Darren Hood [User Experience]
Darren Hood – Senior Learning Experience (LX) Designer at Michigan State University
Darren talks about:
· What people say about UX
· How do decipher between a real UXer and a fake one
· How to seamlessly connect UX and CX
The book that has influenced Darren the most in the past year:
· Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter: https://amzn.to/3qnWb9w
His note to all customer service professionals:
“Ascribe to Excellence…Because when you focus on excellence, you benefit yourself and everyone else.”
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Nick Glimsdahl: Welcome to the Press 1 For Nick podcast my name is Nick limp zone my guest this week is Darren hood he is the senior learning experience designer at Michigan state.
Nick Glimsdahl: he’s also the host of the world of ux podcast which covers every ux related method discipline trends great advancements and challenges and much, much more welcome to press one for Nick podcast Darren.
Darren Hood: Thank you, Nick I am excited to be here, I am completely stoked thanks for having me on the show.
Nick Glimsdahl: Absolutely, so I ask every single guest one question the very beginning and it’s what one thing is.
Nick Glimsdahl: People might not know about you.
Darren Hood: know one thing that people know about me I saw this and I gave it some thought well that’s something that people might be a little surprised about I used to be an umpire.
Darren Hood: I was an umpire it was a softball empire, not for baseball or anything like that it was at a huge softball complex I reside in metro Detroit.
Darren Hood: Michigan and some people might say, well you know that’s not a big deal, you might be surprised, you have to be in a position, and you have to know the rules.
Darren Hood: you’re a one man crew, so that means that you have to be everywhere and be in position to make the calls and you’ve got to have your head on a swivel and got to be able to make excellent accurate decisions on a dime.
Nick Glimsdahl: And what happens if you don’t.
Darren Hood: If you don’t people you wouldn’t you’re not in a professional environment, but you would think that you were because people will be on you.
Darren Hood: Like the.
Nick Glimsdahl: Players coaches that everybody, and these are like man, I mean.
Darren Hood: All grown folks but man it’s like a lot of people who were out there, playing softball like it was like half of them were angry, because they weren’t pro and they’re like.
Darren Hood: They have these vendetta these chips on their shoulders went out there, playing, and you can see it.
Darren Hood: And I’ve talked to people about it before, but that was it was really something and I was known for being a one of the most dedicated.
Darren Hood: umpires it was out there, I was known for having more hustle because if somebody hit a ball and they were trying to turn a stretcher single into a double you have to be at second base to make the call.
Darren Hood: So you so you couldn’t you have to be there before the runner.
Darren Hood: So basically what you’re saying is that you were out hustling the people that were actually on the field.
Darren Hood: You better be.
Nick Glimsdahl: I love that I’m guessing that most people didn’t have the hustle that you did.
Darren Hood: No, they didn’t a lot of time people would get as far as like the pitcher’s mound and do their best to make the call and I’ll never forget the one time that I knew, because I play to play a game of softball a week.
Darren Hood: yeah and I never forget the time that a guy he knew he was going to your insight their head.
Darren Hood: which is relevant to us was, we have to be inside of people’s heads and I gave great ux as a as a as an umpire I could tell the guy was going to stretch it to a double so I anticipated it and I took off.
Darren Hood: And I was, I was there, the guy with the stretch it to a double he gets thrown out by a hair.
Darren Hood: And as they often do they they’re all they all hate the umpires and the pressure that we were subjected to was off the charts for $18 a game.
Darren Hood: When we really get.
Darren Hood: Press and.
Darren Hood: The guy jumped up ready to yell at the umpire, how can you make that call and he turned around I was standing right there looking.
Darren Hood: Like.
Darren Hood: He was a foot from me he just shut up because he knew I was there, and he knew my reputation.
Darren Hood: yeah and he just shut up put his head down and went back to the dugout and I went back behind the plate, and I continue calling the game and I took a lot of pride.
Darren Hood: In doing my absolute best and being my absolute best I’m also have the frame of mind that.
Darren Hood: there’s an old proverb that’s that that basically says that he did his faithful and much as his faithful and loyal and faithful and much new few I’m facing a little you’re on faithful and much and if that’s the case.
Darren Hood: Then, no matter what I’m touching I need to excel at so that was my mindset.
