Art of Social Immersion: Transforming Digital Spaces into Social Catalysts
📑 Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:58 - Jasmin’s designs as immersive experiences
02:30 - Case stories from Jasmin’s career
06:46 - The framework that helps create experiences
08:52 - Defining playfulness & other concepts
11:11 - Building spaces to activate playfulness
13:31 - Social & human connections
16:50 - Making people feel safe
21:45 - Creating transformative experiences
25:49 - Measuring the impact
29:01 - Challenges when creating experiences
32:31 - Jiani’s recap of the episode
34:26 - Jasmin at 11 years old
42:10 - Jasmin’s magic
Watch the full episode here.
💕 Story Overview
Welcome to S6E1 of the @MAGICademy Podcast! Today, our guest is Jasmin Jodry, an award-winning creative director based in New York, renowned for crafting transformative immersive experiences. She specializes in merging art and entertainment to create shared 'Story-living' concepts that foster participation and emotional connection, which then lead to transformative perceptual shifts.
We had an amazing conversation about her work and the different types of immersive experiences she creates, how awe and playfulness play a crucial role in those experiences and our development as human beings, and the variety of impacts that these powerful activities have on leadership environments.
🌼 Magical Insights
Impact of Story Narrative & Emotions: Stories powerfully affect our emotions (1), both in our minds and bodies. Research shows our bodies react strongly during exciting parts of stories, and how a story is built shapes how intensely we feel. Different types of stories create different feelings, and clever writing can even make us feel mixed emotions. Stories also spark our imagination and senses, making experiences more memorable. Importantly, emotional stories make us feel more empathy.
Agency, Awe, Play: Agency refers to the ability of participants to interact with and influence the story, either locally within a scene or globally by altering the overall narrative pathway. Research has shown that providing agency in immersive stories can significantly impact the perception of presence and emotional involvement and elicit awe (2,3). Awe is often described as an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that transcend current frames of reference.This experience can lead to: a) A "small self" effect, diminishing the individual self and its concerns, potentially increasing prosocial behavior and ethical decision-making (4); b) Increased exploration: The sense of vastness associated with awe can encourage individuals to explore and engage with their environment more playfully, as they seek to understand and make sense of their experiences (5).
Return on Experience (ROX) is emerging as a crucial indicator for measuring the impact of narrative-driven immersive experiences. Unlike traditional ROI metrics, ROX provides a more comprehensive assessment of the value generated by these experiences. When evaluating ROX for immersive experiences, it's essential to consider both quantitative and qualitative measures. These may include metrics such as engagement levels, emotional impact, information retention, and behavioral changes post-experience. A comprehensive research protocol developed by Nesta and i2 Media Research found that positive affect and engagement were consistent predictors of global impact and value ratings across various immersive contents (6).
⭐ What’s Jasmin’s Magic?
Envisioning and creating immersive worlds that combine fun, innovation and transformative goals that are good for the community, and fostering connections
Conclusion
Immersive story narratives offer a powerful tool for developing leadership skills by combining the elements of agency, play, and awe. These narratives create emotionally engaging experiences that resonate deeply with participants, fostering empathy and memorable learning. Incorporating agency allows leaders-in-training to actively shape the story's outcome, enhancing their sense of presence and emotional involvement. This agency can lead to awe-inspiring moments, which in turn promote a "small self" effect, encouraging prosocial behavior and ethical decision-making - crucial traits for effective leadership.
The awe experienced also stimulates playful exploration, allowing leaders to engage with complex scenarios in a safe, interactive environment. When structured with clear rules and roles, these immersive experiences create a balance of playfulness and safety, enabling participants to fully engage without fear. Also consider incorporating metrics on experience ROX to measure impact from more expansive dimensions. This combination of emotional engagement, agency, awe, structured play, and ROX provides a unique and effective approach to leadership development, allowing future leaders to experience, reflect upon, and internalize key leadership qualities in a deeply impactful way.
If you would like to stay tuned with our future guests and their magical stories. Welcome to join us.
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Balancing Creativity and Business While Avoiding Burnout
Enhancing Human Connections Through Immersive Social Experiences
Entrepreneurs' Guide to Preventing Burnout
How Do We Stay Centered Amidst Life's Chaos
Measuring the Impact of Return of Experiences
The Importance of an Inclusive Catalyst Experience
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Schmidt, M. L. C., Winkler, J. R., Appel, M., & Richter, T. (2023). Tracking emotional shifts during story reception: The relationship between narrative structure and affective responses. Scientific Study of Literature, 12(1), 17-39.
Carstensdottir, E., Kleinman, E., Williams, R., & Seif El-Nasr, M. S. (2021, May). ” Naked and on Fire”: Examining Player Agency Experiences in Narrative-Focused Gameplay. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1-13).
Quesnel, D., & Riecke, B. E. (2018). Are you awed yet? How virtual reality gives us awe and goose bumps. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 2158
Piff, P. K., Dietze, P., Feinberg, M., Stancato, D. M., & Keltner, D. (2015). Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology, 108(6), 883.
