The Experience Strategy Podcast

Featured article: “I’m Not Doing Laundry on the Clock. I’m Microshifting.” by Eve Upton-Clark, Fast Company, October 7, 2025Owl Labs reports that 65% of workers are interested in microshifting — what the company calls structured flexibility built from short, nonlinear work blocks matched to energy, duties, and productivity. Joe, Dave, and Aransas take the article apart and put it back together in a more useful frame.The term itself gets challenged early. Joe argues most of what the article describes is closer to macroshifting (hour-long, hour-and-a-half-long focused blocks), not micro. Dave reframes the word entirely: a shift is not a period of work, it is a change of mode. And once you read it that way, the whole article becomes a confirmation of two frameworks the show has been working with for years — modes and life systems.The conversation widens into how midlife women, AI-augmented workers, and traditional workplaces all bump up against the same problem: human productivity has never been a flat eight-hour line, and the companies still pretending it is are losing the people who know better.Key IdeasMicroshifting is really mode-shifting. A mode is a temporary mindset and set of behaviors. Beast mode is a mode. Podcast mode is a mode. Writing mode is a mode. What the Fast Company article describes — moving between focused blocks of work and the recovery, errands, or walks in between — is what mode-shifting looks like when a worker actually has the autonomy to do it.Routines are permanent. Life systems are responsive. Dave makes the distinction clearly. Joe’s morning is not a routine. It is a life system: PT, breakfast, email, a walk through the cul-de-sac with the newspaper and a cigar, then writing or meetings, then a midday return to email, then a shift to whatever is next. The tools, timing, cadence, and energy levels all interact. Life systems are the hidden architecture under what people now call flexibility.Midlife women have been doing this all along. Aransas’s book research keeps surfacing the same finding: midlife women with shifting hormones, attention spans, and energy levels need flexible work to keep performing at their best. The advocacy community has been making this argument for years without the label. Owl Labs surveyed a different population and gave the same behavior a name. The label travels; the underlying truth was already there.Autonomy is the through-line from YouTube to work. People prefer YouTube because they get to follow their interest in the moment instead of waiting for Channel 7 to air a plumbing show. The same instinct shows up in how people want to work: responsive to the mode they are in, not locked into a schedule designed for someone else’s mode.AI is changing the limits. AI does not get tired. People do. Recent reporting suggests AI-heavy workers are working longer hours, but framing it positively — they are finally getting to things that used to hang over their heads. The question for companies is whether that ends in more output or more exhaustion. Likely both.A new question about vulnerability. Aransas raises something she has not heard discussed elsewhere: people are admitting things to AI they would not admit to other humans. Does that practice transfer back into human relationships and make people better at acknowledging what they do not know? Or does it stay locked inside the chat window? Probably depends on the person. A change is coming either way.And a reminder about privacy. The OpenAI–Musk depositions are a useful warning. ChatGPT history is not a diary. It is discoverable.The Strategic TakeawayDave’s closing argument: the idea that productivity equals maximum focused time on a single task has never described the human condition unless someone forced it to. What workers and customers actually want is the ability to shift modes — focus mode, recovery mode, creative mode — and to have their life systems supported through the shifts. The companies that recognize this and design for it are personalizing in a way the rest of the market is still missing.Aransas lands the discussion: ask your machines to run like machines, and your humans to run like humans.Joe’s add: there is a real opportunity here for companies to help people spend their time well. Watch the modes your customers move through. Help them get the most out of each one.Memorable Moments* Joe describing his morning walk: cul-de-sac, newspaper, cigar, possibly a future bathrobe and pipe* Dave: “It’s like you’re from a novel. A British novel.”* Joe pushing back on the word “micro” — most of what the article describes runs 30 to 90 minutes per block* The pachinko parlor footnote: Japanese office workers logging the hours without working the hours* Aransas: “Ask your machines to run like machines, and your humans to run like humans.”Mentioned in This Episode* Fast Company, “I’m Not Doing Laundry on the Clock. I’m Microshifting“ by Eve Upton-Clark* Owl Labs flexibility research* The previous episode on YouTube and shifting media attention* Dave’s upcoming workshops This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theexperiencestrategist.substack.com/subscribe

