I Had Never Been More Connected. And I Had Never Felt More Alone.
How Belonging Will Replace the Attention Economy
Four years ago, I packed my entire life into four suitcases and left my tiny island nine miles by five for one of the biggest, fastest and most exciting cities in the world. I thought I needed a bigger world, a bigger pond, some yang energy, some sun, some new adventures, some BIG shiny balls…
That experience fundamentally changed the way I think about Customer eXperience, Human Experience, technology, leadership and community. After more than 30 years working across hospitality, Customer eXperience, employee experience and organisational culture, I thought I understood the importance of human connection. It took leaving everything familiar behind to realise that connection and belonging are two very different things. That personal experience would eventually become part of the inspiration behind HX | Hive eXperience and an idea that I believe will become increasingly important for businesses, leaders and communities: the Belonging Economy.
Four Suitcases and a Completely New Life
Jersey is a tiny island in the Channel Islands, just nine miles by five, with a population of around 100,000 people. I had lived there for over 25 years, raised my children there, built my business there and created a wonderful network of friends, colleagues, so many fabulous people around me. Then the pandemic hit. Like so many business owners, I watched much of what I had built disappear, and after everything we had been through, I felt like I was suffocating. I had become a very big fish in a very small pond, and I desperately needed new energy, new people, new opportunities and something bigger.
So I made a huge decision. I sold almost everything I owned. My furniture, my possessions and so many of the things that had made my house a home disappeared until my life fitted into four suitcases. My children were 20 and 24 at the time. They had their own lives in Jersey and didn’t want to come with me, so I packed those four suitcases and left for Dubai.
At first, it was exhilarating. Dubai was everything Jersey wasn’t. It was big, fast, shiny and incredibly international. There were shiny balls everywhere, and anyone who knows me knows that I do love a shiny ball! There were new people, new opportunities, networking events, international speaking engagements, flights, hotels and stages around the world. I was running here, there and everywhere, and from the outside, it probably looked incredible. My network was growing, I was travelling more, speaking more and meeting more people than ever before.
And yet, something started happening that I hadn’t expected. The more people I met, the lonelier I became.
I Had Never Been More Connected, Yet I Felt Completely Alone
I would walk off a stage after speaking to hundreds of people, absolutely buzzing from the energy in the room, then return to my hotel room, close the door and suddenly there was nobody there. I could spend an evening surrounded by people at a networking event, talking, laughing, exchanging details and making new connections, and still go home feeling completely alone. There was always another event, another stage, another flight, another opportunity and another shiny ball, but when the buzz disappeared, I was still on my own.
The strange thing was that, on paper, everything looked as though it was going brilliantly. I was building connections, expanding my international network and creating opportunities. Digitally and professionally, I had probably never been more connected. Emotionally, however, something fundamental was missing.
This is where my personal experience started colliding with everything I had spent decades learning about Customer eXperience and Human Experience. An experience isn’t simply about what happens to us. It is about how what happens makes us feel. You can design something that looks wonderful, functions perfectly and delivers everything it promised, but if the human being at the centre of that experience feels invisible, disconnected or unimportant, something is missing.
I Didn’t Miss Knowing People. I Missed Being Known.
Slowly, I started missing all the things I had taken completely for granted. I missed my children terribly. I missed my friends, my home and the feeling of being safe and secure in an environment that I knew. I missed walking through St Helier and bumping into someone I knew. I missed going to an event and recognising faces across the room. I missed the little jokes, the spontaneous conversations and the people who knew me without me having to explain who I was, what I did or why I was there.
Eventually, I realised that I didn’t just miss knowing people. I missed being known. That distinction has stayed with me ever since, because we have become exceptionally good at creating connections, yet connection and belonging are not the same thing. Connection is knowing people. Belonging is knowing you matter to them.
I thought I needed a bigger world, but what I actually needed was somewhere I belonged. In Dubai, I had become a very small fish in an enormous pond. There were millions of people around me, I was travelling more, networking more, speaking more and connecting with people across the world. On paper, I had never been more connected, yet I had never felt more alone.
Coming Home Taught Me the Real Meaning of Belonging
Eventually, I packed my bags again and came home. I came back to my tiny nine-by-five-mile island, back to my children, my friends, the streets where people knew my name and the community where I felt safe. I came back to somewhere I belonged.
