EPISODE 32: Cybersecurity and The Human Experience: Designing for humans, not robots with John Sills

Compromising Positions - A Cyber Security Podcast

Welcome to Compromising Positions!

The award-winning tech podcast that asks non-cybersecurity professionals what we in the industry can do to make their lives easier and help make our organisations more prepared to face ever-changing human-centric cyber threats!

This Episode we are joined by John Sills, managing partner at customer-led growth company, The Foundation and author of the book ‘The Human Experience’

In cybersecurity we have many customers, our external customers who engage with the products of services our organisations provide and our internal customers, our colleagues. But how many of us can truly claim to know how to be customer-led? Well in this episode, John shares his decades of knowledge to help us really understand what people care about - especially when it comes to cybersecurity.

We do a deep dive into the human cost of bad customer service, what customers really think about cybersecurity threats, how cumbersome security controls at a bank led to a chart-topping and innovative app, and if you’re a cybersecurity consultant you won’t want to skip this one because we talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of consultancy.

Key Takeaways:

The Customer Disconnect: We delve into John's experience of working for a major bank who build a security product that customers hated and he demonstrates how understanding customer needs and frustrations when designing security solution is so important.

The Curse of Knowledge: Security professionals often fail to consider the user's perspective. John emphasises the need to bridge this gap by starting with customer understanding.

Perception of Threats: Customers often overlook potential threats, rendering multiple layers of security meaningless if they don’t resonate with the user’s sense of relevance.

The Doorman Fallacy: Echoing Rory Sutherland’s insights, Sills talks about the value of the human touch in technology and services, which often gets lost in the pursuit of automation and efficiency gains.

The Myth of Customer Feedback: A cautionary tale on the pitfalls of relying solely on customer feedback surveys, which can lead to a narrow understanding of customer needs and desires.

SHOW NOTES

John’s episode on Melina Palmer’s The Brainy Business Podcast

Paul Bloom’s Psychology episode on Melina Palmer’s The Brainy Business Podcast

A nice video on The Doorman Fallacy featuring the legendary Rory Sutherland

Book recommendation - The Customer Copernicus

ABOUT JOHN SILLS

John Sills is Managing Partner at the customer-led growth company, The Foundation.

He started his career 25 years ago, on a market stall in Essex, and since then has worked in and with companies around the world to make things better for customers.

He’s been in front-line teams delivering the experience, innovation teams designing the propositions, and global HQ teams creating the strategy. He's been a bank manager during the financial crisis (not fun), launched a mobile app to millions of people (very fun), and regularly visits strangers’ houses to ask very personal questions (incredible fun).

He now works with companies across industries and around the world, and before joining The Foundation spent twelve years at HSBC, latterly as Head of Customer Innovation.

His first book on the topic - The Human Experience - was published by Bloomsbury in February 2023, and he's pretty much everywhere you look online.

LINKS FOR JOHN SILLS

John’s Book The Human Experience

John’s Newsletter

John’s Instagram

John’s Twitter

John’s LinkedIn

The Foundation