Archive for Underway
A new Hotspot. Amsterdam wants to become Appsterdam.
April 23rd, 2011 • 4 comments Mobile, Underway, Work
Tags: Amsterdam, Apps, Creativity, Development, Experimental, Jobs, Lifestyle, Mobile, People, Strategy, Tech, Trends, World
“If you want to make movies, go to Hollywood. If you want to make musicals, go to Broadway. If you want to make apps, go to Appsterdam.” – Mike Lee, mur.mu.rs
About a month ago I praised the qualities of Amsterdam in an article I wrote for the German ad magazine Page. One thing that struck me in this city is the level of innovation here as well as the city’s clear objective to support new industries and get them to Amsterdam. I have never met anyone from Amsterdam’s city council but in contradiction to many other cities there seems to be a clear vision here on how to shape Holland’s capitol from both, a cultural AND economical perspective. That’s why Amsterdam is also hometown to some of the most creative agencies in the world – the city father simply subsidize taxation here to relocate the right blend of industries on the rivers of the Amstel.
I wasn’t really suprised when I read Mike Lee’s open letter on mur.mu.rs. It’s a call for conquest. And appeal for app developers to settle over to Amsterdam and to rebrand it as Appsterdam. Funny to read because it really reads like a letter from the colonies but at the same time strong and intelligent.
I have traveled the world looking for the most livable city on earth, a place with the ideal balance of quality and price, history and vibrance, culture and innovation. That place is Amsterdam. (…)
The success of Apple’s platforms has been in no small part due to its unique developer community. Our community is unique not just in technology, but in business. (…) We cooperate, because we are friends. If one of us does something to piss the other off, we don’t call out the lawyers, we call up our friend, and talk it over like people. We don’t just attend conferences, we get together at conferences, go out together, and have a good enough time together to generate blackmail material sufficient to nip litigation in the bud.
Mike’s point – a new industry needs a friendly hospitable place that invites them to work together and to exchange ideas. And his call to app developers all over the world to relocate to Amsterdam isn’t just an abstract one…
Cultural Crisis. Germany’s Digital Elites fail to Innovate.
April 18th, 2011 • 2 comments Underway
Tags: Germany, republica, RP11, Underway, World
After a couple of days in Germany I finally returned to Amsterdam. Apart from a day off with my family the key purpose of this trip was to attend the annual Re:publica conference in Berlin. I go there pretty much every year in April as it was one of the best major grassroot events about social media and digital culture in general. And beyond its professional scope every year anew it was a great networking event. A place where you had the chance to actually talk to your friends and followers on twitter and get to know the humans behind the twitter streams.
This year’s Re:publica at least delivered on the latter experience. I had the pleasure to get to know a couple of people personally that I interacted with for some time now virtually. Unfortunately Re:publica XI revealed the misery of Germany’s “digital elite” – it considers itself to be a digital elite but it struggles with reinventing itself and get out of its ‘Grandad talks a bit about the war’ corner. Key drivers of Re:publica XI were the usual suspects from Berlin. Spreeblick, Lobo, and Netzpolitik among many others – a group of people that German media likes to call ‘Alpha bloggers’. And here we get to the first problem. Because Re:publica’s claim to be the forum for a new digital society is in Germany defined by a small group of people from the capital. Nothing new here. And apparently not much interest to open that up.
After attending a couple of sessions I felt reminded of the early years of Germany’s Green Party. At that time many Germans perceived the Green party as trapped in its own conservativism regarding an actually new and very enlightening topic in Germany’s political system – Ecology. Anyway the Green party was able to reinvent itself over the years and is currently extremely close to designate the next German chancellor. Unfortunately Germany’s digital elite hasn’t made it even close to this point. They don’t want to be part of an evolution. They prefer to stay among themselves and tell the same old stories over and over again.
Re:publica XI. Hope to see you in Berlin.
