Psycho-Aesthetics Experiences with Ravi Sahwney

Speaker A: As we often talk about here in Experience by Design, great experiences don't just happen by accident, they are in fact designed. And for more than 25 years, the Bentley University Experience center has helped organizations in healthcare, financial services, technology, government and nonprofit sectors, just to name a few, create better experiences by putting humans at the center of decision making. With a full user experience, testing center, field data collection, ideation and creativity sessions, and learning and development opportunities. Like our UX certificate, the UXC allows you to leverage faculty expertise with industry standards to help your organization design better experiences and help you in your professional journey. So just head over to www.bentley.edu centers, user experience center, or just Internet search Bentley UXE for more information on all the ways that the Bentley Use Experience center can help you design experiences of all kinds. And who knows, you might even be able to work with me. So go to the Bentley UXE and learn how to design better experiences.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: Hi, I'm Gary David. Welcome to Experience by Design, the podcast where we explore experience designs of all kinds. Hello to all experienced designers, exters and unwours everywhere. And a big thank you to the most recent UNWOW supporter, Patty Soltis. Known Patty for a long time and I look forward to having her as part of the weekly Unwow groups. Or I should say monthly unwel groups. It's not going to be weekly. That's that would be a lot of unwel, definitely monthly unwel groups. And you can still be part of that by going to theunwell.com and supporting the book publishing efforts. This semester I've been teaching a class that originally was called Internationalization and World Ready Product Design. This class stands in a long tradition of having really long class names that are hard to remember. Despite that, the class has been a fun exploration of culture, technology, inclusion, accessibility, design ethics and design aesthetics. One of the themes that we keep hitting on, and as my guest last week emphasized, is that we typically rely on a limited history of design aesthetics that is rooted in certain traditions and leaves out others. Certain cultures are given prominence and other cultures are very often just ignored. Aesthetics, put simply, is the philosophical investigation of art and beauty, how people evaluate things in terms of those properties and how those aesthetics are part of design. American philosopher John Dewey, in his book Art as Experience, talked about how art and aesthetics should be integrated into everyday life. There is inspiration from and unity in art and everyday experiences, especially how our appreciation and imagination of the everyday can be rooted in these kinds of artistic expressions. Art ain't just something to put in the museum. It's something that we can draw on in everything we do and we can see how this has had an impact on our work as experienced designers. How do we think about art, beauty, usability and overall esthetics in our designs, especially in things like environment design and product design? To explore this issue and these questions, I welcome Ravi Sani to Experience by Design. Ravi is an industrial designer and co founder of RKS Designs. He also is co founder of RKS Guitars, which he worked with rock star Dave Mason. You might know him from bands such as Traffic, Delaney and Bonnie and Derek and Domino's, among many other accomplished groups. Together they redesigned how the guitar would look, uh, in terms of being amazing and how they redefined how guitars could be modular. It's really something to check out. It's really cool. And I'm not even a guitar player, although I did dabble during the pandemic. And the focus on aesthetics extends into how RKS does other design work, including user interfaces, brands, packaging and much, much more. Ravi talks about his journey to founding RKS as well as his journey in working with Dave Mason, who I should mention died when we recorded this episode. He describes his approach of Psycho Aesthetics, which is a quote design methodology that merges psychology with aesthetic design to understand how products and experiences influence human emotion, thoughts and behaviors. He also talks about Psycho Aesthetics Artificial Augmented Intelligence, a new human intelligence layer that controls and directs AI through human centered design principles. Ravi shares his career journey from working as a model maker to becoming an industrial designer at Xerox parc where he developed the first graphical interface for a touchscreen. While working with PhD psychologists and programmers, Ravi discusses his approach to helping organizations overcome client resistance to disruptive changes by using design to create positive experiences and affirmations that lead to adoption of new ideas. We also talk about things like old technology. Teddy Ruxpin for those of you old enough to remember, Teddy Ruxpin Ravi was involved in that. Remote controls as well as coffee mugs. It was a really expansive examination discussion of design aesthetics, human centeredness and how we approach the field of experience design from new fresh perspectives. This. Hope you enjoy it. How is, how was. How are the guitar lessons going? The last time we talked you were. You had guitar lessons that day?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's going well. I had to skip

Speaker D: today.

Speaker C: Um, Wednesday's my normally guitar lesson. I'm

Speaker D: doing

Speaker C: uh, a

Speaker D: mentorship program. I'm doing a

Speaker C: uh,

Speaker D: mentorship session

Speaker C: with uh, a group of

Speaker D: other mentors at Cal Lutheran's uh, entrepreneurship program.

Speaker A: How long you Been playing for.

Speaker D: I was. Well, I had been playing for years. When we started the guitar company, I stopped playing, uh, completely. And, um, uh, you know, being around all of these, you know, superstar musicians,

Speaker A: right,

Speaker D: I. I, you know, you know, I just said, okay, you know, I enjoy playing, but it was really discouraging to, uh, to play when they don't even know what they're doing.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: From their brain. From their brain to their hands to the guitar, you know, seamlessly. Um, and so I stopped playing, and I just restarted. I restarted six months ago and had to. Had to unlearn all kinds of things.

Speaker A: It's, you know, it's amazing. I was listening to an interview with Joe Walsh, and he was just like, yeah, I just, you know, listened to the songs on the radio, and I learned how to play them. I'm like, that seems to be simplifying things a little bit because I could sit. I feel like I could sit down with a guitar in front of the radio and try to learn what they're playing, and that wouldn't go as well as it did for Joe Walsh. I don't know. Maybe it would, but I just feel like there's, um, a. There's a missing something there that I don't have that he has.

Speaker D: Professional musicians. That's how it works. There's a different part of the brain engages and. Yeah, they just. They just. They just do that. Uh, you know, Dave was. I think I stopped playing when Dave was teaching me how to. How to play the intro to Dear Mr. Fantasy.

Speaker A: Oh, dear.

