Our Theme: Producing Happiness

In Happiness: A History, Darrin McMahon says, "There is no greater modern assumption than that it lies within our power to find happiness." It's an assumption that pervades every aspect of modern life, but is especially pervasive in the promises that brands make. We promise happiness, constantly. The question is: how good are we at delivering on our promises? We promise happiness, but we design and measure for loyalty. What would happen if instead of designing and measuring for loyalty, we designed and measured for happiness?

Collaborate with us this year as we work to create insights into the emotional and social jobs associated with promising, innovating around, designing for, and measuring happiness. Come back often to our site to find more examples of meaningful experiences that produce happiness.

A New Seminar: Producing Happiness, By Design

Join us for a new DMI seminar on the social and emotional jobs associated with producing happiness.

Over the past 70 years, the number of Americans who say they are very happy has slowly inched down-even as the number of products designed to make people feel good about themselves have exponentially increased. Clearly there is a disconnect between what brands promise and what they deliver. This seminar explains how to overcome the gap between creating products that satisfy customers and actually helping people to be happier. We focus on three areas where brand experiences could be much more effective: understanding how different people experience happiness, how design can impact happiness, and new measurements that can better capture the effect on offerings.

For each area of focus, strategic and practical frameworks will be discussed. Through casework and team exercises, we will apply the frameworks to real life situations. Participants leave understanding the differences between affecting loyalty and affecting happiness and between innovating to satisfy and innovating to matter.

In this day-and-a-half seminar you will learn:

  • What the history of happy experiences suggests about the direction of consumer behavior
  • Cultural, international, and circumstantial flavors of happiness
  • The economic value of producing happiness
  • Frameworks for gathering insights about, designing for, and measuring happy customers
  • How to apply frameworks to your brand's experience

Outline

Day One - Morning Session

  • A short overview of meaningful brand experiences
  • The history of happy experiences
  • International, cultural, and circumstantial flavors of happiness
  • Factors that make people less happy today
  • The limitations and boundaries of what brands can do

Lunch

Day One- Afternoon Session

  • Frameworks for understanding how people experience happiness
  • How to innovate to better produce the emotional and social dimensions of happiness
  • Finding and developing the measures that really matter
  • Small group fieldwork

Day Two - Morning Session

  • Case study application
  • Competitive innovation workshop
  • One-on-one sessions
  • Wrap up