B (2:42)

Great. Let's Dive in here and we're going to talk about a few things today. But I want to start really from the strategy perspective and just the strategic foundation. Let's start by talking about the overarching challenge. Most design systems fail because they start with components instead of conviction. As I mentioned in the intro at ddn, Chris, you began with a deep diagnostic process. What were the key insights that told you the existing brand, while factually accurate, was becoming strategically obsolete in a market shifting to AI?

D (3:20)

Yeah, I mean, the challenge really wasn't performance, it was positioning. We had what I would say is a successful but invisible problem. Most creatives, when they do this kind of work, they focus on components. They look at updating the new logo, colors, typography, and then get that into what I'd say collateral system, and then eventually update the website. That can be a bit of a trap for a lot of creatives when you don't understand the underlying issue. You're just really kind of putting what I would say, and I've been referring to this a lot lately, old, new paint on an old car. The work we did was really competitive. An audit, if you will, for our stakeholders. We did interviews across engineering. We did it in sales, products, marketing, even the executive team. It all revealed something very consistent. I think of the many conversations we had, maybe all but two said the same thing. And it was a common denominator. DDN saw itself as, you know, what they would say is an invisible engine. It's kind of the foundation that made breakthroughs possible for their customers. So our conversation over and over, they each described it in a different way. Some called it the engine to the car, some the root to the tree. One even said the heart and the body. But we were the thing that customers didn't have to think about because it worked. And so that really freed them up to focus on things that really mattered. So my conclusion was we enabled breakthroughs without really being the star. Our brand was stuck in what I would say is kind of probably storage vendor world, where the market had really reorganized itself around AI. We were being categorized wrong. But I think that really what that meant was a lot of our conversations with sales were started from the wrong place. So our brand was, I guess you could say factually accurate, but strategically not aligned. So that was a big problem. So really the conviction, you know, that, that we had became the foundation to move from a trusted storage vendor over to something more that enabled know your company's breakthroughs. So everything that we've created, our visual system, the voice, the templates you know, flowed from that concept or that belief.

A (5:42)

Yeah. So our take, you know, companies come to ox generally when they're in a state of transformation. And whether that is external, like technology is changing, which it always is now, or a shift in the marketplace or whether it's internal, new leadership maybe, or a change in your products and services and how you're taking things to market, all of that has an impact on the brand. So, like, whatever that reason for transformation is, it's going to impact how you go to market, how you talk about yourselves. So Chris went about this the right way. You know, talking to people, cross discipline, cross functional, getting input from everybody. We also love to go directly to customers and really understand from them how they perceive of the company, of the brand. Are we what we think we are? I think oftentimes it's surprising to hear from customers that maybe the experience that they have of our brand is not what we planned for it to be. It's not necessarily what we thought it to be. And that is, you know, a key insight. And I think, Chris, you discovered it from your leadership team and from people across the organization that there was that sort of key insight that everyone agreed with and could rally around in sort of recasting the DDN brand.

B (7:04)

And so, you know, another thing that can be helpful is to have some kind of frameworks. In this case, we're going to talk about archetypes, and specifically the creator archetype became what you refer to as the skeleton of the system. How does choosing an archetype, rather than just something like a mission statement or something like that, how does the archetype provide a potentially more practical, portable form of judgment for teams across a global organization?

A (7:36)

So I'll jump in here first, Greg. I love archetypes. I love them a lot because they're basically shortcuts. They're cues that make it really easy for customers to pick up on who you are, what you're communicating, what you're offering them. What I find really cool about them, actually, is that they're universal. So everybody everywhere understands them. Some people even go so far as to say that it's like embedded in our DNA that we understand archetypes, so we understand what it means to be an adventurer, what it means to be an explorer, a creator, just sort of this innate thing. So looking outward from the brand to the customer and archetype makes it really simple to communicate what the brand is about. And that simplicity fosters, you know, building a connection instead of a mission statement, like mission statements aren't very human mission statements aren't very emotional. But I think the archetype, when you start with it, it allows you to drive an emotional connection. And then, Chris, I'll let you talk about more like internally, how you're using it and how it works with your team.

