A Fresh Perspective on UX: 'Think in 4D' with Erica Heinz

[00:00:00] Gerry: Hey folks, and welcome to another episode of This Is HCD. My name is Gerry Scullion, and I'm your host. And I'm based in the somewhat grey day of Dublin City, Ireland, and offer training to organizations internationally in service design, user experience, and design research, and also work one on one with changemakers just like you from all over the world with my 12 week coaching program that I offer through this podcast.

[00:00:25] So if you're listening and want to elevate your career and learn more about the ways and the thinking of people like me, just visit thisishcd. com and set up a chemistry call with me. I'd love to speak with you. Now for anyone new to the show or as maybe just an occasional listener, we're so excited to tell you about a brand new community called Circle that really aims to connect people and provide them with dynamic conversations and events to people looking to connect with people in similar positions around the world.

[00:00:54] Now we already have over a hundred members in this space. So if you're keen to join, check out the link in the show notes or the description if you're watching this on YouTube. We'd love to have you as part of our community. In this episode, I speak with Erica Heinz, author of Think in 4D, a brand new book aimed at user experience designers.

[00:01:16] It's absolutely beautifully designed, designed by themselves. And we discussed the industry of user experience or UX in detail, where she feels this book helps cover some of the voids due to the perceived shift in the user experience industry over the last decade. Now, Erica has been working with many amazing organizations and brings an awesome and much needed fresh perspective to user experience.

[00:01:41] She's truly wonderful. I loved speaking with her. Let's jump straight in.

[00:01:46] Well, look, Erica, I'm delighted to have you in the podcast. Um, we've been chatting back and forth for a while. Um, I'm delighted to have you here, but maybe we'll start off, like I start off every episode on This Is HCD, maybe tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, and what you do.

[00:02:04] Erica: Yeah. So I am a product designer and strategist here in Brooklyn. Um, I've been here 20 years, um, working. As a consultant, most of that time, um, did a recent stint at an agency, um, you know, uh, and then just spent the last year wrapping up, um, a book about all of that. I've been teaching here at, um, SVA and at Parsons, um, and just had thousands of slides I wanted to share with the world.

[00:02:29] So it turned into a book and, um, yeah,

[00:02:32] Gerry: Which we're going to be, we'll talk about in, uh, probably greater detail in the kind of length of this episode. It's funny that you said straight away that you're a product designer. Um, one of the conflicts that we're seeing in the industry over the last maybe decade, for anyone who's been in user experience for quite a while, Is the product design user experience, which is it?

[00:02:55] Are they different? Are they the same? Like, you know, is that something that's covered off in the book, like the articulation of what user experience is and what, how you define product design?

[00:03:05] Erica: Yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head that this is a big thorn with trying to talk about any of this stuff. Um, and something I had to take a position on just so we could be clear about what this book is about and what it's trying to do. So in my head, it started as a UX book because I, you know, as you know, I started as a generalist.

[00:03:21] I came from the era where you could still design and build the whole website yourself. And then as things got more complex, came to focus on UX because I cared the most about. What was on the screen, where, like why, um, how it all flowed together. And there were other people that really could get into the details of UI or branding better than me.

[00:03:39] Um, but yeah, it was always this holistic perspective, um, on UX, which, um, then people started to say, well, that's actually, you know, you're also talking about product design. Like UX is smaller than product design was kind of the perception I was hearing from people of like product, because product design also includes like.

[00:03:56] The visual design where UX sometimes does not, but I would argue it does. So where I landed is in this book. So I actually had a whole chapter that ended on the cutting room floor about like the history of UX and like, again, back from like Don Norman, like coining the term I need to like release this all as like a.

[00:04:12] Medium article, I guess. But where I landed was it's product experience design because I do think I'm expanding it and I didn't want to fight about the definitions of UX. Um, and I wanted to relate it, uh, more strongly to the fields of product management and product strategy, which is where. A lot of this thinking is sitting.

