The latest new-generation movie megaplex recently opened near us. It's got stadium seating, reclining extra-wide luxurious seats with cup holders in the armrests, and so much legroom you could park a Winnebago. A couple of the 14 screens in the megaplex are Imaxes that surround you with giant images and wrap you in sound. In the lobby they sell real food, the kind you might conceivably want to consider eating. All in all, the experience is a treat, one that elevates the ritual of going to a movie (ugly outside architecture notwithstanding). In … [Read more...]

Choice is good right? Malcom Gladwell does a great talk on how Howard Moskowitz revolutionized marketing by understanding the dynamics of choice. His example here is spaghetti sauce. Traditional marketing strategy had been to get together focus groups and ask them what they liked in a good sauce. Then groups were asked what characteristics they liked in a sauce - should it be chunky? Zesty? Authentic Italian? The results would be tallied and a sauce that matched the most popular characteristics would be produced.But this is wrong. The mushy … [Read more...]

I was a bit surprised by some of the reaction to my last post on the unsustainability of the ticket sales model in the Attention Economy. Boil down my argument and it's essentially this: products used to compete primarily with other products in their sector. Jazz competed with other jazz, dance competed with other dance. In the Attention Economy, dance competes with video games competes with YouTube videos competes with online courses from MIT competes with the Cuban Hooked Rug Society Online. The typical consumer transaction decision is a … [Read more...]

Another lifetime ago we were in the Manufacturing Economy. We made things. Then we were in the Transportation Economy. We outsourced making things and brought whatever we needed to us. Then it was the Experience Economy. We created entertainment around the things we buy (how we justify paying $4.50 for a 50-cent coffee). Now we're in the Attention Economy. In the infinite choice marketplace, ideas and products only get traction if they get noticed.The American arts economy is run as though we're still living in the Manufacturing Economy or the … [Read more...]

In the past couple of years, half of all the staff arts journalism jobs in the US have been eliminated. In some cases, newspapers offloading their staff critics have replaced them with freelancers. In some cases, the freelancers have done a better job than the staffers they have replaced. But mostly not.Running a good freelance section requires editors who have the time and talent to know what's going on in the culture of their community, who are out listening for the stories they should be assigning. Most editors are even busier just trying to … [Read more...]