Ihm, E. D., Paloutzian, R. F., van Elk, M., & Schooler, J. W. (2019). Awe as a meaning-making emotion: On the evolution of awe and the origin of religions. In The evolution of religion, religiosity and theology (pp. 138-153). Routledge.
Lessiter, J., Mitchell, S., Ferrari, E., Borden, P., Bakhshi, H., & Freeman, J. (2018). Evaluating immersive user experience and audience impact. A report produced by Nesta and i2 Media Research for Digital Catapult.
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Jasmin Jodry is an award-winning creative director based in New York, renowned for crafting transformative immersive experiences.
With over 20 years of experience in the US and Europe, she has partnered with leading brands across culture, tech, luxury, and entertainment sectors, having worked for notable clients such as Cirque Du Soleil, Meow Wolf, and 'Avatar: The Shape of Water,' as well as upcoming projects like 'Bob Marley: Hope Road Immersive' in Las Vegas.
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Jiani (00:03.795)
Welcome to Magic Academy podcast. Today with us is Jasmine and design executive, co -founder of World Experience group. And she has been devoting her design expertise in helping brand develop storytellings, immersive stories, and then stories that not only immersive, but also transformational and facilitate human connections. Some of the folks that she has worked with are.
Mew Wolfs and Hush and you name a few. So great to have you Jasmine to join our podcast today to share your expertise in immersive and transformational design.
Jasmin (00:43.854)
Thank you. Actually, can we start again? I'm not the co -founder of the World Experience Organization. That would be wrong.
Jiani (00:51.443)
okay. So a member, executive member.
Jasmin (00:54.158)
Yeah, don't even mention that. That's just a membership thing. I'm just an executive creative director. So, yeah.
Jiani (00:57.779)
okay.
executive creative director. Okay, do you want me to mention like the work that you do at model or just keep it short?
Jasmin (01:09.614)
No, Moto is just my legal name as an LLC, but yeah, we don't need to mention that. Nobody knows me as Moto. I just use it for contracts.
Jiani (01:20.211)
I see. So I'll just say executive.
Jasmin (01:24.334)
executive creative director. Yeah.
Jiani (01:27.251)
executive creative director and keep it short and simple. Okay, perfect.
Jasmin (01:30.414)
Yeah, and you could say that I've worked with Cirque du Soleil, Meow Wolf, companies like that perhaps, but yeah. Sorry, I just want to make sure it's correct, you know, again.
Jiani (01:39.571)
Okay. No problem, no problem. It's good that you pointed out. Yeah, perfect, perfect. All right, let's go.
executive creative director okay
Jasmin (01:56.206)
Yeah, correct.
Jiani (01:59.891)
Welcome to Magic Academy podcast and today with us is Jasmine. She has been a executive creative director. She's been working. She has worked with a lot of creative brands such as Cirque du Soleil and MuWoff and so great to have you Jasmine with us today on our podcast.
Jasmin (02:19.822)
Thank you, Jenny, for such a nice introduction. It's a pleasure to be here.
Jiani (02:25.107)
Perfect. So for folks who are curious to learn more about you, how would you introduce yourself in 30 seconds in a way that nobody has heard about yet?
Jasmin (02:37.262)
Yeah, nobody has heard about it, I don't know. But yeah, my name is Jodhry. I'm a New York based creative director and I specialize in experience design. And in particular, I focus on creating immersive experiences that blend art, culture and entertainment to deepen emotional connections and craft memories.
Jiani (02:40.723)
Hehehe
Jiani (02:59.155)
That's beautiful. And you've been talking about the immersive experience that transform people and help people to build deeper, more authentic human connections. And that really gets kind of me and our audience interested. So can you share with us a little bit of like how everything, why this immersive and transformational experience? What was the founding story behind that?
Jasmin (03:29.07)
Yeah, yeah, thank you. I designed once an experience for the Illuminarium where people went into a world and that was my first 45 -minute experience that I designed. And it was really interesting because normally I'm used to three minutes from music videos or 10 minutes from interactive work and this was like a long timeline. So I literally looked at the Aristoteles drama arc, you know, act one, two, three.
and started structuring it like that more with a narrative arc, with an emotional arc, how I wanted the audience to feel at each segment. And that really got me interested because I really like crafting emotional arcs and making sure that the audience connects emotionally to the content. Because when they do, I find it so rewarding if you get them to participate. The experiences that I create now, they're all about...
audience participation, co -creation, about giving them agency, really activating the audience. And I find that really rewarding, you know.
Jiani (04:39.411)
And let's kind of dive that deeper into the space. So were there any particular stories, case studies that you can share that actually creates an immersive experience that people actually experience a transformational way of being and deep participation and a deep sense of agency?
So I'm just curious, any stories to share to help us visualize what that looks like.
Jasmin (05:13.07)
Yeah, sure. A lot of the latest work is NDA based that I can't share, but what can I share? I did one wellness experience lately that is a breath based experience. So there are these illuminated tents. It kind of has this James Turrell lighting that guides you to a tent. And inside the tent, there's like a teapot and people sort of bond before the experience starts.
