Here is a thought: that you can't be a good shopper if you don't know what you are looking for. But what happens when you are looking to be inspired or entertained? How do you shop for ideas?
Seems to be that this bookshop has the right idea by overlaying the therapist's couch onto the proposition of book buying - and ending up with an intimate, guided customer experience.
And isn't the best bit of reading buying the book? The expectation of a beautiful cover, the smell of new pages, the tease of blurb… all that anticipation for a thrilling story - or maybe that is just me. Maybe this is a side effect of having worked in Publishing.
At Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath (what a name!), you pay £55 and in return you have 45min chat with an expert bookseller over tea and cakes who will help diagnose your needs - likes and dislikes, info on special gems and new releases - and make recommendations. You will walk out with £40 worth of books that you have chosen during the session.
Even better, you can then sojourn to the Reading Booth to get right into the act of reading, along with a few extra treats to extend the experience into your home - a mug and hot chocolate, music, tickets to a literary event. It could be the beginning of a beautiful new relationship with paperbacks.
Seems that this level of personal attention is hard to replicate in the digital world and that despite the empowerment of being able to make our own choices in a world of proliferated content - a cup of tea and a chat is still a valid solution to finding the best content for our needs.
Friday, 23 October 2009
Monday, 19 October 2009
Friday, 11 September 2009
Distributed Technology
So not so much an emerging trend, but a long delivered promise re-localisation is apparently underway... I heard a recent story on the radio that spoke about the growing eco-power technology industry. What caught my attention was a segment that covered the principle of rewarding community contribution. In somewhere in a small German village is a scheme that does two things. 1 - pays people when they give power back to the national grid (old news) and 2 - pays for providing the local community the heat that is a by product of the energy creation.
This technology is now at the scale where we could all become mini-power stations - but it is also smart enough to utilise the by-products as well. An finally, the government is smart enough to incentivise people to make the effort to establish these systems. Nice.
This concept of distributed technology is also showing up in the open source hardware platform - Arduino (www.arduino.cc) - which is essentially an enabler that rewards dedication and passion to learning the platform with greater results in people's experiments. The potential of the technology+passion+community+competition equation is probably huge...
Now of course there is a counterpoint to this idea of distribution, as the Swiss government looks to centralise the country's identity - http://www.brandchannel.com/start1.asp?fa_id=492 - recognising the power of brand, their response is homogenisation and consolidation.
Although there is only a loose link between these ideas, they do throw up an interesting challenge. What is balance between the individual and the wider community in solving problems? How much is carrot (paying for power put back into the national grid), how much is stick (are Switzerland's going to mobilise a brand police?) and how much is enterprise and entrepreneurship (let's see what the community generates with Arduino that isn't just 'toys')?
RT
Monday, 7 September 2009
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Testing the mood...
There's a very interesting tension showing up in the media that people are consuming, and the messages that are taking hold in popular imagination.
On the one hand, we are frequently and widely see the words "Keep Calm and Carry On". A reprint of one of a series of Second World War posters which has gained currency mainly due to it's level headed-ness. It inspires a great sense of shared community and spirit, which has great relevance and power during these uncertain times (although what times are ever certain...?).
On the other hand however, we see a trend of popular media becoming darker. Twilight (not O.C, or 90210 etc...) is the teen smash of the year, Let the Right One In has been widely hailed as a great piece of (dark) movie making, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is not only dark, but retells a popular classic in this new context.
The main opportunity here seems to be in the gap between the outward message of the collective, and the inward message of the individual. And understanding where your story lies in this spectrum ...
RT.
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