Speaker D: And, um. And it's just three chords, right? Just three chords. But, you know, his timing is not, you know, it's not too. Too click. His timing is, like, unique. And, um, and. And, you know, so I could never match up the timing and plane. I just said, you know, you know, this is not. This is not going to work for me like it does for these musicians. But, you know, but he couldn't design an instrument. You know, he could critique and give us feedback and collaborate,

Speaker A: right?

Speaker D: You know, David, say, I can't do what you do, and you can't do what I do.

Speaker A: Well, I think. I think that, you know, there's something in that. Right? I have a. My daughter's been playing guitar for a very long time, but she refuses to play in front of other people. Um, and I. I do understand that she plays for her own reasons, but it goes into. What do you hope to get out of the exercise? Right? Because while we all might grow up with these visions of. I'd love to be on stage playing in front of people, you know, having them be happy at what I'm doing. The motivation of just having an artistic outlet and an expression of what's inside, you know, to bring it out, whether it's paint, music, design, you know, that seems to be the. The at least should be the primary goal, not necessarily to do it for the adoration and the acclaim.

Speaker D: Yeah, I, I, um, have very, very close friend. We're friends for 60 years. Um, and, uh, he passed away now. I think it's been five, maybe five weeks ago. And, um. And he knew I never, I never played for anyone. Like,

Speaker A: you

Speaker D: know, we're sitting around, if we were sitting around, and his, his, uh, his sister's boyfriend's a great guitar player. I, I played along with him, you know, a few, A few times. And. But Dan knew that I never played. I would never play in front of people, even though Dave Mason invited me several times to get up on stage with him, you know. And so, uh, so Dan. So we were, we were saying our goodbyes to Dan. It was like two days. Two days before he passed. And, um, dance, you know, says, you know, hey, Ravi, you know, I really want to hear some music right now. And so, uh, you know, I tried to put on his Sonos, but my phone's not connected to their Internet. So I picked up his guitar and I said, hey, you know, Dan, you know, uh, you know, I started playing, uh, I started playing Imagine, you know, which is actually a difficult. It's. It's some difficult picking

Speaker A: M

Speaker D: to play Imagine. Um, and so I play. I played that for him and, And Dan looks at me and says, he says, can you play that at my funeral?

Speaker A: Oh. Uh,

Speaker D: so I got. I had to get up in front of like 350 people and, and play, you know, the intro, uh, to Imagine for Dan, um, you know, who was. We were super close to. And I'm next to his coffin and tears are rolling down my face. But I'm playing, I'm playing from. And I got up and played for. For 350 people. Um, but yeah, I'm. I'm of the same nature. I play because, you know, it, it, it's really relaxing. It puts your brain into a different mode. Um, you get to focus on the playing. The whole world disappears. You know, it's kind of a Zen experience. You're in the flow state

Speaker A: right

Speaker D: when it's going well. And, um, you know, it's all, you know, it's understanding what it means to people. Um, but yeah, that Was my, that was my experience performing. Does that mean in the future I'll get, get up and perform? And I think Dan, Dan knew that. Yeah,

Speaker A: right.

Speaker D: He knew that. Uh, you know, he did that kind of like, as a gift to me and said, okay, I'm gonna get you over this.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, it's a, uh, that's, it's a unique room to play in front of, for sure. Is playing in front of a, A funeral?

Speaker D: Yeah. Uh,

Speaker A: you know, were you always an artistic person growing up?

Speaker D: Oh, yeah, yeah. Right back to. Yeah, I can remember, you know, in elementary school, um, even when I was in, you know, probably in kindergarten, first grade, I was like, taking things apart and, you know, looking at how they worked and, you know, my dad, uh, you know, my dad came home one day and my mom started complaining. He says, look, he took the alarm, he took the alarm clock apart, you know, and it's, you know, it's completely dismantled. Yeah. And, um, you know, what are you going to do about it? My dad was like, encourage him. So keep, uh,

Speaker A: them away from the car. Were you able to put it back together?

Speaker D: No,

Speaker A: no. See, I was always very good at taking things apart. It was the, uh, putting them back together so they work. That was a.

Speaker D: Yeah,

Speaker A: that was a bit of a challenge.

Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. I rebuilt some, some, some car engines in my day, and I always had extra parts left over.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I recently had a shower that needed to be fixed. The cylinder for. It needed to be replaced. Like, you know, old plumbing. I called the plumber because I didn't want to destroy it and there was something left over like a screw. I'm like, what about this? He's like, dad, I don't know. I'm like, so it happens to the professionals too? You know, it's okay to have things left over as long as it works. We didn't need the appendix anyway. So that. What, you know, with industrial design. I'm kind of curious because, Amy, you have your Ph.D. from, uh, the Art Academy in San Francisco, correct?

Speaker D: Yeah. Ah. Dave and I received both. Both received honorary doctorates.

Speaker A: Honorary doctorates. Why

Speaker D: electric guitar?

Speaker A: What. Why product and industrial design as a field versus going into other kinds of artistic expressions and endeavors or other types of design?

Speaker D: I was, I was heavy in the ceramics all through high school.

Speaker A: Oh, really?

Speaker D: Um, and I think I took, I must have taken six classes of ceramics. Prolific.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: So. So, uh, so yeah, I was, I, I was always kind of like a three dimensional, uh, artist doing three dimensional objects. And then, you know, when I went to College. I went to, uh, become a mechanical engineer. I thought the mechanical engineers are the ones who create, you know, what things look like and how they work and all. All that. And um, and then I, um, I, I was in uh, an early program in the summer, which, uh, at the university, which had like 15 minutes with the dean of engineering. And he started asking me, why do I want to. Why, why am I studying engineering? I told him, he says, that's not actually engineering. That's industrial design.

Speaker A: Oh.

Speaker D: And, and so, uh, I said, well, where's industrial design? He said, well, that's in the art department. I said, oh, perfect.

