Suspend Disbelief to Envision Shopping as It Can Be
December 1st, 2005
John Berger said:
Jim and Timlynn, your post is fascinating. I love and agree with your deathtrap 1 ?? you have said it way more concisely than I ever could have. I can??t understand deathtrap 2, but my failure is because I don??t understand what the alternative could be…
Personally, I don??t think I have ever purchased something online because I was ??engaged?…
I am falling into the trap here of assuming my shopping patterns are typical, but I think you would agree that most retailers, even the successful online ones, think the same way…
Hey John and Mark,
Aha! John, your last post shows that you are trying but struggling as you enter the ‘zone’ where you can suspend disbelief and think about ’shopping’ that is not shopping. Congratulations! This struggle is a necessary first step toward envisioning breakthrough innovations necessary for NED’s success. (”Grasshopper,” as David Carradine’s elder would tell him in an old King Fu episode,”Your strength is your weakness, your weakness is your strength.”)
What you described in your ‘use case’ about how/why you shop is a great example of shopping as we know it. Essentially all on-line and real world shopping environments and business models known to date were envisioned and designed with the assumption that the most central element of shopping is finding and acquiring some thing, some stuff, some product that you want and need.
Forget that. For most of us in non-marginalized, non-impoverished circumstances, we probably have nearly all the stuff we need. Sure, there are consumables that we have to shop for repeatedly (food, toilet paper, etc.). And sometimes we have excess capital and want to treat ourselves to a new something or other that will enhance our personal life. For these things, we shop — as in the shopping as we know it way. Price, quality, and service all still, and will, matter.
And yet, while we keep acquiring the stuff that the marketeers tell us we need to be happy, cool, accepted, envied, whatever, there is still a sucking black hole in our lives that says, “Is that all there is? Is this the sum and substance of my life?”
It is shopping as it can be that will speak to and address this void/need/drive in our lives. Imagine a shopping (consumer) experience where the product is incidental to the experience, where the experience/participation itself has intrinsic, fulfilling value. Where the product is the prize in the Cracker Jack box.
Sure, as Mark says in terms of the ’shopper bandwidth’ analogy, NED has to appeal to and serve the ‘thing/product need’ of those who engage in shopping as we know it. But it will be our envisioning and working to explore and create shopping as it can be that will trigger the network effect that puts NED’s impact into the marketing history books.
It is interesting, but understandable. Over the years that we have been exploring these ideas, it is those with the most knowledge and experience in marketing (the strategists of shopping as we know it) who have the hardest time suspending disbelief and imagining shopping as it can be. Yet, once these folks break that tyranny of certainty about know how things are and always will be, we believe these folks will be among our most valuable envisioneers leading the charge to create shoping as it can be.
“Grasshopper, your strength is your weakness. Your weakness is your strength.”
–Sohodojo Timlynn and Jim–
Entry Filed under: Entrepreneurial Community Ecosystems, Inprosumerism, NED - Philanthropic Franchise
Suspend Disbelief to Envision Shopping as It Can Be
December 1st, 2005
John Berger said:
Jim and Timlynn, your post is fascinating. I love and agree with your deathtrap 1 ?? you have said it way more concisely than I ever could have. I can??t understand deathtrap 2, but my failure is because I don??t understand what the alternative could be…
Personally, I don??t think I have ever purchased something online because I was ??engaged?…
I am falling into the trap here of assuming my shopping patterns are typical, but I think you would agree that most retailers, even the successful online ones, think the same way…
Hey John and Mark,
Aha! John, your last post shows that you are trying but struggling as you enter the ‘zone’ where you can suspend disbelief and think about ’shopping’ that is not shopping. Congratulations! This struggle is a necessary first step toward envisioning breakthrough innovations necessary for NED’s success. (”Grasshopper,” as David Carradine’s elder would tell him in an old King Fu episode,”Your strength is your weakness, your weakness is your strength.”)
What you described in your ‘use case’ about how/why you shop is a great example of shopping as we know it. Essentially all on-line and real world shopping environments and business models known to date were envisioned and designed with the assumption that the most central element of shopping is finding and acquiring some thing, some stuff, some product that you want and need.
Forget that. For most of us in non-marginalized, non-impoverished circumstances, we probably have nearly all the stuff we need. Sure, there are consumables that we have to shop for repeatedly (food, toilet paper, etc.). And sometimes we have excess capital and want to treat ourselves to a new something or other that will enhance our personal life. For these things, we shop — as in the shopping as we know it way. Price, quality, and service all still, and will, matter.
And yet, while we keep acquiring the stuff that the marketeers tell us we need to be happy, cool, accepted, envied, whatever, there is still a sucking black hole in our lives that says, “Is that all there is? Is this the sum and substance of my life?”
It is shopping as it can be that will speak to and address this void/need/drive in our lives. Imagine a shopping (consumer) experience where the product is incidental to the experience, where the experience/participation itself has intrinsic, fulfilling value. Where the product is the prize in the Cracker Jack box.
Sure, as Mark says in terms of the ’shopper bandwidth’ analogy, NED has to appeal to and serve the ‘thing/product need’ of those who engage in shopping as we know it. But it will be our envisioning and working to explore and create shopping as it can be that will trigger the network effect that puts NED’s impact into the marketing history books.
It is interesting, but understandable. Over the years that we have been exploring these ideas, it is those with the most knowledge and experience in marketing (the strategists of shopping as we know it) who have the hardest time suspending disbelief and imagining shopping as it can be. Yet, once these folks break that tyranny of certainty about know how things are and always will be, we believe these folks will be among our most valuable envisioneers leading the charge to create shoping as it can be.
“Grasshopper, your strength is your weakness. Your weakness is your strength.”
–Sohodojo Timlynn and Jim–
Entry Filed under: Entrepreneurial Community Ecosystems, Inprosumerism, NED - Philanthropic Franchise
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