The European Centre for the Experience Economy and Shiraz partners completed a research project with Motivaction on what the Dutch consumer considers to be the building blocks of authenticity. Which companies and brands does he or she consider to be very authentic and which are the least authentic? The top three concepts are “originaliteit” (original, new, fresh), “oorspronkelijkheid” (the original source, from the source), and “echt” (real, genuine) together with “betrouwbaarheid” (trustworthiness). The results also show which kinds of people (according to Motivaction’s mentality segments) embrace specific kinds of authenticity.

Ex en Lengkeek (2000) differentiate between material authenticity (made of the original material), conceptual authenticity( made according to the intention of the original maker), contextual authenticity (in the right context) and functional authenticity (being used in the traditional way). Furthermore they differntiate between historical (when aging is shown) and a-historical authenticity (when aging is hidden or the object is restored). We will study now if these concepts of authenticity confirm or falsify the theory of the five genres of Gilmore & Pine.

As the most authentic Dutch brands were mentioned: Albert Heijn, Douwe Egberts, Philips and Calvé. All specific Dutch companies that have a long history. We assume that a sort of Dutch nostalgia plays an important role. Perceived as the least authentic companies were the energy suppliers, telecoms and ICT suppliers. When asked about inauthenticity, respondents speak more about business sectors than about individual companies. The same research was done for the financial service industry. The most authentic bank is RABOBANK and the least authentic is ABN AMRO. We would like to replicate this research in other European Countries. Please contact us if you are interested.Further research will be done in the hospitality and retail industry.

“Authenticity is what consumers really want” . This is the claim Gilmore & Pine make in their new book. Is there really a need for more authenticity? Or is this a new marketing gimmic that we have to believe in and that people have to follow? Consumers have very little trust in companies and organisations. We believe that people can be authentic but is it possible that organisations can be authentic? The European Centre for the Experience Economy and Shiraz Partners directed a research project with Motivaction under Dutch consumers on what they believe are the building blocks of authenticity. And which brands and organisations they think are most authentic and which ones are not authentic at all. Next Tuesday at the Authenticity eventwww.authenticiteit-event.nl/Experienceeconomy we will present the results of this empirical research.The second part of this research will cover authenticity in the financial service industry. Joe Pine will direct an exclusive masterclass and include the results of our research. If you are interested in a full report please let us know.

This article by Steve Bosserman http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/steve_bosserman/2008/02/09/giving_it_away_making_money.htm is about the best that I have read about the issue of sustainability in a world of open design. It’s an article which should be read slowly, it is a slow buildup of simple but intricate arguments, and has the illustrative graphics to match. I want to retrace my own understanding of it. First, the broad context is this: open and free has been moving historically from content (now a mainstream reality) to software (open source software, not fully mainstream, but consolidating as we speak http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/technology/09free.html ), to design in general (an emerging reality right now).

Joe Pine lectured tonight(monday the 21st of Jan) at the Meeting up network in de Rode Hoed in Amsterdam He presented for the first time his new multiverse model where he has been working on now for seven years as he told me. The concept and ideas of multiverse origin and are inspired from the book Snowcrash of Neal Stephenson(1992). In this book the future is described of 3D-internet. The universe takes place in the dimensions time, space and matter. Imagine yourself time on the y axe and space on the x-axe and matter as the diagnol. Time, space and matter take place in the physical world. The opposite of matter(atoms) is non matter(bits) the virtual world. The opposite of time is no -time, non linear. The opposite of space is no-space. In the 1st quadrant of time, physical and matter we find the present physical reality.The 2nd quadrant is limited by two dimensions the physical and the no-time dimension, this is the dimension of the augmented and alternated reality. The 3rd quadrant of no -space and no-time, we find the dimension of the virtual world.( in this belong the 2nd life, and habbo hotel examples). The 3rd quadrant is limited by the non -physical, no-space and time, this dimension is called the augmented virtuality and the physical virtuality. In this four quadrants Pine differentiates between the physical virtuality, the alternate reality, augmented virtuality and the mirror world. It will take a while to really understand the model. The power of the model is the consistent logic reasoning into these different worlds which opens windows in how different media and experience providers can add value and experiences to their existing offerings. Joe is still looking for the real opposites of the augmented virtuality and the augmented or alternate reality. We promise to write more about this model. It takes a while to let it sink in. It is actually interesting to see the development of Pine’s thinking. The location hierarchy model proves to be a sort of in between step of this multiverse model.The lecture of Joe can be watched on Henk Jan’s Winkeldermaat webloghttp://eventbranche.blogs.com/eventbranche_weblog/2008/01/eindelijk-einde.html

Entreprise 2.0 is not just a new technological paradigm, but above all a new social paradigm. Simply integrating its new technological capabilities in an unchanged corporate culture, will not provide any of the substantial benefits that wider participation by employees and user communities can bring. Entreprise 2.0 is nothing less than a new paradigm for organizing work and value creation in our networked information economies. In order to understand the cultural challenge, it helps to understand 3 different cooperative cultures, and their associated social contracts and business models, i.e . sharism, commons production, and crowdsourcing.

