The 16th of November 9.00 we will give a special workshop for teachers who are using our book “The Experience Economy A new Perspective”. All three authors (Albert Boswijk, Thomas Thijssen en prof.Ed Peelen will be present and participating in the workshop. Location Walter Maashuis Gerard Doulaan te Bilthoven.Register early! For full program and registration.Docentendag* 16.11.07.pdf

Businesses in hospitality, retail and even the manufacturing industries are quite aware they need to develop and facilitate so called ‘experiences’. Still there are a lot of questions about those experiences and specially about digital experiences.

To avoid misunderstandings at the outset, let me clearly state that I distinguish markets from the system of infinite accumulation of capital that we call capitalism. Markets have always existed, and are a mechanism to deal with and allocate scarce rival resources through the mechanism of price. Under capitalism this mode of exchange has become dominant, but has also been coupled to something else, a system that is based on continuous growth.

Visit the lecture of the European Centre of the Experience Economy at Pic Nic the 28th of September 12.30. register early at official Pic Nic site. Admission free, preregistration required http://www.picnicnetwork.org/set-5681-en.html

This week YouTube was all about the VMA, MTV’s Music Video Awards. Within the ten most viewed movies on YouTube two days ago, six of them were of Britney Spears’s come-back at the VMA. It’s very interesting to see the tremendous effect of such a short event, or rather experience.

With Noud van den Boer on The Eye for detail, Dr.Leonieke Zomerdijk, Report on the Creative Industries, Hans van der Loo, Kiss the Vision Awake, Nokia Flagshipstores by Sybrand Oudega, Extraordinary people by Peter van Lindonk. Register early! For detailed program 2 nov networkday final.pdf

The 2nd and 3th of September 2007, Bournemouth University hosted the Extraordinary Experiences Conference. About 90 academics and practioners participated and discussed topics regarding hospitality and tourism experiences.

Currently almost 90% of the food products that are launched disappear form the market in one year. One of the main reasons for this high failure rate is the underestimation of the role that situational factors play in food choice. To enable a better prediction of endurable successes of new launches of foods and drinks in the market, observation of the consumers in specific situations e.c.experiences is an indespensable tool requiring technological breakthroughs. This conclusion has led to the design and construction of a higly advanced research facility for research on food related behaviour in an indoor setting the “Restaurant of the Future” at Wageningen University. The restaurant offers a flexible eating environment where food and choice and eating behaviour with respect to company catering can be observedd under conditions with the help of state-of-the-art observation and sensor technology.Observation of eating and drinking behaviour and of the emotional reactions triggered by such behaviour provides unique possibilities to help the food and drink industry design products and experiences that fit special situations and evoke hedonistic experiences. The European Centre of the Experience economy will be involved with Universiteit Wageningen and her partners to develop a unique mobile “rapid research services”.

Tourism is experience economy. Or better, tourism is experience society! Communicative self steering by today’s consumers is best expressed in tourism through the search for ever more unique experiences with which people create their personal life story to finally increase the quality of their life. The increasing power of today’s consumers is best expressed in tourism by the numerous virtual portals where destinations and prices are evaluated and compared, houses and lifestyles exchanged, and experiences shared. The co-creation experience has even seen its light in tourism when Virtual Aloft was launched in Second Life last year for virtual visitors to co-design the real Aloft.

I would like to thank the whole staff for a perfect organisation of this conference. All details were taken care of . It is has been a great pleasure to me. In terms of content I was very interested by the work of Lena Mossberg, we discussed very intensely our mutual work and have made plans to share our research efforts in november. It was a pity I had to miss the art tracks, because of my own lecture. A little bit more art and artists in the program would be welcomed. Also I would recommend to do more lectures in English and I predict a good future for this Nordic Experience Conference!. Both Keller workshops were rather traditional branding concepts certainly in the way that Steven presented himself. The important learning point for me was that in one of his slides he drew the brand separate from the organisation and separate from the customers. Frank Pedersen form Jitske bank looked very interesting, I couldnot really follow his Danish. We look forward to next years edition. For more information clips of the lecturers and speeches go to motion

We live in a political economy that has it exactly backwards. We believe that our natural world is infinite, and therefore that we can have an economic system based on infinite growth. But since the material world is finite, it is based on pseudo-abundance. And then we believe that we should introduce artificial scarcities in the world of immaterial production, impeding the free flow of culture and social innovation, which is based on free cooperation, by creating the obstacle of permissions and intellectual property rents protected by the state. What we need instead is a political economy based on a true notion of scarcity in the material realm, and a realization of abundance in the immaterial realm. Complex innovation needs creative and autonomous workers that are not impeded in their ability to share and learn from each other.