Strategic Horizons Flagship Experience… Now Customized for Individual Companies

In 1998, Pine & Gilmore conceived of a business gathering that embodied their principles of staging experiences, and that would attract like-minded professionals from companies large and small, near and far. Rather than waiting for the world to invent it, they decided to create and stage it themselves.  The one cardinal rule: it cannot be just another conference.

So was born thinkAbout.

Since the very first event in November 1998 and through the 20th anniversary event in September 2017, more than 900 explorers, practitioners, and evangelists of the Experience Economy gathered to join Pine & Gilmore at this annual pilgrimage. Why? Because they desperately needed a unique space and visionary guidance to explore, share, interact, and network with others leading the way in the Experience Economy. Pine & Gilmore designed and directed each thinkAbout (held in a different city every year) as a series of staged experiences that fostered creativity, innovation, learning, and idea exchange using highly interactive techniques, intense individual and group participation, and free-form exploration. True to its word, it was not “just another conference.”

In 2017, the annual public thinkAbout took its final bow. In its place is an exciting new option: Pine & Gilmore’s legendary event can now be designed and staged just for your company. We call it thinkAbout4U.

Experience Conference Creation On-Demand

thinkAbout4U borrows the successful format of the original thinkAbout and lets companies customize the content and location especially for their own hand-picked participants. Personally directed onsite by Joe Pine and/or Jim Gilmore, companies can now stage a customized two-day immersive learning experience on demand that exclusively serves their needs and objectives.

Companies pick from a list of 18 past thinkAbout city options (or even choose a new one!) to serve as the stage for the learning, then work with Pine & Gilmore to select the content focus that fits their needs – in areas such as Experience Staging & Design, Mass Customization, Authenticity, Virtual/Digital Experiences, and Observational Skills. thinkAbout4U‘s Content Presentations, Learning Excursion, Facilitated Debrief, and List of Top Ten Experiences will all revolve around content that you’ve co-designed with Pine & Gilmore – yielding a one-of-a-kind outcome that is highly impactful for your participants. It’s rigorous “exercise for the brain” that changes perspectives on competition — and does not let minds snap back to their original shape.

thinkAbout4U can accommodate groups as small as 6 and as large as 38. Companies can choose to work with either Pine or Gilmore (or both!) then select their city as well as their content focus and participants. Over the course of a 60-day planning window, a customized run plan and all support materials will be produced to give the event all the accoutrements of a classic thinkAbout – right down to the admission passes, Top Ten postcards, and Director’s chairs!