1. The document discusses using nostalgia, mystery, and frustration to create meaningful experiences and value beyond just financial measures. 2. It argues that businesses should consider more than just metrics and honor people's full, unquantified selves rather than just self-interest. 3. Examples are provided of how nostalgia, mystery, and strategically introduced frustration can be used to create experiences greater than oneself and shift focus to values like empathy over just efficiency.

1. Designing for Meaning
Using nostalgia, mystery, and frustration to create value beyond measure
Tim Leberecht / NBBJ / Silicon Valley Bank CEO Summit, April 11, 2013

2. Barca!

3. Burning Man

4. “The problem is not measurement per se. The problem
is the loss of balance between valuing what can be
measured and what cannot, and becoming so
dependent on quantitative measures that they displace
judgment and learning.”
PETER SENGE
Human Facebook “Like”

5. Meet your friends

6. Tom & Jerry Christmas House

7. TED Open Translation Project

8. The most tweeted image

9. 1. Exclude
2. Exchange
3. Elevate

10. “Goldman Sachs
Hires Single Morally
Decent Human
Being To Work In
Separate, Enclosed
Cubicle”
The Onion
Dis-connected
Image: The Onion

11. - 27% of bosses believe their employees are inspired by their firm. However, in the same
survey only 4% of employees agreed. (Boston Research Group/LRN)
- 72% of workers are indifferent or downright negative towards work. (Gallup, 2013)
- 95% of Americans reject the idea that a corporation’s only purpose is to make money.
(BusinessWeek)
- People regard experts such as academics or even their peers as twice as more trustworthy
than institutional leaders. (Edelman Trust Barometer 2013)
- 75% of consumers say they are likely to switch to brands associated with a good cause if
price and quality are equal. (Trends Report)
- Employee loyalty is at a seven-year low. (MetLife 2012)
- 1 in 3 employees plans to leave his or her job by the end of the year. (MetLife 2012)
- The average company loses anywhere from 20 to 50% of its employee base every year.
(MetLife 2012)
-47% of consumers say they buy, every month, at least one brand that supports a good
cause, a 47% increase from 2010. 72% of consumers say they would recommend a brand
that supports a good cause – a 38% increase in two years. (Edelman, 2012)
- Consumers say they’re more likely to discuss the good deeds a company does than they
are to discuss a company’s financial performance. (Weber Shandwick, 2012, survey)
- “Conscious” companies outperform competitors by a factor of 10. (Conscious Capitalism)

13. “Market systems are justified not because of efficiencies
and profits, but because humans are first and foremost social
and emotional beings, and markets provide a sympathetic
community for social exchange.”
Robert C. Solomon

14. Enter
THE BUSINESS ROMANTIC
Makes us see the beauty of the world with “fresh eyes.”
Considers business to be more than a numbers game: a powerful
vehicle for creating richer human experiences that mean more.
Honors our full “un-quantified selves” rather than just catering to
our “quantified selves” and our self-interests.
Carves out spaces for the ephemeral and transcendent
—for experiences that are “greater than ourselves.”
Values what is immeasurable but makes us human:
values such as empathy, generosity, devotion, love, hope.
Small ‘acts of significance’

15. THE BUSINESS ROMANTIC
Makes us see the beauty of the world with “fresh eyes.”
Considers business to be more than a numbers game: a powerful
vehicle for creating richer human experiences that mean more.
Honors our full “un-quantified selves” rather than just catering to
our “quantified selves” and our self-interests.
Carves out spaces for the artful and playful
—for experiences that are “greater than ourselves.”

16. Traditional Smart Meaningful
Planning Acting Wandering
Conversion Connection Reconnection (Nostalgia)
Process Dashboard Principles
Control Monitoring Loss of control
Consistency Diversity Serendipity
Big Idea Big Data Big Intuition
Rapid response Real-time Pre-emptive
Segmenting Behavioral targeting Distributed presence
Message Conversation (Occasional) silence
Visibility Transparency Mystery
Risk Calculated risk Vulnerability
Benefit Value Values
Attraction Liking Love
Convenience User-friendliness Frustration
Efficiency Excellence Significance
Self-interest Quantified Self Un-Quantified Self

17. Traditional Smart Meaningful
Planning Acting Wandering
Conversion Connection Reconnection (Nostalgia)
Process Dashboard Principles
Control Monitoring Loss of control
Consistency Diversity Serendipity
Big Idea Big Data Big Intuition
Rapid response Real-time Pre-emptive
Segmenting Behavioral targeting Distributed presence
Message Conversation (Occasional) silence
Visibility Transparency Mystery
Risk Calculated risk Vulnerability
Benefit Value Values
Attraction Liking Love
Convenience User-friendliness Frustration
Efficiency Excellence Significance
Self-interest Quantified Self Un-Quantified Self

18. Nostalgia
Mystery
Frustration

19. Nostalgia

20. Moleskine: Analog cloud

21. Beck: Sheet music

22. Outbox: Digital snail mail

23. Snapchat: Permission to forget

24. Make, hardware, local

25. Mystery

26. Secret Cinema: Mystery screenings

27. Grey Poupon: Secret society

28. KLM: Random acts of kindness

29. Surprise Industries: Surprise-as-a-service

30. Situationist: Random situations

31. Nextpedition: Mystery travel

33. Frustration

34. “Can my grandmother use it?”

36. “Whenever technology companies
complain that our broken world must be
fixed, our initial impulse should be to ask:
how do we know our world is broken in
exactly the same way that Silicon Valley
claims it is? What if the engineers are
wrong and frustration, inconsistency,
forgetting, perhaps even partisanship, are
the very features that allow us to morph
into the complex social actors that we
are?”
EVGENY MOROZOV

38. Thank you.
@timleberecht
timleberecht.tumblr.com
www.nbbj.com