Speaker A: It's old

Speaker D: perfect. You know, I, I could, I could go to, I could go to college with 3,000 guys at that time, right. And maybe a hundred girls. Or I could go over the art department where it was. There are, uh, you know, a lot of girls and creativity and imagination and on, um, and industrial design even at that point. Yeah, we were kind of like the outcasts. You know, we weren't. I

Speaker A: was going to ask that.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. You know, we're the outcasts because we weren't doing art for art's sake. We were doing art for commercial purposes to make things that, you know, went into manufacturing and became commercial success. And that was a different world. But I, I just, I, I just loved it. Yeah, I loved, I loved every minute in school. And I started working, uh, in design, I think, when I was 19. Um, you know, I started working as a model maker in a design firm. Um, and then, um, by the time, uh, my last, my senior year, I, I had been recruited away from where I was a model maker to um, a design firm and actually started designing. Um, and then, uh, when I graduated, uh, they didn't have a full time job for me there, even though I was working 30 hours in college. Uh, they had a slowdown in work and a friend of mine said, hey, you know, we're looking for, we're looking for a designer to join the Xerox team.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: You know, Ravi, why don't I introduce you? And so, um, you know, I went and interviewed and I got hired in as part of the Xerox team.

Speaker A: Good time to be part of the Xerox team.

Speaker D: Yeah. Then I was, then I, I was thrown into uh, a think tank, uh, that was doing the first touchscreen interface. And, and, and um, my boss, uh, who I became very close friends with, we just, last weekend we just had breakfast with him, Frank Zinni. Uh, so Frank is now 89. You wouldn't ever guess it. To meet him, you think he's, he's, he's 69. Um, and um, so Frank, uh, said, you know, we, uh, we need an industrial design to go over here, work with these PhD psychologists, you know, dozens. And um, we've expanded the capability of our technology so much that we can't actually create a control panel for it anymore. And so what they're doing is, they're there is they're putting buttons, uh, up on a TV screen, on a monitor and shooting LEDs across. And when you touch the button, it'll activate it as if it's a real button. I looked at Frank and I said, well that's not what I do. You know, I give shape and form,

Speaker A: right.

Speaker D: To physical objects, you know, uh, and, and Frank looked at me, says, robbie, you're young, you know, I mean it was 22 years old. It says you're young, you're 22, you don't know what you're going to learn over there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: And so uh, I reluctantly went over there and learned about, you know, psyche and psychology and human factors from all these PhD psychologists who were industrial psychologists and then discovered that it's all human factors. It's all about, it's all about people. It's not about the artifact. And then so I developed the first graphical interface for a touch screen. Uh, at that point,

Speaker A: right.

Speaker D: Just one industrial designer, 200 programmers. How

Speaker A: did that feel? It's like do this, 30

Speaker D: PhD psychologists

Speaker A: and here you are at 22 years old, just kind of coming in to. I mean that's a great thing about park at that time and about those kinds of environments where you have mixed disciplines, right. That people are coming together with their strengths and hopefully not a lot of ego, so that they're open to listening to one another and, and from that intersection, from connecting those different professional disciplinary dots, these new kinds of forms can emerge.

Speaker D: Mhm. Yeah.

Speaker A: That's pretty cool.

Speaker D: It's, it's, I've always seen that as a phenomenon that, that, you know, the right environment, the right mix of people, the right mindset, and you just don't know what's going to come out.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: And brilliance comes out. Uh, you know, we try to duplicate that here at RKS by building war rooms. Building war rooms and having all the visuals up. And um, you know, it creates an effect on people.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Um, uh, and, and brilliant ideas come out. Um, because you're in this immersive environment.

Speaker A: Deb, one of the things I talk with my students about, I'd Be curious, since you're in this field. Your reaction? I often talk about, you need cultures of innovation in which there are spaces of innovation to build relationships of innovation. But, uh, you know, people want to talk about, we want disruption. But then when you talk with them about, you know, ideas, I often find that they really don't. You know, it's like, well, we can never do that. Or I was just in a meeting where someone said, you know, there's no no buts. It's always yes and, and five minutes into the meeting there was a no but. Because if you push too far outside the boundaries, people, I don't know, they feel unsettled with it, uh, unmoored. They, there's more risk that they get locked into what the list of to do versus, you know, could be. And so how do you, as an organization, especially working with clients, get them to embrace that if there, even if there is some resistance to really being disruptive?

Speaker D: You know, I, I, I latched on to the hero's journey, um, back in the 90s,

Speaker A: okay,

Speaker D: camel's work,

Speaker A: right.

Speaker D: And what I, I professed at the time was that, you know, we're all on a hero's journey every day of our lives. And that uh, if we can use design as a tool, how can we attract someone, you know, and how can we overcome their resistance? Um, you know, because you'll attract them, but then they'll, they'll resist,

Speaker A: right?

Speaker D: You know, and, and we all do that and then use, you know, designed to, in experience to engage them and give them a series of affirmations. And so if you're able to make the person feel great about themselves through affirmations, um, you know, create anticipation, create confirmation, create affirmation that'll lead them to actually adopt a new idea, a new product, a new service, a new whatever. Because we're left to our own demise. We'll, we'll not do anything, right? We'll just stick with what we know. But there is that side of, of kind of the, you know, ah, you know, it's kind of the um, human element that we're always looking to become something more today than we were yesterday.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: And so, you know, what we do is we try to actually script out and create this level of empowerment and self actualization, parallel the hero's journey and actually script it out and say, what are the key, what are the key things that we need to do?

