Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 535 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, interactive experiences, shaping the future of teaching with Andrew Cross and Alyshahn Kara-Virani.Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:25]:

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches, so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. If you have been listening to Teaching in Higher Ed even for a little bit now, you might be aware that we have embarked on the Teaching in Higher Ed Story Caravan, which started in the middle of August and concludes on September 19th. And today, we have a unique experience to talk to 2 people who have some very interesting insights about designing interactive experiences. And I’m so excited this today’s episode happened as a result of a conversation that happened off the air with the 2 cofounders of GooseChase, and that wound up making me think that some of the things we were chatting about would be really relevant and helpful to the teaching in higher ed audience. So I invited them to have today’s conversation, and they graciously agreed. Andrew Cross is the cofounder and CEO at GooseChase, and he brings over a decade of experience working at the forefront of the active experiences field.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:54]:

And you’ll be hearing, if you’re not familiar with GooseChase, about that organization and kind of how they’ve learned along the way, how it started, but especially much more so about just in general designing learning experiences. And something you should know about Andrew is that he is on a mission to make the world more fun, playful, and human. Alyshahn Kara-Virani is also the cofounder and CRO at GooseChase. And Alyshahn is a data driven leader with a passion for connecting people, making things happen, and doing it all with a hearty sense of humor. He is all about optimizing learning experiences to improve memory creation and learning outcomes. When he’s not out honking about goose chase, he’s looking for ways to spend time with his husky, Zoe, or teeing it up at golf courses around the world. Andrew and Alyshahn, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Andrew Cross [00:02:56]:

Thank you so much. Excited to be here.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:02:58]:

Yeah. Thanks for having us on.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:59]:

I have been excited to have this conversation since we booked it. When we first had the opportunity to speak, I had one of those things where I wished I had recorded just for myself because you you challenged my mind, you expanded my imagination, and you really lived up to your mission because it was kind of a playful conversation, but it was playful. And I thought about it so much. And just the idea that you both would invest your time in this community today means a lot to me. And I’m gonna ask you to take us back in time. Andrew, we’ll start with you. Tell us about a time when because for you, so much of it learning as experience where that either fell flat and you saw this is what it looks like when we’re not thinking about learning through experience or a time that really was stimulating and engaging and impactful for you. Mhmm.

Andrew Cross [00:03:50]:

I had a really fortunate experience my 1st year in university. I was taking mechanical engineering, so a reasonably technical subject. Very 1st year, I had linear algebra and physics at the same time. Both have the opportunity, we’ll call it, to be drier subjects. And the contrast in 2 different professors that I had was just night and day for me. The linear algebra professor went up at the front for the full 50 minute lecture, get approved, looked at the board the entire time, used all the boards, wrote QED at the end, basically like I have demonstrated this and then looked around almost like where’s the applause? I’ve just demonstrated it all to you. No engagement, no experience. And that was so interestingly contrasted for me in physics.

Andrew Cross [00:04:34]:

We had this professor, Professor Rohan Jayasundara, amazing guy. And the energy and enthusiasm that he had was off the charts. He would literally run to wipe the whiteboards as he was going across. And he always was available for people to ask questions. And he made going to the lectures an enjoyable experience, an interactive experience in and of itself. And you could just feel his passion. And I just remember thinking, going from one class to the other and thinking both of these people are absolutely brilliant at what they’re teaching. But it’s the experience of being in that lecture hall that means that I still remember a lot of what I learned in that physics class, and I don’t have a clue what I learned in that linear algebra class.

Andrew Cross [00:05:14]:

And it was so funny to me, content there, education there, intelligence there, knowledge there. The only difference was the experience that I had in the lecture halls and how much of a transformative experience that was for me. It was really, really cool actually to be able to contrast that so directly.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:29]:

And to have those things happening in the similar space and time is pretty remarkable too. And that you were able to see the distinctions then, and it sounds like carry those memories with you to this day.

Andrew Cross [00:05:42]:

Yeah. It was it was really a formative experience for me. Like, that was when I saw the only difference between these two is the experience provided, and the end result is so dramatically different as a result. That’s the piece that sometimes is there or isn’t there and can make all the difference.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:59]:

Alyshahn, what do you hearken back to when you think about one of these two contrasts?

