Jim Gilmore

Before the emergence of Covid-19, Americans were spending more money in restaurants and bars on food service and dining experiences than in grocery stores on packaged goods and fresh foodstuffs. According to McKinsey & Company, U.S. overall consumer spending on experiences was increasing 6.3% per year, 400% greater than the rate of goods and 33% greater than that of services.  The dramatic disruption in our lives due to the coronavirus has regrettably impacted too many lives in unfortunate ways; in playing our part to bounce back, the present moment represents an unparalleled opportunity to help restore more prosperous times for all ─ by renewing a resolve to create economic value through experience design and orchestration.  In this session, Jim Gilmore will offer fresh new perspective for executive leadership to consider in guiding their enterprises as we move forward.

Time, attention, and money are the three currencies of today’s Experience Economy. But time is limited. If another company stages an experience that gets customers to spend time with it, what results? Less time spent with your business. Similarly, attention is scarce. Today’s media-fragmented world makes it difficult to capture customers’ attention with normal advertising or other marketing campaigns. But when another company creates an engaging experience that does garner attention – whether online or off – what else happens? Less attention directed toward your business. And finally, money is consumable, meaning if a customer spends a dollar on another economic offering from some other company, then what can’t that customer do with that dollar? Spend it on your business. In today’s competition for time, attention, and money, only those business that stage engaging and memorable experiences will succeed, and here Jim Gilmore shows you how.

Observation is key to innovation: What we see drives what we think and what we do. Yet we live in an age of digital distraction, with our eyes increasingly directed at the myriad screens mounted on our walls, placed on our desks, held in our hands, even worn on our wrists. Seeking to restore an appreciation for the insights to be found in the everyday circumstances of our workplaces, homes, communities, and recreations, Jim Gilmore offers an observational tool called “Six Looking Glasses.” Using the tool is literally eye-opening, providing a practical new means to bring fresh insights to any individual or organizational endeavor. In this session, Gilmore will challenge the audience to examine how they spend time with their eyes, and then describe six different ways of looking, share a technique for developing observation objectives, and outline specific approaches to begin seeing the world anew.

As life has become a paid-for experience, people increasingly question what is real and what is not. More and more, they do not want the fake from some phony; they want the real from the genuine. Authenticity is therefore becoming the new consumer sensibility – the primary buying criterion by which people choose who to buy from and what to buy. Jim Gilmore not only explains why this is so but what companies must do to render their offerings and places – and by extension their very businesses – authentic to current and potential customers.