The pragmatic Richard Fentnor Harrowby, wealthy manufacturer of Harrowby's Creme Cleopatre and No. 7 Dental Delight, discussed the life and work of the author Felix Kennason who rose to fame with the publication of "Men Who Loved Alison." Harrowby's evaluation of Kennason: "At all events, I never quite liked Felix Kennason--not even after I came to understand that the man I knew in the flesh was a very ill-drawn likeness of Felix Kennason. After all, that is the whole sardonic point of his story--and, indeed, of every human story--that the person you or I find in the mirror is condemned eternally to misrepresent us in the eyes of our fellows. but even with comprehension, I never cordially liked the man; and so, it may well be that his story is set down not all in sympathy." The book begins in Storisende. Count Emmerick had planned a wedding feast for La Beale Ettarre, his youngest sister, engaged to marry Guiron des Rocques. Horvendile, a servant of Ettarre, also loved her, and attempted to sabotage the wedding. He failed, and had to leave Storisende. Before he departed, Ettarre took the Sigil of Scoteia which hung around her neck, broke it in half and gave him one of its halves to him and said, "You will not always abide in your own country, Horvendile. Some day you will return to us at Storisende. The sign of the dark Goddess will prove your safe-conduct then if Guiron and I be yet alive." After he had completed writing his book, Kennason took a twilight walk in the garden of Alcluid, his estate. He spied a shining bit of metal along the pathway and picked it up and put it in his pocket. The metal was a half of a disk which was three inches in diameter with tiny characters inscribed upon its surface. That disk enabled Kennason, in his dreams, to be transformed into Horvendile and transported to many different times and places in which he met Ettarre, but every time he tried to touch her "the universe seemed to fold about him, just as a hand closes." Kennason sought Harrowby's expertise in explaining the occult aspects of his dreams with ironic results.

Good book but too much repeated from "Mass Customization"...the author's excellent preceding title.

Have read most of the authors in this volume, but still refer back to my yellow hi-liting and post-it tabs. Tempting to read only executive summaries, but these fail to capture the needed depth provided in the chapters. One of the better compilations I've come across in some time. Probably only thing that's missing is "how to." I suspect that requires more than just deep thinking, but a cross-disciplinary team.

Gilmore and Pine co-authored The Experience Economy, a book I consider one of the most important business books written in recent years. In this volume, they anthologize ten essays which -- together -- answer questions such as these:

1. What is "the emerging theory of manufacturing"? (Peter Drucker)

2. How to market in "the age of diversity"? (Regis McKenna)

3. How to manage in "an age of modularity"?

4. Do you want to keep your customers forever? (Pine, Don Peppers, and Martha Rogers)

5. Is your company ready for one-to-one marketing? (Peppers, Rogers, and Bob Dorf)

6. What are the correlations between "breaking compromises" and "breakaway growth"? (George Stalk, Jr., David K. Pecault, and Benjamin Burnett)

7. What are the "four faces" of mass customization"? (Gilmore and Pine)

8. What is "versioning"? Why is it the smart way to sell information? (Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian)

9. How to make mass customization work? (Pine, Bart Victor, and Andrew C. Boynton)

10. What does "managing by wire" involve? (Stephan H. Haeckel and Richard L. Nolan)

At the conclusion of their book, the authors also provide immensely helpful "Executive Summaries" of key points made in each of the various essays, and, brief but informative comments about those who wrote them. If you are looking for the single best source of information and about mass customization, look no further.

The book takes a very logical, reasoned approach towards the theoretical next steps of economic expansion. It reasons that margins drive profits and that by constantly searching for higher margin offerings, a company will naturally improve and increase its profitability.

The logic is understandable... Commodity goods have small margins, as they are undifferentiated from each other and relativly easy to reproduce. Manufactured goods take things one step further, providing higher margins due to some level of product differentiation and brand specificity. Above that are Services, where the products don't last long enough to be copied and are customized enough to prevent easy manipulation. The higher margins should lead to higher profitability and better staying power. Fair enough.

Where the book's logic becomes strained, however, is where it strethes out towards the next generation of higher margin offerings, "Experiences." While it is true that experience companies my be able to provide higher margins than can older economy companies, experience companies tend to suffer from a fatal flaw that has infected many of the companies praised in the book. That flaw is the utter lack of repeat business generated by most experience economy companies.

Take two of the companies mentioned in the book as companies to emulate -- Planet Hollywood, the restaurant chain, and Peapod, the online grocery store. Planet Hollywood is under bankruptcy protection, because people are simply unwilling to pay through the nose repeatedly for the same experience over and over again. Peapod ran out of cash and is limping along only after being bought out by a Dutch firm. Hardly two stellar companies to emulate when searching for ever expanding profits.

Throughout the book, by expounding the virtues of ever expanding margins, rather than focusing on goods, services, and 'experiences' that people would be willing to repeatedly pay to have, the authors make the mistake of ignoring the overall forest for the sake of a single tree.

