Yesterday at Ad:Tech I was turned on to Bob Jacobson's Total Experience manifesto.  For those of you who are practitioners in the area of XP Planning and Design I think you need to consider some of his thought.  I also think that we as an industry have yet to define or accept one universal definition for our artful Experience Design practice in a significant or digestible way. (Shame on us!  we are supposed to be great communicators)  The universal acceptance of Experience Design has lead me to a mass education effort, Fuse The Blue, whose purpose is to create universal understanding of our new Brand world and a consumers demand for a positively rich experiences.  I have professed for years we needed a hallway handle that describes a truly intuitive discipline.  However, anytime I have seen someone puts the word "intuition" into a business context - I have seen them laughed out of the boardroom.  Thus the push to Fuse The Blue. 

That said I think Bob a few insights that I agree with...

"Composition means
gathering elements of meaning and emotion from the environment, the
audience, and in one’s self, applying what one knows and feels about
experience, and then expressing not so much a solution as a creation.
the process of composing has rules by which it’s conducted, but the
actual composition of a work – including an environment that provokes
desired experiences – remains a personal feat and something of a
mystery."

and...

"The natural next
step will be for designers of experience to integrate and apply the
methods of scoring and wayshowing concurrently, Thus creating places,
not only in the physical world but also in the virtual worlds of
knowledge and understanding, that reveal themselves in the same way
that a musical composition is heard. this is composing for experience."

After a deep dive into the lengthy piece I draw many real world metaphors.
The Great Chef..she or he uses great part science (food chemistry), Fresh ingredients and artful intuition. (Try Chino @ five ninth for the perfect definition of what HOT should be!)  The Songwriter who fused melody, prose and timing (Carole King) or you can look at David Armano's L+E where he compares it to Dan Pink's description of Symphony.   

At the end of the day do we need to agree on some high level tenants that boil down the discipline to a role? I often believe that we could actually use this as a chance to begin an effort that stops trying to define creativity, or for that matter branding, in an "institutional" way.