What happens when the experience economy meets the recession economy?

For one month I have been a phd student. One of the subjects to analyze during my studies will be the experience economy, so I have been studying the issue for a while. Reading at the economics section of the newspaper today (like this article), I can clearly see what I have been thinking during two years, a economis slowdown is approaching. I did not know how big is going to be, in fact nobody knows, but things might get serious. I mean is quite distressing, for example the stocks of Sturbucks (the  most repeated example about experience economy), falling to 15$ a share when it was almost 40$ 2 years ago. Of course, the stockmarket it’s not a place to measure the experience economy, is just an example.

So it kept me thinking. How is this economic downturn going to affect the experience economy? I have been recently surfing the net for answers and I found people in this field are also concern about it. Stephanie Weaver’s blog, two months ago, asked the question

“What happens when the experience economy meets the recession economy?”

And invited several important people to answer as guest bloggers. Even Joe Pine participated. Probably all have a bias to answer everything will be fine, I mean history experts are not that well paid  But I think they make some good points.

I think this subject can be related with the discussion about innovation. The other day I was watching a small video with the P&G CEO Lafley on innovation and recession (uploaded on April 17, 2008). He claimed something like innovation will always be in their strategy (it would be weird for him to say otherwise), and I think he’s right. In my thinking, Innovation is about surviving, not about making huge profits. Therefore my conclussion about the experience economy, is that business before had to keep their eyes out to improve their business in the fields of products, services and experiences. Now with a slowdown, it would not make sense to forget about offering experiences and solely concentrate in products and services.  

Kotkin. Don’t underestimate the fellow

I do not want you to think Joel Kotkin is not a smart guy. But I think the guys behind him are even more smart. Here is one example, of how the PR backed him up as shown in an official site: “US writer slams city for pushing out middle class. Note that this is English, of course it has been much more widespread in Danish. I’m sure the organizers of the visit of Florida in Vejle, the business development part of the Kommune (Municipality), are quite amazed at the moves of the Danish Industry.

There it is the battle against the kommunes and the industry. In my last post I was kind of hard on Kotkin, but I will give him credit.

I have the term “experience economy” in Google Alerts, so anytime someone with some type of authority is talking about it, I know. The other day I came across a Bent Rook’s post on Greenville Online, the blog says: “Evidence-based economic development shows a direct parallel between successful and vibrant communities and strong support of the arts.” That made me think about Kotkin who argued that economy comes always first and then arts, and made me wonder if there would also be a “direct parallel” between Starbucks coffee and successful communities.

Therefore, we should be careful when we talk about the experience economy. We need to keep in focus, that the experience economy it’s not something that takes or will take the economy. Although, of course is worth to study. I would have to say, though, that sometimes I’m quite uncomfortable with the term “experience economy” and I’d rather use a term like “experiences level”, where the “goods and services levels” coexist. Let’s see what happens.

Kotkin comes to Denmark to kick R. Florida

This was my first conference I attended. It was in Aarhus on Friday 4 April, and was organized by Dansk Industri, an organization that represents some of the largest Danish companies. There were more than 100 people invited including Mayors, Kommune (City/County Government) officials, policy-makers, business representatives and some academic people (me!), The guest speaker was Kotkin, a professor from Champan, a relatively small liberal arts college in California. It is important to understand the context of this conference. Last month, the famous Richard Florida came to Denmark to explain and preach his ideas about the creative class, the idea that has made him millionaire, with his conferences worldwide and bestseller books. I participated in a blog of my previous class, and I already commented about what I think about him. To sum up I would say in my humble opinion, that he is a very clever person who wrote what most of the people want to read (in a certain extent this includes me). That is what a make a bestseller author, isn’t? Florida brought many interesting ideas, although his methodology and some of its conclusions are quite questionable. He created controversy which certainly helped him to be known.  While I attended a semester at Georgia Tech, my remarkable supervisor Dr. Philip Shapira, had Florida’s book as one mandatory reading in one of his classes. I used the book to make a class report, about the “Creative Class in Spain” (my home country) with a ranking of the top 10 cities, so I could better understand Florida’s ideas, but that’s another issue. The point is that his ideas were pointed out as blatantly leftist or in other words a Democrat with a hidden agenda.  Many we understand that Florida’s thinking can irritate many groups.

I could understand that the Dansk Industri, could organize a conference with a guy like Kotkin, which went besides “the hip and the cool” and “beyond the creative class”, all ideas inherent to Florida’s work. If Florida is in the political left, Kotkin was well established in the right (many might not agree in both positions I have pointed out for them). Kotkin called the Danish system, a very liberal one, (for clarifications meaning liberal in the American sense, relates to the political left – In most Europe, liberal means to be in the political right side). If you heard and Americans calling the  French or Scandinavian, liberals, you know he comes from a conservative wing in the U.S., if he then says that the most important thing  is the family, or as he called it “the bedrock of the society”, and that all policies should be headed towards improving this. Then you’re 100% sure he’s a hardcore republican. I’m all about the family, but I think it is already taken for granted that families, parents, children, and humans well alike, are the most important thing in this world.

I’m originally from Spain, but I have lived over 3 years in the U.S. and my wife is American, I have lived a year in Denmark, where I have chosen to work and study now. One of the reasons me and my wife we chose to be here, is for the wide support they give here to the family. So it’s hard for me to take the opinion of someone saying that if Denmark does not support the family in its economics and urban planning, like the U.S. does, Denmark could not be prosperous in 15 years.  

In my opinion Kotkin had a bias view of Europe’s society (although he mentioned in the middle of his presentation he studied Latin for 7 years… ) and even less knowledge about Denmark. However he brought some interesting points for the discussion of economics and urban planning. He ridiculed the idea of some cities trying to be cool, he never mentioned Florida, but it was clear he was pointing at Florida’s idea about how “cool towns” attract knowledge or creative people. Kotkin explained a discussion about how some people thought that Florence became a great city because of its culture and arts, he opposed to this idea saying it was the economy which made it a great city.

 

p.s. They served a great lunch!

 

Prudent

I told my supervisor about the idea of writing a blog, and she cautioned me to be prudent with my blogging Also, to only use it as a way to relax, but not to work, which is understandable. Actually, I have many things now to read and specially to write.

I would write notes on everything I read, and for the ones I found interesting, I would upload them here. Soon I will upload some of the things I have lately wrote. Two people had already told me that one of the keys to sucessfully do the phd, is to give the same importance to writing than to reading. Meaning, reading and writing about the same time, and not only reading. So, is in it a blog the best thing to write?

Right now I’m pretty busy organizing and writing my presentation for the RSA Conference in Prague this next month. It will deal with the Experience Economy and the Innovation Systems.

First post

Before starting my phd I considered starting a blog so I could share some of the ideas that I would find during these next 3 years. It would help to track my work and as a sketch of my final project. However I did not know how suitable it would be for me to openly write about my project. Is not that it’s a secret one or something, in fact some issues in my project involve the issues of networking, systems, innovation, all reasons which I believe it would be good to have a blog. I found some very good blogs of other phd students and I really enjoyed them. They are an example for me and I hope that I’m also able to share some of the same energy many phd fellows have.

Besides being a log of my work, my intentions for this blog is to regularly posts things that I find interesting and that I know that someone at sometime would find also interesting.

My phd just started, and I have 3 years in front of me. I will read, and learn many things, and I will try to share some of this things with you.