acknowledgments

There were several seminal events in the creation of this book, the first being when I (Joe) again looked through Stan Davis’ Future Perfect and flashed on No-Matter as an extension of Matter in the three-dimensional graph of the Universe. That immediately led to the depiction of the Multiverse just as shown in Figure 1.2, but I had no idea what any of the octants were other than Reality and Virtuality (which underwent many name changes as the work progressed).

That was over a decade ago. I continued to play around with the framework off and on, figuring out Augmented Reality and Mirrored Virtuality (thanks to David Gelernter’s wonderful Mirror Worlds, the original name for that octant), but I still had trouble with the rest. The next key event came with the announcement of the Nintendo Wii in 2006, and then I knew that’s what [No-Time – No-Space – Matter] was all about—and also that there would be true power in the framework.

The third event was when Don Tapscott’s New Paradigm Learning Corporation (now Moxie Insight), after showing them the framework in its then-current state, hired me to think and write about how digital technology could be applied to experience staging. Mike Dover took on the task of shepherding me through the process, and with the able assistance of Nikki Papadopoulos, we had a great thinking session in my office to flesh out the Multiverse and find examples across all the octants. Without this session and continued time with Mike working through the ideas—resulting in “How to Think About Technology and Media in Staging Compelling Experiences,” New Paradigm Learning Corporation, Big Idea Project, Information Technology and Competitive Advantage (IT&CA) Program, September 2007—this book never would have been written.

The last seminal event was showing the framework to Kim Korn, who loved it so much he took it on himself to delve into its details, understand its nuances backward and forward, and make sure it was logically consistent. I came to depend on his thinking and his analysis so much the only logical conclusion was to make him coauthor—a title he richly deserves for his work in leading the writing of Chapters 10 and 11 as well as reviewing, commenting, and making better (not to mention logically consistent) the rest of the book. Thank you, Kim. Without you, this would be a much inferior work.

We two would also like to thank those who have come before in explicating the digital frontier. Their work is acknowledged already in the text and endnotes, but we single out here the particular contributions to our thinking made by not only Stan Davis and David Gelernter but Brenda Laurel, Nicholas Negroponte, Jane McGonigal, Wade Roush, Sherry Turkle, Brian Arthur, Jaron Lanier, Tom Boellstorff, Edward Castronova, David Weineger, Henry Jenkins, Jesse Schell, and Gary Hayes, plus John Smart, Jamais Cascio, Jerry Paffendorf, and the rest of the group behind the Metaverse Roadmap, who deserve great kudos for their framework showing how the real and virtual could be fused.

During the writing of this book, I (Joe) became a Visiting Scholar with the MIT Design Lab, to which I owe a debt of gratitude to the late Bill Mitchell, Betty Lou McClanahan, and Ryan Chin. Ryan graciously introduced me around the MIT Media Lab, which led to many new discoveries and examples, particularly from meeting Turkle, Joe Paradiso, Pattie Maes, Hugh Herr, and Neil Gershenfeld. The very first presentation of the ideas was in fact to Henry Jenkins’ Comparative Media Studies group at MIT, thanks to Sam Ford.

Many companies and people supported the ideas by providing us with venues for speaking and conducting workshops, every one a crucible for testing the ideas and sharpening the arguments. Of special note here are Yuri van Geest and the rest of the Mobile Mondays Amsterdam organizers; Risto Nieminen, CEO of Veikkaus, who commissioned the very first Infinite Possibility workshop; Risto Lahdesmaki, Mikko-Pekka Hanski, and board member Kaija Pöysti of Idean; Teemu Arina of Dicole; Sanna Tarssanen of the Lapland Experience Organization; Mark Hansen, Lisbeth Valther Pallesen, Conny Kalcher, and Hanne T. Odegaard of LEGO System; Ian Turner, Shannon Galphin, and Justin Carlson of Duke Corporate Education; Ian Jan-Hein Pullens and Pieter Aarts of NedSense; Al Ramadan, then of Adobe; Kris and Laila Pawlak Østergaard of DARE2; and Sonia Rhodes, Mark Tomaszewicz, and Jack Abbott of TEDx San Diego.

We also owe a debt of gratitude to all those who reviewed the manuscript and/or an earlier white paper and provided us with their thoughts and comments. We are sure we’re forgetting some people here (our apologies), but thank you to Asta Wellejus, Ayesha Khanna, Bob Jacobson, Bob Rogers, Chris Parker, Dieke Schultz, Doug Sweeny, Kevin Clark, Kevin Dulle, Mark McNeilly, Mark Tomaszewicz (again), Mike Dover (again), Mike Kraft, Peter Funke, René van Dijk, Rick Schuett, Sonia Rhodes (again), and Stewart Hayes. There were also a number of people who replied on Twitter to our queries and retweeted our thoughts on the subjects in this book to their followers.

Other folks who deserve special mention: Albert Boswijk of the European Centre for the Experience Economy for his support of all things Experience Economy; Conny Dorrestijn of Shiraz Partners for so taking to the ideas that she took them to her client NedSense and incorporated them into a white paper for them; Ronald van den Hoff of C.D.E.F. Holding for helping to spread the word on the ideas in general and our search for the right cover in particular; Jorgen van der Slot of Freedom-Lab BV for creating a way of explaining them through his Penny For Your Thoughts program; Gary Adamson of Starizon for instilling in me (Joe) an understanding of true experience exploration (and in particular inspiring the notion of relating the Multiverse to the maps of explorers of old); Nadine Kano of Microsoft for her great support of researching experience and computing; Margie Adler for helping us think through the realms and for helping us write the early drafts of the first few chapters; and Nathan Rice for helping us with our own social media strategy and implementation.

We also thank Johanna Vondeling, our first editor at Berrett-Koehler, for recognizing the value in this book and bringing us into the BK author fold. Neal Maillet took over as our editor halfway through the project and provided invaluable advice, and Jeevan Sivasubramaniam provided great support throughout. We did not get to know everyone else at BK as well, but to a person each has been more than helpful, and we know they did a great job because you’re reading about it right now. And we are especially grateful to Edward Wade of Westchester Book Services for his good work and great patience with us throughout the entire copyediting and visual style processes.

I (Joe) would also like to thank my father Bud Pine—an electrical engineer and programmer since the late 1950s who worked on the Arpanet, the Internet’s precursor—for instilling within me a love and knowledge of computers, and acknowledge my partners at Strategic Horizons LLP: Doug Parker for keeping the business running and engagements coming in while I write; Scott Lash, for promoting and running all of our offerings, especially thinkAbout and Experience Economy Expert Certification; and Jim Gilmore, for his thinking and provocations. Thank you, Jim, for providing invaluable feedback on this book, and especially for writing the forward.

Finally, we both thank our immediate and extended families for their encouragement and support. We would not be able to do what we do were it not for all that Julie Pine and Ann Korn do for us.

JOE PINE
KIM KORN

Dellwood, Minnesota
Stillwater, Minnesota
March 2011