Experience the "Experience" Economy

I liked Tom's mentioning that we are slowly moving towards an "experience" economy. We have slowly graduated from a commodity-economy (get stuff, make stuff) to a product-economy(get 'packaged' stuff - quick and dirty, is the mantra) to a service economy(we can do that for you, sir) to an experience economy(come home to a new world). He uses a child's birthday cake metaphor to explain this. From baking our own cakes for a birthday to experiencing a birthday party created exclusively for you by an anonymous group, we have infact changed a lot.

Call it advanced capitalism or whatever, but yeah, we all want rich, genuine experiences and interactions, whether we are having a Starbucks Mocha or visiting Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas or boarding an American Airlines. It’s the age of verbs, so concentrate on it, says Tom. Connect with people, or your business gets disconnected.

Tom makes a good point - It’s important to strike a balance, toss in too many features, and you are out. It’s like a movie that has too much to say, too many stories and too many characters. We don’t have a very high attention span, especially when I have so many options.
So, the businessmen who don’t have a clue what I am talking of, here's what Tom says, they have to do:

"Follow your customer's journey. Break into components. Ask yourself.. how can I make it a better experience? There's nearly always an opportunity to create more excitement than you think, whatever it is that you make or sell.
Designing new experiences is about figuring out a way to connect with people."