The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business (BUSINESS BOOKS) - Softcover

Jensen, Rolf

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0071379681 ISBN 13: 9780071379687

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education, 2001

Synopsis

"The Dream Society . . . provides dramatic insights into how marketing will operate in the 21st century."­­Atlanta Business Chronicle

A fascinating look into the future of business, as featured in Fast Company

The future is uncertain­­the world is constantly changing. While anything can happen, some things are far more likely than others. Rolf Jensen, internationally renowned futurist, provides readers with a tangible look at what the future will be like over the next 25 years.

By identifying what lies ahead, Jensen gives people the knowledge they need to make informed decisions and strategically align themselves to capitalize on the unknown future, a future Jensen calls "the Dream Society." This dream society is characterized by the commercialization of emotions.

In this provocative exploration, Jensen says that it will no longer be enough to produce a useful product. He shows that, for a product to be successful, its primary purpose will be the ability to fulfill an emotional need.

Those who understand the workings of this dream society will be the ones who create the new products, new markets, and new businesses that dominate the world of tomorrow.

About this title

Review:

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

From the Back Cover:

How Market Leaders from Disney to Nike Successfully Target Human Emotions--and How Other Companies Can Join Them

The Dream Society reveals the future of business after the Information Age, a future in which the story behind the product will provide the competitive edge. It provides insights into the six major markets that target our basic emotional needs, and discusses how organizations from Disney and Nike to Rolex are supplying information to help consumers satisfy those needs. Thought-provoking and timely, it details the ways in which today's dream society trades on the exciting world of human potential and dreams--and what organizations must do to keep from being left behind.

Praise for The Dream Society

"A riveting essay on the demands for goods and services ... Well presented and organized, this is highly recommended for academic and corporate libraries."
--Library Journal

"The Dream Society is a fresh new way to look at the future and at how businesses need to transform themselves in order to prosper in the 21st century."
--Arnold Brown, Noted futurist, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

"Stories have always been the key motivation in making a purchase, fixing a deal, and raising one's level of effectiveness in the world. In the future, leaders will have to become storytellers first and managers second. Rolf Jensen is pointing the way to the future."
--Harriet Rubin, Author, The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women

About this edition

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0071379681
• ISBN 13: 9780071379687
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256