Contributor

James H. Gilmore

As co-author of The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage (Harvard Business School Press, 1999), James H. Gilmore literally wrote the book that spawned worldwide interest in experience design, customer experience management, and experiential marketing. Tom Peters rightly called The Experience Economy “a brilliant, absolutely original book.” Now published in eleven languages, the book continues to find new readers across myriad industries as businesses find their goods and services commoditized and customers increasingly spending their time and money on experiences—memorable events that engage them in an inherently personal way.

Gilmore’s most recent book, Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want (Harvard Business School Press, 2007), contends that businesses must learn to manage authenticity as a distinct business discipline. Indeed, in an ever more commercialized, intentionally staged, and technologically mediated world—an increasingly unreal world—people today want the real from the genuine, not the fake from some phony. Gilmore and his co-author Joe Pine, offer unparalleled insights concerning this important new topic. In its March 24, 2008 issue, Time magazine dubbed the core of Pine & Gilmore’s thinking, “synthetic authenticity,” and included it among its covers story featuring “10 Ideas That Are Changing the World”.

Gilmore is co-founder of Aurora, Ohio-based Strategic Horizons LLP. He has been described as “professional observer,” sought by enterprises around the globe for his expertise in conceiving and designing new ways of adding value to their economic offerings. He is a frequent keynote speaker, as well as workshop facilitator and executive coach; a number of professional societies, trade associations, and individual companies also engage Gilmore to help design their overall meetings and events. Recently, Gilmore has been accepted a three-year appointment as the Chief Experience Architect for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Gilmore’s ideas have been featured in numerous articles on business strategy and innovation for such publications as the Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, and Investors Business Daily, among others. He is also co-editor of Markets of One: Creating Customer-Unique Value through Mass Customization (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000).

He began his career with Procter & Gamble and then spent over ten years consulting with Cleveland Consulting Associates and Computer Sciences Corporation, heading CSC Consulting’s process innovation practice before starting his own firm. Mr. Gilmore is currently a Batten Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He previously served as the 2002-2003 Dean Helen LeBaron Hilton Endowed Co-chair at the College of Family & Consumer Sciences at Iowa State University. He is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Q&A with Jim Gilmore, “Business Consultant”

I teach classes on shopping! I know a lot about why people buy things and I try to help people who sell things to do a better job. And not just a better job of selling things, like physical toys, but a better job of selling what I call experiences, like going to Disneyland.

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Q&A with Jim Gilmore, “Business Consultant”

I teach classes on shopping! I know a lot about why people buy things and I try to help people who sell things to do a better job. And not just a better job of selling things, like physical toys, but a better job of selling what I call experiences, like going to Disneyland.