And then during the experience, they learn a certain breathing technique called resonance frequency breathing that calms down your parasympathetic nervous system through the vagal toning. And yeah, so it's sort of wellness -based. It gives people the tool to practice this breathing later at home, or perhaps they come back for repeat visits. But...
it's also done in an entertaining way. They got the illuminated tents, they got the tea, so they kind of bond before they go through this breathing ceremony in a way. But it has a good outcome. They can learn something, they can apply it at home once they get back. I see them as transformative catalyst experiences, so to say. You set an entertaining stage,
But the experiences have a good outcome. They create empathy or human connection or more embodiment. So there's something that the audience takes home and can apply in their daily lives, which I like.
Jiani (06:48.019)
So it's not just one time experience, it's something that they resonate and they bring that into part of their being by practicing it on a daily basis after that particular experience. I think kind of breath work is one of the easiest way to help people develop that transformational skills in like mental wellness and the ability to focus. That's great.
Jasmin (07:15.886)
Yeah, you said it really nice. And sometimes they are more under a wellness umbrella. Sometimes they are more entertainment based. For example, there's one experience, I can't say too much, but it tackles sort of the polarization in the world. You know, you come to this experience and there are different worlds that seem polarized and opposite. But while you're going through this experience, it's quite edgy. You learn the pros and cons of each world. And in the end, you kind of see they're not so...
Jiani (07:32.179)
Hmm.
Jasmin (07:45.87)
different at all if you really have an open mind and give it a chance to get to know them. So that one really raised empathy for both sides. So it's a bit more political but done in a very artistic context that when you go through it, you may not think it's political but perhaps our post experience when you reflect on it, you're like, hmm, that could apply to many things in my life, you know, so.
That one wasn't particularly wellness focused, that was more entertainment focused. But I like to think about the objective. Why am I doing this experience? How does it move the needle? What are visitors or participants going to get out of it? Why does it need to be made? Why is it important now? How does it tackle any current societal or political issues that we have? Because I like to think of immersive experiences as...
almost as medicine or as entertainment remedies that can help us integrate or potentially heal or educate things we need to learn.
Jiani (08:55.247)
That's beautiful. Yeah, there's a, there have been a theme of like immersive media as medicine kind of surging and merging in a space of, of not only entertainment. I think entertainment is kind of marrying or converging with like healing, mental health, human development, human transformation, evolution, and, and, and build stronger connections in a, in a highly...
polarized world.
Jasmin (09:27.374)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Jiani (09:30.003)
That's beautiful. And when you design that, do you have like a framework that helps to tackle any sort of like experience design? And when you are presented with a project, say we wanted to design a space where we help people to overcome implicit biases, where they're doing team leadership in a corporate or startup environment.
How would you go about it through your philosophy and your framework?
Jasmin (10:04.814)
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question. Thank you. Well, first I look at the outcome, you know, why are we doing it? What is the goal? Do we want to get people to interact with each other? Do we want to raise empathy? Is it a creativity project? Do we want to expand people's imagination? Do we want a memory building experience? Do we want...
authentic self -expression, you know, what are the things that we want to enable there? And then from there, once I have the outcome, then I sort of go to the vehicles, you know, how are we going to achieve this? You know, do we want to leverage play participation? Do we need to build awe in order to raise empathy? You know, do we need to foster emotional connection or social connection between people? Like, what are the vehicles, you know? And then,
From the vehicles, I sort of go back to the aesthetic tools or the narrative tools. What kind of story building, what kind of storytelling, world building, performance, tech or game mechanics do we need to apply in order for the people to engage with that particular outcome? So I guess I work backwards. A lot of people start with the tools and with the storytelling and I...
I start with the end result with the outcome and then I work backwards.
Jiani (11:29.587)
Well, I appreciate that. It's like with the outcome in mind and so you never get lost and it's beautiful.
Jasmin (11:37.294)
Yeah, so there's more like a red thread all the way through the experience and at all times we kind of know what we're building for. Yeah, exactly.
Jiani (11:43.247)
I love that.
Jiani (11:50.067)
I love that. And you mentioned three keywords that kind of just like ring a bell in my head. You mentioned the keyword of all. You mentioned the keyword of playfulness and you mentioned the keyword of like social connections. And how do you define all and how do you define playfulness?
Jasmin (12:11.63)
Yeah, I think awe is something bigger than yourself. So immediately when we feel awe, we understand it's bigger than ourselves. So it increases, it makes us open -minded because it's too big to understand. So we might as well just surrender. Yeah, we just surrender into it. But that comes with a certain open -mindedness that we lose the need for cognitive control. We just surrender and it...
Jiani (12:26.675)
We just dished. Universe is dished.
Jasmin (12:39.438)
it boosts pro -social skills. So, always a really good way to get people to socially connect. So, yeah, it's a great way to do that. And I think playfulness, it's kind of like sometimes, it's great for interactive projects because you get people out of this academic critical mind. You know, sometimes as adults, we get so critical about things and we forget this like in the moment embodied in our presence, carefree.
sort of like we were as children, you know, and when you onboard people and you really make them feel, you meet them where they're at, you make them feel seen, you know, no judgment, it's just a zone where they're accepted, they feel safe, and then you kind of trigger them or tickle them to sort of engage, you know, you really can get people to play. I remember once,
Jiani (13:11.571)
Thank you.