Speaker A: One of the things I kind of wanted to fall back on a little bit because I'm kind of fascinated by it. Was when you're at art school, right. And you have the, let's say fine artists, even though you have a ceramics background. And I agree with you. I like, I uh, like watching sculpture, I like looking up sculpture. I uh, like watching people work a wheel versus paint on a canvas because there's something about the three dimensionality of it. You're, you're saying I want to use my artistic knowledge and impulses and intuition to design things to make people's lives better ideally versus I want to create art to make people's lives better. Right. So whether it's on the canvas or whether it's you know, a product design, ideally they're both at the same thing. But the resistance of the purity of, you know. Well, the real artist doesn't worry about selling things. A real artist does it for the love of the, of the work. I, I've gotten the same thing as a sociologist who works with businesses. Well, real sociology is critical of, of business and capitalism. They don't work to support capitalism. I'm like, well I'm just trying to make people's lives better.

Speaker D: Mhm.

Speaker A: I don't know. Yes, I understand all you're saying and when you can work that out, let me know though, you know, changing capitalism. Um, but in the meantime I'm just going to try to affect things by working with those who are in a position to reach people. So I'm just kind of curious as you evolved in this journey of still having the soul of an artist but yet uh, working with companies, with clients, with things like that, how to retain that essence of the art, you know, the artist's essence while at the same time working in a, you know, corporate environment.

Speaker D: Yeah. Is it is the same here as journey that you want to put, put the um, the stakeholders on

Speaker A: um,

Speaker D: and in the organization. So uh, you know, especially in a corporate setting, I always say, which sounds kind of cruel to say is you don't get fired for saying no. You could get fired for saying yes and taking a risk.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: And it backfiring.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: But if you say no, you know, it's like well, you know.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Prove that something could have happened. Now I've seen where people said did that and said no and then a competitor licensed the same technology that was available to them. Uh, and, and, and the company took off. Um, so I'm not saying it's a good thing to say no.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: I've seen companies, I, I, you know, uh, I was, we were brought in to help SideQuest who was making disc uh, drives Removable disk drives. And that was the standard in the industry. You know, you'd build, you'd put your stuff on a side quest drive to transfer, you know, your designs and things. And along comes the zip drive

Speaker A: right

Speaker D: now. They brought the. The zip drive was made by Omega.

Speaker A: All right. I had one

Speaker D: and, but it was first. It was a licensed product, it came to SideQuest.

Speaker A: Oh. Uh,

Speaker D: and the CEO of SideQuest, you know, told. Told me, you know, he sat me down, he says, you know, you're. You're designing these new products for us to compete with, with, with, with the zip drive. He says, but my team had been offered the zip drive and they all said no m. That it's going to be a big zip in the market. And he says, and to. Here we are today and my, my company is doing one tenth of what it was before the zip drive.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: And, and so, uh, you know, if I had been there, I probably would have taken them through the psycho aesthetics, shown them the market, showing the human experience, showing them the how and why somebody would adopt a zip drive over a cyclist drive. Because it's thinner, it's more portable.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Higher, higher memory. Um, and

Speaker A: a cool design too, with a purple color.

Speaker D: Yeah, it was pretty.

Speaker A: Yeah, it was pretty. I still have one in my office. It's not connected to anything because I don't think I can any longer connect it to anything.

Speaker D: Yeah, the software is not there to connect it.

Speaker A: No. But, but I have it and I have stuff saved on my zip drives. I don't know what's on there. And they'll probably just be an archaeological artifact at some point for a future civilization. But, you know, you talk about psycho aesthetics and human centered design. I'm kind of curious as human centered design becomes, you know, it's almost like a drinking game. Every time someone says human centered design drink, what does it mean to you and how does your organization approach it as, you know, it's not a service we provide, it's just what we do.

Speaker D: Yeah. Uh, you know, it's, it's exciting to me that human centered design is, is the Buzz. Uh, in 1982, my, I wrote the underpinning for my firm. At that time, I said, you know, our underpinning for the firm is that it's not how you feel about a design or experience, it's how it makes you feel about yourself. And that came out of my learnings with these psychologists.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: At Xerox, is that it's all about the human element.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker D: Um, and so, you know, it's kind of, it's a basis for this whole firm as that is that we were human centered from day one. Uh, and, and that was just the gift that Frank gave me, you know, throwing me into the think tank. So yeah, it's evolved now. Psychoesthetics has evolved. Uh, psychoesthetics is evolving into the overlay pa AI, which is, which is the human intelligence layer.

Speaker A: Hm.

Speaker D: That controls and directs AI from the human side of things.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Um, and so, um, you know, I think a lot of people use it as a buzzword, but they don't know what it really. They know what it means, but they don't really know how to get there. And I have the advantage that I've been doing it, uh, I've been doing human centered design for 45 years. Um, and I've got publications, Harvard case study on IT size, got the Wharton Business book and I've got two published books. And now we're launching, we're launching a standalone company called Psycho Sex Inc. That the product is paai. Uh, and that is all about human centered, uh, design and the foundation of psychoesthetics used to drive and control and navigate, uh, artificial intelligence. And so it's a new breed, It's a new breed of, of um, of interaction that doesn't exist today. Right. How do you, how do you, How m. Do you teach a machine to be human centered?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: You can't, you can't. But you can take the human centered signals that you generate with your inputs and with psychoesthetics, which is multifaceted, and then basically say that's the signal that I'll use for artificial intelligence so that I can generate outcomes and a navigator and a map, a roadmap, maybe only a compass that'll help me be more successful for the people I serve. And that's, and that's where AI gets very exciting. Otherwise, um, it's, you know, it's a machine that is basically a great learning machine that's going to synthesize all those learnings into, into meaning. Um, and you know, and I, I think AI is phenomenal, but when we do it through the human centered lens, it's, it's, it's on a different planet. Then we're just going to a different level.

