What business are we in?

Does the toy industry sell toys or does it sell play? This thought occurred to me as I watched some children playing in Millenium Park in Chicago.   If you have never been to Millenium Park, do so on your next trip. There is an area there that contains a large, shallow pool of water that encourages play. 

As I observed the children playing, it occurred to me that places like this, whether they are free like Millenium Park, or charge like amusement and theme parks, are in the business of providing play. In that the toy industry ultimately sells play, it competes with them, as much as video games, virtual worlds and its other industry members, for every dollar spent on play. 

So, what does it mean if all of these various businesses are ultimately selling play rather than toys or games? Well maybe a great deal. 

After all, Peter Drucker, the late and very great business philosopher, famously warned companies to think seriously about what business they were in, noting that it might not be the one they thought.   As an example, he pointed out that the railroad industry made the crucial mistake in the early 20^th century of underestimating the impact that airplanes would have on their industry. It seems that they thought they were in the railroad business when in fact they were in the transportation business. They thought wrong and went into a precipitous decline.

By realizing that toy, video game and virtual world companies don’t really sell toys but sell vehicles for play, it expands the notion of what business we are all in and the strategies we need to employ in creating and marketing our products.