Back from Auckland having met some pretty amazing people and thought some quite deep thoughts. Here are the highlights:
(1) Kaj Storbacka’s concepts about markets: do they exist before we conceive of them?
(2) Steve Vargo & Bob Lusch’s ideas about the Co-Creation of Value in a Management (not just marketing) context.
(3) Richard Varey’s point about why a good conceptual paper is hard to find in the marketing discipline
(4) Janet McColl-Kennedy’s ideas about the “7Cs” of Co-Creation of Value.
A big shout out to the organisers and participants of the Auckland Forum on S-D Logic, all of whom were friendly and supportive. The names in the field were huge; their willingness to help everyone was unlimited.
In terms of my own work on Brand Communities and Customer Evangelists I learned a few things:
(1) Have a good story and tell it well. It helps people understand what you’re on about;
(2) Religious Anthropology does have something to offer business in terms of modelling relationships and phenomena;
(3) The work of James Carse (and the infinite game) as well as concepts in his book the Religious Case Against Belief are an unusual basis with which to model marketing relationships but they seem like a good fit.
If you would like to receive an 8 minute, 11 MB video of my presentation at the conference, please request it by emailing me. Otherwise stay tuned for the paper!
The Infinite Game 