Experience Economy

Made the pilgrimage into town yesterday to visit the boys in the home office. As was expected they were all busy processing orders, chatting with new customers, painstakingly working through the new software. Sometimes, working in my home office on merely one of the many components that comprise this huge, intricate puzzle, I lose sight of the big picture. Heck, sometimes it's easy to lose this vision when you are merely separated by an office or two from the CFO. You know, the big picture as measured by the counting of beans.

My visit was refreshing. Everybody is in good spirits and morale high. Product is going out the door. And despite the frustrations over 'my brand' playing second fiddle to the new software release, now just a few short weeks away, I remain excited about the future. Sincerely. And not simply because it provides me with bread for the table, but more because it is cool, fun and rewarding. Those things are important to me. And the new software will dramatically enhance the end user experience. It hurts a little now, but like climbing a monster hill, it will (eventually) end.

This feeling was matched perfectly starting with a chapter I read sailing home on the ferry.

"As a human construct with human foibles, it is inevitable that the practice of business will also include the experience of suffering. However, while other political, religious and arts institutions see the need for suffering, valuing it as a price for transformation to a new level of human experience, business organizations still regard suffering through that adolescent perspective of avoidance and immaturity."1

And finishing with, "Business in many ways provides the antidote to suffering, so it naturally tends to devalue that which it seeks to profitably eliminate."

The pain of no gain, or,

Only through pain is there gain.

Transformation has a cost. How much are you willing to pay?

Where work is theatre and every business a stage.

I like it.

1, The Experience Economy. B. Joesph Pine & James H. Gilmore.


Pix: Screen shot of the new start up page. Please notice the middle and top row option. Hey now. I can wait. The Nature Valley Grand Prix road show. Demo of the CompuTrainer as a metaphor for the value of suffering. Every ride's a stage, a chance for you to be a star.