A Prosumer is a portmanteau of the words producer and consumer. The word was first coined by Alvin Toffler. Alvin Toffler is a futurist and a writer of many books, most notably ‘Future Shock’, ‘The Third Wave’, and ‘Revolutionary Wealth’. In his works, Toffler describes a ‘First Wave’ of society as a usurping of the hunting and gathering society with the agrarian revolution. In the ‘Second Wave’, the agrarian society was pushed aside by the Industrial Revolution. Toffler proposes that we are in the midst of a ‘Third Wave’, a post-industrial society that has the ‘prosumer’ as a central tenet to his thesis. Mass production is being replaced by mass customization. For further context on Alvin Toffler, please watch these videos: Alvin Toffler interviewed by Newt Gingrich, Alvin Toffler interviewed by Canadian pollster and media pundit Allan Gregg, and an episode of the television program ‘Big Thinkers’ that featured Alvin Toffler.
Toffler’s idea of the ‘prosumer’ involves the consumer performing some part of the role of the producer. He calls it the consumer’s ‘Third Job’. The consumer’s ‘First Job’ is the work that he performs to earn a living. His ‘Second Job’ is the work that is related to maintaining the home, like grocery shopping, laundry, fixing the roof, etc… His ‘Third Job’ is activities that the producer paid employees to do that the consumer now does. An example that Toffler frequently uses is the ATM machine. By using a bank machine to complete many bank transactions that would have previously been done by bank tellers, Toffler estimates that hundreds of thousands of bank tellers in the United States are no longer employed at banks. Self service gas stations, instead of full service ones, is another example. Bagging your own groceries is, also, another example. Toffler makes a point that the ‘prosumer’ is providing unpaid work to the benefit of the producer.
Dr. David Chaffey‘s definition of ‘prosumer’ ‘indicates that the customer is closely involved in specifying their requirements in a product’. His definition enhances Toffler’s idea of the ‘prosumer’ to include the consumer providing input into the creativity in the development of the producer’s products. This idea is more than calling your favourite radio station and recommending a song or putting a note in a company’s suggestion box. With the advent of the internet and the advancements of technology today, consumers are able to interact with producers and influence the development of products. Instead of calling your local radio station and hoping the disc jockey will play your song, you can go to a website like last.fm or spotify and have your music tailored to you. Amazon and ebay are doing the best they can to anticipate your needs based on your prior purchases and items you previously viewed. They customize their website to provide you with the products you want.
Toffler does not know how or when this ‘Third Wave’ will end or what society will look like when we are there, but he does suggest that the pace of change is ever increasing and many institutions are not changing fast enough, like government, education and health care. The ‘prosumer’ knows the power it has and knows what it wants. The producers that are able to capitalize on these wants are the ones that will survive. The ones that will not adapt, will not survive.
mark4thirty 