[00:04:29] So

[00:04:30] Gerry: I think a lot of user experience designers that might have been educated end up in product design roles and the product design kind of label encompasses user experience at the moment. That's my interpretation of it. Like, so they, they're kind of tasked with what, in years gone by, a user experience designer might have done.

[00:04:55] Um, is that fair to say? Is that something like, how do you see the product design role and where intersect with that?

[00:05:06] Erica: I, I think my experience overlap. Yeah, I think that's fair to say from what I've seen. Um, I think again, I'm a consultant, someone at a large tech firm, things tend to be more specialized and more niche. Um, but again, talking to friends in the industry, it does seem to be like you're kind of responsible for the UX.

[00:05:25] And also I think with the evolution of design systems, there's not really as many, like. A UX person, there was kind of a phase where it was like the wireframe maker, right? It was like, you were the one kind of laying things out and then somebody else is going to like fill in all the boxes. But with design systems getting more robust, you don't really have that type of role.

[00:05:44] So it's like, no, go ahead and do it and high five too. So that's, I think where product design kind of started to absorb it. And then also you don't always have the research kind of, I think is what gets pulled out as a separate specialty. So you might have a product design team working with a research team or individual.

[00:05:59] Um, But the UX as a holistic role, I haven't seen as much anymore. Um, or again, people expect you, yeah, also to be doing the visual design.

[00:06:10] Gerry: Yeah, that's a really good point. But as we were chatting before this, there's a bookshelf obviously behind me here. A lot of the listeners will have seen it, especially if you're watching on YouTube. And it's only in the last 20 minutes that I realized that there hasn't really been any additions to my user experience side of the bookshelf.

[00:06:28] That goes both sides. So there's books on either side of that. And. Most of the books that I've probably acquired over the last decade, mainly around service design, strategy, business, and so forth. Why do you think, or is that just, you know, a very macular perspective on things? I'm sure there probably is user experience books out there, but they're not getting the same kind of level of profile building than it was maybe 15 years ago.

[00:06:53] Do you think people are just, uh, is, is the term being phased out, user experience? What are your, what are your thoughts on that?

[00:07:02] Erica: I mean, it's funny because yeah, I, um, I, I was, you know, when I was writing the book, it took about three years and I paused from reading anything current. Cause I didn't want to, um, accidentally plagiarize anyone, but, you know, leading up to that, the books that had informed me were things like, um, Leah Bully's, uh, UX team of one, like Jamie Levy's UX strategy, like.

[00:07:23] The, like, Jesse James Garrett, like, so some of again, like, kind of like that history of where it came from. And then, um, I think it's, it's, it just felt like it was in a weird place. Whereas I, you know, again, I think of myself as a, and that means again, I love everything, you know, anthropology, the whole kind of spectrum of what is design, but I'm not as drawn to kind of, like, Um, but yeah, it felt like I wasn't, I was still having to have these conversations in work and, and et cetera, about seeing people get too fixated on what I call the 2d layer and wanting to have a book that kind of, you know, you know, Added this depth that I was, I was trying to add a depth of thinking.

[00:08:11] So that was where I felt like there wasn't something that had spoke to that in a way that I wanted.

[00:08:17] Gerry: Now you've kind of started down the road of two dimensional, three dimensional, four dimensional, so bringing this language into the conversation here. And I love the fact that You've, you've called the book, Think in 4D. So, um, let's talk about those different layers of 4D. Like, what would you see? Is it like a, like an onion?

[00:08:37] Is that how I'm seeing the layers of an onion in terms of how you, how you'd visualize

[00:08:41] Erica: yeah, I think again, it came from, um, yeah, so it, it. Again, came from like seeing that there's so many important 2D choices, right? We have to think about what images, what words, what symbols, um, like how we're all arranging them in space. Um, and that's an entire career of graphic design or visual design.

[00:09:00] Um, but then as we start to advance in UX, we start to be like, Oh, wait, there's like usability, like, can people actually do something with this? You know, is it, is it inclusive? Is it like. Responsive. Um, you know, and then I think a big one that came up for me that I'd seen in client work, but hadn't really seen talked about was personalization of now we have, especially with AI, the power to really make things, um, dynamic, like more dynamic than they ever had been.

