Welcome to what's next in your digital business evolution.
Use optimization, personalization, or automation technology to differentiate?
Become more user-centered?
Best leverage and measure the performance of content assets?
Simplify, yet innovate, the ways you serve your customers?
Strategy, design, and fast-track results from connected experiences.
Connected UX is any digital touchpoint—from a product to a site to a contextual user flow—that requires orchestrating assets across multiple systems of record and, usually, multiple channels. CX here usually refers to the overall system, the UX to the particulars.
Popular examples of connected experience include Disney’s Magic Band and Sephora’s customer-to-customer messaging interface (credit:Â Bryan Malezsyk).
Personalization is a set of techniques and technologies for delivering a variety of connected experiences celebrated for their effectiveness.
An experience that uses customer data and understanding to frame, guide, extend, and enhance interactions based on that person’s history, preferences, context, and intent.
—James McCormick, Forrester (2017)
It includes everything from notifications to recommenders, dynamic content modules to bots, and test-and-learn practices.
Popular examples of personalized experiences includes Spotify’s algorithmically-generated music playlists, Amazon’s product recommendations, StitchFix, and Netflix’s user interface.
Personalization is hard, essential, and evolving fast. (Disagree?) It’s also part of a broader business trend.
Organizations today are seeking competitive advantage by becoming more user-centric and performance-focused across everything they do.
Part of that involves implementing robust, complex marketing technology. Another part involves finding new ways to measure, enhance, and systematize the value they bring their customers.
Bucket can accelerate your digital capabilities each way.
What clients say
Jeff's expert insights and deep domain knowledge has been a key driver in unlocking the ROI of Consumer Reports' personalization efforts and taking them to a new level. He's helped drive strategic and tactical focus by thinking about smarter systems and processes—from the inside out—while super-serving our members and prospects.
Jeff's also collegial, witty, and unfailingly good-natured, even in ambiguous and challenging situations.
I highly recommend him to anyone pursuing CX excellence that drives bottom-line results.”
He delivered speedy, excellent results, both on-schedule and significantly under budget ... I've learned a great deal from his expertise."
He did an amazing job assisting with our search for personalization software. His deep experience in this space is proven by his thoughtful insights and his educational programming - which included key recommendations on how our business should transform in practice, organization and thought to leverage this new technology.
I'd recommend Jeffrey to any company looking for guidance and help in leveraging personalization software and strategies.“
Jeff has been instrumental in helping us kick start our personalization program. He’s assisted and guided us through all stages, our software platform search, KPI development and instrumentation, and strategies on building out our roadmap leveraging our new technology.
Jeff is a great communicator and works seamlessly and effectively with all sides of the business. “
Recommended kick-start solutions for connected experience
Ship better, sooner. We systematize key moments in your customer journey.
Test and learn
GUERRILLA TESTING focused on performance measurement and optimization: make key user interactions more data-driven to drive ROI.
User experience optimization
Smart user flows
Laser-focused PROOFS-OF-CONCEPT hatch personalization-driven programs, or launch products, features, or functionality.
Personalization and automation
Connected content
Deliver a CONTENT OPERATIONS "factory floor": Streamline metadata management. Automate content interactions. Remove cost, yet expand reach.
Content strategy and information sciences
Bucket provides a range of services key to realizing the connected CX business opportunity.
PRODUCTS, EXPERIENCES, and PROOFS OF CONCEPT: Bucket designs for a full array of digital touchpoints, from sites and apps to emerging content formats, channels, and user interfaces. We mobilize small squads to accelerate test-and-learn insights in your digital setting.
STRATEGY and MANAGEMENT CONSULTING: Personalization is a daunting area of marketing technology. We assess and evaluate the shape of your business opportunity with personalized experience. Combined with our community services, Bucket Studio provides niche expertise in driving measurable results, brand differentiation, and clear direction for connected experience—finding the right fit for you across customization, automation, and personalization in your customer touchpoints.
CONTENT OPERATIONS: Content is critical. All businesses have a stake in a more compelling customer experience, no matter the size, and content must perform. For content-focused clients, Bucket can tune and accelerate their business flywheel and their sales and marketing automation machines by focusing on making the most of content—and orchestrating high-performing user flows across the customer journey.
Bucket’s principal and teams have conducted countless projects across numerous sectors and in many challenging works settings, working for some of the more signature brands on the planet.
See our testimonials on this site, request more that are available only offline, and connect with Jeffrey MacIntyre on LinkedIn to see many more.
Bucket is genuinely independent and positioned to advise you judiciously.
Apart from that, here are 3 factors that distinguish us from competitors in our domain:
Content subject matter expertise, the x-factor in personalization work. We understand how design and context impacts content ROI.
