Product Description

“We’re now hip-deep, if not drowning, in the ‘experience economy.‘ Here‘s the smartest book I‘ve read so far that can actually help get your brand to higher ground, fast. And it‘s written by people who not only drew the map, but blazed these trails in the first place.”
–Brian Collins, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide Brand Integration Group

In a market economy characterized by commoditized products and global competition, how do companies gain deep and lasting loyalty from their customers? The key, this book argues, is in providing meaningful customer experiences.

Writing in the tradition of Louis Cheskin, one of the founding fathers of market research, the authors of Making Meaning observe, define, and describe the meaningful customer experience. By consciously evoking certain deeply valued meanings through their products, services, and multidimensional customer experiences, they argue, companies can create more value and achieve lasting strategic advantages over their competitors. A few businesses are already discovering this approach, but until now no one has articulated it in such a persuasive and practical way. Making Meaning not only encourages businesses to adopt an innovation process that’s centered on meaning, it also tells you how. The book outlines a plan of action and describes the attributes of a meaning-centric innovation team. With insightful real-world examples drawn from the Cheskin company's experience and from the authors' observations of the contemporary global market, this book outlines a plan of action and describes the attributes of a meaning-centric innovation team.

Meaningful experiences—as distinct from trivial ones—reinforce or transform the customer’s sense of purpose and significance. The authors’ vision of a world of meaningful consumption is idealistic, but don’t be fooled: this is a straightforward business book with an eye on the ROI. It shows how to bring R&D, design, and marketing together to create  deeper and richer experiences for your customers.  Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences is an engaging and practical book for business leaders, explaining how their companies can create more meaningful products and services to better achieve their goals.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75054 in eBooks
• Published on: 2007-03-22
• Released on: 2007-03-22
• Format: Kindle Book
• Number of items: 1

Review
“We’re now hip-deep, if not drowning, in the ‘experience economy.‘ Here‘s the smartest book I‘ve read so far that can actually help get your brand to higher ground, fast. And it‘s written by people who not only drew the map, but blazed these trails in the first place.”
–Brian Collins, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide Brand Integration Group

About the Author
Steve Diller, a partner at Cheskin, has more than 20 years of strategy and market-ing consulting experience. He leads Cheskin’s Experience Design Studio and also drives Cheskin’s media content practice. Diller’s impressive roster of clients includes the Washington Post, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Pulitzer and Weight Watchers. He has contributed to numerous books, including The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook, The Principles of Trust, and Newspaper Brand Development and has produced and di-rected several feature films.

Nathan Shedroff is one of the pioneers of experience design, which has been the focus of his speaking and teaching engagements, his writing, and his professional projects. Part designer, part entrepreneur, he provides strategic thinking and design consultation to companies seeking to provide their customers better experiences in a variety of media, including print, digital, online, and product design. A founding member of the International Academy for Digital Arts and Sciences, he was twice nominated for a Chrysler Innovation in Design Award, as well as for a National Design Award. He is also the author of Experience Design (New Riders, 2001).

Darrel Rhea is CEO of the innovation consulting firm, Cheskin and is considered to be one of the world’s most influential strategic design consultants. In addition to his work in executive coaching and training for international organizations, over the past 25 years Rhea has influenced the design of thousands of products and brands for many of the world’s leading companies. A thought leader in the practice of experience design, Rhea is a contributing columnist on innovation for Business Week Online, was featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, and won the Jay Doblin Design Award for his contributions to experience design.

Customer Reviews

heron preston review
loved the book. a great, informative read. as a college student currently studying design+management at parsons, this book made me excited about my future. here are some highlights:

1. Footworks:
In the book, the authors develop a ficticious company, Footworks, which they use to build examples from. This is a cool method to teach because you can watch Footworks grow throughout the progression of the book. You can also visualize how their ideas would really be implemented within a company.

2. Defining Innovation Culture:
They build an innovation team, and speak about every person making up that team. They talk about their importance of creating meaningful experiences, their responsibilities within the company and why they should be on the team. These are some of the people:
Brand Management, Sales Management, Information Tech (IT), Human Resources (HR), CEO, Marketing Management and Research, Design and Development.

3. I think the most important of all is how they really deal with defining "meaning" which is something that took me a couple chapters to really grasp. They speak about how important it is for businesses to really figure out which meaningful experiences their customers value. Then it breaks into delivering that experience which really connects on a personal level making them integrate that experience into their lives. A meaningful experience would be how a vegetarian FEELS when he / she practices vegetarianism.

4. There's psychology involved, which goes past working with products and services into for example, deciding whether the new CEO of your company should be male or female and whether or not they're athletic. "Just as tribes, traditions, and objects brought order and `rightness' to people in previous centuries, a company and it's offerings may now play that role as well by solidifying a relationship at the deepest possible point in the human psyhce and personality. It's a potent place for a company to be".

Good, practical advice
I picked up this book at CES and read it from beginning to end. The authors' present an intriguing theory and they back it up with very detailed explanations of "how to." Well worth the money and $$ for anyone looking to innovate in a crowded marketplace.

Making Meaning
As a professional who helps companies succeed by connecting with their audiences through branding, I highly recommend Making Meaning. In today's world, those managers who truly understand that "it's all about the customer and their experience with your products, your services, your organization", will be the ones left standing. Great book...a must read!