On Monday morning I awoke and there was snow in the mountains. It wasn’t a major storm, more of a dusting, but Mother Nature’s evidence was clearly there for me to see. Winter is coming. Change was plainly evident, dramatic and overnight.

Contrast that to the past 5 weeks when the leaves were changing. First a few species turned bright yellow, then all the green shades started to give way to fall’s natural progression. Today there are few greens but plentiful shades of yellow, brown and red. Change was subtle, barely noticeable from day to day.

The cycle of the seasons is analogous to life. Change is constant. But some change is dramatic and obvious while other change is subtle and unnoticeable unless you look for it.

Do you pay attention to the subtle changes of living, or do you only take notice of the dramatic?

Next Blog Title: 100 & Counting

Next Blog Date: November 1, 2010

On Monday I visited Central Texas to give the keynote at the Harker Heights Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner. Harker Heights is the little sister to neighboring Killeen, TX. Both of these Bell County communities thrive and prosper while supporting the U.S. Army’s Fort Hood.

Fort Hood is one of the largest military installations in the world and competes with Fort Benning, Georgia as the largest in personnel. It is the home of the III Corps & 1^st Cavalry Division. During WWII it became known for its tanks, tracked vehicles, and other heavy equipment, and since that time has played critical roles in the Cold War and Operation Desert Shield. Today Fort Hood continues to be a key staging and training area for soldiers battling in the War on Terror.

The Garrison Command Sergeant Major Donald Felt  gave me a windshield tour of the Post and a walking tour of the Resiliency Campus. For those (including me prior to Monday) that aren’t familiar with the Garrison Command I’ve included its Mission:

U.S. Army Garrison Fort Hood provides units the installation capabilities, services and a quality of life for the Fort Hood Soldiers, Families and Community commensurate with their service IOT enable Forces to execute expeditionary operations in a time of persistent conflict.

Here are some of the things I learned during my 3 hour tour of Fort Hood.

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My previous post was about the 2010 thinkAbout Café being a gathering of like-minded individuals who are committed to creating experiences in the workplace. Today let’s take one step backwards and examine what Pine & Gilmore were talking about in their book The Experience Economy. Specifically, I’ll examine the progression from commodities to goods to services to experiences.

About 150 or so years ago, the world was still primarily an agrarian economy. What that means is people spent the most of their time farming, hunting and living each day attempting to survive to the next day. That type of world existed with relatively little change for thousands of years. Of course towns and communities existed where some specialization had developed and trade amongst the people of the community leveraged each other’s talents – but only locally, never on a world-wide level. The majority of the world’s people lived as farmers and peasants.

But in the last century and a half, a remarkable and astronomical change has occurred in the way humans live.  We first developed into a commodities economy, then a goods economy, next a service economy and finally an experience economy. Each successive step would not have been possible without the preceding step.

Here is a timeline and description of each of these 4 economies that have developed in about the last 150 years.

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Last week I attended a 2-day seminar called thinkAbout Café. It was the 13^th year of this annual event offered by Strategic Horizons. Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore are the co-founders of Strategic Horizons and co-authors of two bestsellers The Experience Economy (1999) and Authenticity  (2007). ThinkAbout Café was promoted as a series of discussions and conversations designed to foster creative thinking, idea exchange, and the exploration of opportunities to stage memorable experiences for others.

So what does that mean? What happened at thinkAbout Café? Pine and Gilmore believe that the world is transforming into an Experience Economy. People want and respond to experiences. Services, goods and commodities are yesterday’s economies. Since I’ve been making my living providing the experience of Forrest Gump as both an entertainer and speaker for the past 14 years, attending thinkAbout and learning from other like-minded individuals seemed a natural fit.

Here are the 7 top ideas I learned during thinkAbout Café. 

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