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.

 Traditionally all resources were considered to be scarce. Nowadays however, we are dealing with resources that are abundant (think of information, ideas, experience), but that also have other characteristics that demand a different way of thinking. In a world of abundance and plentiness we need to rethink our thoughts about values and individuals.

In today’s issue of the ‘Financieel Dagblad’ (www.fd.nl) an interesting article has been published on co-creation. Scope of the article is the increasing use of customers in product development in a wide range of industries. The article quotes several experts.

The Danish Marketing Forum and The Technoligisk Institut(Taastrup) in Copenhagen are organising the Markedsførinsdagen 2006, 30 and 31st of may.

Download the key note presentation of Albert Boswijk from the download area.

Literally speaking the Experience Economy is very old. Within management however it is a rather new topic that is being addressed only since the last ten years. Several organizations and their management place it on the agenda. It is something new and they want to discover what it is and what it can mean for them. The way people go through this orientation and learning processes differs from organization to organization. I observe three types of responses; 1. Neglect after first impression 2. Going through the motions 3. Fundamental approach.

Mark Hansen, Lego Company and guestlecturer for the European Centre for the Experience Economy spoke in Umbrie for executives and for the Hospitality Sales Management Association International. In Mark’s view the customer of the future wants to be the designer, and the marketeer of his own desgined products. So what’s the changing role for Lego Company in this? Listen to Mark’s lecture, for members only

In the principles for the Experience Economy you are what you charge for according to Pine and Gilmore (1999). If you charge for a good you’re in the goods-business, if you charge for a service you’re in the service-business, if you explicitly charge for the experience people have with you, you have entered the experience business.

Our society is changing to a system of communicative self-steering according to the philosophy of Arnold Cornelis. It becomes more important to learn at the level of communicative self-steering besides learning at the level of the social ruling system. Education should contribute to that. This paper gives a view on education in a society in which people live thogether according to the logic of communicative self-steering and in which an economy of experiences is upcoming. Download article (in Dutch)

Yolanda Eijgenstein spoke about innovation in leadership at the HSMAI conference

This article presents a market perspective on the phenomenon of design and business converging into "design thinking" by presenting notes and reflections from Design 2.0, the recent design Strategy& Innovation conference of February the 28th in New York City. In the Process, it presents some differences in approach between the Americain and European perspectives on design driven innovation.Download article

Today Albert Boswijk presented an elevator speech at Event.Hosted by Sprekersplatvorm. He talked about the dilution of the concept experience. The only way to look at experiences is  to start from the perspective of the individual . He differentiated between personal,social and economical experiences. Experience economy is a symptom of deeper structural changes in society. We are moving from a social ruling system to a society where deep communicative selfsteering and selfexpression are going to be the key values. Companies have to rethink their role in the process of making meaning by the individual. Read excerpt of the book See pictures below. Download presentation English or Dutch.

The computer gamers among you will know that the world’s best game players can actually make a living out out of shooting virtual monsters.  In some massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) players have also started to create and trade virtual objects for real money. Wired published an interesting article about a woman who decided to quit her job to start working full time as a virtual clothes designer in SecondLife.
SecondLife and other MMORPGs create an ever more complex world of hyperreality where the distinctions between real and unreal are blurred