Information sciences rigor. In short, AI needs IA. Algorithms rely on architecture. We deliver a “smart” UX that weaponizes structured data.
Product-centric savvy in Bucket’s own progressive personalization technique, closing the competitive gap and revealing incremental business opportunity, creating value even through modest efforts.
See our thought leadership below to get a fuller taste of Bucket’s unique POV and approach.
We’re veterans of large- and small-team projects (many times over).
We also thrive in working with tight-knit teams, doing guerrilla design.
Bucket regularly taps subject matter experts across major digital disciplines to form purpose-built teams for special assignments, from designers and developers to SEO and technology-specific specialists. Our network of fellow independents spans New York, the U.S., and abroad. We’d be happy to hear about your needs and work from there to assemble the key resources.
Project results
7-figure lifetime value from conversion rate optimization
Experiment results performed 3X lift of any test result in over 3 years.
A conversion rate at 70% on a 35% open rate
A software-as-a-service client got a kickstart to automating its email marketing efforts.
Busy users loved notifications so much, they asked for more
A widely praised proof-of-concept for role-based personalization was delivered on time, under budget.
2+2=6 when content library nirvana is achieved
New product features and revenue stream were realized by a taxonomy crosswalk.
Clients
Clients of Bucket Studio and Predicate, LLC
Jeffrey MacIntyre, Principal
An independent content-focused strategy consultant, and avowed information sciences obsessive, Jeffrey works at the crossroads of product development, user experience, and information sciences.
His byline has appeared in WIRED, the New York Times, among many other publications. Jeffrey is also a founding member of the Consortium of Personalization Professionals. He has spoken and workshopped widely at conferences in North America and Europe.
His clients include the American Museum of Natural History, Best Buy, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Condé Nast, Consumer Reports, JP Morgan Chase, Mailchimp, Mastercard, NBCUniversal, News Corporation, Philips, Thomson Reuters, UNICEF, Universal Music, University of Michigan, Viacom, Vimeo, and Yahoo!
Predicate, his original consultancy, was founded in 2008; Bucket is new to late 2016.
Predicate’s focus is to define content offerings and product strategies. Bucket’s approach is to help organizations grapple with personalization, marketing automation, and content operations.
His consulting, speaking, and advisory work spans cultural institutions, startups, and the Fortune 50.
Selected thinking
Stay in the loop with Bucket’s efforts, and we’ll do our best to provide assistance—incorporating tips and techniques on ways to address challenges you share with us (anonymously, of course) through our existing speaking and publishing activities.
—How to uncover business opportunity in personalized experience
—How to design for personalized experience
—How to get started with personalization
—Where to get started with personalization or marketing automation
—How to master connected CX in a large organization
Feed us your best ideas.
Want to connect on something specific? Book a time to talk today or find us on Twitter.
Selected workshops & talks
Creating Connected ExperiencesÂ
MarTech Boston | 16 October 2018
Stop acquiring more marketing technology and start better connecting it to your digital customer experiences. This event will help you realize the full potential of your existing martech investment by better aligning it to your customer experience strategy and digital execution.
BUXÂ | 25 October 2018
Design for Personalization, Or: Never Send a Marketer or Technologist to Do a UXer’s Job
UXPA DCÂ | 12 April 2018
Putting Personalization in Your UX Playbook
JC-UXÂ | 15 November 2017
Craft Your Personalization POV
What folks say. Bucket Studio in the conversation online.
