The trend of experience. “It’s so great you haven’t done that yet.”

After Christmas and the holidays, we often end up wondering where all the stuff we bought each other will go. Where we’ll fit it into our lives and, frankly, why we do it.
Decluttering, clearing down and simplifying all year and then allowing the the gaps to refill with things, most of which we never had it in mind to need.

Material products are a huge component of what keeps our economy turning. Manufactured goods that represent badges of position in our local social hierarchies, and others that fill a need for convenience and comfort, are valued relative to the brand values we subscribe to them. But things are changing.

Over the next year we’re going to see a far higher emphasis on the need for a reduction in material consumerism. Through promotion of the Circular Economy, driven by circular design, we’ll become aware of the benefits of making more mindful purchase decisions. We’ll be educated and asked to consider the calculated value and utility of an item and to think how we might dispose of it later: how it can be reintroduced to the supply chain or released to a predesigned secondary or tertiary purpose.

The strategic aim is to address the calamitous state of environmental pollution and to slow the rate at which our growing global population is throttling the ecosystem. By applying some kaizen thinking to circular design, the effect of small and constant changes will make a difference.

Out of this trend comes a focus on new opportunities. Call this the Experience Economy. The anticipation of going somewhere and doing something far exceeds the excitement of receiving a delivery. The actual doing of something can be stunning. Even if it doesn’t hit that high, in retrospect the memories are usually good. Here sits the value of experience. Experience, whether together or alone, is enjoyed and remembered differently to everyone else. We talk about it, photograph it and share the event from a unique perspective – and most often we don’t create material environmental waste when doing so.

The hierarchy of priority is also shifting. To be first to experience a new opportunity isn’t where the value is.
The aspirational trend is not to be first in line for the latest phone. The experience Economy leads us to want to be able to have someone say to us, ‘It’s great that you haven’t done that yet.’

The anticipation of doing something that has become popular could yet be where the highest value is.

Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.