We recently talked with Mark Hurst, the User Experience entrepreneur and writer behind the Gel Conference and Creative Good consulting firm, about his background and some of the simple steps that people can do to avoid getting overwhelmed by email, media, and information in general.
I think lots of people may have an inkling that they have a problem with information overload. But where should they start? Are there any simple steps that people can do?
Move your action items to a to-do list. Just try working from a to-do list, rather than the inbox, for a few days. There are other helpful things that people can do to reduce stress and overload, but that’s where I’d start.
Has changing technology, such as the rise of social media, made the problem worse, or has it always been this bad? Keeping up definitely seems like it takes more work these days. . . .
There are certainly more sources of distraction today, more easily accessed, than we’ve ever had in human history. However, I’d also point out that even 15 years ago, people were complaining about being overloaded by email. Personally I find that it’s just as easy today to solve overload as it was in the mid-90s. Empty your inbox and then focus on a to-do list to get your work done.
I know that another part of your book and class is about the concept of the media diet. Could you explain a bit about it, and how it can help people who feel drained by all the things they’re trying to keep up with?
My suggestion in Bit Literacy about a media diet is that people should get their information from the smallest number of sources that will keep them informed. Everything else in the universe—blogs, magazines, podcasts, Twitter streams, etc.—you just ignore, and you don’t feel guilty about it. You have to say “no” to the infinity of media sources out there while saying “yes” to a chosen few—very few.
People may have first heard of you as the creator of This Is Broken. How did that site come about, and how does it relate to all the other work you’ve done about online user experience?
I launched the site in 2003 after Seth Godin had suggested the idea to me over lunch one day. It was a really simple idea: document things that are “broken”—poorly designed or misconceived experiences in some way—and draw out lessons for designers to learn from. It fit nicely with the Good Experience newsletter and blog I’ve written for over a decade, which extol the virtues of creating good experiences for other people (whether they’re customers, conference attendees, colleagues, patients, or otherwise).
Your most recent Gel conference was last month. How does Gel fit into the work you do at Creative Good? How did you go about building the conference?
Gel is a conference about creating good experience, featuring speakers who are doing just that in various fields, but more than that, the conference involves attendees in a series of experiences throughout the three days—forcing (I hope) attendees to consider for themselves what good experience is all about. This fits well with our work at Creative Good, helping corporate clients engage issues of customer experience on a strategic level. For the best moments of Gel 2011, stay tuned for the videos, coming soon—pick your own favorite!
Are companies in general paying more attention to giving their customers a good experience these days? Is there more awareness of the things that might turn them off? Or are companies still getting the experience wrong more often than not?
Committing to great customer experience is rare, and probably always will be. It demands a real investment, from the top of the executive suite down, and strategic-level visibility throughout the firm. Running a tactical activity here or there won’t do much. Customer experience work needs to be strategic, and not enough companies have figured that out yet.
In addition to your blog and site, what other user-experience sites and people do you think would be useful to help people be more productive?
If you really want to be productive, stop reading about productivity and start working on a to-do. Right now!
