“There are management consulting firms that charge really high rates. We wanted to come up with something that’s accessible to almost any business.”

This quote will ring true for many different people that have employed management consulting firms. In the worst cases, it appears that certain types of such companies merely send people in to work at company X for awhile, learn everything they are up to, and then go to company Y (& Z, etc.), looking to sell their insights for a stunningly high amount. Wikinomics and the “age of transparency” is clearly a direct threat to that model, and where this quote comes from is a remarkably good example of why.

The quote is from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, as reported in this AdWeek article. For many years companies have been invited to trek down to Las Vegas and check out how the company does business. Now, companies that don’t want to make such a trek (travel freeze anyone?) have another option to learn a thing or two about Zappos – pay $39.95 per month for a subscription to the forthcoming Zappos Insights, a subscription video service that lets companies ask questions about the Zappos way and get answers from actual Zappos employees. At such a price point, it’s easy to see why the company is targeting the “Fortune 1 Million”, instead of a much smaller range of targets.

It will be interesting to see how this service plays out when it officially launches (I learned about it from this mashable post, where a number of people were complaining about not being able to sign in, and Tony Hsieh chimed in to note they didn’t realize the Adweek article was going up so soon, so the site has been shut down until the official launch). But regardless of whether it turns out to be a bit gimmicky or not, it should at least provide people a reminder of the intense pressure certain business models are under as certain wikinomics principles continue to gain traction – yellow pages anyone?

Very observant readers may note that this post has some striking similarities to what I wrote about three months ago – the collaborative experience economy. What I tried to do then was connect the “four forms of theater” idea from Pine & Gilmore’s “The Experience Economy” with the principles of wikinomics – hence the name of the post. For whatever reason I didn’t get a lot of traction with it, but I’m still intrigued by the underlying ideas, so I wanted to re-frame the idea directly in relation to social media. More to the point, I’d like to hear from wikinomics readers as to whether it’s a useful framework for thinking about the use of social media in relation to creating experiences both for and with customers.

In the previous post I walked through the examples provided in the book, which took a “day in the life” approach by focusing on a fictional executive named Linda. The basis for understanding the argument starts with platform theater – where one “scripts in advance every line and every gesture, practicing each over and over again until she can confidently give a performance so accomplished that it comes off as fresh and spontaneous.”

Platform theater represents the way many companies operate, from the most basic call center designs right through to the experience created for customers. It’s a comfortable way for many companies to operate, and relatively low-risk as well thanks to the controlled environment. But as anyone who’s taken Investing 101, it is through taking calculated risks that rewards are achieved.

So now let’s take a look at the definitions of more “evolved” forms of theater:

matching theater – where “disparate facts and events (are pieced) together (into) a unified whole, much like a film editor or director.”

street theater – where “small, atomic units of activity are called on demand to construct a performance.”

improv theater – where “surprising” problems must be handled immediately, and where Linda had to draw on “the reservoir of managerial techniques she has stored up from past experience.” The chapter notes that “Improv requires systematic and deliberate methods of originating creative ideas, fresh expressions, and new ways of addressing old problems.”

I would argue that various social media applications be be used to help move from “platform theater” to each of the other options. The most involved, of course, is “improv theater” – and here is where I think we could really dig into the opportunities that social media tools can create for companies. How much better could those “systematic and deliberate” methods be if wikis, blogs, social networks, reputation profiles, ranking systems, and the like where fully capitalized on? I also like the idea of taking improv theater to the next logical step – pulling customers on stage to participate in the experience directly (see: prosumerism).

So what do wikinomics readers think – would this be a useful framework to develop in relation to social media and customer experiences, and if so how might you go about expanding on it?