Henriette Weber

A mail ticked into my mailbox this morning from a conference in Berlin. First off I am completely honored because I thought they where inviting me to speak there, which is the only time where I find out about conferences in my mailbox instead of in my network. This conference has everything –  Top trends on the web is what they are going to be talking about there.. Im sure it’s gonna be a blast.

When I read through the mail I find out that this isn’t a speaker invite – they want me to come as an attendant. Wow and here I am puzzled that they would ever send me a participant invite – especially since I haven’t heard about them before – and I have no idea who the people behind the conference is. I received spam. From a top-trends-on-the-web conference in Berlin. In 2010.
Normally I would just ignore this – but I think it’s disturbing that people are having a top-trends-on-the-web conference if they think it’s okay to send out spam to other people that don’t know them, asking them to come to the conference. Now this is where the s*** hits the fan in my head, because the last two lines of the mail says “all talks and workshops will be held in German”.

I don’t speak German.

This makes this mail not only completely disturbing to me – but also completely irrelevant. I mean this is a complete no-go in my book. In every EVERY sales book (and not social media or web marketing book) but in every sales book it says that “first you meet the people you want to sell to, then you get to know them, then you get to trust them – and then – only then – you can start selling”.

So this is the reason I won’t come to your conference. I don’t think you have any idea of what you’re talking about, or what your speakers are going to talk about. You sure haven’t implemented any of it. Thank you for taking some of the most precious thing in my book and wasting it: time.

I mean this is so not okay. Which is also why I am writing this blogpost and wasting another 30 mins of my time telling these people that it’s totally not okay. Really guys, Im on EVERYWHERE on the internet. You could have reached me a 1000 other ways – the internet is interconnected like that. If you can’t figure out how to do that – you sure ain’t going to teach me about internet trends.

Sorry Im ranting now. But please ! – stop it. never again. promise me that ?

So shift09 was pushed ahead to april 16-17th 2010 so now it’s shift10 (and you should all come to Lisbon with me, because shift is so much fun, so sunny, and so filled with brilliant thoughts).

It’s a conference where I have had the role as “super duper advisor” for a couple of years – which is a cool role to have and it’s a fantastic creative way to work…

Anyway now it’s shift10 – and I STILL want to do a Shift transportation crusade as I mentioned before.

The shift10 transportation crusade has one purpose and one purpose only: to get you to think about the way you travel to shift or any other conference – or if you go a tad bit deeper – how you can save the world yourself… by thinking out of the frames and upscaling old habits/things to new ones.
Like driving a car/train to Lisbon (which is 3 days each way instead of 3 hours from copenhagen).

btw if you’re coming from anyplace else than Copenhagen – and you still want to go, get in touch and I will see if I can work something out, facilitating the network and other things…

(or why I am going to spend 82 hours on transportation in october to come from Copenhagen to Lisbon and planes are not an option)

As some of you know I am a creative co-organizer of the shift conference in Lisbon Portugal (twitter: @shiftconf). It’s a great role to have because I get to do whatever I want around the conference (heck I get to to whatever I want whenever=) for the common good of the conference.

This year, when I have been speaking at conferences, when I have been travelling Europe, I have mostly gone by train. Maybe it’s because I really want to see the world eye to eye, but a big part of it is that I want to state that it matters that we don’t take the plane everywhere. basically trains are much more private and not quite as hectic. They suit me better. So this year for Shift09 – the theme being DIY, I am going to do the first thing myself and hope that a lot of other people joining me at the conference will follow suit: don’t take the plane to shift09. Take a boat, a bus, a car, a train, walk. Do a transportation crusade.

(a message from Pedro – so I better get going on this shift thing=)

The idea actually comes from Innocent drinks who has a logistic stand point when they ship their goods around the globe then “plane is not an option”. It means a lot to the stakeholders and to the people who work there… So I am trying to live by the same believe when I ship my goods around the globe – if managable – plane is not an option.

This is an action to reduce carbon emissions from the conference goers and doing something myself…As one of my friend said to me once “cultural change is a matter of perspective”. So by getting people to join my little transportation crusade, opening their eyes to alternate ways of travelling than flying, I hope that the shift’ers will actually think about alternate transportation before next time they order a planeticket.

