I last dinner last night with Greg Prang, an old buddy back from when we were in business anthropology grad school together. He was in town for work. He is at the Hartman Group working as a business anthropologist. Nice!

He was telling me about the great work he is doing there on “occasions” and investigating the world of occasions. Previously I blogged about “need states” and I think occasions are the next step along the path from need states. I see need states as having grown out of the work on shopping ecologies and how e-commerce spaces can fully take advantage of different shopping ecologies. With the megatrend growth in mobile shopping, these ecologies have blended and become co-located with occasions giving us even more blue-ocean opportunities for innovation.

User Experience might find this framework the most interesting/useful:

Instrumental >> Savoring >> Inspirational

Don’t think about products that you are launching. Think about experience design as designing for “occasions.” This framework is a strategic way to think about your customers’ occasions” and developing new products. Look at using this framework as a way to drive innovation especially on service design and mobile devices in which context can change rapidly.

References

Greg Prang

Strategic Framework for Occasions

Need States

Shopping Ecologies, One example of Pilgrimage