Culturematic Revolution - Taking The Experience Economy even further…

A fascinating article in the Harvard Business Review by Grant McCracken about AmEx’s latest product/service: Nextpedition.

Taking Pine and Gilmore’s experience economy even further, he argues that a new kind of managerial capitalism - a new corporation - is emerging: one that produces “randomness, variety and delight”. What does this company look like?

“Standardizing production was the great objective of the second industrial revolution. It almost always made the product or experience better because in those days, randomness was enemy of consumer satisfaction. But as consumers, it turns out, we are totally ungrateful. No sooner do we get perfection, sometime in the mid-20th century, than we tire of it. Enter Joe Pine’s mass customization and eventually Etsy.

Now it feels like we are on the verge of another revolution. Call it the Culturematic revolution. Now we want not just customization, but noise in the system, things that emerge (apparently) in real time, and the world to resist expectation.”