On Episode #15Joe Raboine, Director of Residential Hardscapes at Belgard, chats with Renee Labbe, a design strategist and trend forecaster. The two discuss how trends are influenced by consumer behaviors and what that means for outdoor design. They also touch on the ongoing trend of biophilic design, the impact of AI in outdoor design, and more. For more information on Belgard, visit Belgard.com/InsideOut.

Joe Raboine: Welcome back to Inside Out with Belgard, a podcast made for professionals by professionals who are passionate about outdoor living. I’m your host, Joe Raboine, director of residential hardscapes at Belgard, and we’re thrilled to bring you the latest insights from some of the top experts in the industry.

Today, I am thrilled to welcome Renee Labbe. Renee is a design strategist with over 20 years of experience in consumer and design forecasting. Renee, welcome to the podcast. 

Renee Labbe: Thanks, Joe. Thanks so much for having me. 

Joe Raboine: I’d love to kick this off and have you kind of dive into what a design strategist exactly does.

Renee Labbe: Yeah. Design strategy is part of a field called trend forecasting. So what we do is we use forecasting tools to help clients, which are companies, understand how to develop. The information that informs how they will design or change the design of their products in the future. 

Joe Raboine: You and I have met years back.

We reached out to you and Broadside and had you do some design forecasting for us and actually have had you help with such things, even with like color of the year for us and trying to identify what that is. And you and I have had many conversations talking about design and how important kind of understanding these trends are and I know trends may not be the correct word. But could you give us a little bit of insight and kind of how that typically happens?

So for I guess for us, right? I mean we’re making products in North America for outdoor living and it’s important as we develop products and marketing to really understand kind of what’s happening globally and then regionally and there’s a lot that goes into this, right? 

Renee Labbe: Yeah, exactly.

Most people don’t really consider how much goes into it, or they, they might not really think about how there is a lot of information that gets analyzed before a product even, you know, get s some of the design cues like the color or the material or the shape. So forecasting ultimately does take in

global and regional information. But what it ultimately does is begin looking at what’s going on in consumerism, what’s going on in culture, what’s going on in the economy, and tracks current consumer behavior and current cultural shifts to understand how those impact the overall psyche of the day to day consumer.

And as we can predict how those things impact consumer behavior or consumer mindsets. For example, if you feel like the economy is in a slowdown, or if you feel relatively insecure with employment rate or things like that, it does affect people’s buying patterns and their decisions. So that’s a very simple example, but we can back it up and look at broad trends and broad ideas of what’s impacting consumer behavior.

And when we do that, you end up with this big bucket of information that does impact on a global scale, what kind of design cues resonate with the mood of that consumer. So if you’re, again, if you’re feeling very secure about the economy and you’re feeling like it’s safe to spend, you spend a lot differently than when you’re feeling insecure about the economy and it’s not safe to spend.

And design cues roll with that. It’s, you know, the difference between seeing shapes and materials and colors together that give you a sense of safety and security and comfort and coziness or cocooning the idea of staying at home more versus. When you feel, you know, that the economy is really strong, for example, and you’re feeling that it’s okay to travel and spend a lot of money and be a little bit more social than colors and materials and shapes would get a lot more lively.

You know, these are just really basic examples. But what we do in design strategy is we take a lot of that information and then layer on the region that the client needs that information for, you know, if you’re designing a product, that’s only going into the U S or only going into Florida within the U S.

That impacts the way you disseminate that information. 

Joe Raboine: It’s fascinating to me, and I think, you know, for our listeners as well, I mean, you think of a product like a paver, right? And I’m just using an example like geometric shape. What I think is interesting is what you’re doing is it’s a much more analytical view of what someone might call a trend, right?

Where it’s, it’s taking that trend or that, you know, design style that’s, you know, starting to become, come to the fore. And then kind of overlaying the demographics piece of it and then relating it back to the business side of it. So it’s not just, oh, I think geometric shapes are in, gray is going to be, you know trending for the next few years.

You’re like, you’re bringing it back to really specific data that supports that in a region. So like, I just remember the first time I saw the full report that, one of the full reports that you had done for us. I think it was like a hundred pages and it was on California and it broke California down into all these different, you know, regions within and cities and even neighborhoods.

And you talked about like this type of home style is trending. This is who lives there. Here’s what colors they like. I think for me, it was really this eyeopening thing. Like it’s not just. You know, you’re kind of like licking your finger and putting in the air, like thinking that this is what, which way something’s going to blow it or not.

