By age 60, most Americans will spend nearly twice as much of their time alone as they do with a partner. The chart below makes that point super clear… the x-axis is age, not year.

And if you notice that we spend the most time with ourselves, you can say that time with others is scarce. It’s also possible to say that resources, like time, that are scarce are oftentimes more valuable than abundant resources. Therefore, interacting with people you scarcely see can be considered valuable and precious.

At the same time, we have a gift giving crisis. This is the time of year when people like to buy gift cards because they don’t know what to buy for others. The gift cards are from stores the recipient may never visit, the experience to buy and redeem are not thoughtful.

If spending time with people you scarcely see is considered precious time, then the experience of buying a gift for these same people should be precious as well.

Seth Godin, in a recent post, proposes a new process for gift card giving. See below.

- Go the the online store, find an item you think a friend would like. Instead of ordering it, choose GIFT CARD.

- The store asks you if you’d like to purchase a charitable donation add on as well.

- Now, the site produces a unique digital gift card, with a picture of the item and a link to redeem it. The QR code it generates also includes a thank you from the charity.

- Your friend simply has to scan the lovely page you printed out (or emailed them) to go to the redeem page. Once there, they can choose to get the item you carefully picked out, choose something else or easily get cash back.

- And so, they get delighted three times: When they get the thoughtful card. When they go to the site and discover they can get the cash back. And when the item arrives in the post and they unwrap it.

I love Seth for his thoughtfulness, his belief in the recipient’s agency, and the purchasing and redeeming experience — full cycle. It’s easy for a store to make a gift card redeem code available over email; it takes time, effort, and intention to make that experience ultra-meaningful. Seth proposes the missing x-factor: design.

People who make products (hard or intangible) apply design and craft to build products that appeal to consumers. Now, many sites are optimized for fast click-thru and quick outcomes; that’s what consumers tend to want and what Google rewards. Seth’s proposal adds a few tweaks: gift giver picks what consumer might like, makes a gift card for that thing, creates an and makes an opt-in for a donation. Elegant and simple tweaks that say “hey, recipient, I am thinking about you…”. and allow for the recipient to say “yes, that’s me…” or “yes, thank you for thinking of me…”.

The time spent purchasing and selecting the gift for the person you scarcely see in total is time spent in the service of others. As that time becomes scarce and scarce, the experience spending that time must proportionately become more and more meaningful.