It’s a small mean – but we’re already a couple of people from denmark heading down to Lisbon – I was thinking that if other people around the world would like to join us that would be awesome…

Another idea for making it into a crusade would be to stop different places and do social meetups – it’s just an idea – basically because I could see myself going to Paris for 50 mins only – I want to stay there for a day or so… =)

If you are interested in going to shift (if you are going anywhere really) – and you want to create a difference and be a part of the conference crusade (no matter if you live 5 min or 50 hours from the conference) – please contact me by mail or on Twitter.com/redsoda

As a part of Elmine Wijnia’s In full flow project Im rambling about my education – and what was and wasn’t useful to me. I also talk about the future of education and especially for my 5 year old daughter.

Stories on our kids’ education – Henriette from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo.

also a different take on education coming from Euan Semple (also a part of Elmine’s in full flow project)

Stories on our kids’ education – Euan from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo.

So Reboot11 is over and I guess we’re all digesting the movements, thoughts, laughters, actions and most important to me – the old new. “old new” seems to collect everything I consist of these days. From my pledge to use old stuff for everything not to support mass production of clothes etc etc… to my work with Coworkingboatpan – an action packed shared economy project between people I love.

Reboot was fantastic as every year however the focus is being taken more and more away from the speakers and to the people instead – which is why i choose to go to reboot every year – because of the openess and the creativity from the other people there. NOT that the speakers don’t do a great job- but reboot is more than that.

On saturday I had a coworkingboat pan launch party (more on that later) – where it became obvious how many of the people I am calling “friends” these days where some that I have met at reboot – and in particular reboot7. Reboot7 changed my life. Reboot11 confirmed me in what I believe in most – and it gave me so many thoughts. It basically made me reboot my vision of action – which was the organizers goal.

You succeeded but you also did more than that – you made me jump and smile and laugh:

thanks =)

So the videos from two talks I gave 2 weeks ago in Hamburg and Stockholm are online.

Here’s the one from next09 called: “rockbandism” or “why every company should be a rockband” based on my ebook with the same title – filmed by the amazing Andrea Vascellari

Here’s my talk on “return on involvement – how you can use social to create business unusual” from disruptive media a couple of days later i Stockholm.

Here’s where you find the video

This week I am working on putting last hands on a new ebook that is probably going to be entitled “from hopeless to hot – a crashguide in social marketing” – I don’t know yet – I change my mind all the time =) anyway the suggestion came from Eva Jonassen who send me a mail with the coolest suggestions…

Also I have made up my mind to move socialmediacamp copenhagen from the 5-6 of june to the 12th of september – this is mainly do to heavy workloads on the PR and publishing side of my big book (entitled return on involvement – how you can use the social web to create business unusual” which is due to come out shortly.

that’s about it these days – what’s happening on your side on the internet ?

So I wrote down all my favorite bits and pieces from SXSW in a notebook. Here’s the favorite quotes I took there:

- Culture change is a matter of perspective, change 4 people instead of 10.000 – Bruce Sterling.

-”you have your own level of radical geekyness Henriette” – Bruce as well

-”don’t be stupid” -  how to behave online.

-Make assumptions of social media projects look as good as possible.

-Don’t assume that you will do a facebook or a myspace. you probably wont.

-What are the metrics and what are you measuring against?

-Communicate as work, not for work

-Instead of thinking “what if it fails”, think about “what if I do nothing”, or “what if I succeed?”

-email and video still rules

-in order to grow local,  you have to build local

-if beta testing works in Africa it’s gonna work globally

-where’s the lolcats of change ?

-being dirty is too cheap

-what kind of paper adds value to the internet

-the music industry is doing fine, except for the gatekeepers

I have been arranging Barcamp’s in Copenhagen for about 3 years now and I have a new one in the making called socialmediacamp Copenhagen. (and I am toying with a bit of other camps as well). The problem/possibility of a barcamp is that the format is non-existent. the Barcamp format is called un-conference – meaning that unlike a conference, nothing is really planned except for a framework to support the attendants.

