I went to many stores to uncover insights and hidden opportunities.

What I found in the end surprised me.

It all started with an Apple store, clearly designed to draw me in.

With prominent visual elements enticing me all the way to the back,

And nothing obstructing my path.So I went in.

Apple’s tight and uniform experience was all around me, even under me.

Later, at the Microsoft store, I found myself negotiating around bad design.

Hi, I’m Bob! How may I detract from your experiential flow?

The user experience of the products felt fragmented, too many seams.

So I left to visit other stores.

I observed keenly, made many notes, took many photos, then went home.

Out of nowhere, sometime after dinner, I had my deepest insight the whole day.

What I found surprised me.

You see, I had been thinking deeply all day about how large corporations try to entice us to consume for their gain. And I was turned off by it.

As an immune response, without effort, I had a spark of an idea for a crowd-funded platform for regular folks to go out into the world to do good, any sort of good. To serve humanity altruistically with no return on investment expected.

Constantly analyzing and thinking about one domain can lead you to deep insights in another.

Who knows? You could be the one to create the next indiegogo.com!

Thanks and take care.