Right. It’s like, no, this is very specifically drilled down to a demographic and a region. And I think for us, that information is, is extremely valuable and trying to understand how that affects what we do with our, our products and our business decisions. 

Renee Labbe: Yeah, it’s definitely, you know, people always say that trends are, are more global than ever before, and that’s true, but there are still regional variations and differences.

And depending on the type of product that’s really important, you know, automotives is, is maybe a little bit more national than when it comes down to things like the color trends or paper styles of backyard design in California versus South Carolina, for example, the way people use their outdoor space in different climates impacts a lot of the different style direction and whatnot as well. 

Joe Raboine: Over the last decade especially when you look at social media and Pinterest and House and all of those things where you know probably 20-30 years ago would take a lot longer for something to come around if it ever did and now people are exposed to these things worldwide so I’m sure that probably makes it more complicated in some ways to try to pin down what’s happening but I think people are also more maybe adventurous than they have been ever before when it comes to design. Is that accurate? 

Renee Labbe: Absolutely. They’re a lot more adventurous when it comes to design and that is something that used to be more localized, you know, used to be people who before social media became as big as it was, it used to be people who lived in cities had more exposure to newer trends.

Just based on, you know, the, the volume of people and the amount of art and culture that happens in cities versus rural areas. And so those trends would disseminate a lot slower throughout rural spaces versus cities, but I’m glad you brought up social media because I think one of the most interesting things that we tracked in the decade between 2010 and 2020 about the relationship to social media was you know, that was really the first decade where we had it. I mean, of course, Facebook and Instagram came about around, I think 2006 through 2008, but that was the tail end of that decade. And people at, you know, in, in those years, you know, before we hit 2010, those Facebook, for example, was still so new people were using it to find people they went to high school with or, you know, an aunt in a different country or something like that. And it was still really innocent in a lot of ways. And, you know, fast forward to say 2015 and the onslaught of social media and the amount of images we were exposed to and the amount of video and content and sensationalized headlines to grab your attention because, you know, you’re scrolling with your thumb and you’re moving through images, you know, one every second, one every two seconds, and your eye is just taking in a lot of content all at once and what happened was design in the physical world really became almost like an antidote to that overstimulation so we saw a lot of design getting really clean and really simple and that’s when we talked about the gabled modern if you remember that. That home style that got really basic it had a lot of reduced ornamentation on the outside of the home.

We went from seeing homes that are usually two to three or even four color choices for the exterior going down to one, maybe two, single materials on the outside. And so it was almost like, the antidote to all of that social media, because we’ve never had that before. And we were, you know, there was argument overload and imagery overload, and it was just, everything was coming at us all at once.

And, and the design of the physical world really started to create a balance in some way to that. And it happened in fashion. It happened in consumer goods. It happened in automotives. It happened in architecture. And we call that a macro trend. That’s when something runs across multiple design industries.

Joe Raboine: That’s pretty fascinating. I never thought about that way, but it makes total sense, right? Where you’re just trying to like calm the noise down a little bit right with your personal space maybe and because you are gonna inundated so much. 

Renee Labbe: Yeah, if you think about you know, the exterior of a traditional home, for example it’s usually painted, you know one color for the base and then there’s trims on the window and another color on the door and there’s shutters and a porch and columns and dormers and all sorts of things to you know the roof line might be very cut up and there’s so many different things to look at. Whereas if you build a gabled modern that’s essentially a single pitch roof and it’s all one color, your eye has so much less to take in.

And what it means is there’s a, there’s less translation between eye and brain and your mind relaxes. 

Joe Raboine: Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Yeah, I guess as we’re, we’re talking through this and going back to some of the work you’ve done for us when it comes to like the outdoor living industry and kind of some of those trends, what would, what does that process look like?

I mean, what do you, where do you even start to try to pull all that data and put it together in something that’s presentable? 

Renee Labbe: You know nobody likes this answer, but it really depends on what’s going on in the rest of that timeframe that you’re looking at. Like, so for example, if I was doing this work in 2015, that social media reference that I just mentioned would be a big part of influencing, you know, the way outdoor spaces get designed it, but of course you take in what is currently in the market.

And how that’s shifting. And you overlay that with at the time we would have overlaid it with the notion that people wanted more indoor outdoor flows. So a lot of their indoor environment trends had to sort of extend into the outdoor space which really Influenced the design of outdoor, you know pavers fences kitchens all of those things but as trends change, as consumer influences change, you don’t always look in the same places for how that’s going to, what’s going to impact the outdoor space.

