Executive Course ‘Value Creation through Experience’
By the European Centre for the Experience Economy
April 17-22, 2005, La Bisbal d’Empordà, Spain

Sunday April 17
Around 8 pm Albert Boswijk welcomed everyone with cava at the wonderful Castell
d’Empordà. After dinner people talked and discussed as if they knew each other for years
already.

Monday April 18
We started the course with a real ‘Learning by Sharing’ experience as we were challenged to
mention three different types of experiences in any of the categories of personal life shaping
experiences, social experiences and experiences that you actually paid for. By sharing them
with someone else of the group who you did not know yet, we got to know each other better
and learned about the type of experiences mentioned in each category. Then each of us wrote
our own definition of ‘experience’ which obviously resulted in as many definitions as
participants… As all this was put into the computer, Thomas Thijssen presented us the output
the next day.

After that, we listened to Joe Pine’s state of the Experience Economy in which he focused
more than he ever did before on transformations. ‘You are what you charge for’: with
experiences you charge the client for the time being with you and there are several ways to
charge. He emphasized the need to refresh experiences to get repeat visitors. But how many
(staged) experiences can people handle? Then he focused on authenticity, or better, render
authenticity. This is a sort ‘as-if-authenticity’ (personal interpretation, eb). In other words, if
you know well how to stage authenticity, the consumer will accept it as long as he perceives it
as authentic. A lot of questions that the group asked him were put in the computers and were
answered by Joe after the break. An interesting discussion emerged on the real versus the fake
and I think that we were left with that question until the end as Joe finished with ‘You can’t
render authenticity to all the people all the time’. So, how to find the right balance for today’s
consumers?

Then each of us chose a coach to share our business case with him and some other
participants. Interesting to see the overlap in the struggle that each of us had while the cases in
itself were so different from each other. In my group participated Alie from the Haagse
Hogeschool, Fred from Wessanen Nederland and the next day Kim from Warm with Senses.
On Monday we only managed to discuss two business cases. On Tuesday we discussed them
all and were able to really go in-depth. The basic point of discussion for all of us was ‘how
can experiences be created and offered to our clients or to our own staff’? Authenticity played
an important role in all the four cases.

Intellectual input was given on Monday by Anna Snel’s presentation. She provided us with a
review of the key literature to lay a fundament under what we are actually talking about this
week.  Some were dazzled: how to deal with this all? How to apply it in business? Later on
during the program, Albert Boswijk, Thomas Thijssen and Ed Peelen presented their new book
with many practical examples as well as there were many presentations by ‘real’ cases
throughout the course.

Tuesday April 19
The development of society was illustrated with a presentation of Jempi Moens of Fresh
Forward in which he, with a lot of colourful images, illustrated how society moves on ‘waves’
of periods of approximately 50 years. Jempi started with telling us his self-steering personal
development, a good example of how one can shape his own life! As (western) society now is
in the rising phase characterized by self-confidence, freedom, self-expression and explorative
behaviour, Jempi advised everyone to focus these days on these strong points regarding his or
her own business case: it’s time for the Experience Economy now!

Then we saw an interview with E. Köster on DVD about the psychology of the senses. He
started with saying ‘everything is an experience I don’t think that one experience is more an
experience than another experience’. Illustrated with many examples, he warned for staging
experiences, rendering authenticity and the awareness that people today have about
experiencing the experiences, etc. Help! How can people have such a different views on
experiences. It’s a pity that Joe Pine just left and that we could not have a discussion with
both of them at that moment. Interesting was Köster’s statement that many food product
launches fail because of a lack of proper research methods.

We continued with the senses with Kim van der Leest. She argued that there is a world of
senses like colours, odours, etc. that could help enhance experiences. But again, it should be
done in a subtle manner. So, risk can be decreased by investigating the balance.
Our senses were really challenged in a ‘taste and art’ workshop by Angelique Schmeinck. It
was really impressive how she managed to un-block us by toasting with a glass of Cava that
did not taste like Cava at all. She re-connected us with ourselves by showing us how she
actually detracted the ‘Cava’: transparent juice from red tomatoes! By using very creative top
cuisine skills she pro-shaped (or transformed?) us into beginning taste experts. We had again
a real ‘learning by sharing’ experience (is that the trick for real experiences?!)

