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The Mall
When someone mentions the mall, I often cringe. In the past, I've
avoided malls at all costs. In my mind, malls conjure up images of
crowded stores, overweight shoppers, and general chaos. For this
reason, I am incredibly thankful for the invention for online shopping.
Over
the last 3-4 years, something interesting has happened to malls. The
last couple of times I've gone, I've noticed subtle but important
differences. The colors of the walls are warmer. There are more natural
 materials
being used and a greater, more strategic use of plants. The most
impressive change, however, has been the introduction of small,
intimate seating areas (pictured left - plants and a cozy seating area at the Burlington Mall)
throughout the mall that encourage people to sit down, drink a cup of
coffee and read the paper. Call it the "starbucks-ization of the malls.
What's
clever about this new direction that mall owners have taken is that
it's encouraging people to go to malls for the "experience" rather than
just to shop. In my mind, this is the only thing that is going to help
malls survive.
This transformation is not dissimilar to the one
we're seeing in the movie industry. The Loews and Sonys of the world
have figured out that if people want to just "see" a movie, they will
buy it, rent it from NetFlix or download it to their computer. If they
want to "experience" the movie, they'll go to a newly built theater
with stadium seating, high-def digital screens and top of the line
stereo sound. And most important, you get to hear the crowd laugh, cry
and scream during the movie. For these reasons, it's actually worth
paying 8x or 10x the cost of renting a movie.
As we become more
and more online-centric and are less frequently chained to our desks
for work, these face to face interactions like those taking place at
the mall, at Starbucks or the movie theater are becoming increasingly
important. After all, as much as we love the comfort of working from
our couch or buying clothes in our favorite easy chair, we still need
personal interaction.
I never thought I'd say this but I'm
actually looking forward to the next time I go to the mall -- or at
least sitting in one of the comfortable couches, sipping coffee and
people watching.
Sat, Mar 31 2007
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