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:06:04]:

Can I go outside the classroom? Is that okay?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:06]:

No. I’d love it. Even better.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:06:08]:

Okay. I I had a manager when I was working at Salesforce. My sales engineer manager, his name was Mansur, and it was a really technical job that I had. My job was to essentially build products for companies to give them the visual of how Salesforce would fit in their organizations. And I’m not by nature a very technical person. I’m sure Andrew will attest to that. But the one thing that Munster taught me is the and I was, you know, like, intrinsically knew this a little bit, but highlighting to me that even the most technical people resonate more with stories than they do with objective tactics. Like you can reason and logic somebody all you want, but unless they feel powerfully connected to the thing you’re saying, it doesn’t really matter how good your logic is.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:06:56]:

I kinda use the example all the time of, like, everybody knows they need life insurance. How many people get life insurance when they’re 20 years old? It’s only when somebody close to you passes away or a big life event happens that you actually go out and purchase life insurance, and that is, like, a visualization of how important feeling is in relationship to logic. And that always stuck out to me, and then it got me thinking about my university experience and my high school experience and all the teachers that I connected to were just everything that they taught that I resonated with had a story, had a had a feeling, connected me to their experience, made me visualize them in that position. And all the teachers that to to Andrew’s point, I remember falling asleep in economics despite my best efforts. Like, every time I would walk into economics and my professor would start talking and I would just fall asleep and I’d be like, oh my god. Can I get the notes, please? Because I don’t remember what happened in this class. So a little bit of a tangent, but that’s probably what I would say.

Andrew Cross [00:07:54]:

Well, and

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:54]:

I what I appreciate about the contrast between both of your examples is too often I think we can be myopic in higher education and thinking that not only does learning only happen during this time period of someone’s life, but in very precise spaces and places. So we’re in an online class or we are in sitting in a classroom. And, of course, we know that that’s a fallacy, and yet sometimes we behave in ways that just continue to perpetuate that myth that these the act, the the joy, the transformation of learning happens in finite ways. And, of course, it that’s just not how it works. And I know that the 2 of you, you’ve gotten me so curious about things just in the short time that I’ve known you, and I know that you are both very curious people. I would love to hear you share about some of the areas of research that have sparked your imagination, gotten you curious just about how learning happens and some of these tie ins that, the themes that we can draw out from your stories.

Andrew Cross [00:08:55]:

So I think because of our background and and how GooseChase has gotten to this point, this was a hackathon project that was meant to be fun. We didn’t come in identifying, hey, here’s this problem that we’re gonna go and solve. We had people find our product, use it and then say, this is amazing. I’m using it for this or this. So we almost had to backfill in some of the research and the science to be like, why does this work so well? And a particular area of interest for me is the research that’s gone into play. So Doctor. Stuart Brown has wrote like the seminal book on play, you know, how it shapes the brain. And a lot of that science works extremely well for what we do, but also it’s just an area I find absolutely fascinating.

Andrew Cross [00:09:37]:

So he’s worked with Jane Goodall in the past to understand how animals play, how that helps their development, how people work together. And a lot of that science works for today, for work, for education. And it’s because a lot of play science comes down to, it’s a safe space to learn from each other, to see how people respond to what you put out there in the world without it being this critical life or death situation. It develops the social bonds and connections that show a lot of what we do is a team game. And it’s that connection with each other, playing in a safe space that actually encourages brain synapse formation. It allows you to test out the things you wanna do in the real world in a more impactful way. And people don’t really think through that. People often see play as this unimportant, you know, thing that can maybe be neglected once you get past a certain age.

Andrew Cross [00:10:30]:

But a lot of the best things that happen when we’re adults come from a playful mindset thinking, okay, how could I do this in a more fun way? How can I do this in a more different, engaging, creative, you know, thinking about how I can have more fun doing this and that actually changes dramatically how you see a problem?