[00:09:24] So that became kind of what I saw as this 3D layer of both the physicality of the device that you're on and acknowledging that the environment that you're in. And then you can also think about the Fake 3D of like the buttons popping up, you know, or peering to and the spatial kind of metaphors you're creating within a 2D experience.

[00:09:39] Um, so that became this whole other layer of like, that's where we're trying to advance. But, you know, then I was, the thesis of the book is kind of, but we have to actually go one layer deeper and think about time, that this is all ephemeral. You're leading people through time. Um, you know, the opening of the book is that none of it really exists, right?

[00:09:55] Anybody who's been in the field a while is like, Oh yeah. And all those. Projects I did, they're gone. You know, it's all just like moments in time. It's all just like pixels. Um, you know, flashing across people's retinas. So we have to think about change. You know, what are these like peak experiences we can create that might be memorable.

[00:10:11] So it's a lot about the book goes into a lot of cognitive principles about how brains and people process things. Um, and so it was about, you know, where we really want to be thinking is. What moments are we creating in people's minds? How are we leading them through time and space? What patterns? What repeated kind of elements are helping them or get oriented and then what kind of relationships are we creating over time?

[00:10:33] So that felt like the more novel edition. I was making with this book.

[00:10:38] Gerry: So, Hmm. We're talking about the, uh, the onion kind of skin of, of design there. How do you think that transfers back into organizations? So if you brought this book into an organization, our perspective from an industry looking, looking, uh, outwards, um, is one perspective, but looking inwards into organizations.

[00:10:59] How do you think they'd interpret the 4D and the 3D and the 2D?

[00:11:04] Erica: Yeah. I think, um, it depends on, on, you know, who you're talking to, what, where in the organization they are, is what I found. So, for example, I was, it's, I was at the, um, Mind the Product Conference in, in London last year and they love a good framework. So if I can say, this is a framework for thinking.

[00:11:23] They'll get it. They'll run with it. They'll know what to do with it. Other people, they're like, what is a framework? Like what? So that's, that's a big definition. So for, you know, more of a practitioner, like more on the, the IXD or visual design side, I kind of describe it as a checklist of like, you can just think, have I thought about personalization?

[00:11:40] Have I thought about relationships? And that's even as, you know, my coming back to client work now, um, That helps me every time I'm in a meeting. I'm like, wait, you know, how do we personalize this? Um, so that's how it's played out in the really nitty gritty day to day. Um, but yeah, so I think, you know, as an educator.

[00:11:57] You know, you're usually trying to teach conceptual skills, even if, you know, the students really want like practical, tactical skills, but this was again, it was an image that you can hold in your head to kind of visualize what's happening and what you're trying to do. Um,

[00:12:11] Gerry: of pulled that out of the air.

[00:12:13] Erica: I see it as like, yeah, from any kind of segment, you can be like, let me go up, let me go down, let me go left and right because it is this, you know, three by four

[00:12:20] Gerry: Yeah.

[00:12:22] Erica: with a narrative behind it.

[00:12:23] Gerry: I have a question for you and you might tell me like, Oh, Gerry, don't ask me that question, but you have on the book cover, like designing brilliant user experiences. And in my experience, when a user experience uses something like that in front of user experience, That word brilliant needs to get defined within an organization.

[00:12:43] So our perspective of brilliant and a business person's perspective of brilliant tends to be sometimes in conflict.

[00:12:52] Erica: Yeah.

[00:12:52] Gerry: Do you talk a little bit more around the definition of what, what brilliant user experiences could be for businesses?

[00:13:01] Erica: I love that question because it's not, I don't pick apart that word, but a big part of, um, the book is about value driven design that we, you know, we start off with recognizing our own biases that as a designer, we want to make sure we're not just designing for our own portfolios and like, wow, this looks really brilliant in my portfolio.

[00:13:19] Gerry: funny

[00:13:21] Erica: you know, some other people do

[00:13:22] Gerry: Yeah. People I've, I've heard of.

