Why I love Wikipedia. My Presentation at Amsterdam’s Pechakucha Night.

Januar 24th, 2012 • Tools, Underway
Tags: Amsterdam, Funny, Gerald, Pechakucha, Pechakuchanight, Presentation, wikipedia

A little update: Last week I had the pleasure to hold a presentation at Amsterdam’s 20th Pechakucha Night. If you don’t know the concept: Pechakucha is an open presentation format where people can basically present whatever they want. But they need to present it on 20 slides and no slide will stay on the screen longer than 20 seconds.

I presented my love to Wikipedia. It was exactly on the 18th January that Wikipedia spearheaded the web’s strike against SOPA. In other words: An ideal day to present this small big courageous platform that we profit so much from and which we sometimes give so little back. Little hint: My 10 most WTF Wikipedia articles are just a small collection of what you could find on Wikipedia. Read them. They are hilarious.

Rolling with the Gnomies. One Week with Amsterdam’s Marketing Peeps.

November 21st, 2011 • Allgemein, Underway
Tags: Amsterdam, Events, Gerald, Underway, World

I don’t particularly like marketing events. But my last week was full of these wonderful happenings with my favorite ad peeps in my hometown Amsterdam. And in the end I have to admit: It was actually rather great.

Monday – Event 1: Meeting John Hegarty
John Hegarty is a legend. He is one of the three founders of Bartle Bogle Hegarty and you can compare him with David Ogilvy or Leo Burnett – apart from the fact that he is still alive, lived a couple of years later then the two other guys, and his ideas are still really relevant for today’s business. Anyway: Mister Hegarty has written a book. Basically his advertising legacy. Hegarty on Advertising contains over ‘four decades of wisdom and insight from the man who put Nick Kamen into a laundrette for Levi Strauss and gave Audi the immortal Vorsprung durch Technik, amongst many, many other highly successful campaigns for major brands‘.
Hegarty came to Amsterdam last week as guest of the wonderful American Book Center here and presented himself as the cool, silverbacked Madmen that he is and (of course) presented his book. I haven’t started reading it yet – but if you are quick you can get your own copy here and that I have no clue what I am talking about.

Tuesday – Event 2: The Tomorrow Awards
Believe me: I passionately hate the concept of awards. Why? Because I reject them as a fair measure for creativity. Most awards are money-producing client-service tools for agencies (the Webbys have just founded the Lovie awards to generate more revenue). And no, I don’t really see the point why Amsterdam needs its own award show. But apparently since last week exactly this is the case. We now learn that: The Tomorrow Awards is the first international award show dedicated to discovering, showcasing and awarding advertising creativity that pushes new technological boundaries. Since the very best examples of such work are those that defy standard award show categories, the Tomorrow Awards is category-neutral; all entries are judged together, and only the very best ideas shine brightest.

Okay: Whatever this is. I had a brilliant evening with the marketing peeps from Amsterdam, watching people like Taxi’s Paul Lavoie, AKQA’s Nick Bailey, or Sid Lee’s JF Bouchard giving brilliant speeches. And I am truly, wholeheartedly a fan of Anomaly’s Carl Johnson. His blunt, bold and direct speech about what he perceives as creative made me constantly nod happily. Good that anomaly is in town now. Welcome guys.

Thursday – Event 3: Founding the APG Netherlands
We were planning it for a while already: The inauguration event of the Account Planning Group Netherlands.

So after a couple of months of preparing, me and my six colleagues Heather (Strawberry Frog), Laura (FHV/BBDO), Boris (THEY), Wouter (Boon Strategy) Laurence (AKQA) Simon (Blast Radius) launched our first for the new home for Marketing Strategists in the Netherlands: Inside Insights.

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Good Morning. Just a quick Saturday Morning Update.

Mai 7th, 2011 • Underway
Tags: Amsterdam, Blast Radius, Boss, Gerald, News, Planning, Strategy, Underway

Just a quick update on a couple of things…

• Awards! The ones who know me personally know that I passionately hate marketing awards. How cool that my team actually won one of the few really cool digital awards – a Webby goes out to Boss Bottled Night. I won’t even start to pretend I personally had anything to do with it. The proud creators know who they are. Check out the website or take a sneak peek at the embedded video at the bottom of this article.
• Drinks! My agency Blast Radius is constantly launching something these days. One of the really interesting projects is Bacardi’s new bartender community True Originals (Facebook here) that went live a week ago. It is not just a community for bartenders but a place where they can improve their really, really, really (and I mean really) important professional skills collaboratively. On August 22nd Bacardi will start challenging the community. So you better make sure the bartender of your choice is part of it.
• Amsterdam Strategists! Next week, on May 12th 2011, Amsterdam’s marketing and advertising strategists (whatever that is) will meet again. There is a joke about Germans that claims wherever a German goes the first thing he will do is to start a club. I am no exception which is why I started bringing Amsterdam’s strategists together. Actually all I did was to start a Facebook group while Heather Le Fevre actually contacted every Planner in town to turn it into an inspiring monthly event. So if you are in Amsterdam next Thursday and if you are a Planner (however you define that) or would like to become one – please contact me. I am glad to invite you.
• And more strategists! While we are talking about my colleague Heather…a while ago she had the great idea to create something that was really missing in general – a socio demographical census of the planner guild worldwide. Her planner survey 2010 was already extremely insightful and she has invested quite a bit of work to set up a new online survey for 2011. So if you are a Planner/Strategist (again: however you define that) make sure you take part in this year’s planner survey 2011. The more colleagues answer, the better the results. Here is the link to the survey…
• Something completely different! Beyond my blog davaidavai.com I am running quite a number of specific niche blogs/channels that I like to feed – simply because I think the world is quite an interesting place. So I want to highlight two little communities that I built and that I love. Feel free to join: Number 1 is the Facebook page for davaidavai which features some of the articles I publish here. But actually it’s more than that – it’s my platform for stuff that I want to share without necessarily blogging about it. So like davaidavai on Facebook please. Number 2 is PlanetWTF – a Facebook page where I share interesting useless knowledge with a focus on history, geography and politics. It’s simple, fun, and it is here.

Well…that’s all for the moment. And here goes the award video for BOSS Bottled Night…

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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.