The Experience Economy (Updated Edition)

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by B Joseph Pine II


  2. As James A. Ogilvy writes, “The Experience Industry: A Leading Edge Report from the Values and Lifestyles Program,” report 724, SRI International Business Intelligence Program, Meno Park, CA, Fall 1985, 22, “The bad news is that marginal utility is not the only concept that won't carry over from industrial economics to the economics of the experience industry. Other familiar categories may be equally misleading … [S]uch basic terms as inventory or even capital become problematic. As they say in Hollywood, ‘You're only as good as your last movie.’ If this saying is an accurate indication of the way value can or cannot be accrued in the experience industry, then the very concept of fixed assets calls for radical revision.”

  3. Edward Felsenthal, “Lawyers Learn How to Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk,” Wall Street Journal, January 3, 1996.

  4. Jonnie Patricia Mobley, NTC's Dictionary of Theatre and Drama Terms (Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Co., 1992), 49. This book is an excellent resource for understanding the various terms of theatre.

  5. This is not altogether different from the way the mechanization of Industrial Age jobs led to the rise in the human-to-human activity of delivering services.

  6. According to Charles Marowitz, Directing the Action: Acting and Directing in the Contemporary Theatre (New York: Applause Theatre Books, 1991), the role of director did not exist in the performing arts until the late nineteenth century. Initially, the position involved coordinating fellow actors, simply directing on- and offstage activities as an equal among peers. Gradually, directing began to include coaching actors in how to portray their respective roles. What we today know as the modern director, people “who leave their mark on material as much as they do on actors” (p. 2), did not fully emerge within the arts until the 1920s and 1930s in France and Russia. Interestingly, the rise of directing as a profession in the performing arts of these two countries coincides with the rise of professional management in the industrialized world of Britain, Germany, and the United States, as demonstrated in Alfred D. Chandler Jr., Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990). Directors here and there entered the world of theatre; the two sets of countries simply chose different stages. Today's Experience Economy, however, demands that the performing arts and business merge.

  7. As Marowitz points out in Directing the Action, 6, “Too infrequently do we recognize that the central function of the man is to rethink and recreate the materials with which he works. The director who does not engage the animate and inanimate materials at his disposal and transmute them into an image of himself, is merely going through the motions. Some other title must be found for him. Call him a coordinator, a controller, a foreman, or a traffic cop, but do not confuse him with an artist of the theatre.”

  8. Elizabeth Weil, “Report from the Future: Every Leader Tells a Story,” Fast Company, June–July 1998, 38. Another article from the same issue by author and publisher Harriet Rubin, “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the New Economy,” profiling Douglas Adams, makes the point that “the art of the storyteller is the art of the new economy” (p. 178).

  9. David Kahn and Donna Breed, Scriptwork: A Director's Approach to New Play Development (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995), 20.

  10. Gordon Shaw, Robert Brown, and Philip Bromiley, “Strategic Stories: How 3M Is Rewriting Business Planning,” Harvard Business Review 76, no. 3 (May–June 1998), 44; 47. See also Thomas A. Stewart, “The Cunning Plots of Leadership,” F ortune, September 7, 1998, 165–166, and Rob Wilkens, “Strategic Storytelling,” L ifework 1, no. 5 (October 1998): 23–25.

  11. A couple of good resources on scriptwriting are J. Michael Straczynski, The Complete Book of Scriptwriting (Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 1996), and Syd Field, Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting (New York: MJF Books, 1994). For a wonderful book on how to read scripts as literature and then turn them into engaging performances, see Richard Hornby, Script to Performance: A Structuralist Approach (New York: Applause Books, 1995). Interestingly, Hornby dislikes the performance theory approach of Richard Schechner because “structure cannot be separated from substance without degenerating into triviality” (p. xv). Hornby further calls Schechner's work “sometimes insightful and sometimes Rube Goldberg fabrication.” Let us assure you that we adapted from the insightful parts.

  12. Michael Hammer, “Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate,” Harvard Business Review 68, no. 4 ( July–August 1990): 104–112.