I would still take into account the indoor outdoor flow, cause that hasn’t gone away and that’s still really important. But that need for simplicity that we had in 2015, it’s still there, but it’s. now been influenced by other things. And so there is a shift around it. 

Joe Raboine: When you think through this piece with our audience who let’s say are mostly contractors and, and designers for instance a lot of them are focusing on the outdoor space, but I think what’s interesting when I’ve, when I’ve read your reports and you and I’ve talked is that the homeowner obviously lives in the whole space, right.

And they look at it much more holistically. I think understanding the, the, the subsequent or parallel trends within the interior and, you know, the exterior with terms of color and style is critical when you’re designing the outside space. Cause it’s part of that greater whole. Right. And I don’t, I don’t know that a lot of designers, at least in the outdoor living space, always think about that, that way, how would they, or how should they think about that?

And how should they, or where could they look for some of that information or to help maybe to understand that better? 

Renee Labbe: Right now, I think that there is a lot of misunderstanding around what trends are, or who is, potentially the right source to go to for that kind of information. So When I look online, for example, there’s a lot of online magazines that you’ll see headlines that will say something like this year’s top outdoor trends or this year’s top living room trends or the this year’s 10 biggest colors for 2023 or something like that and when you click through into the article and you read it, it will often cite things like we polled a number of different interior designers, or we went to these specific four designers and, you know, they’re high influencers and things like that.

I guess to answer your question, I would say to the designer, as you’re reading those things, look through them and see who is the person answering. Because a lot of times that what they’re not doing is asking a forecasting service. And it’s a little bit like going to your dentist for something that you should be going to your doctor for, you know, same field, but not their focus.

And that’s not to say that… the designer might could be right. They could be right maybe, they, you know, they got lucky on their guess. Maybe they have a background in forecasting. Maybe they use a forecasting service and that’s how they know the answer but nine times out of ten If there isn’t an explanation in the in the content that explains not just what is happening, but why it’s happening and if that why doesn’t make sense to you I would be cautious about it.

Joe Raboine: It’s like anything, right? You’re just, you know, cite the sources, make sure you’re looking at it critically and you know, does that let’s say it’s a publication. Do they have an angle that they’re trying to appease someone? I mean, there’s, it’s just like the critical thinking piece of it, right? 

Renee Labbe: Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And unfortunately, you know, most forecasting services, their information is behind a paywall. But that’s simply because that’s information is their business, but they do, there’s a lot of services who. Who, you know, myself included who do speak to the media. So those are always the look for the forecasting reference in, in that content.

Joe Raboine: Yeah. No, we have a full time R&D facility and team up in Montreal and we’re looking years down the road and your information has been extremely helpful to us and in trying to figure out what some of those trends are. I remember even going back, it’s probably six or seven years ago. And you were talking, I think about geometric shapes.

And we finally just launched them in most of our markets last year. So I think we have to be better about, you know, accepting that information and running with it because the realization for us is that people across the country love them and they probably would have done better if we had even launched them a few years earlier.

Some of that has got to be that exposure piece that we talked about, right, with the prevalence of this everywhere. Like, I remember as we were thinking about it years ago, even that I look at the Southeast, for instance, like, well, this is a really traditional market. Those won’t do well here because they’re not they’re more modern.

Typically. It’s absolutely not true. I mean, the reality is, is that almost what would be perceived to the novice as an overnight trend. It changed that radically, I would say, in areas like Atlanta, where I’m at, where all of a sudden, yes, things were super traditional, and then they became very modern. And these types of materials are a necessary part of that.

So I think for a lot of us, it made us a believer. Not that we didn’t trust the information, but we have to overlay that against what, you know, what we’re hearing from the field and, you know, a lot of that information is coming anecdotally. And, to be fair, you know, even homeowners and designers, they don’t have access to see what those trends are coming.

So in a way it’s almost like we need to do a better job of disseminating that saying, here’s, here’s what is coming and here’s why, and here’s why we believe this is accurate. And I think it’s improved us for sure. And, and we still have a long way to go, but I think this type of information is, is invaluable as we move into the future.

Renee Labbe: So my job and the job of my company is really to get our clients ready for the shift so that when consumers start to realize that they want to move in a new direction, you’re already standing there with your door open, ready to serve them rather than catching up to a trend as it’s already showing up in the market.

Especially if you have a long lead time. So that does, it does require a degree of trust, especially if you’ve never worked with a forecasting service before. And you know, I don’t take it personally that you guys took a little time to dive in because that’s actually really normal. I’ve had that happen many times in my life.

