Organized for browsing

In the traditional world, most things are organized so you can find them when you’re looking for them. That’s why you keep your tools in your tool chest and the forks in the silverware drawer. That’s why books are stored in alphabetical order, by author.

But in the digital world, finding is easy. Type what you want in the search bar.

What we’re still exploring, and not very successfully, is how to organize things for browsing. How do you bump into the thing you didn’t know you were looking for? How do you decide what your next home improvement project should be, or the next movie you should see?

Dancing along the edge of facilitated discovery is one of the most important frontiers that marketers are challenged to do. And we’re not doing it very well yet.