  13. See also James H. Gilmore, “Reengineering for Mass Customization,” Journal of Cost Management 7, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 22–29, and Gilmore, “How to Make Reengineering Truly Effective,” Planning Review 23, no. 3 (May/June 1995): 39, as well as B. Joseph Pine II, “Serve Each Customer Efficiently and Uniquely,” Network Transformation: Individualizing Your Customer Approach, supplement to Business Communications Review 68, no. 4 ( January 1996): 2–5.

  14. Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad, Competing for the Future: Breakthrough Strategies for Seizing Control of Your Industry and Creating the Markets of Tomorrow (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1994).

  15. For how Gallatin Steel mass customizes steel—a near, but not quite, c ommodity—see David H. Freeman, “Steel Edge,” Forbes ASAP, October 6, 1997, 46–53. For more on how Pilkington Brothers took a laborious five-step glass-making process down to one-step float glass, see James M. Utterback, Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation: How Companies Can Seize Opportunities in the Face of Technological Change (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1994), 104–120. All process and product developers should read this book.

  16. Bob Thomas, Walt Disney: An American Original (New York: Hyperion, 1994), 264.

  17. Francis Reid, Designing for the Theatre (New York: Theatre Art Books/ Routledge, 1996), 19.

  18. Felsenthal, “Lawyers Learn How to Walk the Walk.”

  19. Angie Michael, Best Impressions in Hospitality: Your Professional Image for Excellence (Manassas Park, VA: Impact Publications, 1995), provides a good resource in this area.

  20. Michael Holt's classic manual on costuming, Costume and Make-Up (New York: Schirmer Books Theatre Manuals, 1988), 7, lays out the importance of these cues: “Costume is part of the actors' apparatus. It helps them to create their characters. Every item of clothing sends signals of one kind or another to the audience. As soon as the actors appear, even before they speak, the audience will have gleaned a great deal of information. They can see by the shape and colour of the costume whether a character is to be welcomed or feared. The whole image is composed of signs that they will react to both consciously and unconsciously.”

  21. Quoted in Erik Hedegaard, “Fools' Paradise,” Worth, June 1998, 76.

  22. Pauline Menear and Terry Hawkins, Stage Management and Theatre Administration (New York: Schirmer Books Theatre Manuals, 1988), 7.

  23. Julian Fast, Subtext: Making Body Language Work in the Workplace (New York: Viking, 1991), 13.

  24. Leonard A. Schlesinger and James L. Heskett, “Breaking the Cycle of Failure in Services,” Sloan Management Review 32, no. 3 (Spring 1991): 26.

  25. Given that this section is written from the perspective of the auditors, we refer aspiring actors who wish to perform well at auditions to Michael Shurtleff, Audition: Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part (New York: Bantam Books, 1978).

  26. The Project on Disney, Inside the Mouse (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), 214–215.

  27. Mark Winegardner, Prophet of the Sandlots: Journeys with a Major League Scout (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1990), 97.

  28. Robert L. Benedetti, The Director at Work (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985), 87.

  29. Mobley, NTC's Dictionary of Theatre and Drama Terms, 4.

  30. Philip Kotler and Joanne Scheff, Standing Room Only: Strategies for Marketing the Performing Arts (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997).

  31. Ibid., 13.

  Chapter 9

  1. As Lisa Miller re
ports on the phenomenon of spiritual directors in the Wall Street Journal, “Americans have long hired people to care for their children, their bodies and their finances. Now, they're hiring personal trainers for their souls.” In “After Their Checkup for the Body, Some Get One for the Soul,” July 20, 1998.

  2. For a study on the vast possibilities and sheer magnitude of change individuals seek, see Grant McCracken, Transformations: Identity Construction in Contemporary Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).

  3. Interestingly, boot camps, flight simulators, business games, and virtual reality training tools all purposefully commoditize experience in order to change people. By having them go through simulations of real-world experiences over and over and over again, these experiences help their reactions become second nature, greatly increasing their ability to react to fast-changing, often life-threatening, situations quickly. As training executive Tom Orton told Industry Week, users of his company's semiconductor plant simulator “feel as though they've already been there and done that” (“25 Winning Technologies,” December 15, 1997, 52).

  4. We anticipate the day when the proliferation of FedEx packages, faxes, and e-mail will restore the receipt of good old U.S. mail as a memorable experience, much as a trip to a farm has become.

