The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business: Amazon.de: Rolf Jensen, Jensen Rolf: Englische Bücher

Amazon.co.uk

Once upon a time planning for the future was a "staff" function. Over at Global HQ there would be a group of inky-fingered boffs beavering away at a series of "what if?" problems. What if there is a revolution in country X? What if our product turns out to be fatal to our customers? What if our new wonder-technology turns out to be an evolutionary cul-de-sac?

The future was something you could possibly see coming, but the present was where all the action was. Now that's all changed. The future comes at us so fast these days and from so many different directions that it is no longer sufficient for a company just to rely on a look-out with a telescope perched atop the corporate planning function. The whole crew needs to be armed with binoculars, constantly scanning the horizon for brave new worlds of opportunity and hidden threats that can sink an enterprise--no matter how large--in a matter of years or even months.

In short, the future is now a line issue. This and the Millennium explain the extraordinary rise of the futurist industry and the plethora of books dealing with the future.

The Dream Society is the latest and one of the wisest of these tomes. Its thesis is that human society has evolved from the hunter-gatherer era through agricultural and then industrial societies to most recently the information society; but shortly we are to enter the dream society. Its distinguishing characteristic is that in a world of material affluence in which much of current work is rendered obsolete by technology companies will compete through their myths. The product will be secondary and instead the company with the best story will win.

Written by Rolf Jensen, Director of the highly respected academic think-tank The Copenhagen Institute, the book tracks the implications of this observation on corporate and consumer behaviour in the industrialised countries. Companies will become tribes and work will become "hard fun". He writes: "The market for dreams would soon eclipse the market for information-based reality. The market for feelings would eclipse the market for tangible products".

It would be easy to dismiss this as a load of touchy-feely Scandinavian fantasy were it not for its academic rigour and honesty. "The Dream Society is a theory about the future; therefore it cannot be verified", admits Jensen. This book is not a prediction of what will be but a fascinating, thought-provoking discussion of what may be. --Alex Benady -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

From Booklist

Even though nearly 80 percent of the world's population is still without access to even a telephone, pundits have already begun to announce the end of the Information Age. Here, Jensen proclaims "the dream society." He heads the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, Europe's largest future-oriented think tank, and he documents humankind's evolution through four previous "techno-economic systems": hunter-gatherer, agricultural, industrial, and information. Two trends signal the transition to the dream society: information tasks are being automated and will be taken for granted, and emotion is becoming commercialized. The result, argues Jensen, is that consumers will no longer buy products but rather lifestyles and the "stories," experiences, and emotions products convey. Jensen sees six separate "emotional markets": adventure, love and friendship, care, self-identity, peace of mind, and beliefs or convictions. He details how the way business creates and sells products will be transformed. Jensen also sees major changes in the workplace, at home, and in relations between the rich and the developing nations; and he enthusiastically portrays the utopia he envisions. David Rouse -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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Dream Society of the Future ? Its already here! 19. November 1999

Von Zenplexity

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

The concept of psychographic-based products services & offerings are already here both in the consumer marketplace as well as in job marketplace.

We have been effectively using EVAL - Economic Value Addition to Lifestlye -- as a measure of the opportunities instead of salary, job content, work hours, work ethics, work environment, leadership & management.

The book does a neat job of categorization... but with growing anesthetization of urban sprawl, this book will help define the basis for corporate planning, urban planning, government and the entire information economy where the currency is the *thought* itself.

However, someone must write a book about the growing rift among the dreams of the various generational & economic strata of the population.

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Imagine starting a business and a "story" at the same? 28. September 1999

Von dbuerkle@hrmsworkplace.com

Rolf Jensen postulates an age where companies will have to differentiate themselves by creating stories about who they are, what they stand for, and who their customers will be when they become "part" of the story as consumers. Using the trends established by existing, successful organizations like Nike and Disney, Jensen paints a picture of marketing through consumer allegiance by imagination.

For would-be futurists, this book is compelling. For ordinary business folk, this book gels all the trends and ideas you've been seeing lately, and makes sense of it all. For the rest of us -- the Dream Society articulates the need we humans have for stories, culture, and acceptance.

This is an extraordinarily intriguing book. Even if you don't agree (or are afraid to imagine) the future scenarios Jensen presents, you'll be compelled to admit -- the Dream Society may really be here after all. A must-read!

An interesting book about tomorrow - reality or fiction? 9. Juni 1999

Von Henrik Helm (helm@pt.lu)

Why do some people buy a watch at $ 10.000, when you can get a much more precise one at $ 10? Because time is not the essential thing - it's about dreams, lifestyles and adventure. Why is the automobile the "New Beetle" such a big success? Because it looks almost like the old one (apart from new technology). Why is the movie "Titanic" the greatest blockbuster of our time? Because it's a story about a ship, a journey into nostalgia, feelings and lifestyles of persons 87 years ago. Dreams, stories, lifestyles, feelings, adventure, nostalgia, care - you'll get all the questions and answers in this well-written and provocative book about the next 25 years in the affluent societies. It's difficult to find arguments against the many examples and facts in this amazing book. Just to mention two examples: according to the author, doctors will gradually be replaced by automation within the health care sector, but nurses will get their golden age because of the explosive need to provide for care in the coming years. And: "The story can be told with a whole range of products, the product themselves being secondary". This is the reason why people buy Marlboro, Nike, BMW, Rolex and other brands at a price many times the price for other more unknown products. There is always a story behind: adventure(Marlboro-man), lifestyle (Nike) or nostalgia (BMW-oldtimers). This well-structured book is not about utopia, it's about the changing patterns of our daily lives, and it's already happening...