Jasmin (13:34.35)
we had a, it was called Modular. It was a Kinect based installation where people could play with a particle system and it had a dancer in it. But people could also dance with this particle system. And first, you know, they were a little shy and in the end we couldn't get them off the dance floor when we wanted to shut the place down, you know? And the body language that came out, a hip hopper that went on there had a totally different body language than somebody who had a more ballet background or just a normal,
person without any movement backgrounds. And it was really interesting what came out of them. It was delightful to see. And they completely played with a particle system. They engaged very playfully, no judgment. And it was just really fun.
Jiani (14:21.907)
I love that. And what was the mechanism to build such a space where playfulness can be activated in people? And was there a secret formula? What was that?
Jasmin (14:41.102)
Yeah, I think we build, first we have to onboard people, we have to make them feel good, feel open -minded, you know. And then I think if you drizzle in some mystery and you have them embodied at the right spot, sort of the mystery, the not knowing, I feel also makes them, if you don't know, you can't control it either. So then you might as well play more or.
Jiani (14:55.347)
you
Jiani (15:01.071)
you
Jasmin (15:08.974)
discover, you know, if you get them in the adventure spirit, in the explorer spirit, I think that's a really good way to make people discover and play and yeah, they don't know what's coming yet. It's unpredictable. It's anticipation and uncertainty mixed in the right way usually works for that, I find.
Jiani (15:32.819)
I love that. It also resonates with the concept of, we're this tiny person and then the world is so big and it's full of mysteries that we need to explore. And we also need to feel a sense of like agency. Yes, it's big and I have the resources for myself to explore. And so I like that. So it is a balance.
Jasmin (15:54.958)
And maybe sometimes also humor, you know, if you have an experience, sure it's always high -end polished and all that, but if you drizzle a little humor in there, you know, people know that they don't take themselves so seriously and that this is a place to like play and not the perfectionism thing. So I think that that's nice too. I like that particularly. I see a lot of dance performances like, you know, Pina Bausch and stuff like that.
And sometimes they're so silly on stage. It's like high skill, but they're also silly and it's funny. And I find that really accessible and so fresh and not stuck up or trying to be so professional. I think humor is a great gateway for playfulness.
Jiani (16:42.771)
And I think especially for adults, I think that's where human can help us to crack open and let that inner child come out and play. That's beautiful. And as you are designing these type of transformational immersive experiences, you also mentioned about the social connections, the human connections. Can you help us kind of
Jasmin (16:49.71)
Yeah.
Jasmin (16:54.126)
Yeah.
Jiani (17:11.891)
dive a little bit deeper of what do you mean by that, like social and human connections and are there any particular stories that you can share that you've seen kind of an increase or enhanced human connections after that or in that immersive experiences?
Jasmin (17:28.782)
Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, a couple of examples come to mind. For example, in the breath experience that I described, we have 20 people per tent. And when they come into the tent, there's a little teapot that's next to the teapot is a sign that says, please serve yourself some delicious tea or serve others. And there's no dos and there are nothing. So I think the tea acts a bit like an icebreaker because sometimes when you go,
Jiani (17:51.055)
you
Jasmin (17:58.702)
to an event and you just stand around who else is there, but with a little teapot. People might grab it and ask others and then they might talk about the tea and they kind of like meet each other already. When I think about crafting social connection, it's really about putting the right affordances in place where then people extend the behavior and it works without somebody saying they're okay now.
shake hands with your fellow neighbor or something, that would be really stiff. But if you just set something up where that almost evokes them talking to each other, then I find that works really well. Another example might be we did some projection mapped environments for a bigger project. It was a sort of rain foresty project. And in there we had tropical rain storms and people were standing in rain puddles, but we designed it for single player and multiplayer, meaning that in the multiplayer ones,
Jiani (18:30.899)
Yeah.
Jasmin (18:56.494)
people were included in a rain puddle together. And we were hoping that that would encourage conversation or there were two lakes in there and some flowers and some sea lilies. By stepping onto a sea lily, you would open it and there was a flower but bloom. But there were singular sea lilies you could open by yourself. And then there were sea lilies for multi -players where you needed three people in order to open a sea lily. So if you came to the experience...
Jiani (19:22.419)
It's a big one.
Jasmin (19:23.854)
Yeah, exactly. So if you came to the Experience solo, you need to find other people so you can open this thing together with. And it's just little conversation starts like that, you know. Or sometimes when we do workshops, we have you share with your neighbor and you ask them questions. And the questions are general, but they do allow sometimes a deep share. And all of a sudden you've bonded with somebody you've never met before about a subject matter where something came out, I feel...
Jiani (19:35.251)
I love that.
Jasmin (19:53.742)
Enabling safe sharing is also a really good way to connect people emotionally in a meaningful way.
Jiani (20:01.267)
I love that. Are there any things inside of the sea lilies when you open it or something like surprising coming out? Or it's just sea lilies? I'm just curious.
Jasmin (20:13.422)
Surreal, surreal surprises. In that case, there were other surreal surprises, but not particularly in the sealer.
