With face-to-face communication being rapidly replaced by email and chat,
goods and services being purchased online, and big city apartments shrinking year
by year, urban dwellers are trading their lonely, cramped living rooms for the
real-life buzz of BEING SPACES:
commercial living-room-like settings, where catering and entertainment aren't
just the main attraction, but are there to facilitate small office/living room
activities like watching a movie, reading a book, meeting friends and colleagues,
or doing your admin.
Starbucks is a great example on a global scale, while many companies in Japan,
China and South-Korea offer deluxe gaming and manga-reading facilities, as well
as semi-private DVD booths.
BEING SPACES charge us for eating,
drinking, playing, listening, surfing, working, or meeting, just as we would at
home or in the office, while successfully reintegrating us into city life. >>
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MAY 2003 | Commercial living-room-like settings that facilitate small office/living
room activities like reading a book, checking email, meeting friends, or doing
your admin. Oh, and have a coffee of course! Starbucks
remains the leader in this field, having teamed up with T-Mobile
to introduce WiFi (wireless internet access) in most of its US outlets.
Now other BEING SPACES are following
suite: Borders Bookstores (who already operate café-style reading spaces
in their superstores) signed a deal with T-Mobile to incorporate hot spots (WiFi-access
points) in its 400 bookstores in the US, and Kinko's, king of small business BEING
SPACES, just signed a deal to have T-Mobile unwire 1,000 Kinko's
locations across the US. Whether you're in B2C or B2B, it's time to examine which
of your products and services deserve a comfy (and profitable) cameo in a BEING
SPACE near you (HP printers in Starbucks would come in handy!)
P.S. One more Starbucks observation: newspaper ads for 'The Benton' apartment
building in Fremont, California prominently feature the built-in Starbucks outlet;
the ads even included the Starbucks logo in the real estate agent's contact details
section. Will the scent of freshly brewed coffee and a downstairs BEING
SPACE add a premium to the rent? ;-)
What is this?
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