INSPERIENCES: EXPERIENCES AT HOME AND IN OFFICE

[TOM Merilahti]

"In a consumer society dominated by experiences in the (semi) public domain -- often branded, designed, themed and curated to the nines -- INSPERIENCES represent consumers' desire to bring top-level experiences into their domestic domain."

Consumers becoming participants. Creation more valued than consumption. Two-way relationships. Yes, there IS a shift going on. Don't get us wrong, though: this is a parallel world. One-way consumerism is still alive and kicking. We may all dream of being MINIPRENEURS on Saturdays and members of GENERATION C on Wednesdays, yet find ourselves doing some serious shopping for the BEST OF THE BEST on Thursdays.

Recap

You know about 'cocooning' (the need to retreat from the harsh realities of life, which was big in the 80s and 90s), and you may have studied 'Home Haven' and 'Hiving' concepts; you may even have visited one of those 'Homes of the Future', with talking fridges and annoying robots doing their Jetsons spiel.

Fact is, consumers' homes are and will forever be their castles, cocoons, most prized possessions, which means spotting new domestic trends, before others do, could net you serious bucks, euros, pounds and yens.

Insperiences: Experiences at home and in office

So the big thing in the world of domestic bliss right now? How about re-creating experiences from the outside world into INSPERIENCES for the home? Mind you, INSPERIENCES will be as much about extending these experiences as flat out replacing them: consumers will still choose to visit a 'real' Crunch gym on the weekend, they will still hang out in bars with friends, they will still stay in hotels, and they will still come to the office for meetings and human contact.

So what's driving the home-upgrading and INSPERIENCE trend? Well, try one or more of the below:

• Rampant individuality: we are all MASTERS OF THE YOUNIVERSE, our homes turning into highly connected, sophisticated control and entertainment centers.

• Insecurity: 'let's stay in and invite some friends' says it all.

• Convenience: consumers are still time-starved, so having or doing *anything* at home means not having to venture out, which saves time.

• Unheard-of levels of prosperity for hundreds of millions of MASS CLASS members from Sao Paulo to Singapore to San Francisco, and ever-higher demands for comfort and quality from mature and experienced consumers. (Americans alone spend more than USD 125 billion annually on remodeling their homes!) The global standard is now the BEST OF THE BEST, and preferably the BEST OF THE BEST from the professional world.

The INSPERIENCE trend isn't slowing down. In fact, we're spotting more and more innovations, new business ideas, new business concepts capitalizing on this phenomenon. So, as 'in the comfort of one's own home' takes on an entirely new meaning, here's a new round of our latest and greatest INSPERIENCE observations (for earlier spottings, please go here):

Consumers with space to spare* are installing 'specialty rooms and spaces' like there is no tomorrow: think home theaters, game rooms, exercise rooms, outdoor living areas (with every comfort and all possible technology), dance rooms, basketball courts, yoga rooms, home spas, bar rooms, and so on. Check out:

* From empty nesters and baby boomers finding a new purpose for vacant rooms instead of selling their 4 BR homes, to the increase in second or even third home ownership -- there are 6.6 million second homes in the US, and roughly 10% of all EU households own a second dwelling.

Home Theaters

The battle for the living room is on! From electronics giants like Philips, Sony and Samsung to Google's new video store, everyone is rushing to market to help shape and own the future of home entertainment (read: turning living rooms if not entire homes into private cineplexes).

Which means that consumers looking to intertain (grand)children, friends and themselves, now really DO have everything at their fingertips to install true home theatres. Whether it's movies or the Super Bowl in the US, or the World Cup in the EU, 2006 sure looks like a stellar year for big scale, audio visual INSPERIENCES.

[AainaA-Ridtz A.R]

This makes the world, or rather prosumers more opened to the 'introvert' concept-approach rather than spreading out to reach new worlds and learning by hands-on experience. I cannot perceive this as a positive connotation about knowledge. Knowledge must be experienced - the very least in acquiring is by reading or 'insperiencing' but this in itself is a limitation - a media approach to what is 'best' is not necessarily the better approach in opening minds.