D (8:46)

Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. When I started looking into these years ago, analysts saw PR agencies using them, not creatives. And I saw a big opportunity there. And it's nice to see that when I talk to people now, more and more people are recognizing the value that an archetype has. You brought up mission statements and archetypes. I think when you think about a mission statement, people, you know, they're probably more of an aspirational world to live in. They tell you what you know, where you want to go. An archetype, you know, focuses more on the operational aspect of a brand. They tell you how to make decisions, which is really helpful. Whether they're large or small, they, you know, these archetypes can provide structure so that teens can build on them. They're not really rules to follow. That's much more scalable than just being the brand police, which I think is great. I think what makes the EDN archetype stick is probably how specific it is. It's not just that we enable creation, which is, you know, what you would say a creator brand does. With Lego or Adobe being a creator brand, it's really more than that. You know, for us, we're mastering the complexity, you know, for our customers, so they can focus, or so we can focus on the breakthrough for them. That phrase, you know, mastering the complexity so that you can focus on the breakthrough, whether you're speaking to someone in Austin or Tokyo or wherever it is, it's going to be consistent. And that's a really great outcome.

B (10:15)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I like the. Maybe even back to the DNA comment. I mean, I feel like the archetype, it paints a picture, it paints a story kind of in your mind. And I think that is what humans can definitely tap into and easily identify with, what talk a little bit more about how this got brought to life and some of the other elements and inspirations and themes behind the visual language and the brand voice. So maybe start by describing what was the thought process and concepts behind these, perhaps building on the archetype. But what are the process and concepts as well as what impacts they have on both internal audiences as well as those external customers?

D (11:00)

Yeah, I think it was interesting. Even in the interview process with ddn, it Was expressed pretty explicitly that in my past, you know, companies that I have worked for have had a specific product. DDN doesn't necessarily have that. And so that was really a focus. You know, it's probably one of the more difficult challenges that we had. We represent data. How do we represent data visually?

B (11:25)

Right.

D (11:27)

We don't have, you know, a product with pdn. We have to illustrate, you know, something and. And what. What is that? And, you know, I think a lot of my ideas, you know, come to me when I'm out on a bike, riding a bike. This one actually was. I think I was in the shower. I don't know if I can say that. But, you know, we needed to kind of show how. How we scale and how we manage, you know, data and how we protect it, but nothing really to visually show for that. So the more I listened when I was on calls, the more I started to learn about the product. We essentially, I think I talked about this earlier, but we. We make the invisible visible. And that was a really interesting idea that kind of came out in. In the customer and executive leadership conversations. And I also started real. I was listening to another podcast and learned about light. And it was. It was a physicist conversation. And I learned, you know, that light was the fastest thing on earth, which was a bonus. And. And so this concept of light kind of came to me that maybe light could potentially be a metaphor for our data and we could represent that visually. Lucky enough, after some conversations with product, I learned that, you know, we use fiber optics to carry this data. That's a bonus. So it wasn't necessarily just light, but it could also be a moment of insight, you know, kind of the idea of the eye, the light bulb, when complex, you know, kind of comes, becomes clear. So I think both. Both can be ddn, whether it's the concept of light or, you know, the fiber optic. But the creative directions really can be depending on your audience and who you're talking to or writing or creating for. So that focus really helped us eliminate some of that subjective feedback. Our technical audience can really understand and feel when things are not real or authentic. And so we have to be very careful about that. And our brand and voice traits really lean into that pretty hard. You know, we're. We're visionary, we're elevating, we're precise, but also confident. And I would say three out of those four probably creator, where one is probably more hero ruler. You know, the real value in the system is I can dial it up depending on who I'm talking to. Like I can, I can talk to life sciences and I can lean more into precise, which is very good in that particular market. But when I'm talking about AI factories, I can also be very visionary. And both can be on brands and they can both work within that system and be very modular, which I think is really helpful in the user application of an archetype.

C (14:01)

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B (14:17)

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B (15:08)

So let's now talk about, you know, the best laid plans, right? Is we create this amazing brand system and then it has to get executed in the real world on things like sales decks and event banners and all those things. So you've talked about designing for the edges. So those things and many more where these brand systems can in some cases collapse or just kind of get stretched past how they were designed. What are the most critical and perhaps non obvious templates or tools that you built for DDN that have had the biggest impact on real world adoption?