Nick Glimsdahl: I love that that’s so interesting to me and I feel like there’s probably other similarities when because everybody.
Nick Glimsdahl: In business wants to blame somebody and so that can tend to be in in ux up so you’re getting you’re still running the second base just in a different way yeah.
Darren Hood: Absolutely and the blame game and the ux world is huge.
Darren Hood: Which is another reason why and on some of the things we’re going to get into today it is so critical.
Darren Hood: that people understand that ux is not just about making wire frames and journey maps and prototypes it’s about navigating the space.
Darren Hood: And I’m a huge proponent for emotional intelligence and how it contributes to getting the work done and managing the perception of your work and the relationships.
Darren Hood: associated with the work so yeah it’s all it’s all tie in, and if you don’t manage things properly, you will get you actually I’ve seen people actually get set up.
Darren Hood: so that they can be blamed when everything, when all is said and done, and no you got to be better at that, and you got to anticipate it and quote unquote there the air quotes get to second base.
Darren Hood: Before they do so that you can manage everything properly, and so you can anticipate the excuses that people are going to put out there and then manage it, so you can get by it.
Darren Hood: and always bring value find out how to bring value to the wireframe is going to show you that how, how are you going to bring value for the business for your users.
Darren Hood: to manage the ux maturity level of the team, make sure that the perception of the team is appropriate, you got to manage all that stuff you can’t just do the work.
Nick Glimsdahl: I love the fact that I haven’t even asked the ux question you’re already adding value.
Around.
Darren Hood: Oh yes, that’s a beautiful thing when you do it right.
Nick Glimsdahl: that’s right yeah so let’s start at the very beginning, everybody has a unique story and not a whole lot of people that I’ve had I’ve interviewed have been in up ux so how did you get into ux.
Darren Hood: It was interesting for me, I was.
Darren Hood: doing some work for a nonprofit organization in 1995.
Darren Hood: When everybody was getting the wonderful little AOL floppiness at the time in the mail.
Darren Hood: And you have 14.
Darren Hood: And we were.
Darren Hood: You know where I got this AOL thing so apparently I’m supposed to uh I guess I’m supposed to be on AOL that’s, the only way I can get on it, you know those days.
Darren Hood: But I.
Darren Hood: They needed somebody to do their website, and so you know what I’m I can learn some things and I can do that for you and, interestingly, as I got started I realized the navigation needs to be understandable.
Darren Hood: I didn’t know to call it information architecture, I didn’t know what was information architecture, but I made sure that the information architecture was so I conduct it usability testing.
Darren Hood: I didn’t call it usability testing, but I did want to make sure that I wanted to validate the design direction.
Darren Hood: That I was going in I wanted to make sure that things were scalable I didn’t call it scalable, but I want to make sure so long story short.
Darren Hood: And unbeknownst to me that was my entry point, along with that I was doing.
Darren Hood: at work, I was doing instructional design work, I was a trainer and when I say instructional design is training, from a scientific perspective, so I knew all the science.
Darren Hood: And I was being trained in it, I was getting certifications in training and I thought that’s the direction I was going to go to the extent that I was on before macromedia and adobe merged, I was on the Advisory Board for what’s now known as captivate.
Darren Hood: I was on the Advisory Board, for it was robot DEMO then it was captivate but, when it was macromedia I was on the Advisory Board, I was really.
Darren Hood: heavily involved in the world of instructional design, but as I, while I was doing work for on star I started thinking, what do really, what do I want to do going forward, because the stuff that I’m doing with the with the websites it’s really intriguing to me.
Darren Hood: And do I really want to go to Boise state and get a master’s in education or do I want to pursue this what I came to know information architecture at the time, so I want to really get into this, and when I assessed myself.
Darren Hood: I said, you know what I really love doing that how many times do people get to do what they love.
Darren Hood: So forget about the education stuff even though I’ve come full circle and I’m back there now.
Darren Hood: Forget about us education stuff I want to do this information architecture and that’s when I went into the world of ux as we now know it.
Darren Hood: hook line and sinker, as I say, I mortgaged my future on it, and that would that’s how I got into it full time I’ve been doing it for almost 10 years on the side, but when I entered into the full time world I knew everything was going to change, for me, and it did.
