If you're unfamiliar with Trendwatching every month they publish a trend briefing and this month's is about transumerism (don't worry they made up the word themselves so don't feel bad for not knowing it). Transumerism focuses on experiences, not material possessions:
With experiences starting to trump goods, many fixed items run the risk of becoming synonymous with boredom, with hassle, with quickly-out-of-date, with maintenance, with taking up too large a part of budgets, if not lives. Which brings us to a new definition of TRANSUMERS:
TRANSUMERS are consumers driven by experiences instead of the ‘fixed’, by entertainment, by discovery, by fighting boredom, who increasingly live a transient lifestyle, freeing themselves from the hassles of permanent ownership and possessions. The fixed is replaced by an obsession with the here and now, an ever-shorter satisfaction span, and a lust to collect as many experiences and stories as possible.* Hey, the past is, well, over, and the future is uncertain, so all that remains is the present, living for the 'now'.
Check out the full briefing here http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/
I'm going to relate this to something that came out of my chat with Mark Holden which was about the work-life blend - no longer are people prepared to work hard so that they can live their life; more and more people are focusing on working and living their life - their work is their passion, they derive enjoyment from it.
It is not even that the relationship between work and life is no longer antagonistic; in some cases there is no "between" because your work and your life are so blurred (and in a good way).
Cheers
Steve
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