I remember one client in particular, probably in my first five or 10 years of forecasting asked for what, what they, we believed was the direction and we told them and the CEO of this particular company said, let me show you the door, and walked us out. And about a year later, he called and apologized and asked us to come back, but it requires that degree of trust.

So, you know, it’s not something that we’re not used to. 

Joe Raboine: It is interesting though. I think like the psyche of it when you look at a trend, let’s say in our industry and again, I don’t want everybody to think it’s just purely product because you’re looking at the whole space.

You’re looking at the color, the texture, the scale, the shape, right? All of those things and the sum of those right into that whole project, correct? What would be a couple of pointers you could provide that might help? Let’s say a designer has done some research and believes that they understand the different trends in their market, right?

So they meet with a client and what are some ways they should look at a design and, I guess, how would they, how would you recommend potentially starting with, is it based on the home style? And then you start thinking about shape and texture and use. 

Renee Labbe: I mean, you could say, obviously, there’s certain styles that work with a more traditional home better than, like, for example, a more traditional paver, you would automatically think works better with a traditional home, but it’s not entirely true because we see so many examples right now of traditional styles being paired with something really contemporary.

So it’s, you know, and that’s, that’s actually a really big trend that we’ve been talking about for a while that there is almost like a yin and yang, you know, a balance of opposites, traditional and modern or traditional and contemporary. So really clean lines with a little bit of a balance of something more ornate or more traditional.

Even, you know, there’s a lot of home renovations that we can see right now where somebody is adding an extension to a, to a traditional home. And that extension is extremely modern. And in the past, those two things would just not work together. And they’re really being combined in new ways. 

Joe Raboine: You’re taking something where, like you said, maybe, and you would assume that I’m gonna use like the traditional style home.

You would do like a cobblestone because it’s very much the same look and feel, or you might do like a flagstone or something like that. But to kind of offset the busyness of that home, which may be a stone or brick, they do something that’s very large and clean. And it’s kind of like, it’s kind of a contrast or a compliment.

Not, you’re not necessarily trying to marry up that exact style, but kind of maybe accentuate it or tone it down or add interest in some cases with the pavement or that outdoor living space. 

Renee Labbe: Yeah. I think when everything in a space is of a certain style it feels very controlled and very stylized and it doesn’t, it feels less like a home and more like a production.

Joe Raboine: Yeah, it’s like almost like you, you expect it to be a certain way and it almost feels fake. 

Renee Labbe: It almost feels a little staged. It feels like the mannequin in the window, you know, you never go in and buy the entire look head to toe. So I do really, when, now that I’m thinking going through those pairings, what we often recommend is to pair something like a modern home, for example, with a paver or a fence or materials in the backyard that bring in a little charm so that everything doesn’t feel so void of detail. 

Joe Raboine: I love that. I think I just, in my mind, I’m envisioning lots of projects and spaces that do that exactly. Now where you, you have almost that contrasting style and, you know, it kind of pulls in a different element and makes it feel more custom. 

Renee Labbe: More custom, more real, more considered. 

Joe Raboine: Mm hmm. 

Renee Labbe: And I think that’s really, you know, when you go back to tracking the consumer behavior that, you know, the reason all of this starts in the first place, that’s really what they’re looking for. They’re not looking for a magazine version. 

Joe Raboine: Yeah, something that’s more personalized for them.

Renee Labbe: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. 

Joe Raboine: No, that’s perfect. I think that’s a great tip because I think, like you said, there’s an assumption that, well, if I have this type of home, I should have this type of pavement. Or, or feature and in a lot of cases, it would actually be better if it didn’t try to fit that exact aesthetic. The color and texture piece of that too, is the other component that I think I would say often gets overlooked for our, our contractors, where that’s probably the most important thing aside from the shape, right, would be how that color color plays into everything.

Renee Labbe: Definitely color is really important. I think that has the clearest communication between what’s happening in the indoors more than any anything else. 

Joe Raboine: I know the work that we did with you early on led to a much greater focus with us on color. I know you’ve done a lot of work with us in different regions but for us from an R&D perspective color wasn’t really even part of our process.

It was left to chance and now looking back, I think it’s just, it’s one of those things where, you know, I look at it and go, how could we have let that happen? And I think because we know, again, based on data that you’ve provided, that that color is the number one deciding factor, ultimately, like if that’s not the right color, no matter what, everything else being equal, they will, they may not choose that product because it just doesn’t work with, with their home.