Nick Glimsdahl: yeah going back to the website, you said you didn’t know a lot of them.
Nick Glimsdahl: words but you were doing a lot of the work.
Nick Glimsdahl: yeah and is it because you took pride in what you were putting out or was it something else.
Darren Hood: It was all of those things I took pride, I wanted to there’s a here it comes again brings value, I wanted to be accurate, I wanted to be authoritative in my in my demonstration in my engagement, I wanted to be an expert.
Darren Hood: At what I did, and I mentioned the umpire that’s the thing, nobody knew about me, but I could almost do a one be in there you never know guess my first job was I was a janitor I was 10 years old.
Darren Hood: And when I clean those toilets.
Darren Hood: I wanted them to be the absolute best so I so I’ve been like that for like.
Darren Hood: yeah.
Darren Hood: I’ve been in that frame of mind, so I wanted to, I wanted to do and be my absolute best and every time I find a resource that’s going to help me to sharpen my saw a little bit.
Darren Hood: And, and always example, they can identify gaps and making sure that I fill those gaps yeah I want to be my best.
Nick Glimsdahl: yeah I love that there’s actually a quick funny story I.
Nick Glimsdahl: sold cookies pastries and pieces called myself that could have been the glorified Girl Scout, I guess, but I didn’t wear one of those.
Nick Glimsdahl: Plaid skirts but my boss came up he was.
Nick Glimsdahl: He was the CEO of this of this fundraising group and he was about three hours away he lived in St Louis I lived in Bloomington Illinois and he came up and.
Nick Glimsdahl: walk into the bathroom he’s like what are you doing and I was like well, what do you mean what’s wrong he’s like that is the cleanest toilet I’ve ever seen.
Nick Glimsdahl: he’s I don’t tell my wife, I said that.
Nick Glimsdahl: But that’s the cleanest and I was like.
Nick Glimsdahl: This is not mine and I want to respect what I have and I appreciate you taking the investment in me and, and so I, I want to make sure it’s perfect.
Nick Glimsdahl: And he really appreciated that and he knew that I was that was going to go if I was going to take care of that toilet I was going to take care of everything else, and he had he had full faith in me.
Darren Hood: that’s awesome and.
Darren Hood: We should see more of that people taking pride in what they do, no matter what the work is, and I was talking to a friend, the other day, who was in the hospital and it said right on her chart do not give this patient sleep medication.
Darren Hood: And the person came in there, this is a, this is a hospital.
Darren Hood: life and death is in everybody’s hands and they came in here and they looked at the chart and said Oh, we need to give her some sleep medication and she knew that it was on the chart and she was riled up and she said hey.
Darren Hood: aren’t you read my chart don’t give me any sleep medication it’s just amazing how people just.
Darren Hood: I was just want to say on average don’t care.
Darren Hood: At best, I can say there’s too many people that don’t care and if we just care how much better with the quality of life, be.
Darren Hood: How much better what would be able to here comes again brings value it really doesn’t take it’s easier to work to bring value than to let it slide yeah.
Nick Glimsdahl: So, because people tend to just go through the motions.
Nick Glimsdahl: yeah instead of adding value with purpose.
Darren Hood: yeah they want the I’m big on intrinsic value and they want that you have the extrinsic and your interests at work and.
Darren Hood: they’ve got to give you the check they agreed to that so there’s your extrinsic but what about the intrinsic and and I think people need more drive when it comes to intrinsic.
Darren Hood: elements, you know you’re going to get your check how about the satisfaction, being able to sleep well because you know you did a great job how about.
Darren Hood: Being excited about the look on a person’s face because of the delight that you drove for them, because of all the effort you know how about things like that how about being excited because of how you inspired and energized your team Members, you know where where’s the joy.
Nick Glimsdahl: yeah.
Darren Hood: But these things Oh, I live for intrinsic.
Nick Glimsdahl: yeah I love.
Nick Glimsdahl: I love, how you up you’re all fired up and continue to be in speaking of fired up I love that you’re calling out that shenanigans on social when it comes to user experience.
Darren Hood: Oh yeah.
Nick Glimsdahl: So share with my listeners what people say and what they try to get away with.
Darren Hood: people try it’s just a nightmare, I think one of the examples that comes to mind is just like the last couple days um.
