 20% read the copy.
- 40. a headline of the future... If your innovation was wildly successful, what would they say about it? Project, website, campaign, etc
- 41. who wrote it when was it written why does it matter a headline of the future...
- 42. Cyber Monday Sales Increase Cyber Monday sales at eBay were 19.4% higher in 2013, including a 30% rise in overall gifting & donations compared to the online sales of Cyber Monday in 2012. a headline of the future... – Coremetrics *fictional quote from workshop to align future thinking
- 43. Why it matters... ―…ebay has created a new reason to shop their marketplace that is better than deals or selection. They call it GIVEcommerce. Their successful donation partnerships with water charities generated over $4 million on cyber Monday alone. Inside the company, they now call it ‗Blue Monday‘… and now other companies are following their lead.‖– CNN – CNBC – Competitor – Foreign Government– Rolling Stone *fictional quote from workshop to align future thinking
- 46. “eBay To Make True Window Shopping A Reality With New NYC Virtual Retail Store.” “Shop Windows are now Shop-able” – TechCrunch – Fictional from workshop
- 48. www.ebay.com/own
- 49. 1. Collaborative engagements critical for success. 2. There is a massive appetite for design thinking. 3. Video is a powerful tool to tell stories along the entire production process. 4. More resources rarely improve speed or traction. 5. Innovation & momentum without execution is exhausting and demotivating Lessons learned (thus far)
- 50. Thank you Twitter: @danemhoward Instagram: /danehoward
Editor's Notes
- Storytelling the Future: Creating and sustaining momentum in projects is critical to their success. 'PreViz’ is a powerful movement that is taking place in film and television, product development and architecture. The practice of ‘Pre Visualizing’ a future product or service is being adopted on a wide scale. Learn how to use storytelling and other momentum-making techniques to powerfully increase your effective quotient. Pre-visualization helps organisations frame the right problems, create a culture of making, start with ‘yes’ and look toward the headlines of the future.
- Each of you is unique. Your background, heritage, education and training provide something GREAT.This greatness fuels your passion, expertise and drive. MOMENTUM can be created around you, FROM you. Whether you are a designer, programmer, artist or business mind, you have the capacity (within you) to create momentum in the projects you are involved in.
- Yet, we are all DIFFERENT. If I were to give each of you the SAME design problem, There would be a variety of different outcomes.
- How do you harness the momentum to make it repeatable, and work FOR the progress of the product, service or website?I believe storytelling (early in the process) can help create a strong momentum, getting people behind the project - all moving in the same direction.
- We’ve all seen dominos. We know what they do. But the physics behind their force was recently published. It turns out that a 2 inch domino can knock something over 1.5 times taller than itself. This force continues in iterations, growing 1.5 times with each iteration.After 23 iterations, the force generated can knock something over the same height as the Leaning tower of Pisa!After 31 iterations, that force has grown to the size of the Eiffel tower…
- … And after 52 iterations, the height has grown exponentially to the height of the moon.This amazing force started with a two inch domino. In the SAME way, I think stories have a similar effect.
- One of my mentors once told me… “Stories build in STRENGTH with re-telling”Isn’t that SO true today? I can say something in this auditorium and it can be re-tweeted hundreds of times within minutes.Stories have the capacity to connect us in stronger ways than they ever have.
- And what does this mean for you? Good news, I hope. Storytellers inside an organization, project or firm are generally more powerful, persuasive and influential.The intersection of these becomes a POWERFUL tool to move projects forward and build momentum to design & make great things.
- A theme in my work. I’ve looked at over the past couple of years, particularly on how we frame problems and DECIDE what we do/build together
- I’ve recently observed and spent much time on how we can move from a ‘reactive’ organization to a ‘proactive’ one.Disruptive workshops, (ievizKitchens) have created new ways to surface design thinking and making EARLIER in the production process.As a result, preVIZ as an approach and practice inside our organization has been enormously effective.
- Through mobile, we’ve evolved from a site into a true platform – which people access anytime, anywhere and on any device they choose. We’re making moments of inspiration instantly shop-able—whether you’re waiting on a plane, or you’re in the line at Starbucks or you’re watching television at home. Remember what I said about data – everyone has it – but it’s what you do with it that matters. We’re merging insights from that data with mobile technology innovations to create these more personalized, relevant shopping experiences.
- These are stats that you’d come to expect from a website, but these stats are generated on mobile, a business and platform that didn’t exist just a few years ago.For ebay, mobile will generate over $20billion in revenue in 2013.This forces us to build a new design muscle, giving us insight into the future experiences that we may build.
- To enable an open environment of thinking, you must first dispel the negative thinking.
- And allow for BUILDING OFF IDEAS: Allowing ideas to live… SO much more important to build a culture of ‘yes! And…’ vs. ‘No, but’- I often start meetings like this. It takes about 3 min. – sets the tone for the *type* of meeting you want to have.