[00:13:25] Erica: Yeah, um, but that, uh, yeah, if you get into the moments chapter is a lot about like, yeah, what do they need? Uh, you know, yes. Coming trying to figure out making sure that these designs are speaking to an actual business need. Um, you know, we, that could go deep.

[00:13:39] I, again, I was like, there, there's other books on business strategy, but so. And yeah, it speaks, I think, you know, sometimes in product design and UX, we can get a little, um, over enamored with the kind of problem solving metaphor of like, wow, here's this problem in here. So I solved it. Um, where brilliant can also just be like, wow, it's a flash.

[00:13:58] It's a real, again, heartfelt connection. Um, so it's a little bit of all of that, right. That it's both solving a problem brilliantly. It's clever. It's unique. It's like memorable and shining. Um, so yeah, all of that.

[00:14:09] Gerry: So if you imagine that I went over to New York, we hung out for a while and we started thinking about business opportunities. Okay. We were going to build a business together and we were going to weave user experience into it. What would a valuable business experience look like in your eyes if we were to design it together?

[00:14:32] Erica: Um, well, I think first we talk about who we're trying to serve, right? It's not about us. We're not like pushing our idea on the world, but first we're again, design as a service profession. Um, and, um, so I think that would be getting, you know, so if, if it is like we're designing for ourselves, we're, we're designing for designers and we can start to, to kind of say, we already know those pain points.

[00:14:53] We already know, uh, what's where the holes are. Um, but yeah, so starting from that, um, it's, it's. You know, you've done your user journey maps. You've kind of talked about highs and lows. So usually the way I kind of highlight, um, journey maps is to say, uh, so in the book, I talk about the cognitive bias of the peak and rule of, we remember the peaks of the experience.

[00:15:16] And we remember the end point of the experience. Um, we don't remember like the average of it, like, Oh, that was a really solid design throughout. We remember like, wow, I was really low and it helped me. Wow. It was really high. I want to tell all my friends. And then, Oh, what was the end end result? So. A valuable design, um, is serving those moments.

[00:15:34] Well, especially the low, low moments, obviously, right? The pain points we've all talked about. Um, and then. You know, there's, there's again, layers and layers of business strategy about how big is that opportunity again? Is it just like a little twinge of pain or is it a sustaining sort of thing? What's the frequency?

[00:15:52] Um, as you start to think about time as one of your variables, I think, um, you know. You know, we start to think about when we're serving people and not just what or how we're serving them. It's our, you know, one of the things that starts to come up is frequency. And so a valuable experience is often one that's more frequent, you know, we don't always need to be like an addictive social media app every minute where, you know, we're, we're, we're engaging with people.

[00:16:16] But, um, those are some of the pieces that start to come up when you start to detach from making this

[00:16:22] Gerry: Absolutely. One of the things I've noticed when we were talking there, when you were describing it, you're moving from 3D to 2D to 4D. You're moving from the different Ds, if you want. When we get to the 4D piece, you mentioned about designing for impact. Um. Let me understand what you mean by the word impact, and we can probably take it from there.

[00:16:45] Like, you know, what does that mean, um, and who's the impact for?

[00:16:50] Erica: Yeah, um, I think it's, it's again, moving past just, it looks happy. We're proud of what we made. The craft is really good. Cause again, as a crafts person that can totally satisfy me. And so as a designer, it's okay. Does that does that beautiful thing help someone, you know, resolve, um, what they were trying to resolve or it's really just the behavior change.

[00:17:13] You know, if we look back at at, like, product design and its impacts on the world, like we've, you know, started to think finally about, you know, the addictive nature of some of the things we've created, um, the. Isolating or connective nature of what we've created. So impact, meaning like, what are the cultural shifts we're seeing because of this design.

[00:17:35] So, for example, I think there's a before and after, uh, with Instagram in the world. I think it seriously changed the world and how things are much more presentable now and in a certain way. And, um, you know, there's a lot of behavioral and cultural shifts that come about, uh, if we're creating these new.

