WHY “EXPERIENCE FIRST” WILL SEE OUR INDUSTRY THROUGH THE GREAT REALIGNMENT
A Watershed Moment Calls for a New Movement Toward Dynamic Convenience
VISION by Amit Egan Datwani IN COLLABORATION WITH Members of the GCO Collective
April 7th, 2022 - 4 minute read
QUICK TAKEAWAYS:
Global Consulting Organization leverages the rich experiences of GCO Collective creatives as a Project-Starting Firm that launches Development Projects with powerful creativity to integrate For-Profit Pursuits with Humanitarian Virtues.
GCO Unified Creative Vision activates Real Estate Development Projects with a COMMON PURPOSE to deliver a Well-Balanced Life by centering the Built Environment on Enhancing the Human Experience.
Data increasingly suggests that people will want to spend their time and money on “Experiences First” in the future, and the Real Estate Industry faces a Watershed Moment to deliver such projects for 2030 and Beyond.
Let’s trace our journey to date so we can look further into the future.
Most recently regarding our VISION for 2030 & Beyond, we’ve written about the alchemy needed for a Live-Work-Play Evolution and followed it up by introducing our Dynamic Convenience concept to ensure 15-Minute Cities deliver a Well-Balanced Life.
The common theme of both articles (and our COMMON PURPOSE at GCO in transforming spaces into places) is how to enhance the HUMAN EXPERIENCE through the Built Environment.
We defined the power of Experience in the Built Environment in a recent GCO FutureCast (we encourage you to give it a listen). But this idea is too pivotal, so let’s consider it more deeply with a look at a leading global company that espouses nurturing experience first “one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.”
Starbucks rocketed to success through the early aughts by embracing the role of “The Third Place” and centering its operations on the Human Experience. Starbucks CENTERED its operation ON PEOPLE - employees, customers, and neighbors alike. With Project-Starting fervor, the company helped spark today’s Live-Work-Play boom with its evolution of the corner coffee house concept.
Ever-expanding (with reportedly 33,000+ global locations in 2022), Starbucks has fallen prey in recent years to the trappings that Winston Smith’s tale cautioned us against: 15-Minute-City-styled conveniences that are VOID OF human emotion, feeling, and connection. Today, we tap orders into an app rather than converse with a barista, and all the while checkout line algorithms reward speed over the opportunity for spirited interactions between people.
“With revenues down and
new reports that its founding visionary is coming home, people’s changing values and priorities are buffeting Starbucks, and the company seems poised to embrace our GCO concept of DYNAMIC CONVENIENCE to recapture its golden age.”
As a Project-Starting Firm, GCO integrates FOR-PROFIT PURSUITS and HUMANITARIAN VIRTUES to successfully activate the Human Experience. This integration elevates Starbucks’ role as the “Third Place” to something more like the Good Place, the runaway hit comedy show.
The Good Place, an Outstanding Achievement in Comedy Award winner (2018), used its carefully crafted four-season arc to illustrate how thoughtful connection to other people in the places we occupy elevates our lives and theirs. When the Built Environment delivers shared experiences, our individual talents and treasures connect with those of others for mutual benefit and impact.
“We are living in a time of The Great Realignment when EXPERIENCES will transform the neighborhoods, communities, and cities of 2030 & Beyond so that we might all BETTER ONE ANOTHER.”
People will increasingly demand experiential places from our Industry. According to research from Ernst & Young Global Services (EY), “Experience First” is now the number one priority people will pursue with their time and resources, a phenomenon EY dubbed an “epoch-defining transition.” This unprecedented shift in HOW we prioritize our lives is “The Great Realignment,” a time when individuals, corporations, and service organizations will all REALIGN THEIR FOCUS on the Human Experience.
Without question, this is THE WATERSHED MOMENT for our Industry when we must RE-Imagine a NEW ERA of COMMON PURPOSE for delivering Experience in the Built Environment that leverages Dynamic Convenience for a Well-Balanced Life. In this way, we might all increasingly feel good and do good for ourselves and our fellow humans.
“That’s what the Good Place really is — it’s not even a place, really. It’s just having enough time with the people you love,” character Chidi Anagonye explains in the show’s penultimate episode.
Wouldn’t you agree that’s JUST the kind of place our Industry must deliver to thrive in the wake of The Great Realignment?
Cheers to 2030 & Beyond…