Objects versus experiences.
Have been thinking a lot about the value of physical things versus the value of intellectual things. This came up, most recently, in a conversation with my wife regarding her mother who died last year. My mother in law used to put out a simple bean bag game every July 4th and it’s an enduring memory now for my wife. Of course, in the turmoil of the estate management, bean bags were the last thing on anyone’s mind and so now they’re gone.
However, it’s not the bean bags that we’d actually want. It’s the idea of the bean bags and what they represent to my wife that matter more. These were bags that my mother in law sewed for her kids. It was a game that her uncle helped to build. And, it was the ritual around the game that brought meaning to the objects themselves. So, we have decided to make a new set of bean bags and a new game. We’ll bring them out on July 4th to play with our kids, and we’ll remember my mother in law every time we use them.
In doing so, we will create objects that actually have even more value than the originals. The new bean bags will be symbols of a ritual and participants in a brand new ritual at a deeper and more meaningful level than the original bean bags could ever be.
The insight here is that we have identified value in the experience not the object. If we had been able to keep the original bean bags, it’s doubtful we’d have even thought about the experience; it was only because we were presented with no other choice that we actually ended up with something better.
To me this is a useful insight for businesses too. Services are inherently designed to create experiences or enhance meaning. The learning here is that services aren’t simply tools for enhancing products, but instead they can also replace physical objects while actually delivering more value.