Jiani (20:19.623)
I'm sorry, I wanted to open it and see what's in there. Cool. And so you also mentioned about that safety and I would imply it also inclusive. So how do we actually build an immersive environment that make people feel safe and inclusive and welcomed and potentially validated and
Jasmin (20:23.534)
Hahaha
Jiani (20:46.227)
and feel like they're being met where they are so they can move forward like well how
Jasmin (20:52.526)
Yeah, yeah, really good question. It's so important. I want to think in the breath experience, we particularly casted a very diverse audience. So, for example, we would advertise the breath experience in also community crisis centers and in the Bronx and state and island and in Queens, where normally people might not go to wellness experiences per se. You know, it wasn't just for the Upper West Side Yoga Bunnies. So we really did a big effort to
get people from all sorts of backgrounds there. And I think by seeing yourself represented or you know also through actors you know in that one experience that we wrote the more entertainment based one we would have actors that manifest diversity. So when you see an actor that represents your own
yourself in a way, I think then you already open up, you feel you're being represented truthfully. So that's one. Definitely the representation. The other one is the onboarding. You know, people need to feel safe. They need to know what their rules are, if there is participation, what are the rules, what is their role. And when they understand that and it's clear, I feel then they relax and it's almost
when I do these more entertainment -based things, I define a certain distance between the participant and the content. But that distance needs to be kept the same throughout the experience. So I can't once put them into an observer position and then in the next chapter, in the next sequence, I want them to participate like crazy. You know, that doesn't work because first we teach them to be passive and then we would require lots of activeness.
So it's almost like finding the right distance between them to the content. Is it crazy participatory or is it more an observer thing? But then also keeping that consistent. So they kind of understand the level of their participation. Can they just affect projections by location and dwell time? Or do their choices have consequences? So is it a branching storyline? Is it an adaptive storyline?
Jiani (23:05.555)
Hmm.
Jasmin (23:13.55)
Where is the soul? What are the limits? And I think they really understand that. For example, with a particle system, they really understood. And we had hidden things in there and we thought, they're never going to discover that. Yeah, within five minutes, they had discovered a lot of it. So then it's also designing for, we put it in three different engagement levels. We designed for skimmers, swimmers, and divers. So skimmers.
are the ones that just dip their toe into the content. It might be if a friend drags you to an experience where you're like, I have no idea what this is. I'm just coming with it. Anyway, yeah, you're a skimmer. You have no clue what's expecting you. And you may just check it out lightly. That's a skimmer. Whereas a swimmer, you may be a bit more familiar with the content. You might want to participate a little bit.
Jiani (23:49.991)
Tag along.
Jasmin (24:06.83)
And then the divers, they are like the hardcore, the super fans. They already know, they might be looking for Easter eggs, they go deeper, they try everything, you know? And it's really, they are the heart of the experience, but maybe not in quantity, in terms of engagement, certainly, but probably the swimmers and the skimmers are the main audience sometimes. The divers are just the 10 % or 15 % usually, but.
It's nice if you can cater to all levels because then everybody can find their right engagement level and also sees themselves represented adequately.
Jiani (24:47.154)
I love that. Such a thorough description and the strategy. And I like how you categorize the participation as skimmer, swimmer, and diver. And this kind of concept can be applied across discipline, across industries. And it's talking more about the readiness of the participants or the students or the learners in that particular experience. I would assume that...
the divers will have more, maybe more likely to experience potential transformative experience, maybe not as frequently. Maybe the swimmer may be able to experience transformative experiences. And that gets me interested, like, how can we make the experiences really transformational?
They can go through an experience, but how can they really feel like, yeah, it is a transformational experience. At the beginning, you mentioned something about the tea ceremonies where they are able to practice something after that experience. Are there any ways to really build in that transformation?
Jasmin (26:10.702)
Yeah, it's a really good question. The transformation, in my opinion, comes afterwards. I guess the experiences that I create, they're more like catalyst experiences where you might make the change, the decision to change, but then the change, that comes afterwards. You know, that is usually something that you have to integrate into your daily life. Like when we look at the breath experience, for example, if you're going through the breath experience and you notice like, wow, this...
four, six breathing, it really calms, I feel good, it calms me down, you know, it really gets me into that resting stage. Then you might decide, ooh, I'm gonna practice that at home, I wanna combat anxiety, I wanna always feel this calm, it makes me feel good, I'll try to do that on a daily basis. And then it's really up to you, what sort of crutch do you need to implement that in your daily life? Does that mean you need an app?
Do you need headspace or a breathing app in order to execute that? Do you need a Pranayama teacher to do it? Or can you do it on your own? Do you have that much discipline? You know, it varies how much discipline you have. What you said earlier, I want to make sure I think the catalyst experiences, they can apply to anybody. Because otherwise it would be an elite experience if we just designed for the divers, you know, that that...
wouldn't feel too inclusive. So I think we really try to have everybody, if people are ready, if they're onboarded and they reflect, anybody might be ready to incite that transformation and then carry it through at home. In the experience that was all about empathy and tolerance, anybody could think about, ooh.