Speaker A: When I, as a sociologist, when I started do, you know, teaching in our human factors program, of which I had no knowledge of what user experience was or human factors, but, but I did because I'm a sociologist, it was interesting going in and saying people, saying things like, you know, what People are really important and we need to consider them. I'm like, yeah, of course, yeah. Of, of. I have a psychology undergraduate degree with a sociology double major and a PhD in sociology. I'm like, and, and it was. I've always wondered why there can be this block in business where we have to affirm term, people matter. Because inherently that's not just accepted as part of the conversation that we have to vocalize that we need to think about people and their emotional connection when clearly so much of life is people and their emotional connection.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think it's, I think uh, being an industrial design, that industrial design is really well suited, uh, to take the leadership on that. And you know, over the decades, over the decades I've seen where industrial designs, between their combination of iq, EQ and talent, and talent are able to create artifacts, experiences, interactions that are human, that are human centered. Because ultimately you know someone's going to accept or reject what you do. And boy, if you're not figuring out, um, if you're not figuring out what you're going to do for them and why they're going to love it, you're going to create a failure. Now with that said, there's a lot of design that's just for design's sake, you know, pure artifact. Um, but you know that, that starts to get old very quickly.

Speaker A: Right,

Speaker D: right. If it, if it's not, if it's just pretty. I mean I, you know, I, you know, I love Philippe Stark, um, in his work, uh, in his three legged juicer. Wall is beautiful. You know, you can't squeeze juice with it.

Speaker A: But it looks good.

Speaker D: But it looks good. Um, you know, and um, you know in the interview I had earlier today, which with guitarist, uh, and, and you know we talked extensively about um, that had Dave Mason not been connected to me and we might have just created a novel guitar. So it looks different but you know, it all became about the guitar player. How do you make them a better guitar player? How do you do it in a way that's sustainable, that doesn't use tone woods and doesn't use, you know, rare, rare woods from different forests. And how do you uh, add controls, inform and function that takes a guitar player and makes them something more than they were before they had that guitar. So again it's back to that same theme that people want to evolve, um, but they want to evolve, you know, in, in a positive way. And you know, our emotion and our senses are filtering out all of this bombardment of like shiny objects.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: You know, here, look at Me here. Try me here. But, you know, it all gets back, it all gets back to the self, you know.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: And we've all bought things, we've all bought things, you know, that we, we're really attracted to. And then a few months later, it's in a box somewhere. Right. And it didn't really, it didn't really provide value to us. I think consumers are much, much more sensitive to, you know, products of quality, products that really serve a purpose and at the same time are beautiful artifacts. Beautiful interactions, uh, are, you know, the complete experience.

Speaker A: Right. It becomes interesting me thinking about, I actually, you know, before the pandemic, got a guitar. So it wasn't a pandemic purchase. So I wasn't one of those people just want to differentiate that. But, you know, I won't go to this, this guitar store. It was actually a, a music retail store. It wasn't a guitar center, someplace like that. And I said, yeah, you know, I have not played before. I'm looking to get a guitar. And the guy goes, well, yeah, they're over there. Go see which one, um, which one you like. I'm thinking, I literally have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this thing or what differentiates one from another. And I've talked with guitar players about this and they've been of two schools. One is, yeah, the person should help and guide you along. Others have been like, no, it's, you go there and you explore on your own and you see how it feels in your hand and all this other stuff. But the thing about the guitar is that it's bringing you into, of uh, fraternity, sorority of people who are guitarists, you know what I mean? That's almost like entree into a club. And it, uh, becomes an object of social connection and not just individual fulfillment. So I, I find the guitar fascinating because it just has some, so much cultural significance, you know, overlaid on top of it, both in terms of the music played, but also the, the sense of self that one achieves by hopefully becoming a musician and entree into a world of expression.

Speaker D: Yeah, uh, it's, it's a phenomenon unto itself. When you start playing guitar, you hear music differently.

Speaker A: Yeah,

Speaker D: you, you, you know, you actually, you hear things that you didn't hear before, um, and it's self actualizing. Uh, you know, I used to travel, uh, I used to travel with my RKF's guitar. I'm going somewhere phenomenal. You walk through the airport, people look at you like

Speaker A: it's cool.

Speaker D: Yeah. They look at you like Like, I wonder who that is. Yeah,

Speaker A: right. Exactly right. Look at that guy. And it's not one of those guitar pro guitars that plugs into a computer. It's like a real thing.

Speaker D: Yeah. And, um, you know, music is a universal language and music's changed the world. You know, especially in the 60s. I mean, music really changed.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: Changed America. Uh, and, you know, to create a guitar that is, that is a player's guitar. Uh, and you were talking about that earlier, that there's pictures of Beck playing his guitar and of, of, of Ronnie woods playing his guitar. And you know, and the list goes on and on with all these, you know, high caliber superstar musicians playing the guitar. And you think, wow, they could write a song that changes the world, uh, on this guitar. They could perform for people and make people happy with this guitar.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: And, and for me it's like, wow, I feel connected to all those people who are.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Who are listening to those guitars. Um, and yeah, it's, it's, it. Because I'm asked like, what, you know, what's your favorite thing you've done? You know, you did Teddy ruxpin in the 80s and it's still in production today. And how many millions and millions of kids did you make smile and laugh? And I said, yeah, that was, you know, that's good. But the guitar is something else. And that those guitars we played for hundreds of years, uh, and you know, they sound great, they play great. Uh, you know, they are great. And. But had it not been for having someone like Dave Mason in my life, we became very close friends with, um, and having him collaborate very, very deeply, uh, it wouldn't have been a player's. Player's guitar.

Speaker A: Right. I want to talk about that. I just want to tell you a quick story because I was recently in Florence, suddenly visiting my daughter who was studying abroad there. And she said, oh, there's a really cool bar around the corner from where I live. And they play music. Do you want to go? Sure. So we go into this bar and nice little tight band people kind of up on. You can't even call it a stage. It was like a packed little room. And this one guy starts, uh, playing Superstition, you know, Stevie Wonder, but in more Stevie Ray Vaughan style. And I don't know if this dude speaks a lick of English. And I'm from Detroit, so I'm familiar with Motown. And he's going, he's laying into Superstition. And I'm like, this is pretty amazing. I don't even know if the guy Speaks English, but he is laying down superstition on this guitar. We're having this moment in this small club that's, you know, on the one hand, international and intercultural, but at the same time we're all part of the same group because we all know that song. He's nailing it and we're all having fun. And that's, that's just that beautiful moment of connectedness that the, you know, a person who plays guitar can create,

Speaker D: uh,

Speaker A: for others

Speaker D: that, ah, we were, we went, I guess it was about three years ago we went to Liverpool and we went to the Cavern, you know, which, I mean, maybe there's three. Have you been to the Cavern?