Kareem Rahma built Subway Takes into a hit with 2 million Instagram followers, a metro card as a microphone, and a format that runs in seconds. Now he’s walking away from a CNN deal to put his next show Keep the Meter Running on YouTube — because YouTube, in his words, is where the next Bourdain and the next Lena Dunham will come from. In this episode, Joe, Dave, and Aransas dig into what Rahma’s bet actually means for experience strategy. The conversation moves from short-form content design, to the death of “Gen Z YouTube” as a useful category, to why every brand needs to rethink where and how it reaches customers in the micro-moments that now define modern media consumption.100% agree or 100% disagree — you decide.What We’re Talking About This Episode* Rahma’s CNN walk-away. Why he turned down a legacy media deal to own his independence on YouTube, and what that signals about creator economics now.* YouTube as television, not social media. YouTube’s monthly share of TV watch-time hit ~12% in 2025 per Nielsen — higher than any network or streamer. Rahma’s read: “this is a TV screen, but right now no one’s making television for it.”* Subway Takes as situational design. The subway isn’t a backdrop. It’s the situation. The format, the duration, the point of view, the 100% agree / 100% disagree script — all of it is built around a specific consumer moment.* The Lorne Michaels frame. Rahma isn’t playing the virality slot machine. He’s building a show. A nice change from all of the influencer content out there. * Why “Gen Z YouTube” is a lazy frame. Dave pushes back on the article’s generational framing. His adult kids watch YouTube over Netflix. So does Aransas. So do millions of others. The situation around the screen has changed.Why This Matters for Experience StrategyThree themes worth pulling out:1. Content is situational, not channel-based. Dave traces this back to a 2015 Collaboratives conversation with a major media company about designing content for the 30-second, 90-second, two-minute windows that now define daily consumption. A decade later, that conversation is finally mainstream. The companies still organizing around channel rather than situation are the ones being lapped.2. POV is the differentiator. Rahma’s 100% agree / 100% disagree technique forces you to take strong point of view in every interaction. Brands that hedge — that try to be all things to all customers — are getting outpaced by creators who plant a flag.3. The CNN ticker is the OG infinite scroll. Joe drops a sharp observation mid-episode: 24-hour news already pioneered the segment-plus-chyron structure we now call short-form. The need hasn’t changed. The means of meeting it has. Which connects to a Clayton Christensen line Dave only partly agrees with — and to Stone Mantel’s view that situations themselves do change, not just the jobs underneath them.Memorable Moments* Joe’s Transformation Economy book made Thinkers50’s top 10 management books of 2026.* Aransas on the invisible load of AI: ideas start faster, but humans still have to finish them — and the cognitive load is going up, not down.* Dave on what Cargo has done to his wardrobe: black t-shirt to medium gray. Things have changed.* The unhoused-person-falling-in-your-lap test for quintessential New York.* Joe’s Easter Bunny / Cargo joke. You’ll know it when you hear it.Quick References* The Talk Show Where Celebrities and Mamdani Share Their Hot Takes — Sam Schube, WSJ Magazine, May 12, 2026* Subway Takes — Kareem Rahma’s hit short-form show* The Transformation Economy by B. Joseph Pine II — recognized by Thinkers50, 2026Join the CollaborativesDave’s working the phones — it’s that time of year. The Collaboratives is the Stone Mantel + Cargo partnership exploring situational markets as a growth mechanism in a world where parity is everywhere and growth is harder than ever. Free market analyses are my gift to anyone who joins. Workshop coming May 21.Send me a note if you’d like to be invited to the May 21st Workshop. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theexperiencestrategist.substack.com/subscribe