D (15:47)

Yeah, I mean we've been working on this since last fall. The the brand will launch in a few weeks and then the official site will launch in May from and we've been working with OX on that. I think this is really where most brands probably die. When you think about the edges versus the center. Yeah, the brand lives probably most easily in the center, but where it dies is probably the edges. If you think about the edges, those are basically the real world executions. They're the field events, they're the presentations that you don't have Control over. They're the regional market materials that, you know, that are being done. They're created by teams all over. And that's potentially the risk if you don't build great systems. The center of the brand is really, you know, the things that get a lot of executive oversight in decisions and rework and work until it's, you know, pixel perfect and everything's on, on point. Which would be CEO presentations or brand manifesto videos, your website campaign work. So in our rebrand work, I think a lot of our critical systems, one I think in particular would be our event booth properties. You know, we built out 10, you know, of our larger booth properties with a variety of options. Ten of our smaller turnkey booth with a variety of options. And then there are color variations within there. You also have to think about like retractable banners and pull up banners and tablecloth things and swag and all those things are all part of that system. But creating all those systems and putting them on a digital asset management component allows for global people to pick and choose what they want without ruining the system or having it die at the edges. Um, you know, I think the less obvious system that we put a lot of focus into was our social component. One thing that I notice is many companies post, you know, three, four, five times a day, which is fine. The problem is, is, you know, it whether their brand is green or purple or yellow. It was always green or purple or yellow. There was no variation. Right. And so as I watched those companies and started to look at our new system, how do I do something better for us? We started looking at our primary colors and our secondary colors and saying, why don't we create a system that has two templates that could be dark and light and then focus on a color for each day. And so Monday might be red, Tuesday might be green, and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and so on can change. And so we created a system that is very modular, but also allows without, you know, not having fatigue for posting on LinkedIn and Twitter, et cetera. Really the idea was to create, I guess you could say, like a presence that feels more intentional and cohesive, but it wasn't repetitive. And I think that's where the fatigue comes into play. So our teams could consistently post without everything looking identical. And I think that that's where the value of the system comes through.

B (18:44)

So how do you measure success of a design system's adoption? Is it about policing compliance? Is it about observing how teams use the system? Maybe a little bit of all the above. You know, how do you. How do you take measurement into account?

A (18:59)

So I would say the be all and end all measure is how well and consistently that brand is presenting itself to the world. So clarity and consistency above all success is in the messaging and it's in the design. The site, the app, the sales event. You know, all the parts and pieces that Chris mentioned, all telling the same story and all evoking the same emotions. I look at it like art and science, and I think science is the design system. So it is structured, it is tested, it is repeatable. And while it is creative, it is really scientific. You know, it needs to be, like, provable in a way. But when it's done right and when the team adopts it and embodies really comes to life as art for the customer. Something that's emotional and resonant and doesn't feel, you know, rigid, like, it just makes sense to them. But I have the luxury of saying that because I don't have to police the design system. Chris does. So how do you do that, Chris?

D (20:13)

I mean, it's interesting. We use the word consistent a lot in Brandon. I think it definitely holds true. And I don't think consistent means identical. I often think about my parents in this way. My father, like me, has a dimple in his chin. He has big ears, and so do I. My mom has really long legs, and I have long legs. My brothers and sisters have a variety of attributes that I don't have, but they come from my parents. And a brand is that way. Like, I think the way that the brand is expressed is it can be consistent. Like, I have five siblings, and we all look like we're, you know, part of the same family, but it's consistently inconsistent. And that's what's great about the brand. And I think I probably not the right person because I love, you know, beautiful things and things that are thought through. And, you know, I'm. I'm certainly a designer at heart. I would say, you know, the best measurement of a design system success is probably when people start to fight to use it and they don't fight against it. It's always good to hear after an event or after something that happened, you know, that the options that you gave them for the swag system or the booth property or whatever it was, that people are happy about it and they like what was done. So if our systems are slower, if our work is not as good or it's uglier than maybe what someone could do on their own in the field, then I've got a problem. And so Our system needs to make them look good and be and make them have advocates. And I think if that happens, it's like creating swag that people want to wear. They don't want to feel like a billboard, you know, so when your brand tools become something that people are excited about, they're going to promote it and they're going to share it. And I think that's when you know that you have a solid system. Yeah, love it.

