Yesterday I had the chance to visit Cognac and went to the Hennessy Maison next to the river in the heart of the town. Flagship stores and well designed factory tours are opportunities for brands to do world building and I took this tour with an explorers mindset and a critic’s eye. What did they… Read More How Hennessy builds a branded world for visitors in Cognac
I have spent the past week in Paris working for a client to support their digital transformation initiatives which are many and various. The client is a luxury brand and is well on its way in transforming what it does and how it does it. Our most recent project together has been exploring how data… Read More Taking a systems view of digital transformation
It’s nearly six months since I started to read, think and write about World Building and I’m increasingly getting questions about what it means for companies and brands. I’m not sure my ideas are fully formed yet but I want to suggest that there are two big areas: reimagining digital marketing and using future worlds… Read More How might brands use World Building to reach their customers?
Many worldbuilders are solo pioneers spending months or years crafting intricately detailed universes in which to weave narrative stories, use as the basis for table top or computer games or form the setting for a movie. My interest is in using the same techniques with groups and in a business or educational setting to help… Read More How to design and facilitate a world building session?
I’m a constructionist educator who believes we learn through making and reflecting on what we make. Traditional eduction and training often fall back on antiquated models of learning in which we expect people to remember what they have been told (with slides) and regurgitate it under test conditions. It is not just the traditional approach;… Read More Making things to bring your world to life
Every organisation needs to imagine what the future will be like and plan both for the good times ahead and the bad. As we are buffeted by changes in technology, customer behaviour and expectations, and by black swan events such as Covid 19 or a war in Ukraine it becomes vital that we plan for… Read More Building future scenarios and worlds
To start to solve big problems (in the world or in business) we need to zoom out and consider the systems in which the problems occur. To build rich convincing worlds we need to take a similar connected systems view. Perhaps a world building approach will help provide new perspectives on big problems. Everything is… Read More Thinking in systems while building worlds
As I get deeper into World Building I have been looking for tools and ideas that can help me. In this post I want to explore Place Making; the study of how to turn physical built spaces into living communities. There is no guarantee that a set of homes, shops or industrial units will become… Read More Making places inside worlds
We know a lot about consumers online and through data we can watch them behave. When we do, what we see is huge variety. They don’t conform to easily identifiable patterns and in particular we don’t see them behaving as the famous marketing funnel would suggest. Marketing funnels have been around for years and encourage… Read More Digital marketing funnels need to go in an omnichannel world
As part of my world building experimentation, I want to start thinking about brands and how they might build worlds for their customers (and non-customers) to explore. I chose to illustrate my thinking using, Starbucks, where there is rich digital activity and where the business is relatively easy to understand. The way most of us… Read More Exploring the world of Starbucks