We live in an experience economy. If you look around your life you’ll know it’s true. Everything is star rated, and if it’s not 4/5 or higher nobody’s interested.

Everybody promises a great product, great service; and if everyone does it then it’s not the basis for competition.

The corporate culture at the place where you work – what’s that other than what the experience of working there feels like. If the experience is terrible then you’ll go find somewhere else to work.

And so if experiences have become the basis for differentiation, and therefore the basis for selection, then a rational person should be rather interested in what it takes to create great experiences.

What would happen in your career if working with you was a great experience?
What would happen to your company if buying from you was a great experience?
What would happen to your friendships or your marriage if being with you was a great experience?

We live in a world where we have more choice than ever before. Great products, great service, great manners; they’re hygiene factors now. People choose based on the experiences you create, based on how interacting with you makes them feel.

I think this is a good thing. It’s a race to the top. Now that corporations, and by extension the people in them, need to create great experiences, our culture is going to become a nicer one to live in. The days of the short term hustle are numbered, that game is dead in the water because it’s a terrible experience and we just aren’t going to stand for it anymore.

We live in an experience economy. It’s already here, it’s just not widely understood, and that means there will be winners and losers. That means that there will be people who catch the wave, and people paddling behind it to catch up.

It means that you have an opportunity.

An opportunity to create great experiences, an opportunity to catch the wave by making better things, and in so doing, to make things better.