Reflections from Our Panel on Meaningful Experiences Moving Forward
There is no doubt that 2020 is a defining moment. Well, really a series of defining moments, but it will be remembered as a moment in time that changed the brands we admire and use, the experiences we prioritize, and how we choose to use our time moving forward. In the Meaningful Experiences Collaborative, we met last week to discuss our summer research and create frameworks around meaningful motivation, a new family dynamic, meaningful experience technology, and health and wellness. We finished our two days with a panel on what will make experiences meaningful now and moving forward.
Two of our panelists have worked together for over twenty years: Joe Pine, author of The Experience Economy (the book that launched the CX movement) and Dave Norton, author of Digital Context 2.0. Our third panelist, Paul Bulencea, author of Gamification in Tourism: Designing Memorable Experiences, was first inspired by Joe’s book. Paul works with companies around the world on immersive experiences; work that has led to his current interest in curative experiences. (Abd he reminded the group that he was eleven when Dave and Joe started working together.)
All three panelists see profound impact on the amount of reflection and recalibration people are doing right now. Joe remarked how in every economic crisis people declare this is the end of the experience economy – especially right now when we can’t get together in the same way and the experience industry has been hit worst of all. But he believes we will actually see an acceleration toward the Experience Economy as people have recognized they don’t need more stuff and what we value are our experiences, particularly those experiences with loves ones, friends, and even colleagues that give life meaning.
Paul had a slightly different view from his lens. He shared that in the Tibetan language there is no word for creative; the closest word is natural. He believes we are moving towards a shift because we feel like we are doing something unnatural on a personal level and we want to move more and more towards our natural being and will remove anything that is gets in the way. We are undergoing a simplification of lifestyle and a shift in perspective of “who am I beyond my job title”, “who am I beyond my name”; more and more people will try to get to their natural way of being and try to understand exactly what that is for them.
Dave built on these key points. First, as we are having more goods are delivered to us (which Dave doesn’t believe is going away), it opens up a lot of retail spaces. We will see lots of different business models occur for these spaces. We may see a return to retailtainment, the REI approach, but we will also find business models for these spaces based on modes. In the future, when we are in a particular mode, we can go to a place created for that mode. He also pointed out that while people are going to want simpler, more natural experiences, they also want superpowers enabled by technology and that creates a greater range of opportunities for experiences moving forward and interesting tensions that we need to better understand.
Target modes and not a demographic.
Since we don’t know how this will all play out, we need to watch the inflection points and look at where we can add value for our customers by knowing and iterating around the experiences that deliver on customers’ jobs-to-be-done. It is also critical not to underestimate the importance of employee experience and ensuring people feel ready to “surf to move with the fast-changing tides”, but with the high levels of anxiety right now they may not even feel ready to “come to the beach” let alone surf the water.
During 2020 we are all going through a transformation and transformations are built on top of experiences. The Experience Economy is not going away and companies should lean into this to help strengthen people through meaningful moments and experiences. We would love to hear your thoughts on the future of the experience economy.