Darren Hood: I made some statements about how click on start my clubhouse and how a lot of people who aren’t clubhouse is now it’s another one of these unchecked sources.
Darren Hood: where people can say and do whatever they want nobody has to approve it, nobody has to validate it nobody’s going to stop you and so people are, as I say, just spewing out all kinds of rubbish as my exact phrase.
Darren Hood: In my response to that person, they just spew out all kinds of rubbish and in the person said what I was talking about clubhouse they said.
Darren Hood: Well isn’t that what social media is, this is an ux person isn’t that what social media is, I said that if you’re respectful.
Darren Hood: and responsible, it is not, I do that view social media as this as a as a cesspool come on over here let’s throw all of our waste no it’s we have an opportunity.
Darren Hood: To engage with one another, we have an opportunity to share with one another to build one another to encourage one another to enlighten one another, and those are the things that we should do.
Darren Hood: Make sure that what you have in your cupboard in the cupboard of your heart is accurate and then and then get out if your cupboards are bare you have nothing to say.
Darren Hood: If the if what is in your cupboard has expired expiration dates don’t serve it to anybody have more respect for other folks in the service so that said, people are saying all types of.
Darren Hood: ridiculous things that are inaccurate ux ui is one I the experiences I’ve had where a ux is not really ui ui is a subset of ux they’re not the same don’t say you X ui that’s not really a thing and that’s one of the biggest ones, because organizations are using it.
Darren Hood: practitioners are using it people companies that are presenting themselves as if they are authoritative voices in ux are saying it and so that makes it more difficult.
Darren Hood: To get people to let it go you’re not going to call these companies out by name on your show I’ll call about my show, and my cookie.
Nick Glimsdahl: what’s it rhyme with their.
Nick Glimsdahl: I’m just kidding just kidding.
Darren Hood: could quote adobe.
Darren Hood: And boo and.
Darren Hood: there’s other companies like that.
Darren Hood: They are actually saying things that are not accurate one company actually just rolled out a certification track.
Darren Hood: For us, and then people will say hey they’ve got a certification track, we should take that it only takes six months, this is great yay.
Darren Hood: they’re not educators, just because you’re a successful business doesn’t mean that everything you touch that you’re authorized to do that yeah.
Darren Hood: And, and so you know so those of us who are in academia, those who us who are I’ve been doing education.
Darren Hood: Or if it worked longer than I’ve been doing ux and I got five certifications in about to get a PhD in education and I’m saying.
Darren Hood: That you should not be over here, this is not your arena going cells from an AdWords going, you know there’s some other things that you can do, but this is not your, this is not your area.
Darren Hood: This is not where you live, and just be and then the hiring practices are so bad.
Darren Hood: A lot of people are sharing bad information on social media about hiring practices and.
Darren Hood: it’s setting very bad expectations, the boot camp folks of the world, you can learn you excellent six months, nine months and we guarantee you a job there, this kind of stuff is on social media, and nobody can guarantee you a job.
Darren Hood: yeah nobody unless they’re your parents with your company they can’t guarantee you a job, and even though they can’t guarantee it so truth be told that it can blow up a week a week afterwards so there’s an it’s a cesspool.
Darren Hood: on social media and I try to bring the voice of reason right the ship for a while, is that medium is terrible there’s so much bad information.
Darren Hood: And a lot of the new people don’t have a filter so they don’t know it’s not their fault, they don’t know that this information is bad until they learn about it.
Darren Hood: And, and I was talking about how bad media was it finally hit me one day well why don’t you go start writing for medium.
Darren Hood: And posting a bone so that’s what I did so, so I have just recently started I slow my roll the last three weeks or so, but get some information out there that folks can tap into the sad thing is.
Darren Hood: People will still embrace the bad information and will bypass the good stuff.
Darren Hood: yeah so that that’s the only bad thing about it.
Nick Glimsdahl: yeah if there’s 100 articles have a bad ux advice on you’re one of them you’re one out of 100.
Darren Hood: yeah.
Nick Glimsdahl: or your one on one out of 100.
Nick Glimsdahl: Right like how are you going to it’s got an it’s one article, at a time now and then you’re really bringing clarity, out of that confusion so continue to do that, you know, one of the statements you made I’m going to take it and turn it into a question.
