Experiences and Narratives
We transform the world’s dining experiences. That’s how our blog tagline goes, and today I would like to offer my interpretation of that motto. We are all unique human beings, shaped by our background and experiences, and it often happens that public narratives, or mottoes, or inspirational calls produce various kinds of resonance — or non-resonance — with us. The point is that the resonances that we sense are fluid and shifting. At one point in our life we might be resonating with a certain agenda, and then, as time goes by, we might be totally averted from it, because… we sense some sort of an imbalance in the impact that this agenda entailed.
… so, having seen what other companies who claim to be “transforming” the world have actually accomplished, and where have they gone wrong, I’d say that at the moment the public opinion might be utterly suspicious about anything that involves a digital transformation of some kind. The mainstream narrative these days just can’t stop spanking the tech companies that used to be the darlings of the media in the mid-late 2000’s — early 2010's. Facebook has not just been spanked, it’s been battered. Other big tech companies have had their share of the spanking, too (think Google, or Amazon). Seemingly, it’s as if someone has flipped a switch, and the media now want to steer us into the direction which is different from the one they wanted us to go 5 or 10 years back from now.
.. and, my point is, that while I’m aware of how those other tech companies might have compromised the word “transformation”, I see that… Quandoo does indeed transform the world’s dining experiences! In the way that I’d call “the vintage digital transformation”, which flashes back to the times when “transformation” as a word carried more of a taste of some new hopes, and an aspiration that technology is meant to make people’s lives better and richer vs. poorer and deprived of sensations. And, since many of you who read this blog know what this “vintage” transformation is about, I won’t go into many detail on what exactly Quandoo does :)
Speaking of sensations. Our motto has a certain assumption in it… and that’s where I see an area of focus that would not involve transformation, as a digital transformation, but… a retention! Do you see what I’m getting at? We are transforming the world’s dining out experiences… but isn’t that, again, that the prevailing media narrative seems to jeopardize the very existence of such an experience as … dining out? From what it looks, everyone is supposed to be wanting to get their food delivered to their residences, and we are getting this impression after continuous exposure to the info feeds that — by the mere non-mention of the fact — seem to imply that such a joy of life as dining out just doesn’t deserve the time of the day anymore! The “busy and hustling” crowd — the way it appears from the media narratives —isn’t supposed to have the time for enjoying things! Get your food delivered to you, and… keep being busy with whatever you want to be busy! But, wait, what… if I want to make it an experience, and not just “consume food” ? Oh, and if there’s a word combo in the media that pisses me off more than “consuming food”, that would be “consuming content”. It’s just such a telling sign that this phrase is repeated over and over, and… I’m not even sure on where to start about the utter “false-noted-ness” of this cliche.
What we are tapping into here goes far and beyond than dining out. The soul-less machine of the media to which we expose ourselves, for one reason or another, makes zero mention of such a fact that we are alive … to cherish life and to enjoy the pleasurable experiences that this life gifts us with! In the end, it’s this exuberant joie de vivre that we are here for, not hustling and bustling, and it goes without saying that a fine meal shared with friends at a nice public venue… does make our life joyful!
So, what would we want to do, as the ones who are on a mission to transform world’s dining experiences and to keep them in existence? Walk the talk, as usual. When we share our stories of how life and its simple pleasures can be enjoyable just because… it’s life and we are alive, more and more people get a chance to see the world through our eyes, and not through the soul-less media which seem to dominate the cultural landscape these days. Well, theoretically, there’s a chance that some day the media machine would take another turn and start mass-producing the narratives to celebrate the joys of being a human on planet Earth. Until then… our only option is to create some contagion with our stories, in a positive sense of the word, letting the others in to our vision.
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