  5. David Bacon, quoted in Susan Warren, “Parents Are on a Kick for Tae Kwon Do as a Disciplinary Art,” Wall Street Journal, October 3, 1997.

  6. Tim W. Ferguson, “Let's Talk to the Master,” Forbes, October 23, 1995, 142.

  7. Quoted in Lucy MacCauley, “Measure What Matters,” Fast Company, May 1999, 111.

  8. Anna Klingmann, Brandscapes: Architecture in the Experience Economy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 313 and 323, respectively.

  9. Jeffrey A. Kottler, Travel That Can Change Your Life: How to Create a Transformative Experience (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997), xi.

  10. Mark Wolfenberger, quoted in Nikhil Hutheesing, “Reducing Sticker Shock,” Forbes, November 3, 1997, 151.

  11. Rob Preston, “Down to Business: Outsourcing's Next Big Thing,” InformationWeek, August 31, 2009, 48.

  12. For more on Mid-Columbia Medical Center, see Mark Scott and Leland Kaiser, with Richard Baltus, Courage to Be First: Becoming the First Planetree Hospital in America (Bozeman, MT: Second River Healthcare Press, 2009).

  13. Quoted in J. P. Donlon, “The P&G of Prisons,” Chief Executive, May 1998, 28–29.

  14. Kairos Prison Ministry International, a nonprofit Christian ministries organization based in Orlando, Florida, specifically targets this recalcitrant prison population through a series of annual events that aim to change prisoners' hearts, beginning with the most hardened leaders. Understanding exactly how tough this is, Kairos employs platform theatre, wherein its workers script and rehearse every word spoken over a three-day period.

  15. Donlon, “The P&G of Prisons,” 29.

  16. Quoted in Sara Terry, “Genius at Work,” Fast Company, September 1998, 176.

  17. Each of the four S's in the 3-S Model still applies. First, customer satisfaction relative to expectations: how well did the transformation elicitor achieve my aspirations? Then, customer sacrifice: what gaps exist between what the customer should truly aspire to and what the customer was able to achieve? Third, customer surprise: transcending customer aspirations by eliciting change along a dimension the customer never expected. And finally, customer suspense: heightening the anticipation the customer has for what dimension the elicitor will help change next.

  18. As pointed out in chapter 6 of this book, Brenda Laurel makes the point in Computers as Theatre (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993), xviii, that human–c omputer interfaces should be “designed experiences.” In “Interface Design: Diversity in Your Audience,” Interactivity, February 1997, 69, Eric Justin Gould, principal of MONKEY media, an interface design and production studio, goes even further by encouraging interface designers to think of the transformative power of technology: “When you bring new technology into someone's life (be it cutting-edge hardware or just a new way of interacting), you can't help but have an effect on them. To respect a culture is to consider, during the design process, what influence your product might have on the people who interact with it.” Exactly.

  19. In a syndicated Chicago Tribune column by Jim Mateja, titled “OnStar Diagnostic System Brings Aid with a Call” in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 25, 1997, OnStar's chief engineer, Walt Dorfstatter, says, “We look at remote diagnostics as giving motorists instant peace of mind.”

  20. Britton Manasco, “SmithKline Beecham's Smoking Cessation Program,” Inside 1to1, August 6, 1998.

  21. Ibid.; see also Joyce A. Sackey, “Behavioral Approach to Smoking Cessation,” Real Doctors (Life Makers), May 8, 2006, www.real-doctors.com/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=d7d058b1ee1131ada4d9f0cbc6b5ee80&action=printpage;topic=654.0, and “These Are the Champions,” PROMO Magazine, November 1, 1999, promomagazine.com/mag/marketing_champions/.

  22. Rolf Jensen, The Dream Society (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999).

  23. In The Experience Economy: New Perspectives (Amsterdam: Pearson Education Benelux, 2007), 19–29 and throughout, Albert Boswijk, Thomas Thijssen, and Ed Peelen argue that companies should emphasize more meaningful experiences—denoted by the Dutch word erfahrung—as opposed to the more emotional, staged experiences denoted by erlebnis. These take off on the educational elements of an experience whenever “a person dwells on the question of what a particular experience … means for him” (p. 24). Such meaningful experiences are at least a half-step to becoming transformational. For a good model on meaningful experiences, the Experience Triangle (with levels of motivation, physical, rational, emotional, and mental), see Sanna Tarssanen and Mika Kylänen, “What Is an Experience?” in Handbook for Experience Tourism Agents, third edition, ed. Sanna Tarssanen (Rovaniemi, Finland: University of Lapland Press, 2006), 6–21.