Speaker A: No, never.

Speaker D: It's a like, like maybe 300 people can get into there.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: And they were. And it was a Beatles cover band,

Speaker A: of course.

Speaker D: Every single person, no matter what age, was singing along with the band.

Speaker A: Of course.

Speaker D: Uh, you know, and yeah, it's. Music is a, is a universal language. It can make us smile, it can make us remember things, it can make us cry. It can do all kinds of magical things in guitars, you know, especially electric guitars have this unique ability to have just incredible creativity, uh, you know, through them. And you, as you start playing more and more and you start hearing more and more and more, you're seeing these effects that people are creating. Um, you know, it's just, it's just absolutely wild and amazing. And then when you're around professional musicians and you see what they do, um, you know, and it's, it's really impressive. I think it's. Santana said, you know, music, music can change, you know, the vibration on a molecular level.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: You know. Yeah. You know. Does he know that? No. Is, you know, was, was, you know, you know, what was he on when he decided that? I don't know. But I, I tend to think, you know, that these are immeasurable things that you can feel and sense that that may be true. Because it's not always what you hear that comes out of a guitar. It's kind of like this what you think. Feel.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: You know, when you're listening to the guitar, which is, which is, you know, again, back to human centered thinking.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: You know, it's not, it's not in the ear. It's, it's, it's in, it's, it's in your emotion. It's in your, you know, it's in your very being.

Speaker A: Well, speaking of Santana, lead singer of Santana, Alex Lighterwood just recently passed away, which is like, uh, all the greats it's like. And you know, what's really funny about him was he's Scottish. And one of my favorite songs is. Well, I love hold on that he sang on and also winning. And I'm like, he's Scottish. Because I can understand the lyrics. I'm surprised.

Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. Well, so much, so much great musicians, so many great musicians and great music came out of. Out of the uk.

Speaker A: Yeah. And out of California, where you were during like, you know, that period of time. You know, you think about bands like Fleetwood Mac, which came out of California and the uk. I mean, you know, this and then Lindsey Buckingham as a guitarist, you know. And one of the questions I have about guitar, you have a form and a function so that that's really recognizable. Right. How do you go about rethinking it so that it is more, you know, player centric? And what was the former version that you created from that wasn't player centric.

Speaker D: Yeah, I, you know, it's everything about. Everything about the guitar that we created, you know, went through kind of the iterative development testing process. Um, when we, when we started and we had prototypes, you know, we would meet different people who were musicians, you know, either, you know, you know, different levels, and we would hand them the guitar and they would, you know, play a few chords, a few licks, and within minutes they'd hand it back to you. Oh, nice guitar. And the litmus test was that as we started evolving and getting it right and, and of course we were sound. We were, we were testing it at, uh, uh, Dave's sound checks and making sure it didn't howl. Because when we did a, uh, uh, version, early versions, you get on stage and it just runs off and starts, you know, making its own tones, because it's run away, you know, when you get it all right, then it's something different. And our litmus test was that, uh, when we got to the NAMM shows and we're showing it to, to people that people would start playing it and then. And then they would hold it up and look at it and go, wow, what is this thing? Because it felt perfect. It felt even better.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Used to. Um. And then it got to the point of where it was. It was so empowering to the musicians that literally we would have to pry it away from them. If, if. If we had left them alone, they would just sit there for hours playing guitars, you know, and we had professional musicians who were paid to be at other booths, um, who, when they're on break, they would come over to our booth so it's. It's, uh, you know, when you get it right. When you get it right, you get it right. But it is a process. It was years of iterative, uh, prototyping and iterative work and hypersensitivity. There's no cookbook.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: I think one of the, um. One of my. My leads the other day, you know, he's. You know, he was getting frustrated about paai, and he says, you know, we're doing something nobody's ever done before. And I said, look around you. Isn't that what we do here?

Speaker A: Right. Like, why is that a frustration?

Speaker D: That's all we do. That's all we've ever done, is do something new that's never been done before for.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, it's funny because I've been in organizations where we want to be leaders in the field by doing everything else that everyone else does.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: But. But just maybe a little bit better or have better pr. I'm like, well, or. Or we could just do different. But again, going back to your point, risk. And I. I am sympathetic to people who are in leadership positions who, you know, if they say yes to the wrong thing, it can have pretty dramatic results on their lives and careers. I get that. But there's also, as you pointed out, a risk to not doing anything.

Speaker D: Yeah. Um, what are. What our PA AI really does is quantify that risk. Okay. And analyze it, and we generate what's called a success potential score, which is really interesting because we take everything, throw it, you know, everything into the stew, uh, that we can. You know, we ingest everything you can throw in, and, you know, and we develop this foundation and then we start analyzing it. And we've seen SPS scores go from, like, low numbers, like, in the 60s and 70s, to high numbers in. In the 90s. And so what. What we're doing now is really trying to mitigate risk where, you know, different people say 60%, 70%, 80%. Some people say 90% of new initiatives fail.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Um, to where we think we can move the needle on that, to where management's not taking such a high risk. Now maybe they're evaluating more ideas and more concepts and more initiatives before they actually start deploying capital, you know, through. Through the advantage of AI and an AI driven through the human intelligence. You know, I always say the human intelligence layer.

Speaker A: Right. Um,

Speaker D: I should. I should have that little thing that comes up with the little ping tm.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: So I don't know if you watch Jimmy Kimmel.

Speaker A: Yeah. Huh.

Speaker D: The words go across and it's ping tm. Um, we'll

Speaker A: be, we'll make sure to add that in post production.

