I recently wore a new pair of shoes on a trip to the East Coast. As is the case every time I forget and make this mistake, I quite instantly regretted it.
Because if I had worn said shoes around the house for even three minutes, I would have figured out that my weak-ass arches were no match for these fancy birks. And it would have been abundantly clear that they needed some serious breaking-in before using them to schlep through multiple airports while hefting a heavy duffel. Saving me a week of foot pain and shin splints.
Same goes for any type of gear and any kind of race. This is not the time to be trying out a new shirt, or a fresh pair of shorts.
If you do, you may very quickly find that you have god-awful chafing or there is a hideously itchy tag that is going to drive you up the wall.
My dear friends — the same lesson applies to our experiences:
We must break them in, try them out, and iron out the kinks first.
Here’s what I mean:
We spend loads of time planning, dreaming, scheming about whatever we’re building. But too often we don’t actually try it all out before running it with our people. Or we only do this with the big big things — the massive productions, but not the meeting warm-ups.
Yet if we had taken the time to playtest our experiences — to physically, in-real-life try them out, try them on — not just think about them, or imagine them, but truly play through them — we would immediately realize all the things that need changing.
But we all fall into the too-easy trap of not doing this. Because playtesting takes time. Or we feel like we know our audience pretty well, so we can predict what they will feel. Or we get caught up in all the planning and don’t want to stop to test, or we run out of time.
Put on your damn experiential shoes, and clomp about your experiential house, BEFORE YOU TAKE THEM ON VACATION.
Not just for the enormous, important event that you’re planning. But also for the little birthday gathering you’re hosting. And the new ritual you’re introducing on Friday.
What are you building right now?
How can you test it? Not just imagine it. But actually try out the dang thing. Say the words. Set up the physical space. Play through the activities with a real human.
It’s always worth it.
You’ll avoid a million metaphorical and literal blisters, and everyone (especially yourself) will thank you.
P.S. After two years of weekly drops, I’m moving this Substack to bi-weekly. Because we must always be experience designing the experience of designing experiences. And I’m in need of a little more writing spaciousness. So see you in two weeks!
📆 TOMORROW, Thursday April 23rd, 12 - 1:30 pm PT
Have a creative project that’s been sitting on the backburner? Constantly holding nice juicy, imaginative spaces for other people but never do it for yourself? Too often giving your golden hours to the email gremlins, rather than something you actually care about?
Jump into The Good Chaos Club to get access to our upcoming Creative Jam. Golden, supported hours for you to move your most beautiful, lingering, perhaps-unattended-to work forward.
Join the club for $47/month and you’ll get access to the quarterly Creative Jams, our monthly deep dive workshops, and the recordings and tools of everything that’s ever happened in the club! WHAT A PARTY.
📆 NEXT Wednesday, April 29th, 9 - 10:30 am PT
In this moment of robots and LLMs, human-ing has never been more important. And human-ing, at its core? It’s designing meaningful experiences for one another.
Experience design is not a nice-to-have, I’d argue it might be one of the most important leadership skills to have as the world turns over.
It’s how we architect change, worldbuild a future tangible enough to pull people forward, build at a relational level, cultivate culture, and design effective collaboration.
All of that? It takes understanding how to design for emotions, and the skills to craft the memorable and the meaningful.
The future needs you to be an experience designer. Come learn how to be an absolutely kickass one.
To get access to the invite (plus the recording, and downloadable, playable tools), join The Good Chaos Club. Membership is $47/month. It’s a party of all the best humans on the internet, and the inspiration to build the things that make life beautiful, interesting, and not shit.
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