I perceive two very different worlds, Bob. They weren't so different after all. What does that mean? Well, we really need to look closer, don't we? We can't just judge something so superficially. You know, I feel like through the pandemic now, people are so aggressive. I mean, what I see in New York on the streets, it's just road rage everywhere. It's crazy, you know? And just to be a little extra calm, you know, and just reflect and go, hmm.
Jasmin (28:31.726)
I can understand the context here, you know, I can put it into context and see through it a bit more. I think that's just healthy. So I feel all the skimmers, swimmers and divers could be potentially ready for it.
Jiani (28:48.723)
So it's like perspective taking really emphasize with, this person really annoys me. But yeah, but if you're taking from their perspective, that's something, if you are them, you probably do the similar things and then you have like better understanding. Like you mentioned, there's everything could be possibly the same, but they show themselves differently. And even in like a dichotomous ways. That's nice.
Jasmin (29:13.902)
Yeah, exactly. Once we designed a rainforest experience and the rainforest was shown realistically, psychedelically or very fantastically and then sort of artistically. And the objective there was to really get people excited about the rainforest, you know, people that might not be able to travel to India or real rainforests by being in an immersive experience, but being surrounded by the rainforest. They really love the rainforest. And of course that had a climate change.
activism angle to it. You know, if people really love the rainforest, then maybe they're interested in preserving it, you know. So you can have little hooks in there that potentially have impact in your life later. So we can see these hooks in the experiences strategically.
Jiani (30:03.315)
I love that. And you can also safely explore the rainforest without all the dangerous species.
Jasmin (30:10.734)
Yeah.
Jiani (30:12.883)
And when the metrics, so how do you actually measure the impact of experiences? And I know in our previous conversations, you were proposing the concept of return on experiences. So rather than ROI, we're looking at ROX. So can you share with us of that?
ideas that you've been exploring.
Jasmin (30:46.67)
Yeah, sure. I guess, you know, traditional return upon investment measures profit, right? But immersive experiences, how are you going to measure people's feelings about it? Right? Like, how do you measure if the experience has been transformative, if they have shifted their perception or their thoughts or their emotions, right? How do you measure if they have, if the experience has had impact on them?
Jiani (31:00.115)
Mm.
Jasmin (31:15.95)
And that's something we've been discussing a lot in experience design. And it's something you almost need a system of it that describes, because immersive now, it's such a dull marketing word. It can mean anything. It means anything from theme park stuff to Van Gogh experiences to immersive wellness experiences to Meow Wolf and all the in -betweens. It's very vague. So we don't love.
using it sometimes unless there's a specific definition with it. But in immersive experiences, we can measure the level of interactivity or audience participation, right? Or the level of audience agency. Was it memorable, right? Did it have social impact? Was it fun? What was the quality of the onboarding? Was it easy to understand? Was it designed for accessibility?
Jiani (32:03.283)
Mm.
Jasmin (32:09.902)
Are there, what is the percentage of repeat visitors? What is the fan conversion? What is the integration between digital and physical mediums? Is it an authentic experience? So it's almost like they're all very different buckets. And in order to describe immersive experiences more properly, it would almost be good if each of these little categories had a score. Because then when, let's say you were looking for an immersive experience,
you would have a specific descriptor that you would see if that's an immersive experience that's exciting to you. You know, some people want impact experiences, some other people want immersive dining, other people want projection mapped experiences. So how do you know what kind of immersive is right for you?
Jiani (32:47.827)
Mmm.
Jiani (33:00.627)
I love that. It's almost like an indicator. And also if we were to develop any sort of like leadership, immersive leadership trainings or experiences that's transformational, that could be a good, I would say, metrics to present and make that experience persuasive. Yeah, because the really important things is a little bit hard and complicated to measure.
Jasmin (33:21.646)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Jiani (33:29.203)
especially as it relates to human and perception and feelings and authenticity and connect level of connections. That's beautiful. And so the kind of the next question is, were there any, as you are developing those kinds of experiences, were there any particular challenges or?
potential risks or things that we need to be aware of to ensure that the experience is truly transformational according to your
Jasmin (34:10.254)
Yeah, I guess risks are sometimes, you know, just with companies, you know, immersive experiences and interactive experiences really need a test space. You need to test stuff out. You know, it's so interactive. You need to iteratively test stuff out, come up with something, see how that works, see how it works in that medium. You know, usually immersive experiences have so many mediums blended together.
can't figure that out in a little presentation on the computer and then go on site and go, here we go. You know, it doesn't work like that. But sometimes companies don't have the space for a one -on -one test site or not even a VR simulation of it. So in those situations, it can be really, it can be scary, you know, where the launch is adrenaline laden and you're like, well.
Jiani (35:06.195)
Good luck!
Jasmin (35:06.798)
It's not the ideal way of working. I really like play testing and iterative development. And what I found is, you know, I've done a lot of generative software systems and generative. If you develop software, you also iteratively test, you build a little bit, you test it out, you find what works, what doesn't work. And then you optimize towards end delivery. And when I work with actors,
it works the same way, you know? When I wrote this piece with the worlds, we play -tested with actors. I had physical actors and I briefed them what the worlds would be like and then we looked how they were behaving. And they just did some crazy stuff. I had no idea they would react like that. And it's so nice seeing them embodied how they react to a brief, you know? And I always want to work that way because sometimes if I just design things in my head,
It may not be, it's kind of top down and it's nice to see it also bottom up. How does something evolve when we start in the body and then we develop the language from there. So it's kind of the perfect sweet spot if you have both and see what felt authentic and where they meet. So it's, it's very similar working with pixels and people to my own surprise that this iterative playtesting approach works really well.
