That is precisely the reason why the European Centre for the Experience Economy was founded in 2001 to ground popular management notions about the Experience Economy in formal academic theory. Over the last years we conducted many Learning-by-Sharing experiments with students, practitioners, researchers and teachers during our Executive Courses and Workshops, and we explored and described ‘meaningful experiences’ in the personal, social/cultural and economic contexts. This new understanding led to a five step model for co-creating value, as described in our book “Een Nieuwe Kijk op de Experience Economy: betekenisvolle belevenissen, 2005″. (1) Innovative and creative ability (2) Shaping the customer value chain and meaningful propositions with customers (3) organising processes, competences and enabling technology (4) engaging and empowering employees (5) generating (economic and social) value. From exploring and describing, we now move the research forward to explaining and testing through formal research methods.

It becomes more and more important to understand the major forces in the market that force organisations to respond and migrate from supply chain management, to co-creation and further to demand-network management. People today decide by themselves as to how to create meaning in their life, with whom, and with which products, services and experiences. It is a true challenge to understand, but even more so to design and develop new business models to respond to the customer’s desire for meaningful experiences.

Learning-by-Sharing in European Research
The first annual research meeting, hosted by the European Centre for the Experience Economy, was held on September 7 and 8 in Amsterdam and Vreeland. It was an invitational conference based on earlier contacts with researchers and consultancy organisations from several European Countries. The following researchers and practitioners attended: Professor Chris Voss and Leoniek Zomerdijk (London Business School: Operation management, service management, service innovation and experience design), Esther Binkhorst (respresenting e-Cultura and Co-creations Consultancy from Spain: Imagineering, cultural development, hospitality, tourism and events), Karin Andersson (Kairos Future, Sweden: Futurise, strategy, impact and destination management), Sanna Tarssanen and Mika Kylanen (Expertise Centre on Experience Industries in Finland: education, concept development, cross media, ICT and art) Desiree Struijk (Senta: Psychology of the sensen) and Steven Olthof (KPMG Business Innovation: Experience Strategy and B2B Experience), Anna Snel (University of Amsterdam: a general theory of experience), Albert Boswijk (EE: five step model to co-creation), Thomas Thijssen (EE: Experience Society, Experience Landscape and Experience Framework for measuring experiences and their impact), Teun den Dekker (Master student and assistant to EE).

The Learning-by-Sharing approach was used to engage in a dialogue on research interests, research topics, activities and results at The College Hotel in Amsterdam and in Hotel de Nederlanden in Vreeland. With the fine weather, we could not have wished for a better ‘Amsterdam and Netherlands Experience’. Discussions were theory based, action oriented, open to academics, students, practitioners and researchers, working towards a common frame of reference of Experience Economy and Experience Society. Visits were also made to De Lairesse Apotheek, The College Hotel (school and hotel), A Maison, The Nederlanden and Restaurant Club 11.

Mapping the Future Research Interests for the Benefit of Business
The outcome of the 2-day research conference is a comprehensive map of future research interests and activities from very general (The future of the European Union from an Experience perspective) to very specific (The ROI of an experience event or understanding meaningful human experineces). Research questions that are generated include: How do we develop theorie, language and models to describe the Experience Economy? What new business models can we study, how do we design meaningful experiences? How do we use the five step co-creation model in practice and generate learning from cases? How do we study the influence of technology on cross media communication and interactive media? How do we test and validate the XRP Framework to measure meaningful experiences etc.

In the following weeks a pre-study for joint European research will be conducted to identify further opportunities for Learning-by-Sharing and the European Centre for the Experience Economy will strengthen its research strategy to include the above topics in either applied research (stream 1) on understanding human experiences better (XRP Framework), or co-creation value in experience networks (stream 2) and/or understanding the future of the Experience Society (stream 3). These streams leave openings for innovative research in the future that is both of academic value (rigor) and important for organisations in practice (relevant).

By inviting a pool of organisations to engage in multi-client research across Europe and in the Netherlands the costs of research can be kept to a minimum with a great impact on new value creation through new and improved Experience business models. In due time the research results will be shared trough publications and reports.

More information?
Thomas Thijssen
Director of research
Thomas@experience-economy.nl

Other

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