We are now entering the Lace Economy (exiting the Web + Bubble Economy).
The Lace Economy is both a fine-tuning of our networks and relationships, and a demand for services and products that are well crafted, genuine, and trend towards supporting the local and regional.
Fine Tuning:
New networks are being amassed through a mix of web-based tools (Facebooks, LinkedIn) and traditional channels (networking, associations). These form into a tangled, limitless, and underproductive web. Though there is an intoxicating excitement in the chaos of tangled relationships, the ever-increasing girth of networks makes these connections fragile and meaningless. In the Lace Economy, networks will be filtered, gathered and sewn into manageable, identifiable, and productive patterns.Genuine:
Branding, advertising and communications will continue on a shift away from “attraction” towards “resonation.” Bright, shiny, and flashy objects might gain immediate attention, but a real resonation through matching specific ideas, services and products to the desires and needs of a market will lead to sustainable and genuine relationships. Opportunity will arrive through resonation.Local & Regional:
The first wave of this Fine Tuning and Genuine is appearing within local and regional movements, primarily through food and craft. The slow-food, farmer’s market, and quality handmade trends point to an audience making purchases of well-made, well-crafted, nourishing, and sound products and services. Restaurants, as well as consumers, are seeking local produce to influence and boost their menus. Farmers in turn are supplying diverse regional specialties in opposition to the cookie-cutter flavors found in national chain restaurants and blanket-marketed by national brands. “You can only get it here,” will increase.Important Points:
– The Lace Economy will reward and invite ventures that foster uniqueness and offer quality
– Individuals will no longer be caught in a web; they will spin their own tightly knit lace of relationships, both real and virtual
– There will be a deeper reliance on strong partnerships and trusted collaboration
– Shift from blanket “wide net” approach to specificity in messaging and markets
– Markets will seek well-made, well-crafted, nourishing, and sound products and services
– The immediate shift is a turn towards the local and regionalThe Lace Economy has arrived. The grass roots are strong, and national brands, such as Starbucks (locally branded shops), and media outlets such as AOL and Yahoo (local news sites) and the New York Times (local neighborhood blogs), have already begun to interpret and act on the data. This shift is not an about-face from where we’ve been, it’s a fine-tuning of what we have into something genuine with a greater value.
Nice article from Jason Moriber that I think does a great job of elucidating what we are seeing in all kinds of markets – a trend towards the unique, authentic and real within relationships between people, business, and ideas.