Deriving business from dramatized life
Over the past years the concept of human-centric or user-centric made each person the centre of their own universe. Products and services are not only meant to adapt to the person, they are meant to increase gravity.
One of the big innovation triggers are based on the fact that we basically turn life into stage play. We augment the daily life with theatrical, semi-fictional elements. This innovation approach caters to the increasingly narcissistic demand, and this mentality is what Japan has aplenty. Japanese products excel at putting people at the centre of the universe and enable them to become conductors to the soundtrack of their lives using all sorts of dramatizing, exalting elements. The maid cafés of Akihabara to giant stadium screens or music played in the moment of personal victory are just examples to the demand to be surrounded by theatre. In short, life should be bigger than life.
One particular example is the Japanese app AR Missile. This augmented reality app allows you to shoot virtual missiles into the real world – or at least the real world on your iPad screen. You can blow up buildings or even your boss. How much more empowered or dramatized can life be?
As theatre overemphasized, it creates an emotion that people want to replicate. Similar to watching you favorite movie, we might want to to replay stages in our lifes through triggers of e.g. sound, touch or smell. But more than catering to the demand for dramatization, personal experience itself turns into bits and bytes. According to Morinosuke Kawaguchi, this hints at business models of the future.