Manifest Digital Human Experience Society

Symbol: Explore

Species: Glyph

Text: “To investigate, study or analyze: look into; to become familiar with by testing or experimenting; to travel over (new territory) for adventure or discovery; to examine especially for diagnostic purposes.” (Merriam-Webster)

Interpretation: The Internet is giving every human being who is connected to it new opportunities for exploration, some of them as significant as those undertaken by Christopher Columbus, James Cook, or Neil Armstrong. What’s so startling about our time, though, is that those opportunities have opened to so many of us equally and simultaneously. Columbus wouldn’t have gotten very far without Ferdinand and Isabella; today our exploration is more likely to be limited by our own inadequate vision and sense of purpose. But those who overcome those limits can move light-years in an instant.

At Manifest we find this collective project of exploration to be even more exciting than our own forays on the frontiers of technology and design. We are happy to have encountered many clients who feel the same. Led by their users and by change agents within, many organizations are questioning the way they have been doing business for decades or even generations. Such changes can seem less daunting when we remember that they are happening to all of us together.

In the past there were people who were threatened by questions like “Could we sail around the world?” or “Could we touch that object in the sky?” while others viewed them as opportunities. Companies face the same choice when users ask, “Why do you exist?” If we treat them as partners in the journey, we are much more likely to find answers that satisfy us all.

Commentary: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” –T. S. Eliot

Connections: The spirit of Explore is essential to Transition and Transfer. In a well-executed Tranform, clients often find the proper balance between Explore and Protect.