So we, we spent a lot more time on color. In fact, we have a whole team now dedicated to trying to figure out what those colors should be and are much more purposeful about it. 

Renee Labbe: That’s awesome. 

Joe Raboine: So thank you.

Renee Labbe: No problem. If it makes you feel any better, you’re not, as an outdoor product manufacturer, you’re not alone in that. The number of clients in that space that we work with that have indicated to us that they also looked at color the same way. You might be surprised at the number. And I think it speaks to, it speaks to the shift that really happened in going back to social media, 2010 to 2020, where prior to that decade, information was disseminated from brand to distributor to contractor, et cetera, et cetera.

And a lot of companies made certain colors and continued making them for a really long time. And then as social media helped inform consumers directly in much faster and quicker ways, the consumer started to seek out the product and have a say or have a mindset about the type and color of product that they were looking for that they then brought to the contractor. So it really shifted the dispersion of information and that’s when a lot of the outdoor market started to understand that the approach or the conversation around the aesthetics of the product mattered more than ever before. 

Joe Raboine: Yeah, and I could totally see that. It feels like that’s about the time the shift started to happen.

I mean, I think leading up till about 10 years ago, we had the same colors for 20 years, right? Or 15 years. And, and they were very regionally specific where now they’re almost the same everywhere. There’s a few anomalies, but for the most part, we’re 90 percent the same, more or less across the country.

And yeah, I mean that’s it totally wasn’t like that before so. 

Renee Labbe: I bet if you looked at the data you would see that Some of those national colors sell higher in coastal markets versus inland markets, etc, etc but overall, yes. You know the the focus might be more or less but overall they’re the same.

Joe Raboine: Yeah, you know this led to us trying to remember back when we first did it, but we introduced our own color of the year maybe five years ago and had you pull that in and I think thinking through it’s almost like there was a shift from a production manufacturing driven mindset to a design driven mindset, which is quite a radically different way to look at things I would say. 

Renee Labbe: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That was a fun project. 

Joe Raboine: I think it helps just kind of set us as a hopefully a design leader in the industry and kind of trying to stay on point with what’s going on. And I know one of the big trends it feels like and I talk a lot about which some of which is anecdotally supported, but this whole shift towards biophilic design and kind of organics and, you know, even fractals and this convergence of modern design with, you know, organic, but you know, just kind of integrating those types of ideas into design is that for me, it’s fascinating.

I think I would hope people in our, in the outdoor industry, think it’s as fascinating because it’s really trying to blend the natural world with the built world. And are you, are you seeing that kind of as a, I guess a global trend or movement? 

Renee Labbe: Yeah, it has been, it’s, it’s definitely evolved somewhat over the last couple of years, but it’s still really important. You know, I would say when we first started talking about it, it was a lot to do with the addition of plants in apartment buildings, you know, indoors used as aesthetic designs in restaurants and hospitality, you know, trees in the middle of a building and things like that.

And it was very much about bringing the living environment indoors and bringing some of the interior environment outdoors. And so it was, it was kind of the discussion about this exchange between the built environment and the living environment. And then it became more and more literal in the aesthetics of it where I think you and I had talked about it and I’m sure we put this in some of your material at the time about the almost…we called it an intertwining of built and, and natural. So, you know, the way we laid the paver stones, it was that, that they were almost sort of crawling into the grass rather than having a perfect rectilinear line that divided walkway and grass, for example. So it was as if the two environments were trying to crawl together and trying to mesh together.

Whereas in, and when it first started, it was about placing those natural pieces inside a built space.

You know, with the addition of AI and all of the digital environments that we have to consider, it’s really created a next step where that, that influence of biophilia is almost fantastical. It’s become more dynamic, more filled with the sense of wonder rather than this really controlled thing where it’s almost like you’re creating environments that feel a little surreal. So I speak about it, the way we speak about it is your relationship with your environment. When we first started talking about biophilia, it was the consumer and our culture’s relationship with the natural world.

And then as they intertwined more, it became well, we have two environments, the natural environment and the built environment, and they, those, the relationship between them is what the consumer is seeing an interest in combining. And now it’s really adding that third element of the digital space or the digital world as well, you know?

And so how do we, you know, for example, use mid journey or AI to create the ideation of environments that look more natural than built, but are informed by built. 

Joe Raboine: Yeah, it’s funny you say that. I was going to ask you about AI and I wasn’t sure I wanted to touch on it, but you see so many images and concepts now, to your point, that are these surreal, almost magical, fantastical worlds that blend the natural and built world.