Jiani (36:33.043)
I love that iterative play testing. Beautiful. It's like a UX design research, but applied in action and in an immersive environment. So I would assume that's more metrics to tap into and more holistic than kind of a typical user interface.
Jasmin (36:36.558)
Yeah, exactly.
Jasmin (36:44.59)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jasmin (36:56.59)
Yeah, because later when you test with the audiences, you also see, I put that there, nobody saw it, but they were fascinated with this thing. That's where they spent most of that time. Or you see the interest, their point of interest, you see the dwell time. If you see any puzzles in the experience, you see if they solved it, if it was too easy, you know, like in this immersive particle system thing. Now, knowing that they...
got everything so quickly. I would have put harder things in there, more easter eggs that they had to discover.
Jiani (37:30.899)
That's beautiful. So as we pivot our conversation into the magic portion of it, I would like to give our audience a brief recap of everything that we've talked about. We talked about Jasmine's founding stories about why she devoted her experience and her design expertise into building transformational, catalystic, immersive experiences that actually foster deeper human -to -human connections and deeper
Jasmin (37:32.558)
Yeah.
Jiani (38:00.563)
and more sustainable changes and transformations among the participants. And we talked about her design framework. We explored how we can actually design a space that makes people feel the sense of awe, feel a sense of playfulness, feel a sense of deep social connections, and how in the design process, how the iterative play test plays a key role.
helping us to stay in that beautiful balance of the top down or the outcome focused design approach versus the meeting people where they are and finding that beautiful balance so we can actually deliver that transformational experiences. We also explored the concept of return on experience and it's different from return on investment.
return on experiences focus more on that qualitative human experience, human feelings, and the immersiveness of the experiences, the playfulness, whichever way you want to, the transcendence of perceptions, whichever way you wanted to measure it. It gives us a more holistic view of what really immersive and transformational experience can potentially look like and feel like.
So beautiful conversations. Thank you, Jasmine. And we thank you. And I really start talking about the magic piece. So Jasmine, we're curious, when you were about 11 years old, what did you enjoy creating or playing so much that time just disappeared for you?
Jasmin (39:29.102)
Thank you.
Jasmin (39:46.126)
Yeah, nice question. My parents were renovating an old farmhouse at the time, so I was always outside. I think I lost my first tooth high up in a tree that I always climbed in and then I sort of slid down from the branches on the way down. I lost my tooth. I was slightly younger than 11. But...
Jiani (40:02.931)
Hahaha
Jasmin (40:08.238)
Yeah, I always played outside. I know from the cons... It was messy outside because they were renovating a farmhouse. So there was wood everywhere. There were animals running around. So I played with... I always made this boat out of these wooden planks and then stories happened on the boat. So really, it was almost like story living. But I just made up games, you know. I never had like a Barbie or like a board game and I...
read the instructions and I obediently played with the game exactly the way it was supposed to be played with. I don't think I played ever like that. So I played more free with, I don't know, dirt and woods and stuff I would find outside, leaves, and just made up my little world with that and, I don't know, improvised, I guess.
Jiani (40:58.835)
I love that. Take the world. Yes, yes. Take the world. I love to play with dirt and whichever like leaves, cheese, whatever I can find in nature. And I think the way to play freely has this magical, gives a lot of sense of agency. Like as if you have all the things that you need to explore the environment that you're in and...
Jasmin (40:59.822)
Is that how you played as a kid?
Jiani (41:26.195)
depending on your imagination and you can go as imaginative as you want. And it also gives you a lot of hands -on experience. You get to touch the environment and play with the environment. There's a lot of research, I think, digging into the hands and how our hands interact with the environment and help us to think and to imagine. I bet you probably have the same experience.
Jasmin (41:51.374)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's really the imagination is your only limit, you know, you can make up anything. And I think by kids just crafting that and not having adults design them toys that says this is the exact meaning and you should use it in this way. I mean, there's like zero imagination in that, you know, and out of dirt and water, you can make anything. So I think playing like that is really healthy.
Jiani (42:21.107)
Yeah, it's so free. Great. Were there any particular challenges that in your life that you have to overcome that helped you shape such a creative and you know, your balancing, you know, exactiveness and creativity to deliver experiences? Were there any, what experience or challenges helped shape who you are and what you're capable of?
