What do Brene Brown, Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, Amanda Palmer and Jonathan Coulton have in common?
October 5, 2013 1 Comment
Their work illustrates a robust source of scarcity for art: human connection.
That sounds obvious, but given how most media executives run their businesses, its not. Maybe it’s always been part of what people pay for, maybe it’s coming into focus with the decline of traditional media business models. Not sure. But it does seem that human connection is scarcer than ever and people are willing, nay, people are eager, to pay for it.
Why is it scarce? This is pure speculation on my part, but it could be because many of the consumers who have the discretionary income to spend on entertainment live digitally mediated lives. The family dinner table, the dinner party, the social club, the town square, the village festival, these are all gone for many of us. The opportunity for human connection is harder to come by. And as it becomes scarce, it becomes more valuable. (I realize a lot of chatter today talks about more connections than ever, but I’m not sure I’m buying that, could be cohort-based).
When Amanda Palmer talks about the opportunity for the connection between the artist who asks for help and the fan who gives it, that connection is a moment of scarcity.
When Seth Godin talks about the connection economy and permission based marketing, he is talking about a connection between a brand and a consumer where the brand’s marketing message is invited and appreciated by the consumer. Again, trust is scarce.
When Simon Sinek says “people don’t buy what you do , they buy why you do it,” he is speaking to a consumer’s need to feel connected to the brand in a meaningful way. Feeling part of a tribe is scarce.
When Jonathan Coulton makes a living as a musician it is evidence of the “1,000 true fans” concept and reinforces Godin’s connection economy.
And then comes along Brene Brown, who articulates an elegant and simple psychological explanation for why people cut themselves off because of shame. The shame cycle creates isolation similar to technology. And in isolation, the valuable commodity is connection.
Online multiplayer in Halo, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft provides connection. Facebook provides connection. Twitter provides connection. There is enormous growth for connection (or reasonable facsimiles thereof).
Art provides connection through the reflection of common experiences or the creation of new common experiences. GTAV provides human connection as does Breaking Bad. We all experience it like any big hit and it gives us something to talk about, a “water cooler” moment, a reason to talk and share something with another human being. THAT is scarce. Breaking Bad speaks to the aspirations and vulnerabilities of millions of people, when we feel connected to Walter White puts us in a club of those who like Breaking Bad. And then we have friends.
So how should an entertainment executive think about the future of making money in entertainment? Here is one set of logic:
- Your best consumers have discretionary income to spend on non-essential things like entertainment.
- Discretionary income will increasingly come from technological acumen and adoption. People who incorporate technology deep into their lives will do better than those who don’t.
- Technology creates isolation (not always, but often enough).
- Discretionary income will also come to those who value performance and winning. Which often means that they hate losing and carry a lot of shame. Shame creates isolation.
- It’s a fair bet that your best consumers and technologically savvy, high performers carrying around a lot of shame, and that they are isolated. This could just be me and the gamer crowds I hang out with, but go with it for the moment.
- Atoms are becoming bits and bits are free. But human connection is at an all-time high in terms of scarcity.
Possible new rule for manufacturing scarcity: don’t sell entertainment-as-a-thing (because the bits are increasingly free), sell entertainment-as-a-connection.
Matt J. McCloskey 
Love your thinking, Matt. 100% agree with the emerging value of connection. But I propose that a deeper examination of this philosophy is required to see a greater value proposition for content producers and consumers…
First, connection is fairly ubiquitous to the “best consumers” you mention. However, *meaningful* connection is a much more valuable and relevant commodity. Connecting with my so-called friends on Facebook or my thousands of followers on Twitter has, in my opinion, the emotional nutritional value of a celery stick — certainly not harmful, but hardly helpful. Even when this connection is around something I care about, like Breaking Bad or Radiohead, the connection is limited in that it primarily serves as re-enformcement or validation of my interests; connection around Halo, specifically multi-player, is a different example in that I need the connection in order to participate.
What I see as the greater value proposition is not just entertainment-as-connection, but when entertainment actually enables a memorable experience. When the connection being made is tied to a time, a place, a visible (not virtual) community. Where the connection comes with the requisite sensory input needed to transform fleeting impressions into lasting memories. I contend that to manufacture meaningful scarcity, an entertainment experience should be rooted in a place and time. After all, only a limited number of people can attend a concert on any given night… or cheer on their team at a sporting event… or watch a baby giraffe learn to walk at the zoo. These entertainment experiences involve what I call an “invested network” of consumers (unlike the “trusted networks” of Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Those consumers who invest the time and money to attend a concert or a sporting event or visit the zoo share one thing with everyone else in attendance: they all want the best experience possible.
Imagine a mobile platform, with an intuitive app interface, could provide an invested network at any event or attraction a simple way to connect around that experience, to share their impressions directly to that network through UGC, and to crowd-source the most relevant UGC? That would be a valuable connection which not only brings people together in a meaningful way, but also integrates the place itself into the conversation. Now imagine the concert venue (and the band), the sports arena (and the teams), the zoo (and even the zookeepers) all could use this mobile platform to communicate, in a personalized way, to each member of that invested network through curated content (free or paid) to enhance the consumer’s experience. Not to mention, all those “behind-the-scenes” stakeholders get access to real time data metrics around their networks to reveal what is working, or not, with the entertainment experience they are offering.
When you consider that these invested networks can also serve as a way to pull consumers to a place, or refer them to similar nearby networks, the value of such a platform increases dramatically. Add in the capacity for such networks to also offer “affinity content” (ie: media related to an experience, such as an animal-based mobile game recommended by a zoo upon leaving their facility) then such a mobile platform could be seen as the next iteration of business enterprise. If nothing else, such a platform offers a whole new way to manufacture content scarcity, while rewarding consumer mobility, presence and engagement.
The good news is, this mobile platform exists now at Rainspark Labs. And yes, I just used your brilliant blog to test drive some of the thinking behind our product.