April 10th, 2011 • 1 comment Underway
Tags: Berlin, conference, Germany, republica, RP11
It’s the time of the year that many of us travel to Berlin to attend Re:publica – probably Germany’s best conference around digital lifestyle, culture and perspectives. It’s my fifth time there and re:publica is still getting better and better. It took a while. But I am happy that the conference has grown up and even though it’s extremely nerdy – it lost ‘the blogger convention’ sticker somewhere along the way. But who knows? Maybe even Germany’s perception of what digital is has grown up. Even though I doubt it…
After last years disputuous Re:publica 10 I hope this year’s tracks will get as argumentative and amusing as in 2010 (in case you did not attend plese take the time to watch Professor Dr Kruse’s fantastic presentation ‘What’s next?’ (in German)). No doubt, Republica was never just a conference-conference. It’s strength was always that it felt a bit like a family reunion of Germany’s digital scene. Most speakers are in constant contact anyway via twitter. And the annual meet & greet at the re:publica conference seems to add the real life layer to what’s happening online 24/7 anyway.
I will be in Berlin from Wednesday morning. And I am really looking forward to meet some of you and spend a couple of great, exciting and insightful days with the people that I usually only know through not more than 140 characters. I hope to be able to change that next week. So please leave a comment underneath this article if we are in contact (twitter or wherever) and if you are interested in a chat. Or just send me a tweet.
See you next week.
My Amsterdam. A Love Letter to a Great City.
April 7th, 2011 • 2 comments Interview, Jobs, People, Underway
Tags: Amsterdam, Article, Page, People, World
If you happen to be in Germany and if you come across a kiosk try to get the May issue of Page. The guys asked me to write an article about my hometown Amsterdam and its agency scene. And that’s what I did. What I like even more about it is that my freelance colleague Wouter Boon (who also runs the Amsterdam Ad Blog) and up and coming Kiwi cartoon superstar Toby Morris were willing to get interviewed. Toby presents a couple of his great Amsterdam cartoons from his book Alledaags in this article. And if you are interested to see more of his stuff check out his latest project ‘200 people I used to know‘.
Unfortunately I am not allowed to publish the article yet. Just wait one more month or go to the kiosk and $#%%&#*@ buy the thing.
Feedback please. Help me write an article about Amsterdam.
Dezember 9th, 2010 • 2 comments Allgemein, Underway
Tags: Amsterdam
I need your help. Well…actually I could also do it on my own but with your help it would be nicer. As some of you know I am German and work for Blast Radius Amsterdam as Digital Strategist. A couple of months ago German advertising & design magazine Page asked me to write an article about Amsterdam’s agency scene which I will do in the next couple of weeks.
On a different note I thought it might be a nice thing to ask for your opinion – What do you want to know about Amsterdam’s agency scene? Do you like the city? Would you like to work here but are not too sure about one thing or the other?
Are you interested in hot and upcoming agencies? Do you want to learn more about the big employers here? Life? Career opportunities? Digital, traditional or integrated agencies? How to get to know people? Restaurants? Proximity to the next beach?
Please just leave a comment below this article. Otherwise I will just have to write an article that I find interesting. And nobody wants that. Right?
Wikileaks. The Revolution has Begun and it is Digitised.
Dezember 1st, 2010 • Interview, People, Underway
Tags: assange, Interview, People, Politics, TED, We like, wikileaks, World
While the whole world is discussing Wikileak’s impact I am currently more interested whether Julian Assange is going to become Time’s Person of the Year or – alternatively – will be assassinated, disappear, face prison because of ‘sexual assault charges’ (LOL). But no matter what you think about him and the way Wikileaks works – it is extremely disturbing to see how many inhumane, deeply anti-democratic barbarians hide behind the faces of western politicians. As Noam Chomsky put it – the latest outcry over WikiLeaks cables reveals a profound hatred for democracy by U.S. government officials. Just think of Sarah Palin yelling for Julian Assange to be “hunted down with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders” (which means he’s safe for a decade at least). No, in western civilizations we don’t usually murder people on the street. But indeed, I may be wrong here…
The best comment I have read so far on Wikileaks was published by Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald.
His thesis ‘Wikileaks reveals more than just government secrets‘. According to him no entity by now that produced as much bipartisan contempt across the American political spectrum as WikiLeaks, for authoritarian minds. Strangely enough, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon.
And the economist says:
The careerists scattered about the world in America’s intelligence agencies, military, and consular offices largely operate behind a veil of secrecy executing policy which is itself largely secret. American citizens mostly have no idea what they are doing, or whether what they are doing is working out well. The actually-existing structure and strategy of the American empire remains a near-total mystery to those who foot the bill and whose children fight its wars. And that is the way the elite of America’s unelected permanent state, perhaps the most powerful class of people on Earth, like it.