- In 2009 we started some **DISRUPTIVE** WORKSHOPS -- A way we broke through… proactive, User Centered Design workshops… where we made things… very fast. EARLY in the product cycle.They were like hack-a-thons, for design thinking.
- We refined the vizKitchen format until it ‘felt’ right… over and over.We noticed the skills that thrived in this environment, hired more of it and cross trained existing colleagues.I even trained my teams in improv and workshop facilitation
- Simply put… we VISUALIZED early, moved proactively. We started to create a culture of making.Something to respond to…
- These successes began to add up. The small wins gave confidence to the organization and to the colleagues.
- And so we had a new problem…
- We looked at what existed already in our culture and observed why certain things didn’t catch on.Prototyping became someone else’s resourceVision-typing was too constrained. Not everyone was looking for a vision that needed to be prototypedInnovation Lab didn’t feel right. There had been groups that were isolated. It wasn’t quite right for our culture.Design strategy seemed to be the opposite of ‘Design Making’. We wanted to create a culture of Making.
- We noticed what other industries were doing well.Film & automotive gave us insight.
- Our strategy roadmap was *similar* to that of a screenplay.Complex technology NEEDING experimentation BEFORE production started without incurring costs of *actual* production.WE NEEDED TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO AND HOW WE’D MAKE DECISIONS AROUND IT.
- preVIZ *represented* the opportunity to do this… inside eBay
- Insight into the future seemed important… strategic.
- A small team of diverse skills seemed prudent.Fast company did a nice article shortly after we formed the group: http://tinyurl.com/fastco-1
- The skills were similar to those we had hired before, but specialist could cross train eachother.These are self-starter teams
- In order to add scale & keep them sharp, we supported them with 3rd parties, consultants and new insights.
- What emerged was stories of the future… and these stories commanded a premium.
- What kind of premium? Here’s an example:Significant Objects. Illustrating the value of objects attached to stories, even when they are fictional, they command value.In this case, all proceeds went to charity
- Think about what you are working on right now. YOU are in the middle of a story. Giving context to your next meeting is a way to re-validate where you’ve (all) been, where you are and where this whole project/product is going.If you stand up in the meeting, grab the marker and invite these questions, everyone will **begin** to reinforce the product story.
- And so what happens when you use design & visualization as one more input into decision making?You end up framing problems that help you make a decision later.
- Problem framing is probably one of the most important skills I’ve learned in the past two years.
- Here’s an example (taken from Min Basadur).Many times we get a problem presented to us. In this case, the problem asks us to ‘Rid our house of mice’Too often we jump right to the solution and begin brainstorming against the problem we’ve been given. Asking ‘WHY?’ helps get to root cause. Let’s say“Why do you want to rid your house of mice” – They’re disgusting!Why else? – My wife is driving me crazyAsk: “Why is your wife driving you crazy?’ – She doesn’t think the house will sell if there is mice in it.Ah, “Why are you selling your house? – I just got a job and I need to relocate.I see, now we have root cause.On the way down from the stated problem, you ask “What’s stopping you?”It’s entirely acceptable if that answer is “I don’t know who to call” or “I don’t know what a mouse is. Never seen one before”You’ve now framed the problem and the next step is to ask which layer of the problem should I solve?
- Another technique we use is to identify a future state and talk about it in fictional (yet aspirational) terms.Let’s choose a launch date of a product or service we’re launching.
- Let’s write Headlines of the future. (you can do this on **any** project you are working on)It’s a fast and incredibly helpful exercise to see what kind of future is driving people you are working with on a common goal.
- Now, imagine your (project, website or campaign) was successful, Q: What would they say about it?
- Write one down right now. Then play with the who, the when and the why.Change them up
- This is a **fictional** headline that was written for the Social Innovation group.
- This is a **fictional** quote we made up in a workshop.Notice we gave it a name, it had measurable goals, it was given a source and then changed to invite a discussion about how the source could expand influence or impact.
- Example: Kate Spade Saturday pop-up experience – inspiration through real-time physical analytics, leveraging Xbox Kinecthardware.We did the same exercise when we partnered with Kate Spade Saturday.
- Example: a 24 hour, always open shop with 1 hour delivery. How did this idea come to life?
- One of the inputs into the ideation was a fictional headline that emerged out of the brainstorm.This headline captured the imagination of the group. They got behind the ‘What if?’ possibility.Notice how the **actual** headline from TechCrunch is very similar to the one that was imagined.
- We envision a lot now. Here’s an Example: eBay Motors created a global ‘Garage’ – This video was preVisualized before the product started production.
- Another example. Ebay’s‘My Gadgets’ – was visualized before the project was even in production.Creating the future ‘Value proposition’ of the product created an entire product group to dream big and make something that matched this vision.
- We’ve learned a lot working this way. Here’s just a few.
- Thank you for your time and attention. Ask questions and spread the word.Cheers!-dane