B (21:56)

So let's talk a little bit about, you know, how these things both are evolving as well as how they will evolve over time. And we haven't talked a lot about AI yet, but let's talk a little bit about that. And so your voice guide directly addresses AI writing tools because the reality is marketing teams are using them, they're continuing, they're increasing their usage of them. How can a strong brand system and things like that creator archetype that underpins it, how can these things act as a better prompt for AI? And what's the essential role of the human editor in that process?

D (22:37)

Yeah, this was the first time, and I think four or five that we've done that. We included this section in our voice and tone guide. And with so many other companies running lean and trying to do less is more, it was really important for me to have this section in our voice and tone guide. Ultimately what I decided to do is put in a pared down version of a conversation I had with with my AI agents in creating a video script. I started with, you know, A, B and C and basically had kind of an arm wrestle with it and was like, less buzzwords, more of this, less of that. You know, bookend it with something conceptual like a Seinfeld episode. You know, I even referenced, you know, certain Seinfeld episodes, you know, and all those things kind of helped. I think, you know, this is where, you know, AI can become really practical but also powerful. You know, the AI generated copy is going to get you about 80% there, which is completely fine. It gives you a great starting point. When we have since finished our voice and tone guide, I have uploaded into AI and used it as an agent to specifically write and to lean into one of our four traits depending on what the campaign is or what it's about. So I can tell it to write and say, hey, be precise, be specific about technical outcomes, don't use buzzwords, lead with data that matters. Or on the flip side, I could say, you know, write this so it's more visionary and focus on the outcomes and what's possible as opposed to what's what we built. So the creator archetype really acts, you know, in this way as a behavioral constraint because the prompts that you're going to get from AI are generally pretty consistent and they're, they're trying to match patterns as far as I can tell. And so it's really good at that up to the point where you have to make judgment calls. And so when you have to break those judgments or those patterns, that's when you have to kind of say, you know, hey, sometimes the most DDN thing to say or insert company is to say something we've never said before. And so that's where you kind of have to break those patterns with AI. And I think, you know, I always reference Seinfeld as amazing copywriting because they bookend so many funny things. And yeah, so we often have conversations in my agent there.

A (24:52)

Yeah, the DDN Voice and Tone guide is an awesome brief for AI. It's really rich. It has a ton of context. I love it because in there you're talking about who your customers are and how they speak. So you can say, we're talking to this audience. And then AI knows, oh, this is technical minded or this is visionary. This is C C suite. You know, you're giving it like so much good context to work with. The two things that I think about when we're using AI in messaging or copy development, the first is being iterative. I think a lot of people, like Chris said, It takes you 80% of the way and people feel pretty good about 80%. Well, you shouldn't. It's not really good enough. And something I had to overcome was like treating AI as not a person, but engaging with it. So like having that iterative back and forth where you have to push and say, no, this direction, less of this, more of that and sort of have that dialogue, have that conversation that's going to get you the extra, you know, 10 or 15% of the way there. And the second thing is reading the copy out loud, which I think, I think a lot of people don't do that, which is funny because we're here talking about voice and people forget that it's a voice.

B (26:13)

Right.

A (26:14)

But I think when you read it out loud, you pick up on the patterns like Chris was saying. You pick up on when it's repetitive. It's easier to identify that way when the language just isn't resonating like it came up with something that's totally not within your voice. So those are my two favorite tricks. But I think for reading it out loud, actually will help get you maybe the last 5% of the way there.

B (26:43)

And so as we're wrapping up here, one more question about leadership and the leadership role here, because I think teams are dealing with a lot of change. We mentioned some of the AI things as well. So, Chris, you've said that creative leadership is defined by how well they install judgment in others. As marketing teams become more decentralized, what's a piece of advice you'd give an executive on how to shift from being a chief approver to a chief installer of judgment within their organization?