1.What do we mean with social innovation? Innovation is traditionally defined as an entrepreneurial activity, and the latter is almost invariably described as an activity related to capital. Capital funds entrepreneurial innovation, while the state and its policies are concerned with the general conditions that allow innovation to flourish as a social process. In this article, we will content that a number of important social trends are undermining the validity of this general view.
Indeed, when we say that innovation is becoming social, we are saying that innovation is escaping from its entrepreneurial context, while at the same time, entrepreneurship itself is escaping the context of capitalism.
There a number of congruent objective and (inter)subjective social trends that are making innovation more and more of a social process.

The educational drive within the Creative Industries, are on quite different levels in the Nordic countries.
While it seem to be veritably blooming in Sweden, where you’ll find different combinations including a certain amount of ‘upplevelseindustri’ at nearly every university or university college – we see a more modest pace in other countries. The general impressions are;
• The professional environments within the CI’s seem to be scattered and small
• There is a lack of common understanding and agreement upon terms and definitions
• The links between educations and the labour market are weak (this reflects the poor organization of branches within the CI’s)
• The CI’s seem to be central to innovation in bordering sectors like ICT, digital media, engineering and tourism and are often used as ‘enzymes’ or add-ons in educational initiatives. NICE conferencepaper education creativeindustries 03.pdf

Vision is hot. According to studies in the US and in European countries, a great majority of managers claim that a vision is a necessary and effective management tool. According to a recent study amongst leading managers in profit and not-for-profit-organizations in the Netherlands, 80% claim that a vision is engaging employees, 78% that a vision inspirers people to greater performance and 74% that a vision has a positive effect on P&L. This is the good news. The bad news is that 78% of the same group of managers say their vision is not inspiring and that 53% claim their vision is not authentic. These are shocking results, that ask for an explanation. A vision is successful when it tells an engaging story that people want to be part of, challenges people, and creates a sense of excitement. Success occurs when the vision becomes embedded in the daily decisions and actions of those you want to lead. However, when these are saying that their vision is not authentic and inspiring, we are faced with a serious problem. How can you lead when you don’t believe in the core of your organization?

Hans van der Loo will be speaking at the Experience Academy event this friday Program* 2 nov compr.pdf

What exactly is the P2P dynamic we so often refer to in our contributions? The important shift to remember is in my view the following: instead of institutions dealing with what are assumed to be atomized individuals, through mass media, directing products to ‘passive consumers’, it should from now on be considered that such individuals are always already connected through peer groups. Not just one, but a multitude of them, both pre-existing, but also intensional networks that are purposely formed at various point in life, in order to achieve specific goals. This turns institutions into facilitators and enablers.

Dan Hill was key note lecturer at the yearly HSMAI conference the 5th of Oktober. He has done extensive research on facial coding and what sort of emotional responses could be deducted from the enormous film material of facial expressions that they collected. He is fascinated by the gap that exists between what people say and what people do. We feel before we think he argues. Less than 0,01% of our reactions are conscious. We respond within 3 seconds and most of the responses are through smell and 50% through visual information.We sense, we feel and than we act. Our first impressions are mostly through our sight. So the process works as follows, visual stimulation, emotional response, and rational answer. Dan has done research on eyetracking, and has discovered that our brains for 50% are occupied by working through our visual information.Through facial coding and eyeball tracking they know what emotions are evoked by commercial expressions. What sort of emotion does your website evoke, or the logo of your company. Facial coding is based on the 7 basic emotions; 1.Happiness, 2. surprise, 3.anger, 4.sadness, 5.fear,6.disgust, 7.contempt.

What is the difference between Physical and Virtual Experiences? Anna approaches this issue by first describing how value creation took place before the whole experience ‘venture’ started. She has taken us along a journey of economic scientists like Heskett(1997) and Hirschman (1982) about the extrinsic motivations and the intrinsic motivations. In the extensive literature there is a vast amount written about experience, clear definitions are lacking. If everything is Experience NO-THING is Experience. The American philosopher Dewey(1934) defines Experience as follows; contact with the raw stuff, and event like qualities like progression over time, emotional involvement, anticipation, unity and uniqueness, and consummation vs continuity. The differences between physical and virtual experiences Anna argues are in the field of accessibility, continuity, sensory intensity, the nature of cummunication, and shared experiences. For full presentation.

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.