Nick Glimsdahl: Okay, good luck.
Nick Glimsdahl: rise above today’s muck and mire in ux.
Darren Hood: is basically about having an appetite for excellence and sticking to your guns, no matter what it’s I actually developed, something that I call the ux cycle of excellence and step one is to properly understand and define the discipline.
Darren Hood: A lot of people are not succeeding, whether it’s getting a job.
Darren Hood: Whether it’s getting the proper education, whether it’s posting good things on social media, these things are happening because people don’t understand the discipline their understanding is all over the place, so if people will subscribe to excellence, it will put out a lot of fires.
Darren Hood: The there’s a lot of terrible information, but is, but which is worse, the one person who post the terrible information.
Darren Hood: Or the thousand people who like it.
Nick Glimsdahl: I think the answer is.
Darren Hood: It you know somebody you saying something if somebody was running around saying the sky is.
Darren Hood: The sky is green um they wouldn’t get anywhere because everybody knows the sky is green, although a handful of people will think this person is a revolutionary.
Darren Hood: The way that things go today in general, though I think I think everybody will understand what I’m getting at is that.
Darren Hood: If nobody believed the embraces or values the muck in the mire the muck in the mire has nowhere to live so therefore if a person contributes to excellence, or I should say focuses on excellence that’s going to take care of a lot of issues.
Nick Glimsdahl: Absolutely, if you mentioned hiring at the very.
Nick Glimsdahl: Beginning so if the listeners trying to hire an ux or today how do they decide to decipher between the real ux or in the fake one.
Darren Hood: This is a part A, and Part B Part A, is stopped trying to hire ux people and be bring somebody in that knows how.
Darren Hood: You are not going to if you don’t know.
Darren Hood: The best way to shop for a car take somebody with you yeah if you don’t know how to cook an omelet fines and but you want to find get some expertise.
Darren Hood: or just go and buy an omelet from somewhere else and stop trying to do it yourself it’s a lot of companies, keep trying to hire ux people.
Darren Hood: And they’re failing miserably and they’re hiring people I know one company who just hired a hand of ux for their entire ux operation.
Darren Hood: And I know people who did not get interviewed couldn’t even get interviewed and then I saw who they hired and I just shook my head, because the person knows nothing, not only do they know nothing about ux.
Darren Hood: They think they know about ux and the person was a creative director and one of the worst groups of people that I’ve seen tried to transition into ux at any level is a creative director.
Darren Hood: They are violent they are egotistical many of them are quite frankly are narcissistic if somebody’s listening to this, if this is not you, then, good I’m glad, however, you know for a fact that many of your cohorts out there are.
Darren Hood: That they’re narcissistic and they have all of the character traits that you should not have.
Darren Hood: As a as a sound ux professional so companies need to stop trying to do it, I actually did a talk once called square pegs in round holes.
Darren Hood: that’s available on YouTube for anybody who wants to see it that talks about how you hire but you got to have the best thing you can do is have a person.
Darren Hood: On the team that knows how to screen and identify ux talent, but asterisk you’re going to have a hard time even trying to find that person because they just don’t know.
Darren Hood: So socially if you’re building a team, make sure you have a real ux person on the team to start with, because if you don’t there’s a lot of air that’s going to come behind that excuse me, and even just with attrition alone.
Darren Hood: And all the bumbled efforts you’re going to lose a lot of money in the process of waste, a lot of money waste a lot of the company’s capital, so you got to have a good.
Darren Hood: True ux professional all the team which is sad because a lot of senior you extras are being displaced today in the world of ux and that’s why a lot of people enough consulting because they can’t nobody values them so they can’t go anywhere, so they end up consulting.
Nick Glimsdahl: yeah that’s tough so with customer experience and user experience Where is there is there a way to create a seamless connection between the two.
Darren Hood: yeah matter of fact, I worked at one company, they did not only did was ux being done from a cx perspective.
Darren Hood: And when I say that very holistic instead of focusing on engaging with the product they got involved in the beginning.
Darren Hood: The ux team got involved in the beginning, the ux team got involved in the support and all the other elements and routing people back into the purchasing funnel and we, and there was a cx team so.
Darren Hood: uh the only time I’ve ever experienced this this way I should say in my career, we got to work together, we connected we sat We talked we discussed what our efforts were we talked about what we can do.