D (27:20)

There's probably a couple of things I could say here. I think the first thing that comes to mind is I had a previous manager who was the CEO of a company. His company got bought out by a company that I worked for and he became my manager. The CEO of that company asked me what it was like to work with him and I said, it's amazing. He is extremely bright, extremely smart, and the best thing about him is he knows what he doesn't know and he knows when to speak to that. And so I would say one comment would be, is to stay in your lane, know what you know, and then, you know, let the people that you hire do the job you know, that you hired them to do. I think that creates a culture of empowerment and not what I like to call an approval theater. The shift that you asked about, you know, it that really happens when you stop asking, is this right? And how do I help my team make that decision themselves? So some of the best times for me to get involved in any project would probably be in the beginning and probably even I would say, round one of the feedback. That's where I can have the biggest impact. I can have the most influence there on the project and the outcome of the project. Because my inputs that I'm giving are always going to create. If they're good, they're going to create equally good or better outputs. If I give them clear direction, if I give them solid data, the right brief, I know that my team's going to get me where I want to go. So the first round of reviews, I don't like to do those, know Async. I think people like to send a PDF and say, here it is, you know, and to figure things out on my own. I, I'm sure my team gets annoyed with it, but I like to have a phone call, a video chat and talk because I want to hear what they're thinking. It's. It's very much like what Jenna just said about talking out loud. It's amazing what you will read and say that's acceptable. But then when you start to read all those acronyms, it sounds like you've got a mouthful of marbles and nobody really wants to hear that. So, you know, this, this really helps me. You know, having these face to face conversations helps me focus on what they're working on. I can connect with them better, make adjustments and changes, see what's working, what's not working. Because there's always things that are working well and then there are things that aren't working as well. So I ask, you know, what, what can we do to fix this so it works as well as this? If they're not getting it, sometimes I will show them things that I see or things that I've pinned on Pinterest to show them mood boards that are successful designs. So I think when we get the inputs right in the beginning, we can transfer that decision making framework through these conversations. So I don't want my team, I want them to stop asking themselves what's, what can I do to get Chris to approve this? A lot of times that's what we, we want. Like what do I do to get my manager to approve this? I think it's better when we say to ourselves, you know, how do we shift the culture to get them to be focused more on judgment building as opposed to just getting an approval. Will this outcome help my customer? And I think that's a great focus to have. Love it. Love it.

B (30:14)

Well, Jenna and Chris, thanks so much for joining today and sharing your insights. The one last question I like to ask everyone, what do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?

A (30:25)

This one's easy for me. I ask a lot of questions. So, you know, I've been in my role for 20 years now. I know it pretty well, but I don't know enough. As much as I'd like to know about user experience and I don't know as much as I'd like to know about being a front end developer. And I have this great resource at OX where I have these teams that I'm working with day in and day out and I just ask a lot of questions. I think it comes from my background as a journalist. I went to journalism school. School and just learned early that that is how you learn everything is just being the curious one in the room and becoming comfortable with that because it's not always comfortable to be the one asking questions. But I do find that it's the way I learn the most and stay sharp, I guess.

D (31:17)

Yeah. Well, first, Greg and Jenna, thank you for having me on. My wife gets to listen to me all day complain about typography and things that she doesn't think that probably shouldn't matter. And that's okay because she loves other things and focuses on other things. And I think for me this is more of a life question. As you kind of go throughout life, you make decisions for yourself and that allows you to be very flexible because you say these are things I'm going to do or these are things I'm not going to do. And so I think the irony of staying agile in brand or work is having conviction about decisions you make, whether they're at work or for life. Because then you can make decisions for your brand or for yourself that matter because you've already made the important decisions. So when the brand is dialed up into the archetype, I can make very fast decisions about anything from an icon design to a color to voice and tone traits or campaign messaging because I know the decision, the big decision that's been made so there that allows me the agility to make simple decisions quickly.

B (32:24)

Nice.

D (32:24)

Nice.

B (32:25)

Love it. Well, again I'd like to thank Jenna Kennedy and Chris Taylor at the Office of Experience and DDN for joining the show. You can learn more about Jenna, Chris, the Office of Experience and DDN by following the links in the show notes. And thanks again to our sponsor, the Office of Experience, a design driven, digital first, vertically integrated and collaborative agency that both believes in the power of ideas and the strength of people. Learn more at www.officeofexperience.com. and thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand podcast. If you like the episode, hit subscribe and drop a rating so others can find the show too. And if you're interested in consulting, advisory work, or if you need a speaker for your next event, feel free to reach out. Just visit GregKilstrom. Com. That's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.

A (33:37)

The Agile brand.