And I think using AI as a thought starter or prompter and creating inspiration. I do feel like in, in the built in the landscape world in the next few years will, it will transform it in that way because it’s like you look at these spaces, they’re mostly they’re very, very organic and, you know, technology, you know, let’s say like 3D printing and some of those things will help enable some of that.

So it’s a little scary and super exciting at the same time. And it’ll be interesting to see where all that leads us. 

Renee Labbe: It’s a hundred percent. I think that every day that it’s very intimidating, but it’s also just mindblowingly fascinating, you know, listen before AI was even really very much talked about, we often talked about how 3D printing was going to change the architectural space because the capabilities in that way, not only build a home faster, but you’re not limited to 90 degree angles in the same way that you are with, not that you’re limited to 90 degree angles, but it’s obviously more practical. 

Joe Raboine: Prohibitive. It’s cost prohibitive. 

Renee Labbe: Exactly. And with 3D printing, that conversation is kind of gone. It needed a little time for the rest of the industry to catch up around that concept. But now with AI and AI systems often produce more curves than they do perfectly straight lines. You see sort of the evidence of that getting pushed forward.

And I think it’s a really exploratory place that not every consumer wants to go yet, but some consumers will take the lead on that. You know, early adopters will always jump in and get exploratory. So, you know, curvature and design is I think a really important piece. I mean, we’ve already seen it happening with arch doorways and whatnot coming inside the home in a way that they hadn’t been in a really long time.

So there there’s already evidence of it. 

Joe Raboine: Yeah. 

Renee Labbe: It’s just how do we explore it? 

Joe Raboine: It’s super cool when you look at those, so you’re right. I mean, most of them have this organic feel. I almost, you know, a lot of people are fascinated by like the Hobbit style home, right? Like, you think, think like that type of a world, and a lot of the AI generated spaces remind you of that, but on a different scale.

Renee Labbe: Mm hmm. 

Joe Raboine: So, as technology improves with manufacturing and even techniques, where could we go as a society with design and what could that future look like? I think we’re probably going to know sooner than later based at the speed of AI and what’s going on in the world. 

Renee Labbe: Yeah, I agree with that. 

Joe Raboine: I embrace all that because I think we, it’s a necessity and I think it’s fascinating and I’d rather understand it than not.

But I think for you thinking through, like, how do you forecast that? That’s got to be a challenge I would suspect.

Renee Labbe: I’m definitely up for the challenge. 

Joe Raboine: Well, I think more than ever in today’s world, you know, having whatever level of insight we can as we move into the future is a smart thing to want to have. Right. I mean, you want to be as prepared as possible for what’s to come. And I think that I’m glad there are people like you that do those types of services to help make things easier for us. 

Renee Labbe: Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Joe Raboine: I guess so with that, you know, one of the questions I always ask our guests is what is the most fulfilling part of what you do?

Renee Labbe: That’s really easy. It’s when clients come to me confused and leave clear. I absolutely love informing people with the why, because it’s like they light up, they see the pathway themselves and they know how to take the information away and plug it in. So that’s, that’s really a bonus for me.

It feels very rewarding to feel like, I’ve, I’ve given something away that people can run with.

I also really love one thing that happens a lot is that usually the request for the work comes through a specific channel in a company like the product design department, sometimes the marketing department, and often when we deliver the work, the company realizes really quickly that there’s a product design That can use the information and marketing can use the information and even sales can use the information and now these three departments that sometimes don’t always like to agree get to speak with one voice they’re all on the same page and that really… I often get feedback a year or two years later that that their teams were really able to become aligned. So that’s always really a bonus for me as well.

Joe Raboine: I’ve seen that firsthand. I mean, that’s exactly what happened I would say with us. You know, we’re a very large company with lots of different divisions and lots of different opinions and having that set of information to try to pull it all together as a neutral source, I think is key.

That definitely has helped us. And we appreciate that. 

Renee Labbe: It was a pleasure. 

Joe Raboine: For our listeners who’d like to get more information. what’s the best way they could contact you? 

Renee Labbe: Well, my online presence is pretty weak. So I would suggest my email is the best way, which is R E N E E. That’s double E’s at the end.

And then it’s my first name again, plus my last name. So it’s Renee@ReneeLabbe.com and Labbe is spelt L A B B E. 

Joe Raboine: Well, thanks again. As always, it’s a pleasure talking with you and thanks for joining us on the podcast. 

Renee Labbe: Likewise. Thanks so much. 

Joe Raboine: Thanks for joining us on Inside Out with Belgard.

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