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:10:47]:

If you’re like, what if I

Andrew Cross [00:10:48]:

just had fun and also worked on this problem at the same time? So there’s a lot of really interesting science that’s gone into that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:54]:

Yeah. I haven’t read that book, but I have heard of his work before. And just this idea, I think about all the applications of this, whether it is just our propensity to have more of a fixed mindset. And I will tell both of you, I have really had some I’ve struggled in this process of getting to know you and you challenging my thinking around just even how to celebrate a decade of weekly podcast airing. You completely entirely transformed my thinking, but we can just get stuck in this. I’m not good at this. I’m not good at making games. I’m not and and and to just break out of that, I am becoming a person who is great at creating experiences as, you know, I’m I’m, wrestling through that and, just excited about the way that play can help us do that a little bit better, but also just thinking about how polarizing our world is right now.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:11:42]:

And I was getting to have some communication yesterday with a a university I might be doing some work with. And he was talking about how might I working with me, how might it be different than working with some other speakers that they’re considering? And I said, well, first of all, there are an amazing people in this space. So if you if you want some good recommendations, I can make them for you. But I said, one of the ways I think I might be different is that more playful approach that I have. And if you’re gonna come in and talk about really polarizing things, artificial intelligence, and how it is transforming higher education, then then to come at that with a sense of play helps us not bump into each other’s very strongly held views quite as much and to be able to approach that with more curiosity. And I guess it gives us structures and habits and practices to to do that rather than just relying, because I I don’t always feel like I can, in the moment, do that very well. But if I have a structure of play and a space and and sort of containers to hold those things and and to also just come at it with childlike curiosity, it can be really powerful. I know another big influencer for for us has been the power of moments with Chip and Dan Heath.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:54]:

Tell me about how their work has really had an impact on your thinking and how you approach play.

Andrew Cross [00:12:59]:

Yeah. I I really like this one because I think it sums up what we’ve seen, but haven’t been able to put verbiage to. And that so they have one bit in the book that talks about the peak end rule. And it basically says that it’s a cognitive bias that people tend to think they have this beautiful linear memory of experiences. You remember the whole thing. You have a rational view, kind of alluding to what Alyshahn talked about before that, you know, we’re logical, we’re rational humans, but we’re really not. And people disproportionately remember experiences based on the peaks, both the good peaks and the valleys, and then also the ending experience. And that’s actually how they package up their memories of an entire experience, whether it’s a short experience, long experience.

Andrew Cross [00:13:44]:

You look back at what happened 10 years ago, you don’t actually remember the whole thing. You remember a handful of peaks and then what the resolution was. And I think that book really illustrated for me why interactive experiences and what we’ve kind of dedicated the last decade of our lives to are so important because you’re providing those peaks and you’re providing that really strong resolution. And I think one of the big takeaways there is people often focus too much on solving the potholes. People focus on taking the twos in an experience and making them threes or fours, but actually what really matters is taking the sevens and making them tens. And that’s actually something that Alyshahn, I know you talk a lot about is how to elevate the strengths to be super strengths and not worry so much about the little bits here and there. And it kind of ties back in what Alyshahn said before about the stories. Those are the stories that people create around their memories.

Andrew Cross [00:14:37]:

And I think it’s a really powerful bit of research.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:14:40]:

Yeah, I think just to add on to that, Bonni, one thing that we always tell our customers, our creators who are building experiences for audiences is all you really have to do is think about 3 things. Remember, learn, feel. What do you want folks to remember? What do you want them to learn? And ultimately, what what do you want them to feel? And if you can package your objectives in those three things, then you’re gonna build experiences that are tailored towards your audience because you’re now putting yourself in their shoes. You’re trying to create an opportunity to visualize yourself as them. And that’s, you know, part of the the curiosity and the research that I find so interesting.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:18]:

So there are some key things that you advise to help us be able to be more effective at designing experiences. And as we get into these, one thing I just wanna tell people is no matter where you are, we gotta get in this the pool. I hey. I’m gonna mix so many metaphors here, but you’re not gonna have it all figured out. You’re gonna try some things. It’s not gonna work. You’re gonna try again. And and just to to be willing to be in that messiness, to me, is we we have to be willing to go there before we can ever take any of the advice that you’re about to give us.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:51]:

So talk a little bit first about some of the elements we should be thinking about as we’re designing experiences for learners.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:15:59]:

