Convergence takes place everywhere in society. It is a force that is not only apparent in technology, but also in business and marketing and even in life itself. The convergence of technology specifically has led to a divergence of applications that has changed the way we interact with producers and brands. As more tools and platforms for interaction become available to consumers, communication shifts from interruption to engagement. In order for companies and brands to create new platforms of engagement a domain has to be chosen. The PartnerLab Context helps you to determine the dynamic between the targeted audience, the available technologies, and the brand values. Several models and tools are used to develop a framework that helps to anticipate on future changes and transformations.
Topics include amongst others: convergence, application phase, disruptive technologies, innovator’s dilemma, community fitness model.

In the PartnerLab Content we think about usage within the chosen domain. We study the development from convergence to divergence that has led to fundamental shifts in society and economics. The empowerment of the individual has an ever increasing impact on the way organizations interact with their audiences. It doesn’t merely change the interaction, it has fundamentally altered the dominant economic model as well. In the PartnerLab Content we track the development from an industrial economy to a service economy, an experience oriented economy and now an economy of transformation. These changes have created the necessity to develop new strategies for engagement. In the PartnerLab Content we apply several theories, models and strategies to activate users of the brand domain around content: the first step to create engagement.
Topics include amongst others: empowerment, experiences, value chain of emotion, play, flow, storytelling, magic of un.

In the PartnerLab Community we will study how the culture of the world around us is changing. As it emerges in the interaction between people our current paradigm seems to shift to a new value system. Based on such paradigm shifts we study the dynamics that operate in a community. Our understanding of what constitutes a community will give us some sense of the possible future scenario’s that might apply to the brand. We’ll see that engaging a consumer is only the start of stimulating the emergence of communities around brands. Focus should also be directed at creating commitment inside the community itself. Only then will companies be able to close the convergence gap and apply an integrated media approach to build sustainable relationships with their endusers.

Topics include amongst others: emergence, memetics, cultural creatives, spiral dynamics, engagement, commitment, evolution.

In COMMERCE, the last PartnerLab Workshop, the creation of value is being discussed. This topic can only be discussed when the foundations (: context, content and community) of a meetingpoint are solid. This workshop is about creating a transaction with an organizations’ target audience. We focus on the dynamic world in which this transaction is taking place. Constant adjustments to an ever changing situation are needed to fully profit from a meetingpoint.
Support Economy, Transformation Economy, Scarcity vs Abundance, Innovation

As you probably are aware of by now, FreedomLab is dealing with the subject of Perception Change. Underneath such a process of change, a so called transformation, lays a more fundamental paradigm shift. Scenario-building tools are a great asset to deal with these changing environments. Not to predict the future but to anticipate multiple truths. Huh? We just mean to say that companies are often trained to envision a certain outcome. We use scenario-building to define a bandwith of solutions. This bandwith, the radar, based on future ‘facts’ helps us to read the news differently just because we have experienced a different context. Such a workshop can’t be given in the traditional manner and for this reason FreedomLab is organizing Tailor made FutureLabs where customers experience via a simulator model a time-capsule of 5-10 years. It is a full day event, packed with trends, events, scenario’s to train your brain (& skills).