Henriette Weber

or does he ? - is this advertisement ? – naaah – could it be ?

here you go:

Crossposted at ToothlessTiger

Those of you who have heard me speak at events lately – have heard that I am talking about fighting the emptyness of consumercapitalism. the story of stuff is an excellent place to reflect on this – you should at least watch the video…thanks to Anders Bendix for sharing the light on this issue =)

Just a quick notise – I am dividing my blogs into a personal blog and a business blog. Henrietteweber.com is about me as a person and my thoughts and rants and well personal experience, it’s where my friends find me. Toothless Tiger is gonna be about the business rock band.  So the content here will change a bit. If you still want your full dosis of Henriette you should also subscribe to the Toothless Tiger blog. 

Today in Copenhagen, Dannerhuset actually blew me of guards. They did a valentines campaign for violently abused women. What a thrill!. It stated “we love men that loves women the right way – happy valentines”. 

And they even made me blog about it.

This issue has always been close to my heart because I had a childhood friend whos mother was being abused by her boyfriend. He actually threw her of the balcony of her appartment once and she broke both her legs. She waited 5 years before she left him and I have really strong personal opinions about this ever since.

Anyway what a great way to use valentines day – to deliver a reflective message that people think about. If you need more reflection for this issue I can highly recommend Rianna Eislers book “sacred pleasure”

Oh and to get really YUCKY and personal here ( this is a personal message to my boyfriend)

Thomas - you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. You mean more to me than any other person. You’re my best friend and my partner in crime.  You’re my rock star. I know the next year will bring huge changes in our lives – and even though it scares the S*** out of me – I am looking so much forward to see you at the end of the isle on may 24th. Happy Valentines babe. 

(it’s Thomas Purves’ photo of me on stage at lift08) 

So I have mentally landed from Lift08. It was a great experience. In my opinion the structure and the management of the conference was really spot on! – great work.

So… In my mind I have been thrilled, happy, desillusioned, thoughtful and a thousand other feelings since the lift experience started for me on tuesday where I flew to Geneva.

I will focus on what I took with me from Lift and I will give my feedback on what I think is lacking – especially from last year. If you look at a map of the european conferences – they have really different profiles.  Lift, Shift and Reboot are my favorites. 

Lift because it embraces NGO and development work together with technology – the local/global touch.

Shift because it has the unconference towards it – and it’s like the kidbrother of  Lift and Reboot. it’s basically a conference where you talk to the people you haven’t talked to yet – because it’s not a large conference – it’s something different.(I will say that I am involved in the conference planning).

Reboot because it’s right here in my backyard of Copenhagen and it’s completely wild technologic wise and futuristic in a good way. 

But back to Lift – it has changed dramatically since last year.  In a way I didn’t think it would. There was only one track – I missed the chance to make up my mind about what I wanted to hear.

There was a lot of salespitches going on from stage. 

All the development projects and the cool NGO work wasn’t really happening this year.

So in an overall way ( well I still love the conference and you should all come next year) – I had the feeling of Lift becoming professional – and if it does that – I am not really interested anymore.

In the wrap up of the conference it was said that ” we are no longer just kids”. And it made me wonder what we where then. I honestly hope that we are not about business.

I really really hope that Laurent and the team will think twice about loosing the kids. The kids are the reason why I am there – and without them it would be a completely different experience.

I don’t want to have more business-y professional hot shot conferences that costs a fortune.

I want to play and think and wonder. I want people to not teach me about the internet but about what I can do with it. I already know the mechanism of the  internet.

So this year was fine – but I am hoping that Lift is not turning into too much of a business - you will loose a massive audience ( and the factor of cool geeks )

So I was thinking that the unconference would have been appraised this year – but instead you had a  stage monologue (and a participatory back channel that went wild with crazy ideas).

For my own personal contribution : I did a 5 min open stage which I think that people where happy about. Well I knew they where. I would totally talk in front of 600 people everyday if it meant I would get 5 + hugs from strangers. the video of my talk will be up here when it is done.    

So great work and great conference – but I miss the twist

on toothless tiger - I am thinking about moving all my activities on henrietteweber.com to toothlesstiger… what do you think ?