XOP

eXperience Officer Protocol
v3.2

0
–
The Meaning




0.1 The Title

When we first created the role eXperience Officer (X.O.), we were trying to embrace the reality that our small team, like many start-ups, cannot afford to have a clear separation of responsibility. An X.O. simply cannot JUST be a receptionist, or a back office support, or even a designer or a developer. We must also be on the front-line serving our users. Thus, eXperience Officers are responsible for theoretically every aspect of a user’s journey from booking to arrival at the lobby, their introduction to our experiences, their interaction with our team, to their check-out and hence repeating experiences.

In today’s practice, the term ‘user experience’ is most often used in the context of the design of applications or some digital products. Clearly, this is an oversimplification or a contrived view of the term. Successful brands from Apple to Ikea, Muji to Aesop design their experience so thoroughly, from their products to their stores, their marketing materials to their shopping experience that every step is a conscious orchestration to make a user feel a certain way. I’d like to hope, in our best days, our experience could let our users feel love.

But love cannot be superficial. Love has to be genuine, it has to come from the inside. And we realised that to be an X.O., you have to first love yourself.

It is not a coincidence that we believe loving yourself starts with sleeping well, then having fun, then living free. Sleeping well, so that you can experience life with a recharged body and mind. Having fun, so that we could do great work with a smile on our faces. And living free, so that we could express our unique selves. And in this life experience, you ought to build relationships through communicating with others, and you ought to make a difference: the fundamental (mathematical) meaning of operation is to be in effect; to cause change in the outcome.

To be an X.O. is to understand that we must start by loving ourselves, by cherishing our one precious life, by exercising our potentials in bringing love to others as well. The XOP is our common ground to enable us to do this together, to find our common purpose, and to amplify our operations.

These are your choices; This it your life: eXperience it. Here. Now.

You only live once, but if you do it right,
once is enough.

— Mae West




0.2 The Dress Code

The X.O. dress code comprise of two simple but important parts: 1.) The full-black, comfortable outfit, and 2.) the white shoes.

The full-black comfortable outfits expresses our brand color along with its philosophy of subtle, quiet, deep presence. The emphasis on comfort sets us apart from the strict, limiting definition of 'professional' looks; We should feel good and look good, at the same time.

The white shoes symbolises our continuous effort to stay pure and authentic amid a world full of challenges and temptations. For more on this, you may read this story on the white shoes.

Aside from the color tone, the clothing should in general be:
1. Simple: with no adornments or large graphics
2. Comfortable: in which you could wear all day and still feel great.
3. Functional: because you need to put in hard work to create greatness. Functional clothing helps you be more efficient.
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0.2.1 EXAMPLES

There could be infinite possible expressions within the two broad rules, here are just some examples.

MALE

FEMALE

#loose #comfy #wear

#outdoor #tactical

#oversized #unisex #norm-core

#minimalist #one-piece




0.3 The Badge

The XO badge is made up of two parts: The X and the O. These are actually abstracted symbols of two social concepts: the individual and the collective.

✕ + ◯

The ✕-mark is used to denote a point on a map, to make a small dot visible in a larger context. We live in a world with bombarding information and the greatest population ever in history. Amongst the noise of Social Media and short-lived influencers, we must hold strong to our own identity. Strong not in a way that is aggressive to others, but strong in a way that is unbothered and unafraid of people's opinion, yet humble enough to learn from everyone and everything.

The ◯-mark, the perfect circle, encompasses the whole, the (eco-)system, the collective, the planet, the universe. It is a reminder of our role to play in the whole. That we should both be aware of our place, as well as our potentials of influence.

Connecting the two concepts is the core value of 'inside-out' of our organisation. The ✕ is the point-source, us. We begin with ourselves, be proactive, and influence others day-by-day. The following illustration of the Spherical Wave-front may help explain this better:

Spherical Wave-front

Circular wave-fronts are easy to understand in this example: when we throw a stone in a lake, ripples are formed in all directions surrounding the point of impact. If we look from the top, it will look like concentric circles. But this is only from the top(2D). Now if there is an impact that happens at a point in space, the ripples expanding in all-directions, we have a sphere of ripples. This is the spherical wave front.

Our actions and deeds are the point source of impact. They ripple through space, they influence others. It starts from right here, right where you are. You are the centre of this sphere.

This XO badge is a gentle, symbolic reminder to ourselves on the importance to focus on the self while being acutely aware of the collective.

Next:

1. Communication