Darren Hood: To help one another and that was about the time that I began, I began handling my ux practice.
Darren Hood: No matter where I worked, and whether or not the company was doing it, I would look at it from a cx perspective and when I was at that company, I actually helped overhaul the customer service.
Darren Hood: At the company, where we did, and I brought my ux talent into it, but we talked about all those things, so we could help to drive the brand experience.
Darren Hood: So we could, as I, as I always like to say, improve and optimize the warm fuzzy that the heat.
Darren Hood: That the customers were having so they felt better about the brand and we could, from that point it’s easy to usher them back into the purchasing funnel to acquire additional services additional products.
Darren Hood: And things of that nature, so I was aware of that, interestingly, when I would, I have to throw this in there, I interviewed at a company once and I decided to.
Darren Hood: to share that information in my interview because I’m thinking I’m going to illustrate that I’m a team player whatever needs to be done I’m willing to jump in there.
Darren Hood: and get involved in, so I read the at the emails and I did I talked to the people who were on the phones and we did all these different things, and then the guy was sitting with interview said emails.
Darren Hood: He laughed me out and they wrote me off, and I didn’t get the job, does he was a ux nah you do have ux snobs out there, too, so the bug but it’s great to if you have ux people cx people in the company highly advise those folks need to connect they need to live close to one another.
Darren Hood: At least contextually.
Darren Hood: or I should say contextually so that there you the company might not have you.
Darren Hood: Connected on the org chart but that doesn’t mean that you can’t connect with one another and identify ways to bring value and support one another because.
Darren Hood: You might one might be cx one might be ux but you’re still in the experience design you’re still in that sphere where we’re still in the same venn diagram somebody stole one of my Venn diagrams on that stuff and, recently, but it’s a nice little you did.
Darren Hood: The but it’s we’re in the same we’re cousins were together.
Darren Hood: And so we should support one another, we should be aware of one another.
Darren Hood: And it would be, it would do ux people, it would be smart to venture more into cx oriented things but don’t try to take that work but cx is much bigger than ux.
Darren Hood: And, and we need to respect that and so it’s all I also encourage people to engage respectfully don’t do what some people say some people are complaining that.
Darren Hood: ux is taking cx work I’ve actually heard people talk about that and they’re starting to complain about it.
Darren Hood: In some places well that’s because somebody didn’t handle didn’t handle things properly, so, if you so don’t if you happen to hear those types of reports don’t back off, but do it in a respectful in a.
Darren Hood: Collaborative matter you can accomplish great things and help the company understand the importance of experience design Remove your see Remove your you and get them to understand the importance of the experience.
Nick Glimsdahl: I love that what you just said, remove the C and remove the U.
Nick Glimsdahl: And just focus on the experience it’s.
Nick Glimsdahl: Absolutely I’m going to borrow I’m not going to steal that one.
Nick Glimsdahl: I’ll give you full credit.
Nick Glimsdahl: So.
Nick Glimsdahl: there and I rub up every podcast with two questions, the first question is what book or person in customer service or experience or even ux has influenced you the most in the past year.
Nick Glimsdahl: So parameter, and then the second one is, if you could leave a note to all customer service and customer experience professionals that’s going to hit everybody’s desk Monday at 8am.
What would say?
Darren Hood: Okay, the interestingly, the book that comes to mind for me that has influenced me the most and it’s not just the past year it’s for the last few years.
Darren Hood: there’s a book called multipliers.
Darren Hood: which has absolutely nothing to do with us.
Darren Hood: It the book is about how you can best impact people.
Darren Hood: for their benefit the absolute most and it’s looking at things from a leadership perspective.
Darren Hood: But everybody that who you encounter is not they’re not under your authority, so to speak, they’re not your subordinates so.
Darren Hood: But that doesn’t mean that you can’t impact them and I just love, if I remember correctly, the author’s name is Liz Wiseman, it is a phenomenal book.
Darren Hood: And it doesn’t just talk about the traits that you need as a person who is a multiplier but it talks about the different.
Darren Hood: The different components and the different things that are manifested when somebody is like a detractor the person who is.
Darren Hood: Taking away from and suppressing someone and keeping them from being their best, so this is a book that I always have I.
