pic of the audience by Erno Hannink during Eric Schmidts talk at le web

So when I was sitting in front of the stage at le web day 2 – listening to the “money” panel – which normally is one of the Best discussions of le Web – if you Are a startup, I got that feeling again. the “omg I know now what to guide people and companies to do with their brands – digitalwise. Anyway the panel is five guys (who happens to be some of the worlds top venture capitalists) sitting on a couch talking about money in the startup World.

THIS IS KEY TO KNOW IF YOURE A STARTUP LOOKING FOR MONEY. Because they basically spill the deeds on what they are investing in – which to some extend also signals what will be developed in the startup community within the next couple of years.

They give it all to you- saying what it is they are looking for In a startup and what characteristica you need to have before you’re relevant to Them. Super important information.

This year they are saying “SoLoMo” – which also is the subject line for the le web conference. “SoLoMo” is an abbreviation for “Social”, “Local” og “Mobile”. So this is where the money primarily are going to be spend within the next 1 or two years. I think it’s an exciting trend because it holds a lot of possibilities – both offline and mobile – but not so much for the web. Can it really be that we are starting to develop more to connect people in general instead of developing for the web ? I think so. is the World Wide Web on a decline? Maybe not so much yet – but something tells me that it’s a very likely scenario in the near future. that is kind of exciting.

I saw this presentation today on google + about lean-back media and the shock of the old:

Which I also think says something very relevant about the offline/local/mobil transition.
Could it be that laptops will turn more and more into an advanced typewriter where all the reading and the playing and interacting is done on tablets ? a likely scenario again =)

Anyway a huge pointer from here – and a real exciting one.

picture by Chris Heuer: Kristie Wells of Social Media Club, Annika Lidne of Disruptive Media and yours truely)

So this draft was created on the last day of the le Web conference in Paris, but I first got around to finish it now.

Le Web has been a very interesting experience. Even though it has been very different from last year- but a lot fantastic people where met, speakers seen, friends dined and cool British bands such as the ting tings where experienced. All compiled in 4 days in Paris.

I think to some extend the Le Web conference is like a fashion show. 

in one of the presentations somebody used the phrase “undercover fashion tech a la creme”. To me it describes Le Web very well;  It’s the best of the best in tech and you’re left mesmerized. I think Le web has become for tech what Paris is for the fashion scene. The conference is so well curated so if you’re leaving Le Web not knowing what is going to happen within the next 2 – 3 years, then you haven’t been paying attention at all at the conference.

Le Web has become the European event hub that’s most vital for your business.

You need to be present as a startup or as a coolhunter/trendspotter. There was some agencies down there who I overheard a conversation by, and they had simply thought that they would get a recipe for social media they could sell to their clients (if that’s what you want – feel free to contact me over at Toothlesstiger.com and I can help you out). But they didn’t get the whole startup/venture capitalist part of the conference. Some of them where annoyed that it seemed like that the whole conference where more about startups and what they are building. But you need to know this – even as an agency. You need to know what cool ideas are out there – executed by the finest in Europe.

Anyway Im looking forward to Le Web again next year. It’s my december kick and a good way to ignite and plan for 2012 =)

photo by Chris Heuer

One of the things I’ve been working on lately, is my whole attitude towards other people and especially people who takes themselves too seriously. Because a lot of people do. As I Said in a previous blogpost- I dont want to be taken seriously too much – I want to inspire as a primary
goal. And i totally got inspired yesterday. If you’ve been following me on twitter – you would have notised that i saw Karl Lagerfeld yesterday. I would have love to say “me” instead of “saw” but unfortunatly that wasn’t possible.

However, he did the keynote here at le Web- and i was totally amazed. I
mean i have only seen him in “Elle” and “In Style” and other fashion magazines. In
Real life he surprised me, because he seemed like such a down to earth
man- and in my world that doesn’t really go together with the fashion
Industry.

So i had to change my perception a bit there.

Secondly, he seemed like a true artist, taking His art seriously. It didn’t seem like he was the center of a huge fashion machine. He seemed so grounded. As he Said himself ” i
don’t do promotion- im just being myself. And a lot of people Are saying
that these days- but I totally believed him- in All His Karl-ness. Im convinced that what he
does and what he creates is so amazing and energetic, that he doesn’t
Need to relate to promotion. And that, rockers, is one of my questions for you today.

What Can you do to avoid marketing and promotion? Think about it for a bit. One of the things I l believe you can do, is to create something that creates some sort of legacy within your field. It All lies in the creation process for me- not in the tweeting or the facebooking or stuff like that. So take it from Karl- create;)

Next week Media Evolution The Conference is taking place in Malmö. Yesterday, the always awesome Joakim Jardenberg wrote the first piece in a blog relay to put focus on some of the conference sessions, today it’s my turn (yay!) and  tomorrow I’m handling the baton to Helen Alfvegren.

I’m looking forward to attend The Conference both because the speaker list looks amazing, but also because conferences in general are my favorite playing field. And I think the 3 different themes for the conference are übercool and relevant. They’ve asked me to write something for their blog relay, and even though I wanted to pick something else, I can’t help but to choose to write about creativity or ”New business opportunities with disruptive thinking” (as one of the talks is called).

However I’ve decided to change that around a bit and write this instead… Because that’s what you can do on the internet. On your own website. I’m my own Henriette Weber social media, word-of-mouth La-la-land that I’ve created, where I’m the law, the rockn’roll queen and I make the rules. Hey Facebook! – I can even hold a competition here without making an app – and you can’t shut me down If I don’t abide the rules or can’t figure out the terms of use =) – anyway here goes peeps – I look so much forward to see you in Malmø.