There was a wonderful irony in that journey. I had left Jersey because I thought the pond was too small, only to discover that being a small fish in a huge ocean isn’t necessarily freedom. Sometimes the pond is exactly where you belong.
Once you have truly experienced the difference between being surrounded by people and actually belonging somewhere, you begin to see that same contradiction everywhere. We live in the most connected society humanity has ever created. We have followers, contacts, likes, messages, groups, notifications and online communities containing thousands or even millions of people. Technology allows us to reach almost anyone, anywhere in the world within seconds, yet so many people still feel disconnected and lonely.
Somewhere along the way, we confused being connected with being known.
What Does Belonging Have to Do With Customer eXperience?
For me, the answer is everything. For more than 30 years, my work across hospitality, Customer eXperience, mystery shopping, employee experience, leadership and organisational culture has revolved around one fundamental question: How do we make people feel?
Customers may forget the process, employees may forget the presentation and audiences may forget the slides, but people remember whether an experience made them feel welcomed, valued, heard and important. This is why I believe belonging is becoming an increasingly important business issue and an essential part of the conversation around the future of Customer eXperience.
Customer loyalty isn’t simply transactional. Employee engagement isn’t simply about salaries, benefits and incentives. Community isn’t simply having thousands of people following your company online, and Customer eXperience isn’t simply about removing friction from a customer journey. Human beings want to feel seen and heard. They want to know their contribution matters. They want to feel part of something, and organisations that understand this have the opportunity to create something much deeper than satisfaction or convenience. They can create belonging.
From the Attention Economy to the Belonging Economy
My experience in Dubai made me look differently at the digital world around us. The first era of the internet connected us, and that connection transformed our lives. Then digital business models became extraordinarily good at capturing and monetising our attention. The longer we watched, scrolled, clicked and engaged, the more valuable our attention became.
The Attention Economy has given businesses extraordinary reach, but perhaps the next evolution of digital experience needs a different measure of success. Instead of asking only, “How long can we keep someone’s attention?”, perhaps we should start asking, “How can we help someone feel that they matter?”
That, for me, is the shift from the Attention Economy to the Belonging Economy.
The Belonging Economy is about creating value through meaningful participation, contribution, trust, relationships and human connection. It isn’t about rejecting technology. Quite the opposite. I am incredibly excited about what technology and artificial intelligence can enable, but as leaders we need to move beyond asking only what technology can do and start asking what technology enables human beings to feel, experience and become.
That is where Customer eXperience, employee experience, digital experience and Human Experience begin to come together. The future isn’t human or digital. It is about designing digital systems and organisations that enable better human experiences.
Could Belonging Become the Next Customer eXperience Competitive Advantage?
or decades, organisations have focused on acquiring customers, improving conversion, increasing retention and measuring loyalty. All of those things matter, but I believe the next Customer eXperience opportunity goes deeper. What happens when a customer doesn’t simply buy from a business but feels part of its community? What happens when an employee doesn’t simply work for an organisation but genuinely feels seen, valued and that they matter?
This is where I believe the Belonging Economy becomes incredibly exciting for Customer eXperience, employee experience and business leaders. Belonging isn’t simply a nice emotional concept. When people feel connected to an organisation and to each other, they are more likely to participate, contribute, advocate and care. That creates stronger relationships, stronger communities and ultimately stronger businesses.
Perhaps the question for the next generation of Customer eXperience isn’t simply, “How do we connect with more people?” We have become extraordinarily good at doing that. Perhaps the better question is, “How do we help people feel that they matter?”
That question sits behind why Andy Jarvis and I created HX | Hive eXperience, but the idea is much bigger than HX. It is about the organisations we build, the cultures we create, the Customer eXperiences we design and the communities we nurture.
Connection gave us reach. Attention gave platforms power. Belonging can give people meaning.
I believe we are moving from the Attention Economy to the Belonging Economy.
For me, that journey started with four suitcases, thousands of miles from home, when I finally understood what I had left behind.
Belonging.
Bring the Belonging Economy to your next conference.
Claire Boscq CSP is an international Customer eXperience keynote speaker, author and CX Energizer, recognised among the Top 10 Customer Experience Global Gurus for eight consecutive years. With more than 30 years of experience across hospitality, Customer eXperience, employee experience, organisational culture and Human Experience, Claire speaks at conferences and leadership events around the world about creating more human, connected and meaningful experiences.
