Video of Cordell Ratzlaff at MX
posted at 2:22 PM on June 30, 2008

Drawing on experience from Apple, frog design, and Cisco, Cordel helps us understand what it takes to create a culture that fosters breakout products.

MX 2008 | Cordell Ratzlaff from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Video of Peter Coughlan at MX
posted at 2:20 PM on June 30, 2008

Peter Coughlan describes some organizations that currently deliver great customer experiences, and suggests how organizations might go about strengthening experience design capabilities when this has not been a focus.

MX 2008 | Peter Coughlan from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Highlight Reel
posted at 12:22 PM on June 18, 2008

MX2008 | Highlights from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Video of Matt Jones at MX
posted at 12:07 PM on June 18, 2008

Matt Jones cites examples from the development of Dopplr and other services, as he discussed recent trends in social software, object-centered sociality, the beginnings of social infrastructure (opensocial, xfn, hcard, openID), personal informatics, and approaches for baking social ettiquette into the design.

MX2008 | Matt Jones from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Video of Margaret Gould Stewart at MX
posted at 11:10 AM on June 18, 2008

Margaret Gould Stewart, User Experience Manager at Google discusses the traits that make some managers particularly effective, how she has customized her management style over the years to both corporate context and the individuals on the teams she has led, plus some specific tactics and tools she uses to refine and improve her management practices.

MX 2008 | Margaret Gould Stewart from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Video of Chip Conley at MX
posted at 2:41 PM on June 11, 2008

Chip Conley, CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, spoke at Adaptive Path’s MX: Managing Through Creative Leadership conference. His keynote talk titled, PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow explores how to transform the workplace via the three key relationships in business with employees, customers and investors.

MX 2008 | Chip Conley from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Prototyping Slide Deck
posted at 10:46 AM on May 22, 2008

You will find slides for Björn Hartmann’s presentation available on his session detail page. It’s a whopping 33MB PDF download!

Podcast Interviews with Speakers
posted at 8:28 AM on May 22, 2008

Jeff Parks and Chris Baum attended MX this year and recorded interviews with 6 of our speakers. Listen to podcasts of Cordell Ratzlaff, Richard Anderson, Björn Hartmann, Michael Recchiuti as well as Adaptive Path practitioners Brandon Schauer, Sarah Nelson, Henning Fischer, and Ryan Freitas.

Jeff Parks is the Podcast Editor for Boxes and Arrows and the President of I.A. Consultants. Chris Baum, editor-in-chief for Boxes and Arrows.

Planet of the Ape Slides
posted at 8:57 PM on May 19, 2008

Matt Jones has graciously posted the slides for his presentation.

A Graphic Guide to MX
posted at 9:45 AM on May 15, 2008

As part of the conference, we captured emerging insights from the speakers using graphic recording. The speakers’ talks were captured with memorable visuals and colorful typography, providing a visual snapshot of the presentation. At the end of the conference, the key topics were collected into a landscape map, summarizing the emergent patterns and themes.

Download a copy of the Graphic Guide to MX (PDF, 13MB) and share it with others!

Visit Kate Rutter’s photoset for high-resolution photos of the graphic recording.

More Slides are Up
posted at 12:05 PM on May 9, 2008

Check it out! Slides are posted in PDF format for the following six presentations. You’ll find a link to download the slide decks on each session’s page:

• Scott Hirsch - MIG
• Chip Conley - Joie de Vivre
• Ryan Freitas - Adaptive Path
• Stephen P. Anderson - Viewzi
• Rachel Hinman - Adaptive Path
• Julie Peters - Virgin

Curt Odar on Building a New UX Team
posted at 12:29 PM on May 6, 2008

Curt Odar, an MX attendee from the Corporate Executive Board, is building a UX organization inside a company that has traditionally not had that capability. He spoke to a number of other MX attendees and shared what he learned with us:

Part of my interest in coming to the MX conference was to learn how UX teams operate in other companies. I’m building out a UX function at my company and wanted to get after 3 key questions:

• How is the team funded?
• Where does it fit within the organization?
• How do you measure the team’s success?

I spoke with folks from eBay, Phizer, Misys, Cisco, Univision, and Nokia. Not a huge sample size, but I did find some patterns emerge:

• UX teams are funded centrally. In some cases, individual product lines will pay the central team for services. The key ingredient to start a UX team seemed to be having an Executive Sponsor and getting them passionate about it. Funding and enforcement of UX best practices then follow.
• UX teams generally report to product lines. This may have been obvious for some, but I had questioned whether a UX function might report into a central Marketing or IT function. As I move forward with in selling this concept within my company, I’ll target General Managers – less focus on the CMO or CIO.
• The question on measuring success brought a variety of answers, but the two common ones were Usability Metrics and Design Patterns. Usability Metrics – great quantifiable way to show improvements over existing products. Design Patterns – building out a library of reusable design (and hopefully reusable code). Other items discussed but perhaps not as quantifiable – avoiding rework, redirecting poor product concepts, or outright killing them.

Thanks Curt!