As an appetizer of our trip to Barcelona, a presentation on the city of Gaudi was given by
Yvonne Nieuwenhuijs. With authentic slides she explained how Gaudi managed to create the
image of Barcelona. The next day, Yvonne shared her knowledge with a small group of
people joining her on a cultural-historical tour through Barcelona.

Wednesday April 20
Mark Hanssen explained to us how LEGO creates experiences1. LEGO constantly deals with
the question ‘how can you keep challenging kids?’ LEGO is education, it is learning by
playing. LEGO considers their customers, e.g. the kids, as the future designers of LEGO.
The knowledge is with the client, with the consumer. Their needs and their wishes tell you what
you as a company have to do. To Mark it is clear: ‘if you don’t know who your customer is,
you’d better stop. They define the experience so you have to identify them’. Therefore, they
have ‘kids-scanners’ walking around the globe on a continuous basis to get all important
information about kids into the LEGO company. The next step is to have those little LEGO
consumers participate themselves into building their future experiences. Mark showed us the
LEGO communities, their fundament for any experience innovation in which the Internet
plays an increasingly important role. A very interesting case.

A two hour bus drive led us to the ‘Vila Olimpica’ of Barcelona where we arrived a little late
and thus had a quick lunch at Bestial, a trendy restaurant at the beach. Then the group was
split up in two: a few left with Yvonne for the Barcelona Gaudi experience and the majority
of the group took off with Jerome Severin of Young Urbans and Ruud Tompot of
Mindmovers on the Barcelona ‘E-tour’. From Bestial we walked along the beach to the
funicular that took us to the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, an example of timeless architecture.
From there we took the metro to El Raval and the Gothic district.

Both tours ended in a typical Catalan restaurant named El Racó de la Vila where we had
authentic Catalan food. Around 00:30 we took a cab to Club 13 at Plaza Reial where we had a
drink, a chat and some of us a real dancing experience. At 03 am our bus driver took us from
Plaza de Catalunya back to the castle in La Bisbal d’Empordà. As loud and awake people
entered the bus, as quiet and sleepy they got out at 05 am…

Thursday April 21
Bert Kranendonk told us how he managed to convince the Heineken board of his innovative
plans to give new meaning and function to the former Heineken brewery in the city centre of
Amsterdam. He ensured them that the ‘bottle ride’ in which each visitor experiences how a
bottle entering the brewery becomes a Heineken bottle ending up at a party, would be a much
better and more effective way to market Heineken than traditional marketing tools like
advertising. Visitors feel how it is to be a Heineken bottle… Nice idea, but a difficult job to
realise, as there were no reference projects, the designer was the realising body at the same
time, he had a fixed budget, etc. But he managed: after 5 years of talking and 9 months of
realizing plans, the Heineken Experience was a fact and Heineken is still more than happy
with it. Here again, refreshment is important. Every now and then new innovations are
satisfying the visitors. Bert taught Heineken how to do this and he continued creating new
concepts and guiding innovation processes.

Duncan Stutterheim fascinated us with a presentation of his business ID&T. It was one of the
two presentations in which I did not take any notes to not miss a word of what he was saying.
Remarkable was that some parts of the company that started as fun, as a hobby, have been
growing so fast and have become so big, that they reached a point at which, unfortunately
according to Duncan, market research needs to be done now. Refreshment of innovations is
the order of the day at ID&T. Exclusiveness is one of the secrets here. And the slogan is ‘fuck
it all’.