The new Leak this button
Whatever happens to Julian Assange – the genie left the bottle. Wikileaks will clone itself and will be copied. It’s not a fight against a site that our Politicians are pretending to wage. It’s the same old crusade against free speech that business organizations have already lost – let’s call it the socialization of political processes. To simplify the inevitable I would like to introduce a new button to lower entrance barriers for future internal document releases – if anyone can please add an embed code to the design top right?
But you know what? It probably won’t matter if Julian Assange disappears or not – the concept will prevail. Starfishes have become more persistent than spiders – and WikiLeaks clearly is a starfish.
Wikileaks must be uncomfortable because that is its mission. A mission that traditional press has not taken seriously anymore for decades, living comfortably under the safe cover of common sense. A little humility is long overdue for these people. But one more thing is stunning – the shock about the inferiority of (not only) U.S. diplomacy. We simply like to believe that the ones who are running our systems know what they are doing. Bad news – they don’t. And that’s a key motive behind the smear campaign against WikiLeaks. Wartard thinks…
The leaks made clear that world diplomatic relations between countries are no different from our own shitty relations with each other in regular society, like that contractor who disappeared with the deposit I gave him for my sink repair or the dodgy mechanic who swapped out my tires when he fixed my brake pads. (…)
My favourite leak is that US and UK diplomats are shitting bricks about the current state of Pakistan and the fate of its ever growing nuclear arsenal. Oh really? I’ve been shitting about that since 2003. It’s only a shocking revelation because the media never reports it. So when we find out that diplomats have no idea who controls the nukes there, that 100,000 Pakistani personnel are involved in the nuclear program there and the Taliban captured the Swat valley with collusion from Islamacists in the Pakastani military and government, you know that smuggled chunk of highly enriched uranium is gonna go on the market in some scumbag Albanian dive bar very soon.
Alledaags. My first six months in Amsterdam.
November 28th, 2010 • 4 comments Allgemein, People, Underway
On December 1 it will be six months that my girlfriend Marta and I moved from Frankfurt, Germany to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Time to look back on an exciting second half 2010. Time to look back on a couple of things I have learned since June as a fresh European expat in Europe.
Time flies faster the older you get. In comparison to a lot of my colleagues that wasn’t exactly a huge step geographically – many of my coworkers at Blast Radius come from New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil or the U.S. From my hometown Frankfurt it is a mere 4 hour ride to Amsterdam, less than for example to Hamburg. But it’s six months now in a different country…not really far away from home. But further than what I expected sometimes. And before you think I am frustrated to be here? Not at all…it was a great decision to come here.
Holland?
Most of my professional routine takes place in a very international environment with many young people that come from halfway around the world. The Dutch aspect of my life here is developing but it still isn’t where it is supposed to be. No time for language classes right now…and the Dutch don’t make it particularly easy for me to learn their language. All of them speak English (and 3 other languages) fluently. So why should they bother to let you stutter your order for a Koffie Verkeerd when it is so much easier to just speak English?
Sad truth – after six months in the Netherlands my Dutch is worse than my Spanish after a week in Madrid. But that’s a different story…
Looking back on these exciting six months I tried to summarize what I have learned since June. And that was indeed an awful lot of new stuff…
Insight 1 – The European Union was a pretty cool idea
The European Union…a bureaucratic monster that keeps on spending money on laws and projects that no one really understands. A political construct that is neither a state nor just an international organization…a hybrid that is all or nothing at all? Nope. I carried this stereotype around with me as well. As you live in Germany as a German, in Italy as an Italian or in France as a Frenchman you won’t necessarily spot the big advantages of the EU beyond the occasional beach holidays where you now don’t need to think about exchange rates anymore.
Living in Amsterdam really means to live in an international city. And when I say international I mean international and not American or British in the first place. The city derives its heritage from the port and the tradition of a trading hub. And this has turned Amsterdam into a place which almost exclusively seems to be populated by Expats from all over the world and Europe in particular. The EU’s harmonization of markets helped a lot.