Basically as a barcamp organizer you put together a framework where people can have the best facilities for knowledge, network, inspiration, creativity and fun. It’s a project management job where you make sure that the venue is working, the sponsors are happy and the crowd is exstatic.

As an attendant all you have to do, is participate. And how do you do that ? you put together a panel, you prepare a speech, a game a concert, whatever.  Basically you prepare for, that minimum 30 mins of the barcamp is yours, to present whatever you want to present, or to do whatever you want to do. So what do you get out of participating ? hopefully you get to hang around some real cool cats for a day or two. You get to work with them, talk to them and laugh, dance and play with them. You get inspired from things you never thought would inspire you. You get creative.

one sentence why should I attend: you’ll miss out on something if you dont. I don’t know what that something is. But you’re definetly missing out =)

As an organizer you get whuffie for organizing. A lot of whuffie. You sit back for two months after the camp has been done, and then you get that urge to have people around you in the barcamp way again. People that wants to share and participate. You could a beercamp (as allan did) or a transitcamp or a creativecamp, a designcamp, a fairtradecamp or as I am about to do – a socialmediacamp. If there something you are passionate about and you want to put your thumb on it – do a Barcamp people =)

As a sponsor you should give food or stuff to people! – why ? because they remember you for that. At the last couple of barcamps there has been something like 70 of the most influental and connected people there. Now that’s something that you could use both as a supportive project, but also for marketing purposes I bet ? There’s also some of that magic whuffie rubbing off to the sponsor, you get the mentality of a barcamp + the awareness and involvement from the people attending. oh and don’t get me started on what will happen if you want to sponsor t-shirts or schwag bags =)

So final question: is barcamp just for geeks ? no it’s for passionate people. People who wants to think new and get inspired. In my world geeks are a great thing. But I could see that designers, project managers and CEO ’s could go barcamping – as well as the strange guy from the financial office. Barcamps are kind of an underground event.

I just read Matt Balara’s very short blogpost on his impressions from SXSW (which I also attended and you guys probably know that by now – okay I’ll stop writing about SXSW soon).

Anyway what we should all take away from SXSW (even those of you out there just terribly annoyed that I keep mentioning SXSW) is that we need to do epic shit. Epic-whatever-field-your-in. And do things while you keep your integrity, don’t sell out -life’s too short.

So I have a bunch of feedback for the conference organisers of SXSW (in particular the interactive part). I hope you can take this as constructive criticism as I mean it well (and I think your conference is one of the best in the world – well apart from the shift conference)

Go Green!:

I mean there was a couple of “sustainability and social media” panels (where largely everyone disagreed) but I was a bit disappointed with the approach to the climate problems which was non-existant and I kinda would have expected more from a cutting edge ( yes you are guys!) conference.

The schwag bag:

paper, ads, glossy paper, more paper, more ads etc. and a crumbler bag, 2 stickers and some more pretty unuseful stuff. I see the schwag bag of SXSW as a missed opportunity. I think I speak on behalf on a large part of the interactive conference goers when I say: everything went to the bin. Mostly – I kept the schwag bag itself, the crumbler bag and a firefox pin.

This could be a really valuable marketing thing both for the companies who wants to be in the schwag bag, but also the conferencegoers. Mostly everything was trashed because commercial messages in bags are not useful or fun, they just want to get inside our heads and as real clever interactive conferencegoers, we have a really hard time fitting it in.

How about letting a couple of companies co-sponsor a real cool aluminum drinking bottle that everybody could refill with tab water?

Why not get the companies who wastes a couple of thousand $ on having commercial printed on paper, to sponsor a starbucks coffee, a meal, or even a cupcake or chocolates ? And keep it local.

The parties:

Where great, but a setup of smaller crowds (max 30) would be great for us “elderly” who likes to have deep networked connections instead of not getting a persons name 3 times after the bar was closed and we have been queing for 1 hour to get into the party (where we can only stay in the same spot because there’s so many people.

I think there room for both.

The conference in itself:

Mostly rocked. I really got good information and networking. The venue was really great. However maybe measuring how much energy there’s used to run the conference compared to other years is a good idea ? and maybe only have aircondition on half of the time.

that’s all =)