After a three year hiatus, I had the good fortune to attend the Good Experience Live (GEL) conference last week. Once again, not a Good Experience....a fantastic one...
I have to say that GEL is unlike any conference I've ever attended before. I've been told it's similar in ways to TED (I've never been to that one), but it definitely carries a unique sensibility that ties back to the overall outlook of Mark Hurst, who served ably as the Master of Ceremonies. The first day consisted of "activities" around NYC where you could spend time immersing yourself in or learning about an "experience" that you may never otherwise take part in. My choice was a visit to the American Museum of Natural History to get a guided tour of the new
Darwin Exhibit, as well as a private tour of their Interactive Learning Center.
I have been to the Museum many times in my life. As a matter of fact, it's one of my favorite places in all of New York City. But I had never taken a guided tour there before and had not yet seen the Darwin exhibit. It's a fine exhibit, combining artifacts of Darwin's life with amazing specimens, artwork, interactive stations and films explaining his life and how he came to develop his ideas on the Theory of Evolution. I have to say that my main takeaway was not about the mechanics of the museum exhibit, but a sense of awe about Darwin and his amazing ability to observe, catalog and analyze the world around him. I think there's a lesson for all of us about meticulously observing and analyzing our customer behavior, metrics, etc., before jumping to any conclusions about optimizing our business or customer experience.
The second day of the conference was much more "conference-like" with a series of presentations in a theater, but as I said above, it's unlike almost any conference you've ever been to. Between 8:30am and 6:00pm there 20 speakers in total, with each speaker held to a strict limit of 20 minutes. These were not presentations about "web analytics," or "cross channel optimization," or even "Net Promoter Scores." ;-) But they were all about either creating, observing or taking part in "good experiences" of all types.
As an example. between 10:45 and 12:30, we had the good fortune to hear from:
- Danny Brown — whose short films you may have seen on the Internet (if not, go here NOW....I'll wait: http://www.senseistudios.com/)
- Katy Borner — who spoke of making maps — not of geography -- but of scientific knowledge....all incredibly thought provoking and useful, and somehow all absolutely beautiful.
- Leni Schwendinger — a lighting architect/artist, who talked about her process in creating a work of art out of lighting a bridge in Scotland.
- Marc Salem — who's seems to be able to read people's minds, but actually only possesses a power of observation that would make Darwin lightheaded.
- and Cathy Salit — who runs improv workshops for corporate executives...that's right, improv. And provided inspiring words about how we all "improv" every day as we create our own image and experiences.
The overall effect of seeing these speakers, along with all the others, in quick succession creates a truly mind opening experience. It's not the type of day where I can come back to work with a five point plan for improving my business. But it has forced me to look at the world in a different way and will undoubtedly make me think for weeks to come. Kudos to Mark for putting on such a good show. If you can attend next year, I recommend it highly.