By Peter AnkerstjerneEdition 11 – Spring 2019 Pages 5 – 9
Tags: engagement • design • data

Note:
The Work&Place Editorial Advisory Board applauds this article as one of the eight best articles we published in 2019. We recommend it highly for its candor, its thoughtful critique of the focus on Big Data, and its call for more attention to the actual experiences of the people who “inhabit” workplaces.

The term “data is the new oil” was first coined in the mid-2000s;[i] it refers to the notion that data should be considered a “natural resource” just like crude oil. Like oil, data is valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used and therefore it must be broken down, analysed, and processed to have value.
As we do so, the access of data and the use of data analytics sets the new direction for our society and for wealth creation – just like oil did back in the days. Data, and especially digitalization, AI, and robotics have become the focal point for the latest industrial revolution (industry 4.0).[ii]
There is no doubt that data is important, and it does provide the foundation on which we make decisions and develop our society. But I would argue that it is the experiences that will keep the engines running today and into the future. It is experiences that provide the energy, passion, and engagement that will fuel the development of our businesses and then ultimately all of society.
‘The experience economy’ is a term that has been around since the late ‘90s,[iii] and as such it is much older than the aforementioned data-related topics. Nevertheless, it is still relevant, and we are still learning how we can manage experiences in our workplaces, through our products and services, and towards our customers and the communication that ties it all together. Actually, the experience economy has never been more relevant than it is today.
Joseph Pine and James Gilmore wrote their famous Harvard Business Review article (and book), Welcome to the Experience Economy, in 1998:
To realize the full benefit of the experience economy, businesses must deliberately design engaging experiences that command a fee. This transition from selling services to selling experiences will be no easier for established companies to undertake and weather than the last great economic shift, from the industrial to the service economy. Unless companies want to be in a commoditized business, however, they will be compelled to upgrade their offerings to the next stage of economic value.[iv]

The Experience Economy in FM (adapted from Pine & Gilmore, 1998)
Pine and Gilmore later refined their model to include the next phase in the economic value model as Transformation. To be successful, organisations must create memorable events for their customers, and that memory itself then becomes the product — the ‘experience’. The authors also believed that a more-advanced ‘experience business’ could begin charging for the value of the ‘transformation’ that the experience offers.
There is no doubt that working with experiences, which can even become transformational for a business, must be the holy grail for any organisation that aims to create value in the relationship with its customers.
There is no doubt that working with experiences, which can even become transformational for a business, must be the holy grail for any organisation that aims to create value in the relationship with its customers.[v]  Naturally, the experiences will not only have to be relevant to customers (and probably even more so to the organisation’s employees) but help to transform and redefine the business, grow revenue, and drive innovation and change.
Staging experiences in a workplace context
Something interesting is happening in the Facility Management and Corporate Real Estate (FM/CRE) sector these days, with the new focus on staging experiences and driving transformation. Every big company is trying to get its hands (and heads) around the workplace experience and to make it an integral part of its value proposition.
Even when these concepts (workplace-, service-, human-, and employee experiences) are labelled differently, the outcomes are still relatively similar. Developing an ability to stage experiences within the workplace that will bring it to life and provide a better and more holistic experience for the employees who work there, and for visiting guests, is at the centre of corporate success today. The workplace experience should of course be aligned with, or even leverage, the strategy, the brand, and especially the culture of the organization….