A great presentation on #personalization by @ColinEags and @jeffmacintyre today at KM Showcase in Arlington #kmshow pic.twitter.com/CNCW7En9D9
— Jamie Muskopf (@MindAtWerk) March 5, 2020
I like the internal #personas of critic, skeptic, pundit, pragmatist, and box checker. #kmshowcase #kmshow https://t.co/xNeKsP9reM
— Dr. Liz Herman (@dr_herman) March 4, 2020
Why should we care about #personalization? Because our clients do! #contentstrategy #UX @jeffmacintyre of
— UXPA DC Chapter (@uxpadc) April 12, 2018
@ThisIBucket at
@SCPublicSector pic.twitter.com/Vl1cTN1cK3
Workshoppin’ away with @BryanFromBoston and @jeffmacintyre at @MarTechConf #martechconf pic.twitter.com/WlbTcZMkwx
— jeff cram (@jeffcram) October 1, 2018
Listen to @arockley, @jeffmacintyre, @heinz, and @MarieGirard do a #ContentStrategy deep dive, skills needed, and how the practice is similar and how it differs across the content landscape. https://t.co/UsgqhNws6z
— Rahel (wash your hands) Bailie (@rahelab) May 28, 2019
So much fun listening to @jeffmacintyre wit & wisdom on Personalization POV (brands need to design one) #jc-ux meetup TY @orangelemons52
— Lawrence Lipkin (@lawrencelipkin) November 16, 2017
It was a true pleasure to moderate a panel of really fun, smart peeps at our second UX Content Design NYC Meetup event last night! Thank you @tamara Mindy Gold @jeffmacintyre and Michael Parrish DuDell for your expert insights to m…https://t.co/6AVzgxnc3c https://t.co/5VtF8aldyA
— katiedel (@katiedel) December 14, 2018
The 2018 Boston @MarTechConf is off to a great start w/ Creating Connected Experiences (eg Personalization) w/ @BryanFromBoston & @jeffmacintyre, then met @chiefmartec at @SASsoftware booth. #martech #martechconf pic.twitter.com/hfGuCOeg0A
— Mark Korey (@markkorey) October 1, 2018
Connecting the dots-content strategy to personalization w/ IA & UX-with @jeffmacintyre! Thanks @fearlessbmore & @betamore. pic.twitter.com/PVKUhkphTt
— Baltimore UX Meetup (@BaltimoreUX) October 25, 2018
You don’t need personalisation | @jeffmacintyre: “In #personalisation, there’s a zoology of naysayers and the things they naysay. Just the same, it’s critical to engage constructively with dissenting views.” https://t.co/dQ05XvARQr #ux #uxdesign #userexperience pic.twitter.com/yUF11JXpFG
— User Viewing (@UserViewing) October 22, 2019
Fascinating read on personalization in product design. It's rather long, but definitely worth your time if you ever plan on creating personalized UX
— The Life Of Ty (@tsmorro) December 23, 2017
“Progressive Personalization: Designing a Better Personalized Experience” @jeffmacintyre https://t.co/Anvoft7h9b
Personalization is a fought over buzzword. What happens when you say "Yea, but we don't need it" @jeffmacintyre https://t.co/umYZlitmIi
— dscout (@dscout) August 18, 2017
Dense and worth it: @jeffmacintyre unpacks the UX challenges in product personalization—and the stakes if we fail. https://t.co/19jU8ANZfM
— zeldman (@zeldman) July 28, 2017
Notifications schemes are raw or cooked: https://t.co/XRiqDBXUtA via @jeffmacintyre #UX
The triumph of product-centered versus user-centered priorities. pic.twitter.com/kBKDR6xLlE — Eric Boduch (@eboduch) August 16, 2019
“Our professional existence is staked on one particular stock in trade: the ability to reason out the real contents of that black box filled with lorem ipsum.” Ten years ago, @jeffmacintyre shared his thoughts on what it means to be a content strategist. https://t.co/445JBJ5DlE pic.twitter.com/bfvZncaKKP
— Brain Traffic (@BrainTraffic) December 17, 2018
What does 2020 hold for marketing and CX? Hear from experts @jeffmacintyre of @ThisIsBucket, @susanealdrich, @Hyken, @draab of @CDPInstitute, @DomNicastro of @CMSWire, @omnitalk, @skingstone of @451Research & @AHzimmerman of @Evergage https://t.co/H7alFcgjrq pic.twitter.com/l6krAHUf3U
— Evergage, A Salesforce Company (@Evergage) December 23, 2019
Readers are loving “Mastering One Voice”! Thank you @jeffmacintyre for your review!
Visit https://t.co/gc6LQL6G6B to learn more and to get your copy today! pic.twitter.com/yE9fY6vBq4 — Upland Kapost (@kapost) February 26, 2020
Leading expert @jeffmacintyre‘s #KMShowcase2020 session will help you lean into your organization’s #personalization and #optimization efforts by taking your #taxonomy skills in a fresh direction. Register today! https://t.co/bKhG8AR5EM pic.twitter.com/YFcL0Jp2UV
— Enterprise Knowledge (@EKConsulting) February 21, 2020
An amazing day yesterday in Boston with The Consortium of #Personalization Professionals. Big thanks CPP fellows @AmandaShiga @mara_low @jeffmacintyre @ColinEags @mrcruce @kpnichols @larsbirkholm @jeffcram An amazing, deep, and multi-faceted conversation! https://t.co/SV3IlabuLM
— John Berndt (@rjohnberndt) February 13, 2020
All, take this seriously, Jeff is a talented and major thinker on these topics...! https://t.co/WEqXL3gC1i
— John Berndt (@rjohnberndt) October 22, 2017
In Baltimore Oct. 25? Don’t miss “Design for Personalization: Or, Never Send a Marketer or Engineer to Do a UXer’s Job,” featuring the brilliant @jeffmacintyre of @ThisIsBucket Studio – master of personalized product opportunity.https://t.co/8SYj90G0wW
— zeldman (@zeldman) October 17, 2018
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Bucket Holdings is based in New York, with offices in the bucolic Hudson Valley, about one hour from Manhattan's Grand Central Station.
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