Speaker D: But, but you know, seriously, we coined the term human intelligence layer is because there's artificial intelligence by the very name of it. It is artificial. It is synthesis. Now it's synthesizing huge amounts of data.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: And huge amounts of, of, of input. Um, but it can't tell you. It can't tell you what you're going to feel. I say if you're going to take, you know, five steps towards the door, it'll tell you it'll probably take another five steps through the door. But it can't. Artificial intelligence can't tell me why I want to be on the inside of the door.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: What I'm going to feel on the other side of the door, what I expect to feel on the other side of the door. What's my emotional, uh, state going to be, you know, any of that. That's the human side of things. So that's what we're, that's where, you know, and maybe we're crazy to try to create a new category and a new movement of, you know, humans driving AI. Not, not AI, AI and reinventing itself and not having, uh, with all respect to the brilliant computer scientists who are making it, but putting people in charge.

Speaker A: Well, it reminds me, you know, I, I was, I'm seeing a connection here. Maybe I'm the crazy one, but I'm going back to this Dean conversation you had that we were like, I'm going to be a mechanical engineer. Well, no, it's industrial design. Okay. So, you know, at that time, especially trying to be human centered in engineering would have been a bigger challenge than being human centered in an art school. Right. That, you know, it just would have been more. Been a bigger hill to climb and a bigger boulder to push up it. And so now you're talking about, you're, you're, you're still coming at it from, from this artistic impulse of people and going, but we need AI to be human centered. Right. And versus the computer engineers who are still engineers, God love them, who are tech centered.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, you come in from different perspectives.

Speaker D: Yeah. So the question is, is, do we serve technology or does technology serve us?

Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. Right. And is it. I, uh, talk about, is it a tool or determinant? Can I use it to do what I want to do or is it instructing me and limiting me in what I can do? Who. Who's serving who? You know, um, and that And I think because of your art background, maybe I, you know, I don't want to put you on a couch here, but there, you know, that people matter. People centeredness. Human centeredness drives your approach to AI versus people. You know, a profession that's not human centered, it's tech centered. Technology is at the center of it.

Speaker D: Yeah, uh, yeah, I was asked, I think, God, it had to BE in the 90s, you know, I was asked that, you know, what is technology going to do for us? And I came back and said, you know, I'm more concerned about what technology is going to do to us.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: And here we are today, um, where, you know, people are crashing their cars all the time because they get a text and they feel compelled to look at it and people can't turn their phones off when they get home and we're answering emails before we go to bed.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Um, and yeah, and so the human side of things is, is, is everything. It's all about, you know, it's all about, can you make my life better? Can you improve the quality of life for people? And if you can, then yeah, you know, you need brilliant engineers and technologists, but they need to note what are they doing it for and how are they doing it to improve the quality of life for people or to solve a problem. And you know, and the two live together. I mean, I was just reading, I was just reading the other day where, where AI can detect, uh, put pancreatic, uh, cancer in patients before they get pancreatic cancer because usually by the time the symptoms arrive, they're already at stage 3 or 4M. And you know, so there is, there are places for, where just raw technology is going to improve the quality of life. In my world, there's a whole part of the world and even with, even with that technology, there still would be the human centered challenge of how do I motivate a person to get this test?

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think about, you know, on the one hand, great, I know you have pancreatic cancer, let's treat you. And then on the other hand, oh, you're gonna have pancreatic cancer. We're not going to give you insurance.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, as well, you know, I think going back to your point about the hero's journey, who's the hero, who's the guide? Are human beings the hero and AI is the guide? Or is AI the hero and human beings are the guide?

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, where, how do we form this relationship in the hero's journey about the person who's the hero? And the person who's serving as the guide for the hero.

Speaker D: Yeah. And it goes back to, you know, basic anthropology. You know, AI is, is a tool,

Speaker A: right? Uh,

Speaker D: AI, ah, AI is the tool and go back to the caveman. Right. And you know, it's, it's, it's, it is, yeah, it's a very advanced tool and you know, you know, who knows, it becomes self aware. Um, but if we, you know, if we keep it in its place, that people are in control of it, um, hopefully it'll learn, it will learn to look for, you know, that, that input and that, uh, that, that's what makes a difference to you. Ultimately, people, as I said, are going to accept or reject something.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Um, you know, you're going to make, you're going to either make somebody more than they were more today than they were yesterday. Um, yeah. Or, or you're going to make them less than they were. I, I think, you know, I use AI every day and it definitely is making me more than I was. Um, you know, at the same time, you know, it's starting to evolve to where. Yeah, it's almost condescending, you know.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: You know, hey, that's a great idea.

Speaker A: It's like, I'm like I'm four. That's so good. You put on your shoes. Good job. Oh, look at you, big man. Like, yeah, I do have a PhD, but thanks, I guess. Well, that was, there's a recent thing on John Oliver. He was talking about, you know, AI and chatbots and things like that and just, you know, how enthusiastic it can be for horrible ideas. And someone tested that out and they were like, I have an idea for, you know, uh, poop on a Stick company. What do you think of that? And the AI was like, that's a great idea. You know, you're really pushing the boundaries of innovation there.

Speaker D: Yeah. Ah, that won't happen with pai. Uh,

Speaker A: well, I know it's, it's launching. You talked about it as it separated company. It's launching, you said. You know. Right. Pretty soon it's launching. So what's the future looking at for that company and where are things at?

Speaker D: Well, it, it looks bright. Uh, we're, we're funded. We're closing out our seed round. We're launching on, uh, the 21st. So it's Pai AI. Uh, it's going to be the module one, the foundation module. It's going to be available to, to college students. Uh, there's going to be a trial version for, for, for other people. Uh, so they can give it a try. But, you know, we're in, you know, we're in full go mode. Uh, huge amount of times in development and UI, UX and research. And then, you know, luckily we've got 45 years of, of project work that we're able to leverage. And, uh, you know, my publications, which are copyright protected and I've got three patents pending and a fourth one, uh, that we're submitting for. Um, and yeah, people keep saying, you know, can't I just do that in Clyde? And you ask Claude, and Claude will come back and say, absolutely not. I can't do that.

