3:36 PM

Master Flavorist Terry Miesle has spent thirty five years building the flavors you taste in meats, snacks, and dairy. Jake sat down with him to talk about why the hardest part of the job isn't the lab work, it's the conversation. They get into turning a vague request like "a little more orangey" into a finished flavor, building a shared language so a team stops describing the same smell five different ways, knowing when good enough is good enough, and why so much of flavor lives in memory and association rather than just your mouth. If you build products or lead a team, the work will sound familiar.

Terry is on the North American savory flavor team at Sentient. Find him on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrymiesle/

Find out more about Jake and the Conversation Compass at: https://jakemckee.com/

Signup for Conversation Lab event: https://jakemckee.com/conversationlab

The customer's actual words and daily reality are often lost in translation on product teams. In Episode 12, host Jake McKee talks with UX and AI design consultant Erik Summa (formerly of Dell), whose job is to bring the absent user into the room and keep them there.1

The central question: What happens to that essential user-focused work when AI speeds up development so much that teams skip past the step of truly understanding who they're building for?1

Listen as Erik explains why the value of a project was never in its speed, but in the human connection. We dive into topics like "vibe coding," talking to AI in the car, and the irreplaceable human moment of an older patient whose call to the dentist might be their only real conversation all week. Ultimately, you must speed up the parts of a project that can be rushed so you can slow down on the parts that can't—and the one part that can never be rushed is understanding who you are building for.

For more information about the Conversation Compass, head to https://jakemckee.com/

And if you'd like to signup for Conversation Lab, you can at: https://jakemckee.com/conversationlab

Episode 11 focuses on Conversation Traction, the fifth and final pillar of the Customer Conversation Compass, which serves as the ultimate test of whether customer conversations actually lead to organizational change.

For more information about the Conversation Compass, head to https://jakemckee.com/

And if you'd like to signup for Conversation Lab, you can at: https://jakemckee.com/conversationlab