I think there’s 2 categories, strategy and tactics. I think from a strategic perspective, thinking about your objectives as a designer. So, again, learn, remember, feel is a really great place to start.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:16:12]:

Mhmm.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:16:13]:

It can now put a lens on your experience of taking it above the, like, missions that you want people to complete. And once you have that idea of, like, I want people to feel like they’re connected to one another. I want them to remember the organization’s values. I want them to feel really good about themselves. If you have those things locked in, then tactically you can start to think about, okay, how long do I want people to participate? Do I have to have a degree of difficulty to create different options for people to attack the game? So, for example, do I want them to travel? Do I want them to solve riddles? Are people in this particular activity comfortable showing themselves on camera, or do I need more text missions? So I think, strategically, once you figure that out, you can start to look at the tactics of the individual missions based on the constraints of your application. So time, geography, number of participants, but I wouldn’t go the opposite way. And I think that’s what people typically do is they start really minute, tactical, and they miss the forest for the trees.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:17:20]:

Yeah. And to me, in the experience of working with you, we had a a wonderful time doing both of these things. But between the strategic, after I started to wrestle through those questions, these things to me ebbed and flowed. So and it was wonderful to have outside of my own eyes, other people going, yeah, these are these are really resonating. This over here, this mission that you created, or you you don’t have enough of the text base. Well, I mean, just to have other sets of eyes is such an important part of the process, and being willing to still have things be in flux, to me, has been really important. I feel like I’m starting to so much of, I guess, the the work that I do, and maybe this is even just broader to life in general. I still get stuck in trap, the mental thinking that other people have this all figured out.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:18:11]:

And I just never got the manual. I was a computer instructor when I first graduated from college. So I literally, I used to, at the time, I slept on a futon my younger days. And so I would fall asleep next to these 3rd party manuals that were 4 inches thick, you know. So I get myself to fall asleep at night. And so there is no manual for this stuff. Like, no. They don’t have it all figured out.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:18:33]:

They’re just willing to ebb back and forth and just kind of continue to live out those questions and to live in that discomfort. And to me, it is more comfortable to live in the discomfort if we just recognize that the vast majority of people, to my knowledge, don’t have it figured out, but they are willing to experiment and learn as they are going instead of thinking of it’s some destination. And once I reach a certain destination, then I will be done, I guess. Yeah.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:19:01]:

I’ll just I’ll just add that. I think mess it up is a really good way to think about stuff, like break stuff, make mistakes, but then ask people, what did you like? What didn’t you like? And you can do that in the design by saying, hey. Give us feedback and we’ll we’ll edit it or or have other inherently, I think teachers really have a good professors, educators, have a really good understanding of motivation systems. There’s a a book that Andrew recommended to me a long time ago, Booked, by Niall Iyer, and it talks about how people are motivated, what their reward systems are. So recognition or points, like winning, for example. There’s all these different I won’t I won’t butcher the the text, but I think that educators do that in their learning, recognizing that there are people who care about great grades, people who care about being recognized, their classmates, people who maybe don’t care about either of those things. And so I think building those tactically into your design associated with your strategy is always a really great way to make people feel seen, which is my central thesis for this whole call, I guess.

Andrew Cross [00:20:02]:

Yeah. I think the thing I always come back to is your goal isn’t to create a perfect experience out of the gate. That’s impossible. We’ve been doing this for more than a decade. I still regularly get into an experience and just change it all up once it’s in motion. Because sometimes you just get a feel and you’re like, okay, that wasn’t right. Your goal is to get yourself to the starting line. And that’s actually a really freeing thought in the sense that you don’t need to create perfection out of thin air.

Andrew Cross [00:20:29]:

You just need to start that ball rolling and then have the freedom and curiosity and creativity to kind of adapt and learn and iterate for the next go of it. And it’s actually not that hard to get yourself to the starting line. You just need to say, okay, let’s challenge status quo. I can do it the way it’s always been done that I know isn’t as impactful as it could be. Let’s just try something else. And my worst case scenario is I’m going to learn something, which is a pretty great outcome to have that you’ve gotten something more than you ever have gotten before as your worst case scenario. Like, that’s incredible.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:21:05]:

Yeah. That’s such a great that’s that’s a great thing to say. Alright. Before we get to the recommendations, let’s get even a little bit more practical. You’ve got 5 e’s for us. Five e’s as we’re thinking through how to design experiences. How do we think about maybe the different approaches that we might take?