[00:17:52] Interaction and design paradigms. Um, and then of course, yeah, um, the business impact of, of like, are you making things that are sustainable? Are you allowing this community or this, this service to grow those sorts of things?

[00:18:05] Gerry: Because I haven't seen the book in close detail, um, do you weave the 4D down to the 2D in terms of, like, if we design these Features that may have an impact at the 3D, may have an impact at the 4D. Is that something that you go into a little bit closer detail?

[00:18:23] Erica: Yeah. The way I structured the book was, um, again, kind of talking, walking through this model so that conceptually you just kind of get it and then you can play with it in your own way in your own head. Um, and then to get into the more detail going, um, first through the, uh, well, The other thing we haven't talked about is there's kind of the, the X axis of this.

[00:18:45] So, you know, the layers are the, the Y axis of the 2D, 3D, 4D getting deeper. Um, but the way that I kind of defined UX, um, at first was moving from these initial impressions, which I called threads and into, um, or sorry, from the initial kind of, um, Connection point with with thinking about where people are coming from, what's the context they're carrying before they enter the experience.

[00:19:08] Um, then these, then these impressions when they land on your site or app for the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd time, uh, moving into the actual interactions. So, as an interaction designer, what are they doing? And then. They leave and they usually forget about you, right? Like 80 percent of apps are downloaded and never use.

[00:19:25] Um, or again, you know, you get the bounce and they never come back. So thinking about how did we create a memory that makes them want to come back. So that was this, this timeline of going through it. So that's how I walk through the book. So I, I talk about, uh, just sequentially. Okay. Let's talk about, Okay.

[00:19:41] How people are getting there. So 2d, you want to think about these words, like word of mouth, like, what are people saying about you? What's this message you're trying to put out into the world? Um, three, how do we, the 3d is like, how do we make that inclusive, right? Are you making sure the message is appropriate for all audiences and getting to them?

[00:19:55] And then four is like the, the 4D is like the relationship of that piece. Um, of like what, What's the first and what's the first date? You know what? What's it? What's it? What are you saying to people once you really know them? And they've given you a lot of information about themselves. So that's how I walk through it of, um, this chronological, like, uh, timeline of the user's experience at each point.

[00:20:17] How might we think? Deeper. And then to flip the head, I also say as a designer, we're usually working backwards. So you might be saying, I usually say, start with the memories, right? Start with, with the end point and then figure out how they got there. Then figure out the, uh, each little step, each little design, and then think about how you're going to bring people in.

[00:20:37] So, um. Yeah,

[00:20:39] Gerry: One of the questions we were talking about there of, say, me and you hypothetically starting something together and designing that experience from the ground up. You know, and I know most of the projects that we probably inherit or fall into or attracted to are the ones that have already been put in place and they might be like 10, 15, 20 years old and then you walk in and it kind of resembles a big kind of blob.

[00:21:07] It's an ecosystem of many experiences. Um. Does this framework, do you think, scale into those worlds, um, and if so, what advice do you give to people who are maybe kind of presented, who are independent, like myself, like yourself, go into organizations and they're kind of tasked with 12 weeks to pull a rabbit out of the hat?

[00:21:34] Erica: great question. So I, it's funny, I'm on a 12 week project with a 10 year old client right now, kind of doing this. So

[00:21:41] Gerry: was just luck, but it just seems to me that there are a lot of the projects that are floating around at the moment.

[00:21:45] Erica: Yeah. So I think, um, you know, yeah, and I'm, I'm working on putting this into practice now. Again, it's, it's not a book, uh, you know, where it was like, this is how you do it at a company of this size. It was again, a more conceptual book, um, so that you can use in a lot of different ways. Um, but how, yeah. So how it's, I think.

[00:22:04] The consistent theme that comes up is these timelines, right? Think about things in time. Think about events in time. Stop thinking about objects, right? Or, or, yeah. Um, so, so I imagine like you, you're taking your chaotic mess and you're kind of arranging it in time of how people are walking through the space and then you can start to sort the different flows of the different people, you know, Um, traveling through the experience, um, and, um, yeah, I usually do end up starting with some sort of a product vision, um, workshoppy kind of thing to make sure that we're all in the same, uh, all the stakeholders, all the team is, is on the same place about where we're trying to go, because that's often not.

