Ideas. Relationships. Learning. They are all improved as the structure in which we engage with them improves.
I sample new web apps and startups like wine at a tasting. There's so much great innovation happening. Structure is the theme that keeps jumping out at me as the value that the most promising new apps provide.
www.mightybell.com is a web app that enables anyone to create an Experience made up of Steps. How general can you get concerning what you're trying to do?
Yet MightyBell is a prime example of an app banking on Structure. It enables anyone to provide more structure to, well, anything that can be classified into the massive noun, Experience.
See, I could write a blog post about the five best places to eat while visiting Lucca, Italy. People could read it, comment on it, share it with friends. But what if I could take that blog post and make an experience out of it, one that is five steps long? Providing more structure around the content like this allows me to then add tips to guide you on each step; provides the community who engages in the experience to comment on it step-by-step rather than in one broad comment area; helps foster a sense of achievement beyond the one felt by simply finishing a blog post.
Better structure leads to better meaning. Better meaning leads to deeper engagement. Yes, we must be careful not to overstructure those experiences which are better off left as thought experiments, tenuous ideas, rambling reflections. But for every other experience that we want to have great meaning, the more structure we can provide to guide the experiencer, the better for all involved.
