Today I attended a swank Philips showcase at the Graves 601 Hotel in downtown Minneapolis that I thought was a purely consumer electronics venue. My friend, Graeme Thickins, ensured I was invited and I knew that my partner, Michelle Lamb (site, blog) would also be interested in a consumer and home product event.

Having been at dozens of consumer electronics shows (CES) over the years and spent part of my career at other technology vendors such as Pioneer Electronics, Panasonic and Apple, I’m usually a bit jaded about seeing yet another TV set or iPod peripheral. What made this experience different is that I’m always intrigued, interested and fascinated by what Philips ships and the innovation they sometimes don’t…and today was no exception.

I was interested to see the Philips Ambient technology which I though, incorrectly, was focused solely on some interesting backlighting (which changes as the picture changes OR can be a statically set color) for HDTV sets. What I was surprised to learn was that Philips is focusing Ambient on lots of different areas, including medical where MRI sessions and other procedures often cause mental and emotional discomfort in patients and scares the beejeesus out of kids (peek at the second video on this page).

Ahh…it was starting to sink in as we stood and talked to the PR and Philips folks: This company is focused on experience. Though they state here that they’ve been at this ambient experience stuff and articulated their vision in 2003 (remember that vision is THE most important step and it’s pretty clear) it sure seems as though they’re certainly aligning all their products with experience.

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