Behind the Conversation: Getting Loud about Hospital Experience Design

Joel Goodman has been a client. A collaborator. A friend for more than 15 years. And yet I learned something new about him in our conversation.

The part about growing up around the hospitality industry — a great-uncle who owned a hotel corporation, friends who worked the restaurant floor — that was news to me. And it reframed everything I thought I understood about where Hospitable Design actually came from. It didn't start as a web framework. It started as a way of being in the world.

Episode 11 of Higher Ed Icons. Joel and I have spent a decade and a half in the same rooms, arguing for the same things, occasionally pointing clients toward each other when the fit was right. I've learned as much from him as he's generous enough to say he's learned from me. And still — this conversation surprised me.

We talk about the restaurant floor. The front door. The 17-year-old who showed up hoping someone was expecting her. Who and what the homepage is actually for. Why an idea everyone agrees with still doesn't get built. And what happens to a philosophy built around the visitor when AI search starts reducing the number of visitors who actually arrive.

Joel talked about my contributions to the industry and his personal career, but the truth is that, from the beginning, I’ve learned as much from him as he says he’s learned from me. And we’re not yet done.

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