A consumer show in every town.

Few can travel to Consumer Electronics Show or New York Toy Fair, but the idea of a local consumer show is not far-fetched.

This venue is open every day. Registered attendees wave their credentials as they walk in. The bright lights symmetrically lining the ceiling make them lose track of time. Aisles after aisles of products are displayed seductively as in a consumer show, except attendees can put them in a shopping cart if they choose. Then there are the sounds and sights of goods being moved on forklifts one must dodge, endure the occasional announcement on the public address system, walk mesmerized by the high-resolution images on the giant television screens and the glistening electronics on display, the food court to rest and refuel, the sampling stations of products on sale that appear fleetingly. Lastly, there are the sore feet that attendees take home. All of these make it almost like a consumer show, yet it is not one because attendees line up at the checkout counter and cart away goods bought at the show.

Having spent time understanding trade shows, I can't unsee a convention center whenever I walk into a Costco. Perfectly positioned to be a captivating permanent consumer show, here are suggested changes to complement and enhance Costco’s current member-experience. 

• The sensory experience in Costco is primed for a consumer show. Add a carnival-like playfulness and shopping is no longer a chore. 
• Give indie bands a chance to perform in the parking lot and enter the music business.
• Allow manufacturers into aisles to stand by to explain their products in person or via video conference while capturing consumer reactions in person.
• Costco already holds live demos of products like cookware. Add a catwalk to the clothes section, running every few hours.
• Allow manufacturers to buy the privilege of giving away tchotchkes and stickers.
• Open up a section of the floor at a Costco for product launches, and live stream it on social media to compete with shopping TV channels, making shopping more inclusive for those who can’t leave home.
• Grow an audience with themed book signing and book readings by authors.
• Welcome teens to creating social media content while shopping, thus going beyond the traditional families who spend a good part of their weekend at a Costco.
• Add a raffle at participating ‘stations’ to even out traffic, subject to gaming laws, of course.
• Add a conference component with high quality programming to build a community that bonds over inspiring content versus fleeting conversations at a tasting station, or while waiting in the checkout line.

Costco, through experiential shopping, could prepare for its next generation of members, building not merely a mailing list but rather a community of brand evangelists, and get to escape velocity to shake off comparisons with discount retailers.

Prescience - art or science?

My previous post on this blog was in April 2009. It was something about a Kindle for newspapers and magazines. On April 3, 2010, Apple launched the iPad.

There have been a few other instances where I have been able to predict certain events and products, so I have been trying to understand why that happens. 

Is it a way of absorbing information and does one start seeing patterns in disparate fields? Does that make one speak metaphorically? 

Most importantly, is being prescient about certain things good or bad? Can it result in the design or a product that is ahead of its time? That may not be good if the market takes too long to catch on, or change its habits, and adapt to the new product. 

Timing is a tricky thing, whether it is timing the stock market or timing the birth of a product.

Does being prescient take away an ability to live with a sense of wonderment? Does a habit to seek patterns while reading something lead to over-thinking or scattered thinking? Does being prescient feed 'told-you-so' conversations? Does prescience pave the way for schadenfreude, especially under the cover of anonymity on the Internet? How does one avoid these traps?

The good news is prescience comes with guardrails. It does not work consistently. The word 'prescience' has the word 'science' within, but it is art. 

Prescience is probably the same as identifying patterns and extrapolating results. Prescience is probably how wisdom manifests.

Therein lie answers to the question of how one develops prescience. 

Absorb information from all possible sources and do it consistently for a long time, not because you are paid to do it or because you have to pass an exam. Read, watch, experience things and learn. Do it out of curiosity. Learn from history. With the passage of time, we might find ourselves becoming more and more prescient, and certainly getting older and wiser. Wisdom may be another way to describe prescience. That may explain why only elders are able to engage in 'told-you-so' behaviors with abandon. 

This was a warm-up blog post for future essays exploring and observing the world and life.