Andrew Cross [00:21:24]:

Yeah. So Al always teases me for coming up with one of the best and worst, acronyms of all time. As Alois says, you can always remember it by just saying e.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:21:36]:

It’s perfect.

Andrew Cross [00:21:37]:

Exactly. But I think not every experience needs to have all 5 of these, but these are really good buckets to think through for inspiration. And the first one for us is examination. This piggybacks off of a more traditional education environment tool, question and answer. And that’s always useful. Just get people to tell you what they know in a really simple way, but then you can start building on top of it with what we call exploration. And that’s where you encourage students to freely explore the content on their own. Sometimes that’s content, sometimes it’s a physical space, but that idea of turning them loose to go off and find something that they find interesting, a little bit of free choice learning.

Andrew Cross [00:22:15]:

Building on top of that, you can have explanation. So this beyond just examination where it’s almost regurgitating facts, that’s where you can have students take what they’ve learned, describe it in a different context, in their own words, and really apply that learning in a different way. Extension is a little twist on that as well where you can create something brand new. So it’s the idea of creating something else using the knowledge that you have. Sometimes that’s reenacting things. Sometimes that’s engaging with the content in a different way, but it’s starting to build that complexity and build that use of the knowledge instead of just sending it back to you. And it’s something that is often forgotten. But I actually think going back to the ideas of play and the research behind it, it’s externalization.

Andrew Cross [00:22:55]:

We don’t learn in a vacuum. We don’t learn by ourselves. You have to get outside your group, interact with others, have a social dynamic to it. I think some of my favorite missions, they’re actually relatively simple. It’s just act this out in a group, play with a group in a certain way and that those create almost those peak moments that you go back on because often the groups start laughing together. They come up with silly, crazy things. That actually locks in the content more than regurgitating will ever do or examining your knowledge of it. And it’s that social aspect for some reason has this really impactful result on retention because it’s not you remembering it.

Andrew Cross [00:23:33]:

You remember those moments that happened along the way. So you can almost take something from each of the bucket. And when you’re looking at an experience, you can almost look and say, okay. Can I sprinkle in something from this bucket? We don’t have too many of these. And start applying the five e’s out of the lens for how you can create the experience to make sure you have the right building blocks without it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:23:50]:

These are so helpful for me, and I there are times when you said that not all learning experiences would necessarily have to have all of these elements. Mhmm. I think for me, just to take these as a lens and put them on top of my own teaching. And now, actually, I wanna transition this to the recommendations because, spoiler alert, what I wanna recommend is goose chase, but I’m having a little bit of a flashback for myself because I I think I’m gonna have to see if I have it in my calendar, but I literally think I could have found out about it in 2011 when you started. I mean, I if if it wasn’t when you started, it was very very early on, and I can I can remember what that, hotel conference room looked like? I I don’t remember what conference I was at, but it was a a academic conference. And just it being so entirely uniquely different from anything else I experienced. It was a very good conference by the way, but but I mean, just something so transformatively different and you have such a memorable name of the organization that I even though there would be many years where I wouldn’t have played with it or whatever, by no means am I an expert. Sorry, listeners.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:00]:

Even today as we’re wrapping up the Story Caravan now, I’m gonna be learning a lot in the process as we go through that. It’s just so memorable how distinct and unique and just sparked so many people’s creativity in that moment, and I mean, we carried it with me ever since. So I wanna just briefly share a little bit about GooseChase. And, GooseChase, you described that you’re at the center people are at the center of everything, and that you’ve been doing it for over a decade. And some things that we didn’t find out in the interview that we could it’d be really fun to have conversations about if we had the time, but you’ve got a 4 day work week going, and you have distributed teams that are spread across 2 continents and are really passionate about improving work life balance, which I love. And I just love that we can get in there with the messiness of it all and start experimenting and learning from those experiences and going from there. So I just wanted to suggest that everybody go check out Goose Tastes if you haven’t before, and give it a go. And they have a free option that will at least, you know, allow you to play around with it in your own teaching experiences and or, I mean, in your family.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:09]:

