Five Ideas That Matter » individualisation http://www.fiveideasthatmatter.com Developing ideas around metatrends Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:47:08 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Personalisation http://www.fiveideasthatmatter.com/2009/07/25/personalisation/ http://www.fiveideasthatmatter.com/2009/07/25/personalisation/#comments Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:37:40 +0000 Haydn http://www.fiveideasthatmatter.com/?p=38 The “individualisation of society” meme has been popular since at least the 19th century. In previous generations individualisation was widely thought of as a negative, a tearing apart of community and a route to alienation. Now it is a kind of springboard for the creative life. Individualisation is closely associated with experiences that are more personalised or that help create a stronger personal narrative for a consumer. This is a curious transformation but a happy one.

Individualisation appears to fly in the face of the more collectivist notion that is undoubtedly out there.  Personalisation and individualization are significant not only because they embody the shift from product to service but also because of their impact on the supply chain. Zazzle.com, the online personalization service has a product returns ration below 1%.  The Consumer Electronics Association of American calculated a decade ago that returns were running at 20% of sales.

Online references to individualisation outnumber references to collectivism by about 2:1 so far in 2009. In comparison references to collaboration outnumber references to individualisation 200:1 in the same period.

The combination of American and non-American spellings of personaliZation exceed the number of references enjoyed by online community (1,960,000: 1.500,000) and taken together customisation, individualization and personalisation outnumber “online community” 4:1.

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