Jasmin (42:23.79)
You
Jasmin (42:51.374)
I guess, I don't know, exact challenges. One thing I've been really good about is I've never burned out. I've done this for 25 years wholeheartedly and I've never burned out. But the reason for that is I nourish myself too. Like if I had a really, I know in my 20s, if I worked like crazy for like three, four months doing a commercial or something, afterwards I would just go and travel somewhere, you know, or go to a nice show or...
go into nature. So I've always, if you burn the candle, you need to nourish yourself again so that the balance stays the same, you know? Or, yeah, I don't know, in New York, after the pandemic, you know, I was locked away in the woods without any culture. So I was so hungry for culture after the pandemic. So I went to a lot of art shows and cultural things and...
rituals and ceremonies and all these things to just fill my appetite again. So I feel inspired because when you create edgy experiences, you're not creating them because you're cooking for the family dinner time or something on a daily basis. That's not going to come from there. So you need to find your inspiration and make sure you nourish your inspiration. So then when you're supposed to design all these crazy experiences, you have
food to give, you know, you have excitement and inspiration to pass on a bit like a medium. You take inspiration from somewhere and you put it in the experience to inspire others.
Jiani (44:32.691)
I love that. It's like going into all different cultural experiences to soak up, to absorb everything that the universe has to offer and then share, repackage that and share that with the audience. I love that.
Jasmin (44:49.838)
Yeah, and repackage that, I mean, creating original content, obviously, you know, but.
Jiani (44:54.515)
Yeah, yeah, yes, that's true. Sorry, I didn't use the right word.
Jasmin (44:58.99)
No, but sharing the energy back out that you consumed from the inspiration and hopefully it reaches others and you inspire others. So then it's, it's, we are all one and, and, you know, give and take the energy and pass it back, back to the community. I think that's nice.
Jiani (45:17.235)
I love that. And is there any daily rituals that you do to help? Cause I would imagine people like you create so many interesting and immersive experiences like, and result burnout is very amazing. It's like, it's magical to me. And you mentioned about like, you always do different experiences. And I feel like you have a kind of a very in tuned.
with your inner energies in terms of what you need, when, how much, and then you actively kind of get the resources you need. Or in a daily basis, do you have additional or extra like practices to help you feel centered and always reside and live and happily and playfully in that inner creative space?
Jasmin (46:13.774)
Yeah, I mean, nothing is perfect. I can't say I have a perfect god. But I meditate, so I use meditation to get there. And sometimes I'm so busy I forget it, you know, nobody is perfect. But I think meditation is a great way to sort of center yourself and stay connected to that inner voice, no matter how crazy the job goes, you know, it certainly gives me that resilience and the...
Jiani (46:16.979)
Hahaha
Jasmin (46:41.166)
It's almost like an inner business plan you have with yourself that you maintain your integrity. And sometimes my integrity has been challenged if it's crazy jobs that tear you in all sorts of different directions. And then by just giving myself that moment, I can maintain my own integrity and how I navigate worlds that might challenge integrity otherwise. So that's kind of my secret. Yeah.
Jiani (47:10.259)
I love that. It's similar to an entrepreneur. It's kind of like a typical entrepreneurial journey and how entrepreneurs can avoid potential burnout along the way is to always stay alive internally. The internal inner business plan. I love that. And then the meditation. Do you meditate for a long time every day or five minutes? Because people go different extremes on this. Yeah.
Jasmin (47:37.582)
Yeah, yeah, I try to do 20 minutes twice a day, but sometimes the second part doesn't always happen if I have meetings, you know, I can't not go to a meeting because I'm like, I'm meditating guys, wait for me. That doesn't is unrealistic in New York, you know, but I try to usually 20 minute chunks and I see how many I get in. Yeah.
Jiani (47:40.595)
20 minutes, twice a day.
Jiani (47:58.675)
I love that. And as we conclude this conversation, what do you think is your magic as of 2024?
Jasmin (48:08.542)
I think my magic lies in envisioning and creating immersive worlds that combine fun, innovation and transformative goals that are good for humanity and fostering meaningful connections. So I think I take humanitarian goals and merge them with entertainment. So it's exciting, but it's also good and hopefully transformative.
Jiani (48:36.21)
I love that. And I think another magic that I've just in that short period of conversation that I see is your ability to manage your inner peace or the inner genius or the inner elf.
or the inner magician, like you're able to, you use the word distance, you're able to kind of keep a healthy distance between that energyness and the crazy demand in the work that you have to kind of manage. And that healthy distance helps you to always stay in your zone of creativity and playfulness. So it's an art.
Jasmin (49:19.854)
Most of the time. Yeah, thank you. This was great. Thank you for all your thoughtful questions. I really enjoyed your questions. Very, very thoughtful.
Jiani (49:22.003)
Most of the time, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not perfect, but like, yeah.
You have that lightness.
Jiani (49:36.211)
And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your experience, your expertise, your philosophy, your framework, your stories, and your beautiful energies and passion and magic with us today in our conversation, Jasmine. And it's a grateful and it's an honor to have you and in this space and time.
And for folks who wanted to connect with Jasmine, create your own stories, create a more deeper human connections on a much bigger and larger scales toward humanitarian purposes or toward leadership purposes, whichever way you want her information and contacts in the show note below. So we strongly encourage you to get connected and create new stories together.
Jasmin (50:33.23)
beautifully said. Thank you so much.
Jiani (50:36.947)
Thank you, Jasmine.
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The content shared is to highlight the passion and wonder of our guests. It is not professional advice. Please read our evidence-based research to help you develop your unique understanding.
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