Actually, my son the other day was helping me test some things out on GooseChase. And, so, yeah, it’s really a lovely thing. Our library before has done it with, students as they come into the library to help them. A lot of times, students that we work with would not have had any experience with the libraries, let alone positive ones. So we do try to spark their curiosity just to what could be discovered there in some really playful and experimental ways as well. So I just wanna recommend that people go check it out. And Dave and I, when we kicked off the story caravan, it’s, of course, closing, down here shortly. But as Dave and I kicked it off, he made a joke about, that Toyota was sponsoring the episode because he told a story about how he hacked his Toyota when he when he first started listening to podcasts.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:57]:

And so today’s episode is not being sponsored by goose Chase. They did not know I was going to recommend Goose Chase. It’s just that good. You should go check it out. So I’m gonna pass it over to Alyshahn for whatever you would like to recommend today.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:27:10]:

Okay. I messed up when I was talking about Hooked. I I said the name wrong. His name is Nir Eyal, not the other way around. So my apologies if

Bonni Stachowiak [00:27:18]:

Oh, I didn’t even realize that.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:27:19]:

And listening. So I definitely recommend Hooked because it is a very interesting read on building habit forming products even if you just take 1 or 2 pieces of learning. I also would like to recommend Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke, which she’s a famous poker player. One of the best books I’ve ever written I’ve ever read and so applicable just to everyday life. And finally, shameless plug, no company’s perfect. And I think we know that. So we have a whole series called lessons from the chase, where we talk about the things that we work on, the things that we struggle with as an organization. And they’re all written from the perspective of the individual that is working on it.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani[00:27:57]:

So for example, we rebuilt our forecasting and the person who rebuilt it wrote about her journey and they’re just always like fascinating articles. So bit of a plug, but something that I think every company should should think about.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:09]:

Oh, I haven’t seen that yet. I’m gonna have to check that out. I love I love things like that. We recently redesigned our division of teaching and learning website, and it’s still early days for us, but we are so excited to do what you just described of that whole working out loud, teaching out loud, and just sharing the learnings that we’re having on there. So I’m gonna go check it out and send it to my colleagues so they can check it out. I think for some people who haven’t written as much in public, that can feel rather intimidating to be as we are going, processing, and reflecting on things, and that can be so such good modeling for what healthy organizations need to continue to innovate and, inspire one another and really be able to draw out each other’s strengths. So I can’t wait to go check that out. I haven’t even seen it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:52]:

Alright, Andrew. What do you have to recommend for us today?

Andrew Cross [00:28:55]:

I feel like I’ve talked about a lot of books, so I’m gonna change up what I was planning on saying here, and I’m gonna throw the idea that status quo too often is our enemy. So I try to put something in the back of my head that if I’m reaching for the playbook that’s been on the shelf for a long time, have that pop into my head and say, okay, what could we do differently just to mix it up and try something new? And I think a lot of times we just accept that we’re constrained by our energy, our bandwidth, our time limitations, and we don’t even spend a brain cycle thinking through, okay, what can we change? Because I think we often over inflate how tiring and time consuming doing something differently is when it actually often isn’t that much extra work. And it actually gives you energy to be trying something new instead of doing the same old thing. What I often find for myself is whenever I’m in a funk and we’ve talked about this before, Bonni, putting that playful lens and say, if I wanted to make this more playful, what would this look like? And it can actually be a really fun thought exercise that’s it’s not only not exhausting, it actually can be energy giving. Alyshahn talks about I think Airbnb came up with this 7 star customer experience, which started as we all talk about 5 stars. Well, what would a 6 star look like? What would a 7 star look like? And it becomes this really playful, fun thought exercise. And then you can often dial it back because some of those things aren’t realistic. Getting picked up from the airport when you’re going to go stay at an Airbnb by your favorite musician is not realistic, but it can force you to get out of the box a little bit.

