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EVENTS

Insight & Ideas_In Here and Out There

Our observations of the world around us

  • Taste of Independents by Dan Rockwell on May 01, 2008

    Tonight, May 1, Lextant will host Taste of Independents (I love that name), a special event benefiting The Buckeye Ranch. We’re serving as title sponsor, and it all takes place right here in the Smith Bros. Building from 6 to 9 p.m.

    The evening will showcase food and drink from 33 of the area’s best—and locally owned and operated—restaurants. Listen to a trio from Jazz Arts Group, sip a special Mango Maytini, and bid on cool stuff in the silent auction. Tickets are $100 per person, and all proceeds benefit The Buckey Ranch, a local United Way agency that treats serious family issues including abuse, neglect, additions, and behavioral disorders.

    Much of the staff will be present and I hope to see some pictures of the event soon afterwards.

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  • A nice mention in national media by Kendra Shimmell on April 30, 2008

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    Lextant’s work for CheckFree, an online financial services provider, is cited in the new issue of Community Banker. The article describes our ethnographic research as part of an effort to improve CheckFree’s customer experience.

    I was really pleased to see this project get some attention. We were really careful in helping CheckFree’s customers get beyond their vulnerability in talking about personal finances. They felt comfortable and empowered, which helped them express their financial hopes, fears, and dreams.

    The best part was, they didn’t stop there—they also shared their financial rituals, their personal limitations, and what they felt “worked” and “didn’t work” with the tools they currently use. They told us what they needed to reach their goals, and what the ideal online experience should be like.

    Each person we talked to had a different story, yet patterns emerged. We worked with CheckFree to develop three distinct personas (the Reactive Consumer, The Conscious Improver, and the Balanced Achiever) that helped tell their stories. These frameworks help CheckFree innovate future solutions based on a clear understanding of its customers. 

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  • Hands-on insight translation by Chris Rockwell on April 23, 2008

    Last week’s regional IDSA conference included a hands-on workshop hosted at Lextant, where we demonstrate how translated consumer insights provide inspirational frameworks for designers.

    To make the workshop feel as real as possible, we relied on data borrowed from a real project: our research into rugged phone design for Samsung. Guests were asked to define rugged phone vocabularies the same way our actual research participants did: using pictures, textures, stickers, and other hands-on forms of expression.

    It was a great way to share our methods with a number of peers and potential customers. The workshop also included a presentation on the role and value of insight translation; you can view the presentation slides here.

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