[00:22:45] Um, the same if you have a long, a long, uh, standing, um, space with a lot of, you know, cohorts and a lot of features. Um, so yeah, it's, it's been kind of, again, trying to just pull out these, these paths going through the mass and, and start to sort along that. I don't know if that's

[00:23:02] Gerry: Yeah, no, absolutely. It's within the book though. I noticed like there's, um, you mentioned you go chronological and I know you give away, um, some templates as well. That's kind of help you enable this, this kind of way of thinking. Um, can you talk a little bit more around those, toolkits? I know you mentioned that there's some checklists and stuff like that, but, um, To me, the success around a lot of this stuff is how it intersects with the people who are already established in the business, like product management.

[00:23:34] And when you come in with your own set of kind of theories and stuff, it kind of needs to nicely dovetail into those worlds in order for it to be adopted. If it comes in and it's in conflict to those things, you know, it's very easy for them to kind of just start like, no, that's not happening. You know, this is, this is too hard.

[00:23:54] Talk to me a little bit more on the toolkit and how it's been received in an organization so far.

[00:24:00] Erica: Yeah. Um, yeah, I think it's, I haven't got, again, if you're using the toolkit, please contact me. Let me know how it's going. I've, I've not, the book just came

[00:24:08] Gerry: Feedback at the gift.

[00:24:10] Erica: Yeah, exactly. I'm a UXer. I love it all. Um, yeah, so the book just came out about three months ago, so I'm still in the early stages of hearing again how people are using it, but I do love to hear that stuff.

[00:24:22] Um, but it is part of why I made the book so modular that it wasn't kind of like, here is the design thinking process and everybody does these five steps because that's just not been my experience in the working world. It, you know, you do need to have some sort of, like, I still love the double diamond.

[00:24:36] Once I kind of, Dug into it and saw that it might look like a kite. It might look like, you know, all these different sort of diamond patterns. Um, but, but it was something where it was, you can kind of look and say, wow, our company hasn't really thought about personalization. Let me dig into those exercises and those principles because yeah, usability, we've spent a million on that, you know, we know what we're doing there.

[00:24:59] Um, so that's why I was trying to make it more modular, which makes it a little bit, um, maybe more intimidating that it's not a here like one, two, three of. These, you know, magic steps for design, but I think it's that way again, more you, you don't need to read the book, start to finish to get value. You can just jump to the topic of interest.

[00:25:17] And so, yeah, each, um, each kind of topic in the book has three cognitive principles to remind you of how people's brains tend to be. Working with this type of material and then three exercises, whether, um, it's, you know, do some AEIOU research to understand how you're going to personalize, um, you know, set your data boundaries of what, what's ethical to use of your customer's data and what is not, um, you know, do your swim lane diagram to make sure that every, you're, you're mapping out who they're, you're, they're being involved with.

[00:25:46] Um, so again, these kind of put it into practice. Um, it was a book that Kate was inspired both by, um, uh, uh, The art of looking sideways by Helen Fletcher is like you don't have to start from the start and move to the end. You can open it up and just work from any moment. Um, but also from like the artist's way, you know, drawing on the right side of the brain where it's like, no, put it into practice.

[00:26:10] You know, this is not a lean back book. This is a lean forward, like pause and do a sketch. Um, so yeah, so yeah, a lot of exercises sprinkled through that. And then, um, I provided those also is like a, Folder of digital templates. So you can go ahead and do those in Figma where you're naturally living. Anyway,

[00:26:27] Gerry: looks really good and I want to stress the point that this is an independent book, you know, and that's really important, especially to the listeners of This Is HCD. You know, you don't need to have A huge publisher behind you to put so much knowledge out into the world, to put so much good out into the world as well.

[00:26:45] So we're gonna drop a link to, um, the book. It's on 4D Thinking Studio. Um, it's in there, there's a link to it, UX book. And I was speaking to, um, to you beforehand and you said you might be able to give us a bit of a discount. So we'll have a, a discount code in, in the description. If you're watching this on YouTube, it'll be in the description if you're, um.

