Random Ideas: Cooking up a Holy Trinity

Apologies for starting off on a downer, but getting older sometimes feels a bit like watching toothpaste cirling the plughole doesn't it? Faster and faster towards the centre... isn't it weird how time accelerates as our years stretch towards, and beyond, the midpoint of our 81-or-so-years life expectancy?

So, in the context of that rather gloomy frame of mind, I was relieved and encouraged to be reading, over the past few years, about our increased collective appetite for experiences, rather than stuff. Talk of the 'Experience Economy', or 'Exponomy', rising above our Maslowian needs for commodities, goods and services, fills me with hope and joy, for I have long been a believer that stuff is for Christmas, but memories are for life. I particularly enjoyed re-reading Ben Casnocha's article on this topic, recently.

However, I don't believe that 'Exponomy' is replacing our demand for products and services. On the contrary, products and services that support, sustain and celebrate an 'experience' - be that a holiday, an evening out, a art course or whatever - and its memory, should provide ample opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators.

I was philosophising thus, over a beer, with a friend the other night, specifically in the context of where opportunities might exist for startups now and in the next few years. He countered my somewhat-yesterday Exponomy musings with the 'Internet of Things' (IOT). That, too, is well documented, of course, but many companies, especially those providing the relevant infrastructure and those who actually touch the end consumer, appear to still be struggling to give focus - and birth - to really meaningful applications, or certainly to ones that could be considered an experience in their own right, or supporting one.

Having added his 'IOT' to my 'Exponomy', I wondered, as I strolled home, if what we'd been cooking up that evening, could be enhanced, perhaps, with social media. Social has been showing real signs of maturing over the past 18 months or so, with the introduction of visual search, live streaming, buy buttons, Snapchat marketing and more.

So what do we have? We have consumers moving towards wanting experiences, social channels that are capable, not only of celebrating those experiences, but also sharing, recommending and monetising them - and an Internet of Things that could offer relevant opportunities if we could just work out how.

If you and your business can come up with an 'internet-thing' that truly fits in with where the world is at, or perhaps even offer us a glimpse of an Internet of Experiences, then you will have three massively influential cultural and technological shifts working in your favour. Crack that bit, and you'll really be cooking...

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Any views or opinions presented in this post are solely those of the author and do not represent those of their employer.