Speaker A: There's your answer.

Speaker D: Yes, Chad. It's like, well, why can't. Why can't you do this? And it comes back and says, absolutely not. I don't know what people think or feel. How am I supposed to know?

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker D: You need to tell me M. You would need to tell me what that means so that I can do this.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Um, you know, it can tell you, it can tell you that, yeah, what you're doing is unique and, you know, people will relate to it based on its other learnings. But it can't tell you what actually, if you want to create, you know, if, uh, you want to create, you know, a new, a new food, if you want to create a new service, if you want to create a new experience, if you want to create new music. Right. That, you know, who would be for. Why would they, why would they. What would they feel?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Right. Why would they feel it? What would you need to do to make them feel it? And then if you have all that, then the creative mind can engage, um, not the artificial intelligence, but then you can be, you can be the facilitator, you can be the creative. You can be the instrument that actually creates something that's more brilliant than otherwise. So different than creating the m. The instrument that, that a guitar player can do more with than they could before.

Speaker A: Right. It's. It's the same thing. Or it goes back to, you know, making. You're trying to create a situation in which we are more today than we were yesterday.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, and it's. That's another tool, whether a guitar or whether it's ceramics. I mean, I know you also have a Harvard Business case on the travel mug, which I was fascinated by. Yeah. You know, because I find, I find everyday objects fascinating.

Speaker D: Yeah. We tried to, we've tried to boil it down for learning into something like, okay, I can do this. Right. It's about, it's about self, actual Actualization, again, put somebody on a hero's journey, even through the process of learning about psycho aesthetics.

Speaker A: And lo and behold, travel mugs are symbols of identity and self and status and all of these emotional things where before they were just things to carry water, and now they become so much more than that as a cultural artifact.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's ah, a personal accessory that reflects who you are and what you are and how you feel about water and things that go into your body and how about the environment and about brand and.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker D: You know, same reason that, you know, glasses, you know, they're part of our Persona.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker D: You know, and, and uh, you know, I would say that, you know, people buy new clothes not because they wore out their old clothes necessarily in this country, other countries, but a lot of, A lot of people buy new clothes because it makes them feel good about themselves and makes them feel new and refreshed and you know, and good about themselves. And they look in the mirror and they see a different person and they love that.

Speaker A: But

Speaker D: you still have to have, you still have to have one foot in who you are. You ought to always have that reference point of like, okay, I understand it, I relate to it. Oh, and this will make me more. So I worked with Bob, uh, a gentleman named Bob Deutsch very extensively. So Bob is, uh, he's a cognitive psychologist. So he's got PhDs in uh, in psychology and anthropology. And uh, Bob taught us that, you know, human nature is that, you know, you people look at things and says, you know, is it like me? Does it like me? Can it make me more.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker D: So, right. You know, do, do I relate to it? Do I understand it? Does it create value?

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker D: And you know, and that's kind of like the human element, um, you know, and when. But you know, to translate that into actual experience takes a lot of talent, a lot of hard work.

Speaker A: One last question. Do you get a chance to sit at a wheel and, and do ceramics anymore?

Speaker D: No, I don't. I, I don't. And my house has got tons of, of, of ceramics. I had a, um, a, a, ah, high school reunion with a bunch of people we went to high school with at, over at the house. And I showed them one of my ceramic pieces which was, you know, a donut that turned into a wine vessel.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker D: And so that, that's the kind of stuff I was creating in high school. Not what it means to throw a donut on the, uh, on the throwing wheel. Um, you know, it's pretty advanced, pretty advanced stuff.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: But yeah, someday Someday I'll get back to the potter's wheel, you know, I mean, it's just. It's. It's just, you know, fluid. It's fun, you know, Would I do that before I start creating? You know, getting to the point where I start creating my own music? I don't know. I think I might build. I think I might build, um, my music studio before. Before I build a ceramics wheel again. I think m. More music is my calling.

Speaker A: Well, that's fine. I mean, I just know, like, people who do ceramics that, you know, that the possibility that exists, whether you pick up a guitar or you sit down at a wheel, you look in front of a canvas or a blank page, that that endless possibility is exciting and terrifying at the same time. Right? It's your. Your toes are at the abyss and you don't know what's going to happen, and you just have to take that jump to make that first mark or start the rotation up and put your hands in it, put your fingers on the cords and see what happens.

Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. Exciting. That's what life's. Life's all about.

Speaker A: It is. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about your past work and the future of PA AI.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Great conversation. Thank you, David. Gary. Thank you, Gary.

Speaker A: No worries. Happens all the time. I want to thank Ravi Sani for joining me to talk about psycho aesthetics, guitars, Dave Mason, Teddy Ruxpin and design. You can find out more about his work and his company RKS in the links in the show notes. And as always, you can feel free to share feedback on this episode or any episode. And there's a lot of them@feedback experiencex design.com if you want to subscribe and stay on top of all of the news related to my upcoming book, the Unwow. Head over to theunwow.com provide your email and, um, I'll make sure you're included. And while there, you might as well support the Unwow publication, which should be happening in the spring of 2027. Being part of one of those packages gets you access to a little lot of great stuff. Well worth the money and I'd love to have you involved. Got a ways to go before I get to that number that I need in order to publish the book, and your help would be greatly appreciated. Another way you can help me out is by bringing me into your organization or event to talk about the Unwow experience, design, inclusive design, and a range of other topics. So if you have a speaker spot, need some training done. Done some learning and development. Make sure you contact me at, uh, Garyaryconnects, uh.com or at, uh, feedback experiencexdesign.com there's a lot of ways to get in touch with me, so no excuse not to. And with that, as always, remember to be safe, be kind, be well, and be here for the next experience by design. Bye.