[00:27:07] Listen to it on Spotify or Apple. It'll be in the show notes. I don't know how much we're going to get, folks, but I'm hammering and I'm negotiating hard on your behalf. Um, you know, I'm asking for 100%, you know, but Erica's playing a really hard, hard deal here. And she's like, I'll offer you 10 percent and you'll take it.

[00:27:26] So we'll see where we end up. You click on that link in the show notes and you'd be surprised. You might get something you never know, like, you know. But, um, Erica, there's so much to go through in terms of that book. What are your hopes for where the book lands and where it takes you next? Like, what is a dream state for you with this book?

[00:27:46] Because there's so much opportunity with it to try and right some of the wrongs that are out there in the industry with user experience. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on where the hopes and dreams are.

[00:27:57] Erica: It's funny because, um, it makes me think so cat bellows who taught the, um, you know, self publishing workshop that inspired me to actually turn all these thoughts into a book, one of the questions she asks early on is like, how far do you want this book to take you? You know, is it a bicycle? Is it a bus?

[00:28:12] Is it a plane? Um, and yeah, it's something where I do hope it's. Some kind of a plane where it is allowing me to kind of think through these thorny issues, um, with a variety of, of clients, you know, trying, trying to change the world in various ways. Um, so yeah, it's already brought me back to one of my favorite clients, um, creative warnings.

[00:28:31] Um, so yeah, we're reshaping some things that were there. Yeah. Um, and yeah, we'll see again. It's been, it's been kind of, it's been something that, uh, to, I think it's a really worthy exercise for anyone out there to really. Put your point of view into an outline. Um, so this was a great, uh, pandemic project to kind of go heads down and disappear and do this

[00:28:54] Gerry: Absolutely. One of the things that I, I, when I was chatting before recording folks, I said to Eric, I really like the idea where you have, if you're buying for your team or your class, if you buy three or more hardcovers, there's a free 60 minute coaching session in there as well. So I know a lot of organizations have cut back on training budgets.

[00:29:15] I know that because that's where, you know, I make my money. Um, but they, there is always some money set aside in my experience for this type of learning, like buying books. So it's a great opportunity for there to kind of, uh, kill two birds with one stone, get a book and get an experience that sits alongside it as well.

[00:29:33] Um, that's really good user experience. It's a really good user experience there in terms of what you've done. But, um. I'll put a link to that as well into the show notes. Cause I think it's a really clever idea. Erica, if, um, people want to reach out to you and ask questions, um, what's the best way for them to do that?

[00:29:52] Erica: Um, yeah, email's always fine. Again, 4Dthinking.studio is my site. You can find, uh, contact info there. There's also my sub stack if you want to follow along and, um, leave any comments on any of this stuff as it comes out. Um, also trying to launch a podcast where I also can, um,

[00:30:09] Gerry: Another podcast.

[00:30:11] Erica: Gerry, I know

[00:30:11] Gerry: you sell, promote another podcast in this

[00:30:14] Erica: No, I love these kind of talks. So, yeah. Uh,

[00:30:17] Gerry: put a link to your podcast in the, in the show notes as well. So obviously do that. Um, continue the conversation with Erica.

[00:30:25] Erica: yeah. And then, yeah, I'm just Erica Heinz everywhere on the socials. So

[00:30:29] Gerry: Amazing. Amazing. Erica, look, I, I end up every, uh, wrap up every conversation with people on this show by thanking them for their honesty and their vulnerability really about, you know, allowing me to go left and right and, you know, backwards and forwards in these conversations. So, um, thanks for coming on and thanks for giving us your time and energy.

[00:30:49] I really, really appreciate it.

[00:30:51] Erica: yeah. Thanks so much for having me. It's like a real pleasure to be here. Um, and yeah, enjoy all your knowledge and, and joy, uh, with the industry as well.

[00:31:01] Gerry: Brilliant. Thanks, Erica.

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