  24. Hillel M. Finestone and David B. Conter, “Acting in Medical Practice,” Lancet 344, no. 8925 (September 17, 1994): 801.

  25. Mark DePaolis, “Doctors Can Act as If All the World's a Stage,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, January 27, 1995.

  26. See, for example, Gregory W. Lester and Susan G. Smith, “Listening and Talking to Patients: A Remedy for Malpractice Suits?” Western Journal of Medicine, March 1993; Jerry E. Bishop, “Studies Conclude Doctors' Manner, Not Ability, Results in More Lawsuits,” Wall Street Journal, November 23, 1994; Daniel Goleman, “All Too Often, The Doctor Isn't Listening, Studies Show,” New York Times, November 13, 1991; Dennis H. Novack, Anthony L. Suchman, William Clark, Ronald M. Epstein, Eva Najberg, and Craig Kaplan, “Calibrating the Physician: Personal Awareness and Effective Patient Care,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 278, no. 6 (August 13, 1997): 502–509; Eric B. Larson and Xin Yao, “Clinical Empathy as Emotional Labor in the Patient-Physician Relationship,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 293, no. 9 (March 2, 2005): 1100–1106.

  27. Milton Mayeroff, On Caring (New York: HarperPerennial, 1971), 1–2.

  28. C. William Pollard, “The Leader Who Serves,” Strategy & Leadership 25, no. 5 (September/October 1997): 50.

  29. C. William Pollard, The Soul of the Firm (New York: HarperBusiness and Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 130. The last of Pollard's twenty-one principles of leadership (p. 166) demonstrates the power of a serving attitude: “We have all been created in God's image, and the results of our leadership will be measured beyond the workplace. The story will be told in the changed lives of people.” Make no mistake: such serving yields no mere service but rather a caring transformation.

  Chapter 10

  1. Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era (New York: G. Putnam's Sons, 1995), xvi.

  2. Ibid., xvii. Part of Rifkin's “solution” is to put a value-added tax “on the entertainment and recreation industries, which are among the fastest-growing sectors of the economy.” The reason:
“Few of the nation's poor can afford home computers, cellular phones, and expensive trips to theme parks, resorts, and casinos” (p. 271). It's axiomatic that the economy gets less of whatever gets taxed, so this would seem to be the economic equivalent of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face—taxing experiences when that's where the new jobs will be created. It's also not surprising that someone who doesn't trust market mechanisms would look to target the fastest-growing economic sector for sources of revenue for more government programs and regulations.

  3. Ibid., 247. See also Rifken, Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism Where All of Life Is a Paid-for Experience (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2000), where he more explicitly discusses the Experience Economy. Our summary of this somewhat contradictory book: this shift to an economy wherein all of life becomes a paid-for experience is a terrible thing, and the worst part about it is that the poor do not have access to the same (terrible) opportunities.

  4. To create the transformations category, we used employment and GDP government statistics in these five sectors: professional, scientific, and technical services (NAICS code 54; 60% of annual value); management of companies and enterprises (55; 33.4%); educational services (61; 100%); healthcare and social assistance (62; 100%); and other services except public administration (81; 20%). As with experiences, there are certainly transformation businesses left in the service statistics, as they could not be broken out separately. We believe that a true breakout into these newly identified economic offerings of what today are classified as services would show an even more pronounced shift in these statistics to the higher-order offerings.

  5. Indeed, prior to a brief reprieve forced by political pressure in 1994, health-care spending grew consistently in double digits over the previous decade, far outpacing almost any other industry.

  6. Digest of Education Statistics: 2009, National Center for Education Statistics, nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_334.asp, Table 334. As with recent reductions in the rate of price increases in healthcare, the education statistics are affected by politics. In particular, the increasing amount of student aid available from the government in various forms makes it easier for colleges and universities to increase their tuition commensurately.

 

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