Darren Hood: I actually stopped buying print books, all my books are on digital so that way everywhere, I go my libraries with me and I can dive into that book and I can get a little.
Darren Hood: get a few little tidbits and then go on my way on demand, but that book helps me a lot it’s at the core of who I am.
Darren Hood: And what I do and I like making helping drive people I like helping build people that’s My big intrinsic value, I want to see people get jobs, I want to.
Darren Hood: see people overcome the obstacles, I want to see people get better, I want to see the business to better, I want to see users do better, I just love seeing people do better.
Darren Hood: period that’s at the core of that that word better that’s my word I love that the one note that I would, if I could leave to all customer service professionals.
Darren Hood: What would you say and I’ve actually already said it and it’s what I always say ascribed to excellence.
Darren Hood: ascribe to excellence subscribe to excellence and never ever allow anybody to get your eyes off of that prize, because when you focus on excellence you benefit yourself and you benefit everybody else.
Darren Hood: That you will never be a detractor you will never be a await.
Darren Hood: You will never be.
Darren Hood: The thing that needs to be cast off, so that the ship can sail better you’ll always be the thing that you always be the wind in the sales instead of the weight on the boat.
Darren Hood: So always and identify sources that will help you be.
Darren Hood: Better that will help you be excellent and building what I call personal I don’t call somebody else actually personalized learning next word network have that have those resources identify to help build you keep tuned in the next podcast.
Darren Hood: The Gill keep these things so because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of folks out there that are not interested.
Darren Hood: In you they’re interested in themselves yeah and when you find folks that are selfless who are looking to build you you’ve got something that’s worth its weight in gold.
Darren Hood: And so we got to treasure that.
Darren Hood: And then just keep building keep more and more excellence and realize that you will never arrive there.
Darren Hood: I love it we’re at.
Nick Glimsdahl: Derek what is the best way.
Nick Glimsdahl: For my listeners that to connect with you.
Darren Hood: Oh wow.
Darren Hood: there’s the podcast the world, the world of ux with the air and good.
Darren Hood: available when Nick and I are in the same network cx FM radio network, and you can find our podcast anywhere, a lot of people connect to me on LinkedIn it’s like I have to actually have to stay away from leaving it on the weekends, because I’m so busy, it is too much going on out there.
Nick Glimsdahl: is famous man.
Darren Hood: But I am out there I’ve got the ux uncensored YouTube channel was relatively new and we’re in the process of.
Darren Hood: Producing a lot of new material so if you want to learn more about cx you’ll be able to come out there and tap into things.
Darren Hood: The ux uncensored media COM, you can see some of my recent posts that blog post and I put out there they’re all relatively short.
Darren Hood: I try to keep the reading time six minutes or less currently so you can get through those things pretty quickly look forward to folks engaging out there, helped me to.
Darren Hood: To get that stuff be more business more visible out there it’s I’m trying to cut through the muck in the mire.
Darren Hood: And, and so I can’t do it alone and need some help, but those are the best places to find me I’m on Twitter I’m on Instagram now both also as ux on censored, so I am everywhere.
Nick Glimsdahl: that’s awesome, so I would recommend everybody creeping in a good way on all the social channels for Darren hood follow that podcast and Darren Thank you so much for your time now looking forward to your success and getting through that muck in the mire.
Darren Hood: thanks again for having me today because I enjoyed it.
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The Press 1 For Nick podcast is both educational and engaging, and each episode offers listeners a dynamic blend of insightful stories, best practices, and invaluable lessons.
Nick’s guests – each with a unique wealth of knowledge – include leaders from a variety of backgrounds and industries. Some of his guests include:
Customer service & customer experience leaders- A hostage negotiator
- Award-winning authors
- Home Depot’s Senior Director of Customer Care
- Former VP of Disney’s Magic Kingdom
- Lyft’s Head of Partner and Customer Engagement
- Deputy Chief Veteran Experience Officer from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs
On every episode Nick asks his guest two questions:
- What book or person has influenced you the most in the past year?
- If you could leave a note to all the Customer Service and CX professionals, what would it say?
You can find all the podcast guests’ answers under their episodes below.
If all you want is the guests’ book recommendations, you can go here.
Subscribe on: Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotiListen on Googisten