Brian Boswijk showed us how he with his company Interdit managed to get 100 to 120 people
together at forbidden and hidden locations in Amsterdam to prepare them a semi- illegal
dinner. Abandoned spaces were cleaned and equipped for the occasion and guests were
invited by sms. The thrill of acting illegal and not knowing whether the police would show up
was the kick for both the organization as well for the guests. Again, the keyword here is
exclusiveness. Now, Brian runs Club 11, a restaurant/club on the 11th floor of the former post
office next to Central Station in Amsterdam.

Rob Wagemans showed us how Concrete Architects provokes with its original and daring
design. In no time and in a very enthusiastic way, he dazzled us with many of their concepts,
ideas, and most of all their ‘fuck-it-all-way’ of approaching the world around them as
architects. Experience it yourself in the Lairesse pharmacy in Amsterdam, the supperclub
restaurant in Amsterdam or Roma, the coffee company in Amsterdam, or in one of the many
other places that Concrete Architects touched and transformed.

The Schiphol Experience ‘Dreamport Schiphol’ was explained to us by Marcel Goossens of
DST Experience Communication5. Dreamport Schiphol consists in the transformation of the
roof of Schiphol airport into a 70% entertainment 30% education area so that Schiphol airport
becomes a destination in itself. The aim is to have people stay longer at Schiphol airport so
that Schiphol Airport can make profit. He argued that they are anticipating the need for a
memorable event. The audience was quite critical about this case.

Chip Conley told us about the development of his company Joie de Vivre Hospitality, with
which he won the world’s ‘Experience Stager of the Year’ award in 2001. He creates niche
boutique hotels dedicated to the adjectives described in a lifestyle representing magazine.
Brands are mirrors! He is not only creating his hotels in that way, it is also ‘Yvette’ on the
website that matches the client’s wishes. And, moreover, it is the whole corporate culture that
he designs that way by working with, among others, ‘work climate surveys’ and an ‘open
door policy’ for which he won the 6th ‘Best Company to Work for in California’ award.

Friday April 22
The course organizers asked us what more we would like to focus on. Some of the needs,
remarks, comments and ideas of the course participants were the following:
• A focus on Experience Society instead of on the Experience Economy.
• What do the course participants consider the 3 success stories and the 3 failures out of
all the experience examples that were presented this week?
• What are the future values? As a company, what to focus on in the future?
• Experiences and ethics.
• What kind of people/staff do you need behind the economics of experiences?
• Difference real fake and fake real.
• Order of course content: short introduction on Experience Economy, then the practical
cases and in the middle some fundamental lectures, a better mix.
• Create an experience exchange space on the website of the European Centre.

Albert Boswijk presented their new book that will be published in May ‘Een nieuwe kijk op
de Experience Economy. Belevenissen van betekenis’. Furthermore he expressed the need for
more research on the effectiveness of experiences and the hope for future collaborations with
all of the course participants. An important research questions is, for example, where is the
money going in traditional marketing and where is it going in the experience marketing?
Then Steven Olthof of KPMG Business Innovation handed out a white paper of a ‘strategic
experience journey’, a tool developed to learn your way into the future. In his presentation he
focused on different levels of perspectives from a reactive to a generative level with an
increase effect of intervention.

Before having our final lunch together there was some time to spend on our own business
cases. Instead, with two other participants we reflected on what we experienced this week. We
left pen, paper and castle behind en had an interesting conversation while we discovered an
antique store almost next door, green fields, flowers and birds and in the distance a beautiful
castle…

During lunch we discussed the three questions that the course organizers asked us to reflect
on: what did you learn, what did you experience and what are you going to do? After lunch
everyone expressed his or her course experience in three words on top of the castle’s tower:
inspiring, sharing, friendship, relationships, diversity, de-blocking, etc., etc.
This is just a very short - and therefore incomplete - summary of all the presentations,
workshops and tours that we experienced during the course. The input of information,
knowledge, ideas, inspiration and more than that has been overwhelming. Digestion and
reflection is needed to absorb, connect, link and select strategically what to do with this all.
Please, join, complement, discuss and share your experiences in the future!
Thank you all,