In the real world, experience companies know their limitations and create their pricing scheme to represent that fact. Amusement parks sell season passes for less than the cost of two visits -- acknowledging the fact that people may pay more for experiences, but only once, and repeat business depends heavily on making the repeat worth the cost.

Had the book focused more on successful ways for experience economy companies to thrive, rather than spending its time drolling on about the virtues of failing companies with the right plan, it would have been far more believable and enjoyable.

First of all, I urge anyone thinking about buying this brilliant book also to consider (or to re-read) Schmitt's Experiential Marketing and Wolf's The Entertainment Economy. Although the three books differ significantly in terms of thrust and content, together they help us to understand a New Economy which is perhaps best exemplified by Las Vegas. According to Pine & Gilmore, "Virtually everything [italics] about Las Vegas is a designed experience, from the slot machines at the airport to the gambling casinos that line the Strip, from the themed hotels and restaurants to the singing, circus, and magic shows; and from the Forum Shops mall that recreates ancient Rome to the amusement parks, thrill rides, video arcades, and carnival-style games that attract the twentysomethings and give older parents a reason to bring their kids in tow."

Pine & Gilmore explain The Experience Economy; Wolf calls it The Entertainment Economy. Schmitt suggests that Experiential Marketing creates or sustains demand for this New Economy, however it is named. For all of these authors, "work" should be viewed as "theatre" and every business should be viewed as a "stage." If they are correct (and I believe they are), the quality of sensory experience is critically important. That is to say, it is no longer sufficient to offer high-quality goods or services for sale at competitive prices. Most (if not all) goods and services have become commodities. Competing on price alone seldom succeeds...especially against those which have superior purchasing power. Competing on quality alone succeeds only for those who offer what no one else has. The challenge is to achieve differentiation. According to Pine & Gilmore, this challenge is best met by understanding what the Experience Economy is (and isn't) as well as how it works; only then, thus informed, can an organization (almost literally) function as a theatre company: formulating a script which has both an exciting story line and interesting characters; assigning roles to those who have the appropriate talents; and then conducting rigorous rehearsals. Finally, it's "show time"!

Pine & Gilmore observe, "Since all commerce is moral choice, every business is a stage for glorifying something. Who or what does your business glorify? Your answer may not help you accept what is next, but it will certainly help guide what you do today." At its best, live theatre can delight, amuse, excite, inform and even inspire those who experience it. Why cannot it also be true of business relationships? Of course it can. It is certainly true of those organizations which prosper. Southwest Airlines is but one example. Its CEO once observed:

"I keep telling [those interested in Southwest Airlines] that the intangibles are far more important than the tangibles in the competitive world because, obviously, you can replicate the tangibles. You can get the same airplanes. You can get the same ticket counters. You can get the same computers. But the hardest thing for a competitor to match is your culture and the spirit of your people and their focus on customer service because that isn't something you can do overnight and it isn't something you can do without a great deal of attention every day in a thousand different ways. That is why I say that our employees are our competitive protection."

Kelleher's comments are relevant to virtually all organizations which now struggle to succeed in the New Economy (however it is named). To understand this economy, to understand what it requires of your own organization, I urge you to read The Experience Economy...as well as The Entertainment Economy and Experiential Marketing.

As co-author of the cluetrain manifesto .......... I'm often asked by companies how they can implement the ideas we talk about. This book is a great place to start. Unfortunately, the listing here leaves out the subtitle: "Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage." That's what got to me. Acknowledging the role of serious play in serious commerce is long overdue, but The Experience Economy makes up for lost time. While most business books are little more than literary Sominex, this one will stretch your head in new dimensions. Even if you disagree with bits, it'll wake you, shake you, make you think.

At first, I was put off by the notion of the Internet as "the greatest force for commoditization known to man." This is only true when the net is seen as an extension of the broadcast model: think TV. But that's the wrong approach, as the authors later make clear: "Cyberspace is a great place for such experiences, but many businesses still don't get it. They're heading into the commoditization trap, trying to figure out how to better sell their company's goods and services over the World Wide Web, when in fact most individuals surf the Net for the experience itself."

E-commerce as performance art, I love it! So step right up, boys and girls, and get your ticket to the Pine & Gilmore Masque. The show's just about to begin!

I enjoyed looking at some of the examples in this book such as the password program. Where can I get in touch with the authors? I think that this book should be re issued.

This pocket guide is useful for the new CT Technologist. Good review for anyone who needs to know cross sectional anatomy.

... Not exactly - please be sure to understand this is an article written by the authors and published in the July-August 1998 Harvard Business Review magazine. The article, sans cover pages, is really only 10 pages long. It does indeed highlight some of the points of the book, from what I can tell without having read the book.

I wanted a more updated book. This is a rather old edition. Can I exchange this book for a more recent one?