It may sound normal to sit in a Café at Kaizersgracht as a German nowadays and have the chance to get to know Italians, Swedes, Danes or Spaniards. But remind yourself what a privilege that is – only twenty years ago that would have been very complicated and 70 years ago almost impossible. And as you find out about christmas in Lisbon, birthday parties in Stockholm, or painting in Luxembourg chances decrease to zero that anyone of us might be willing to wage war anytime in the future. High five EU.
Insight 2 – Being part of a commonwealth is a cool thing (minus the historical genocide thing)
Europe’s growing European character is one side of the story. A slight disadvantage for non-Anglosaxon nations in a globalized setting is the other side. As a German, Frenchman or Spaniard you will always speak, write or present English as a second language – no matter how good you are. There will always be slightly different German accent, culture and background when you are part of a – usually – quite Anglosaxon or American group. Did I say German accent? Of course I mean ze German accent. A couple of weeks ago I thought about integrating John Cleese’s classic line ‘Don’t mention the war’ into the signature of my emails. I later decided not to do it – but if you don’t know the classic clip from Fawlty Towers check it out here…
It is great to really feel these days of ‘Don’t mention the war’ are finally over. I love to discuss history and love to speak about Germany. But while it is not primarily about our past anymore, I sense Germans as well as Frenchmen, Spaniards, Swedes still have to work a bit harder to easily fit into a globalized, often anglo-saxon dominated world society. While many of my colleagues come from different countries, many of them share one background – the Commonwealth. An Australian might have been grown up 8,000 miles from London. But he still shares TV shows, jokes, beer brands with a Kiwi, Brit or South African that a German doesn’t. Proximity is not rationale for similar cultural backgrounds – language is.
In short – a Commonwealth is a handy thing. Especially with a couple of cool, warm countries as part of it.
Insight 3 – Holland is awesome, but where in the world can I find a Dutch restaurant?
And then there are the Dutch. What a nice bunch of really weather-proof people. I really, really like this country, Amsterdam, the liberalism, the architecture. If you haven’t been to Holland in general and to Amsterdam in particular – come here and check it out.
Twittertim.es. Yes, this is my favourite app right now.
August 24th, 2010 • Underway
Tags: App, Apps, Gerald, Page, Tools, Twitter, Underway
Just a quick personal update – Page Online, one of Germany’s leading design magazines put my supersized head on the frontpage today (which is a little bit creepy). I was asked to recommend my favourite application. And I think it is twittertim.es as it gives me a very handy overview of what’s hot among my followers. The article is in German only, but if you are interested in its essence – use twittertim.es.
OMFG. Brands and Social Media in China.
August 11th, 2010 • 5 comments Brands, Social, Underway
Tags: Brands, Business, China, Prediction, Presentation, Report, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Trends, Truth, We like, World
Sometimes when you do research on tech adaption worldwide you get the impression it is completely enough to look at figures from the U.S. Take for example the excellent ‘State of the Blogosphere 2009‘ report by technorati. It presents all the charts and 
diagrams you need if you research statistics on blog usage….but if you dig a little bit deeper you find out that it’s actually nothing but a study about the American blogosphere.
This is particularly interesting if you take a serious look at the figures. China for example has surpassed the U.S. in social media usage last year. According to Netpop almost every Chinese online user is part of a social network. There are three times more bloggers per online user in China compared to the U.S. No major study will explain an average European or American strategist what these people do, what they talk about and how to engage them. By the way, we are talking about 1.6 billion Chinese and billions of Asians that I did not even consider in this calculation.
Check out this deck by Ogilvy One Shanghai (via Giles) about the connected Chinese digital landscape which is absolutely stunning. And afterwards do me a favor and answer one question: Is it actually possible to understand and lead the complexity of this world from a desk in Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam or London and to make the right decisions? How can we build cross cultural knowledge which is so important to get away from our subjective western perspective?
My Saturday. ‘Give me an iPhone 4. I want an iPhone 4.’
August 2nd, 2010 • Underway
Tags: Funny, HTC, Iphone4, Mobile, Truth, Underway
Yesterday I tried to get my new iPhone 4 here in Amsterdam right after launch day. They told me there is a waiting list for at least 8 weeks. That’s not cool. And it looked a little bit like this…
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