This monkey can type!(but his spelling's atrocious)

I just finished C.K. Prahalad‘s latest book, The New Age of Innovation. Prahalad’s strategy writings are fairly standard M.B.A. reading (I consumed my share back in 2001), but none of his previous works resonated so deeply with me as this one.

While Prahalad discusses many ideas in this book, one of his key concepts is that companies need to stop focusing on commodity-based transactions with customers and start offering experiences. For Prahalad, value creation comes from personalized experiences, not products or product-based transactions.

This sets the stage for his two core points: (1) the individual is at the heart of the experience, and (2) companies can no longer control/own all of the resources necessary to provide personalized experiences.

So, if creating personalized experiences is the new direction, and individual companies cannot provide the resources required for creating personalized experiences, what’s the answer?

For Prahalad, a significant part of the answer is consumers themselves. Here are some excerpts from his book:

• “Customers play an active role in co-creating value.”
• “Customers are increasingly a source of competence.”
• “…a whole generation of consumers [will be] expecting to be treated as unique individuals, and they now have the skills and the propensity to engage in a marketplace defined by [personalized experiences].”

What does this have to do with entertainment? Well, Prahalad gives various examples of how existing companies can overhaul themselves to fall in line with his two core concepts, he never really ventures into the entertainment industry. That’s a shame, since I think the entertainment industry has a wonderful opportunity to explore new ways to brings its audiences deeper into the content creation process. I believe this opportunity has so much potential that I co-founded Brain Candy, LLC based on this philosophy.

Brain Candy builds customized models of content creation where fans can participate canonically and monetarily in commercial entertainment properties without forcing property owners to sacrifice quality or commercial control [to be clear, Brain Candy's work focuses on commercial entertainment properties that incorporate user-generated content as official works; it's not crowd-sourcing or an open-source approach to content creation].

But back to Prahalad. His book eloquently lays out – from a business perspective – the rationale for why content creators should consider a collaborative approach in some circumstances. If consumers are capable of co-creating value with property owners and are a source of competence, why not find new models of entertainment that include consumers, audiences, and fans as part of the process? Why can’t personalized experiences and individual creativity be integrated into collaborative commercial entertainment?

The list of reasons against letting fans into the creative process is long and legion: It’s a legal nightmare. It will dilute the quality of the property. It can’t be sustained monetarily. It can’t scale. It won’t support world continuity.

I’m not suggesting that collaborative entertainment is easy, but I am adamant that it’s possible. Indeed, I’m adamant that it’s viable.

I’m not suggesting that collaborative entertainment is the silver bullet for Hollywood. In fact, it’s not ideal for every genre, much less every property. At this time, it’s especially suited for two genres that are already awash with avid fans and a mountain of user-generated content: fantasy and science fiction.

And I’m not suggesting that collaborative entertainment is going to replace entertainment as we know it. It’s an additive alternative, not a wholesale substitute.

What I am suggesting is that Hollywood might find a new way to view how content can be created and entertainment properties can be generated in ways that reward audiences and benefit property owners. And Prahalad’s The New Age of Innovation is a great starting point for understanding why this is important.