Andrew Cross [00:30:32]:

So I would recommend that people put a little flag in the back of their head that says I’ve been doing it the same way for a while. What would a more playful, creative, fun way of doing this look like? And then how can I move it one step towards that without killing all my bandwidth and sucking up all my energy? Because it doesn’t need to be and shouldn’t be this mentally draining thing all the time. But that little extra thing in the back of your head is is really, really, really useful.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:57]:

You got me thinking about an episode that I recently listened to, of Dave’s podcast, Coaching for Leaders, with the author of Unreasonable Hospitality, the Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect. First of all, it’s a wonderful episode. But second of all, for those of you who have watched the television show, The Bear, the author consulted on that television show, and this doesn’t spoil anything, by the way. I’m not gonna spoil any plot lines or anything, but one of the characters in one of the seasons goes to another country where they have a really fancy restaurant, and they just do these incredible things where they’ll overhear something from the customers and then just incredibly delight and and surprise them. And, Andrew, your story about the Airbnb and just getting us to think past the status quo, yeah, I might not be able to pick the customer up from the airport with their, you know, most favorite celebrity, but just that type of thinking about what it might look like to surprise and delight people. What if, Andrew, you could find out that my favorite musician is x, y, or z? And what if then the car that picks me up, it’s playing when I get into the car? I mean, so just to allow ourselves the freedom to say, we’re not committing to any of this. We’re just asking some questions. Sometimes you can think big and then shrink it really down, and what it gets shrunk down to is even easier than the status quo that we were also committed to in the first place.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:28]:

So that’s really inspiring for me. And I think all of us, the 3 of us might wanna also recommend the television show, The Bear. We we were speaking a little bit off air. I don’t like to bring the behind the scenes moments in, but, Alyshahn, what how did you describe The Bear?

Alyshahn Kara-Virani[00:32:43]:

I mean, it’s a great show, but the first and second season are amazing. The 3rd season was terrible.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:50]:

Was it terrible?

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:32:51]:

I would stop my recommendation after season 2.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:53]:

Okay. Maybe I don’t need to as of this as of us having this conversation today, I have not watched season 3, but we are talking about seasons 1 and 2 being incredibly stressful to watch. It is incredibly stressful to watch, but very good acting and very good, you know, very good plot. So, yeah, maybe I won’t move that season 3 up. We were having star wars conversations offline too, and, maybe I gotta bump up some other catching up on the Star Wars universe in in my queue. Yeah. That’s so fun.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani[00:33:18]:

I gotta say, Bonni, you you nailed the concept of the 7 star experience with your example talking about the music in the car and how just the little details can make such a big difference. I think what the main takeaway for me with that is and for everybody listening is that nobody talks about their 4 and 5 star experience because we expect to have 4 and 5 star experience. We expect to have a certain level of quality of service, but everybody talks about their bad experiences. Even if it’s a 3 and a half star, even if everything was really good. And one thing, hey, you had to wait, for example, for your Airbnb Airbnb to be let into your place, could be the best place ever. You’re gonna say I had to wait. And if the music in the car was playing that was your favorite artist, you’re gonna talk about that detail. So keeping that in mind is and with the examples we talked about with our learning, Andrew’s professor is my manager, those are the exact examples of 7 star versus 3 star.

Alyshahn Kara-Virani [00:34:17]:

Like, I’m sure Andrew’s class was fine, but what he remembers is proof. And I’m sure my manager did some stuff that I was confused about, but what I remember is that he changed my perspective on how stories impact human beings, and that’s like the the perfect visual. So just thought I’d add that in.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:35]:

Yay. Thank you both so much for today’s conversation. Thank you for this amazing collaboration just on making the Teaching in Higher Ed Story Caravan such a unique experience for people. And I’m just so glad to know both of you and feel absolutely delighted that we were able to have this conversation today.

Andrew Cross [00:34:52]:

Thanks so much. Thank you.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:56]:

I wanted to give everyone a heads up that the Teaching in Higher Ed Story Caravan is going to be going through September 19th. So if you are listening and that date hasn’t passed yet, we would love to have you join us even if it’s just for a few missions. And thanks to all of you that have been pouring into that. We’ve been having a blast with you and looking forward to wrapping that up. And today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. And if you wanna head over to teachinginhighered.com/10 years, you can find out more about the 10 year anniversary and the Teaching in Higher Ed Story Caravan.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:47]:

Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.