Dom & Tom

What does product development have to do with the theater? I’m a former theater guy, and a 20-year veteran of the digital product development space. They have more in common than you think. With both product design and development and the theater, you’re building an immersive world for your users or audiences to inhabit. For the experience to work, it needs to be cohesive, considered, and consistent. And ideally, it needs to make a connection to them - catharsis. In other words, they both need to tell a clear story to be successful. I recently saw a kickass play that achieved this perfectly: "An Enemy of the People." by Henrik Ibsen. This powerful drama, set in Scandinavia, revolves around a man who uncovers a serious issue with his town’s water supply. I was familiar with the story, having performed in this play during my student days in Chicago - though I'm more of a Strindberg, "The Ghost Sonata" man myself. What makes this production truly immersive is its approach to audience interaction. [Spoilers] In a pivotal scene, there’s a town hall meeting about water quality. In a creative twist, a bar is lowered from the ceiling, and the audience is invited to step onto the stage, order a drink—water or akvavit, a traditional Scandinavian liquor—and join the town’s discourse. For a few moments, you're not just watching the play; you're part of it. This blend of engagement and entertainment creates a memorable, enriching experience that parallels the very best in product design. Effective digital products craft immersive universes where users feel genuinely valued and supported. On the other hand, think about how it feels to hear a cell phone going off in the theater. You’re ripped out of the experience, jerked back into reality. A bad in-product experience - like a slow load time, inaccurate or inconsistent results, bad design - does the same thing to your users. It jolts them out of the experience you’ve worked so hard to try to build and makes them lose trust in your product. You don’t want to do that to your user. At Dom & Tom, we’ll help you make sure you don’t. Learn more in my recent blog: https://lnkd.in/gaES8HZv 🤖

At Dom & Tom, we joke a lot about building blinky lights, ones and zeros, and dopamine machines. It’s funny, because on some level it’s true. At the most basic level, we’re putting pixels on the screen. But there’s so much more to great product development than just dopamine. Great products have a “why.” TY S.S. To put a fine point on it, the difference between good products and bad ones comes down to something surprising: storytelling. And you know it when you experience it. Think about your favorite product. Is there any experience that makes you question the nature of the product? Do you ever lose faith in the product’s ability to solve your problem? Or does the time in-product build trust? Chances are, it does. And it does that because the story it’s trying to tell you is clear. Amazon’s story is something like, “Get what you need, quickly and easily.” Every touchpoint reinforces that story. HubSpot’s story is close to, “Build a better business.” Their products exist to help your business grow and support all the functions of that business. So let's ask the big Q... how can you discover and activate your product’s story? Check out my recent article to find out: https://lnkd.in/gaES8HZv

Jacob Ablowitz, Josiah Haswell, and I will be speaking about Government Contract next Monday, April 1st if anyone wants to listen in. J & J are super knowledgeable in the space. We're having a beard-off 😝