Pre-Conf “Method Cards”
posted at 9:17 AM on May 5, 2008

A number of the method cards you created during the pre-conference workshop with Kim are up on Flickr as a photoset. Please share with your office-mates!

Four New Slide Decks Posted
posted at 12:07 PM on May 1, 2008

We are gathering and posting slides from each of this year’s MX. Kim Lenox’s pre-conference deck went up already and now we’ve added slides for Cordell Ratzlaff, Margaret Stewart, Matt Jones and Nathan Shedroff.

Find a link to the slides in the right column of each session overview.

More About Graphic Recording
posted at 10:02 AM on May 1, 2008

Over on the main Adaptive Path blog, Alexa wrote about the graphic recording she and the team created in the back of the MX conference. She asks “What if the conference participants were involved in this process?”

At our recent MX Conference, we set out to capture emerging insights from the speakers using our graphic recording skills. With 4-5 colored markers fanning out from between our fingers at any given moment (picture a wolverine claw), we illuminated the speakers’ talks with memorable visuals and colorful typography. (Pictures coming soon.) On the last day of the conference, as I was running around with a pack of sticky notes trying to identify common themes across talks, it occurred to me: What if the conference participants were involved in this process?

Attribute Cards
posted at 3:42 PM on April 30, 2008

We all enjoyed working with Margaret Gould Stewart’s “management attribute cards” during MX. Now you can download a PDF version for yourself and use them amongst your team. Upload photos of the cards in use to Flickr and tag with “mxconf“.

Process Reboot Slides Posted
posted at 1:22 PM on April 28, 2008

A PDF version of Kim Lenox’s slides from the Sunday Pre-Conference is up on this site. You’ll find them linked from the right column of her session overview.

Graphic Recording
posted at 9:35 PM on April 23, 2008

Many of you asked for a take-home version of the graphic recording that took place in the back of the room. Well, who are we to disappoint? Photos of this work has been uploaded to Flickr. Please share this with your colleagues and add comments here or on Flickr.

This fantastic work is the result of fellow practitioners Leah, Kate, Alexa, Sebastian and Sarah.

Welcome to MX
posted at 5:00 PM on April 1, 2008

It’s with great anticipation that we welcome you to our third MX Conference.


Our prior two MX events were developed on the hunch that a group of leaders were developing in the world of experience design; people responsible for the management and evolution of the often subjective but very powerful world of deliberately designed customer experiences.

After two great conferences, we know that this is no longer a hunch. People from within and outside the experience design discipline are taking on exciting new leadership roles that require new ways of working and understanding. In the process, creative leadership is emerging as its own discipline.

Still in its infancy, the creative leadership of experience requires a unique mix of skills and know-how. Communicating the value of experience; organizing attention and commitment to experience across departments; inspiring and growing a diverse team—these are just a few of the many competencies developing among leaders in the discipline.

We invite you to spend these next two days with us, learning as we do from some of the most brilliant people in this space. We’ve intentionally pushed the boundaries, bringing speakers and ideas from neighboring creative disciplines and new trends in experience, knowing such interplay will continue to advance and transform our work.

And we ask that YOU become an active participant in the many discussions, sharing with one another your insights and ideas so that we can all extract new strategies and new methods to help us get great experiences out into the world.

— Brandon Schauer & Henning Fischer

Evening Events
posted at 12:00 PM on April 1, 2008

Welcome reception

Sunday, April 20
5pm - 7pm
Room of the Dons at the Mark Hopkins hotel
If you’re participating in Kim Lenox’s pre-conference workshop, stick around (you’ve earned it), and if you’re just arriving, come say hello. This will be a great chance to unwind after your travels and get acquainted before the sessions begin. Join us anytime between 5pm-7pm for cocktails and snacks.

Opening Night reception

Monday, April 21
6pm - 7:30pm
Nothing hits the spot after a day of great talks and big ideas like a drink with an umbrella in it. Join us for happy hour at The Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar at the Fairmont for some tropical fun right after the close of the day one program.

Dine Around San Francisco

Monday, April 21
San Francisco is a food lover’s kind of town. To take the work out of choosing where to dine, we’ve made reservations for parties of 6-8 at places we at Adaptive Path really like. Visit the registration desk to see the options, check out the menus and to sign up.

Who Should Attend?
posted at 5:01 PM on March 27, 2008

If you are a VP, director, or manager involved in product strategy, product development, service design, or design management, this is a prime opportunity to join peers from around the world for two days of inspiration, education and networking, removed from the hustle and distraction of your working life.

Tag photos mxconf on flickr.com

WiFi Access

There is free wireless for MX attendees. Log on using the daily access codes below.

• April 20th
  Name: shorot
  Password: 2338
  

• April 21st
  Name: ansuer
  Password: 1739
  

• April 22nd
  Name: levint
  Password: 1459
  

Please note that these codes are active at midnight on the business date shown above.

MX San Francisco 2009!

• March 2 & 3
• InterContinental San Francisco
• Register by June 30, 2008 and get half off your registration.
• (Regular price $1,995 )
• Use code "MX09" when registering.