There has been a bunch of conversation about how the on-line worlds are changing the nature of the traditional marketplace. Some have suggested we’re now in an experience economy, where people are buying an immersive experience surrounding a good or service rather than just the good or service itself (aka, Starbucks). Others have focused on the new currency of these new markets, suggesting that an attention economy is now in play, where people’s focus and interest is more scarce and more valuable than cash for maximizing business success (although, I imagine that cash is still pretty handy for paying the electricity bill).
Given my recent blathering about ticketing systems, however, I’m increasingly intrigued by a concept framed by journalist/blogger/tech maven Doc Searls back in 2006: The Intention Economy. Searls was feeling that the ”attention economy” wave building momentum back then was missing an essential point — attention might be the beginning of something, but it’s not sufficient to forge an economy. Rather, he thought, it’s an individual’s intention to do something that provides the essential stuff of markets. Says he:
The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages
the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that
they come ready-made. You don’t need advertising to make them. The Intention Economy is about markets, not marketing. You don’t need marketing to make Intention Markets. In The Intention
Economy, the buyer notifies the market of the intent to buy, and
sellers compete for the buyer’s purchase. Simple as that.
While it may sound like just a twist on other iterations, the Intention Economy is actually upside-down, particularly when we think about the arts. In the traditional approach, a bunch of individual arts organizations prepare and present content, and try to ‘capture’ the attention and commitment of some portion of the market. In an Intention Economy, ‘intent to act’ is the commodity up for sale. The consumer signals their interest in something (through a behavior or a specific statement out loud or online), and they receive offers to satisfy that intent. Think of it as a Lending Tree for everything else.
Searls original musing has evolved since then, in part into Project VRM (an inversion of CRM – customer relationship management – systems, letting customers manage their vendor relationships instead of vendors manage their customer relationships). More recent developments in the online world make it even more powerful. For example, in 2006, Searls suggested that a consumer would need to broadcast specifics:
”I’ll be skiing in Park City from March 20-25. I want to rent a 4-wheel
drive SUV. I belong to Avis Wizard, Budget FastBreak and Hertz 1 Club.
I don’t want to pay up front for gas or get any insurance. What can any
of you companies do for me?”
Now that most of those specifics are already swirling around our on-line profiles, and swimming through our media choices (our Pandora radio stations, iTunes lists, Amazon purchases, Netflix rentals, restaurant preferences, and the like), the signal of intent can be much more succinct:
”I’ve got a few open spots in my Google Calendar this week and some friends in town. Fill them with stuff I’ll like.”
or, more simply: ”I’m bored. I intend not to be.”
There are all sorts of creepy privacy issues embedded in that exchange, but it’s already coming (SonicLiving already makes event recommendations based on your iTunes and Pandora choices, your location, and a database of available performances). And people are increasingly willing to share bits of their behavior online in order to access better filters and recommendations on what to read, what to do, and who to meet.
The larger point is this: Arts and cultural experiences are among the most personal and complex goods on offer. It might be time to embrace an upside-down view of the marketplace that begins with the person primed for action rather than our separate (though desperate) organizational needs to fill our spaces.
RANDOM ADDITIONAL THOUGHT: Some smart programmer could build an autobot that scans Twitter and Facebook for statements of intent, and builds the actual marketplace where intent could meet provider. A simple hashtag could be the first attempt. Twitter example: ”I #intend to eat out tonight.” Your Twitter geotag provides your location. Your preference profile suggests your particular interests (discounts, adventurous food, social spaces, quiet dining, funky bars), and the bidding would begin.
Your “Random Thought” literally popped into my head while reading the rest of the blog. Would be sort of “new twitter” type of program and I think would be brilliant for consumer and producer. If it’s made right, sellers don’t have to shoot blindly into markets, its the most targeted way to see who wants your product. It almost like the consumer posts a billboard and the seller calls the toll-free #. I wish I was savvy on programming and I would totally do this.
A great idea, though maybe it needs a new name. How about the Kurt Cobain economy — “Here we are now, entertain us.”
The big problem clearly is that the general websurfing and facebooking that we now do is sometimes a faux-art-audience experience before we ever go to an event. How to turn intention into reality? Do we dangle opportunity like cat toys, hoping someone will chase after us?
If so, then are we really needed? (see earlier discussion on thinning the herd)
Perhaps if putting the customer at the center of the market appears to be “upside-down” to some people it’s because in fact, they are the ones who are upside down.
If you’re in this business and you are content-oriented rather than customer-oriented, you’re fundamentally misaligned from the start.
“In the traditional approach, a bunch of individual arts organizations prepare and present content, and try to ‘capture’ the attention and commitment of some portion of the market.”
In other words, the art gets created first, based on the creative impulse of the artist, and then the artist tries to find or create an audience for the work.
“In an Intention Economy, ‘intent to act’ is the commodity up for sale. The consumer signals their interest in something (through a behavior or a specific statement out loud or online), and they receive offers to satisfy that intent.”
In other words, the “intention economy” would put consumer interests first, with artists basing their work on what’s wanted and needed by the people who are going to “consume” it.
Some questions:
Does an arts organization exist to serve a public need or to satisfy the creative itch of the artists?
Are artists equally invested in the idea of “pursuing my own creative expression” and “responding to someone else’s need/desire/interest in consuming”?
Who benefits from artistic expression? What creative processes and intentions produce great art?
In a world where the distinction between “art maker” and “art consumer” is getting blurred, what kind of economy do we need?
GP’s comment reminded me of the Tom Cruise film Minority Report. I am sick of being bombarded now, and would not want to see more of it. If I even once surfed the web to buy a gift for a family member (and personally had no interest in the product/service) would I forever be blasted with BUY THIS NOW? What about stuff you purchse for children, who are into something for a short time, then move on? Will the ‘post-Twitter’self-correct? I doubt it, so the list of junk to delete will grow.
Thanks Heather,
Great and complex thoughts. Can’t say that I can answer the questions, but I can try to clarify your first points, as I think we’re going down different tracks.
I think a customer-centric model does NOT presume that individual arts organizations or artists bend their vision to match individual needs. Rather, the entire spectrum of created work becomes the offer, from all organizations or individuals. The goal is to match more directly that full range of opportunities to the individual’s interest/intent/preference.
Any individual artist or organization would continue to create their most compelling and personal work. As ever, some would involve audience or others in the creative process. Others would work individually or in small groups. Both are fine. But instead of each ‘seller’ attempting to find, capture, and hold a cluster of individuals (who actually appear in many organizational mailing lists as separate records), the individual would signal their intent and the organizations would respond. Not changing their art in the process, unless that’s something they chose to do, but rather matching their work to the intent of the individual (you like edgy, abstract, small-group experiences…we’ve got that in our current dance performance and here’s some evidence to prove it).
Mind you, I’m still wrapping my brain around it. It might be nothing new at all. But I’m certainly not suggesting that we need a market in which artistic process and intent become subordinate to consumer demand. We’ve already got plenty of markets like that.
I love Heather’s important questions.
I was about to write that it seems like an “intention market” system would tend to foster sameness rather than surprise, the expected rather than the life-changing, for art-goers. But then, reading your “artful” response I realized that there’s no reason an “intention” couldn’t be desiring art that surprises. But how to distinguish between art that surprises and just a random list of events?
Here, it seems to me that the art of describing and debating art comes into play and could become really important in this new model. Interest — real, authentic, dedicated interest — might come not only from ever-more clever marketing, not only from database-generated matches, but also (and maybe moreso) from art-goers following and interacting with the opinions, ideas, and perspectives of art critics operating within an “intention market.”