Turning a Service into an Experience with Paul Bulencea

Paul Bulencea, on the importance of experiences.

The College of Extraordinary Experiences held in the fall of each year.

Today, we talk with Paul Bulencea, who is the co-founder of the College of Extraordinary Experiences, a disruptive experience design conference in November that will be held in a castle in Poland. Paul discusses how the economy is shifting from being based on services to being based on experiences and how businesses can beat commoditization by providing memorable experiences.

References:

There are still a couple of seats left for the College of Extraordinary Experiences, so be sure to check it out!

Paul’s book about Game Design Thinking in Tourism

Harvard Business Review article about the experience economy by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore.

This episode's design challenge:

Consider how you can take the following steps to turn a service into an experience using the Memorable Experience Design Framework.

1. Create a theme for your event or service

2. Implement the theme at all of the touchpoints (before during, and after event/service)

3. Implement the theme with all five senses (try this chart to identify senses)

4. Look back and try to remove all points that don’t fit into the theme.

5. Bonus: add memorabilia that fits your theme, so the experience can be made tangible.