Creativity is my homeboy and I love him to pieces.

Now, Inspiration is a big thing in my network, I work every day with creating value and happiness for my blogreaders, my newsletter subscribers (both here and on toothless tiger.com) and helping my clients to create value for their clients and prospects. Mainly in an advice-based how-to form, but also based on inspiration. I think inspiration and creation go hand in hand on the social web these days, sometimes it even seems like inspiration overload. I mean if I spend 10 minutes on pinterest.com – I have enough DIY projects to make with my daugther for the next month. If I visit a persons webpage or blog, there are 100 things I can download, read, share and be inspired by. It’s. All. Creation.

One of the things we tend to forget is that everytime this happens and people they decide to create something that gives value to their surroundings, they are breaking the normal boundaries for doing business. They are adding to their “brand” with creation. And this is a crucial and important thing for businesses because it shows that the boundaries for when you can do what in business has changed tremendiously. We literally have all the tools, now we just need to look within and find out what we should be creating and for whom.

That rocks doesn’t it ? It’s one of the things that makes me get out of bed every morning, mostly because when people they notice this, they also find out that they can basically make anything on the internet! Yay! It’s a cool great world out there for creation these days. The internet is so filled with inspiration you can dig into.

My biggest problem with all of this? The fear. The fear of people not liking you. The fear of people saying that something you’ve created isn’t good enough or doesn’t meet their extremely high standards. I have a secret to reveal to you: Last night when I was reading in my ton of books beside my bed (a couple of  nights a week I curl up in bed and I become smarter.. i LOVE books). I read Twyla Tharp’s “the creative habit” in preparation for this blogpost. I don’t know what it was, but something was triggered inside of me – and when it was time to go to bed I used 20 minutes to write my translator and tell him that we where translating my danish book (return on involvement – how to use the social web to create business unusual) published in aug 2009 in Denmark to english in it’s original format.

Now I’ve changed my mind a gazillion time about this but the reason I do this, as a part of the creative process is that Im so afraid I will fail. And my standards are too high. Even though the book was very very well recieved in Denmark, I think I needed to change it into something that Seth Godin, or Hugh Macleod or Brian Solis or Danielle Laporte could write.  And I don’t have to anymore, because it needs to be something that I could write. And I already did. And it’s perfect with it’s imperfections and totally not tailored for the english market. It’s short, it’s filled with strategic recipes and it’s written in my own tone of voice. But I need to give it a shot, I need to change the market out there by seeing if it will survive in english. It’s a piece of art to me and I hope you will all love it.

So I’m holding my breath here and I’ll be brave, because that is one of the most important things that creativity is to me. Boldness. Difference. And totally in the hands of the person creating.

So what are you waiting for ? Execute those cool ideas, don’t let the fear get you down and start creating.

So – Next11 in Berlin ended two days ago. And I am back in Elsinore, Denmark and elaborating on a bunch of stuff about the conference.

One of the things I really REALLY love about my work, is that I get to go to conferences and write about  them . I think it rocks – it let’s me give some practical and philosophical views on things + it get’s me in contact with the coolest people in the tech/startup scene + it let’s me visit awesome cities.

It let’s me relate to really big topics like “Data Love” this years topic of Next11. There where so many cool things going on at next11 and so many smart and cool people, that I just want to suck dry of data. So I have decided to write a lot about the topic “Data Love” both because the topic is huge, but also because it’s a really valuable topic to work around. I was just in the international track listening to Kevin Slavin who partly talked about algorithms that makes you smarter, or you could also say algorithms that makes you sell more from a business perspective. Like “recommend stuff to people and they would buy more” – stuff like that. If you have the algorithms that makes you smarter – if you know what people might do, when they’re on your site, you can make more money.

At another glance, it seemed like, that a lot of companies collects all this data, but they don’t quite know how the could optimally use it. In a lot of the talks I attended in the international track – at some point during the talk it seems like there was a bunch of companies that where in doubts about how they could use the data. Parts of me got semi-worried when I found out how much the big brands actually knows about you.

On another hand, I think that currently the worst thing that could happen to all of this data, if they decided to do something more effective with it, would be to target more stuff-that-Im-inclined-to-purchase at me. I mean it would make the targeting much easier and more relevant for me. I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing =)

So this minute I am sitting on the early train from Copenhagen to Berlin. Im heading down there for some days to do some intensive product writing, and participate in Next 11 – a conference I have been to before (next09/2009 where I did a speech about rockbandism, derived from my e-book”why every company should be a rockband” and later my book “return on involvement”). Anyway, the conference has moved – from Hamburg to Berlin since last time, and I wonder how much it will move me. I really dig their subject – “data love” but to say that I love data makes me sound geeky beyond anything =). I also loved their subject last time I was there; “shared economy” – something very relevant these days due to my evercontinious work with Coworkingboat Pan and the launch of the danish crowdfunding site booomerang.dk (where Pan is one of the first projects – YEY !) But the “Data Love” subject to me is so huge, that I am afraid that people won’t be able to reflect on it. When I think about it through and through, teaching and preaching data is what I live off and by – but still I like to wrap it up nicely, because the word “data” to me is very mathematical and not very creative at all – I’ve done some reflections on it, from an identity, marketing and branding perspective and here’s what I came up with:

Data is the mother of “Content” – Creativity is the father These two determinators makes up the whole world of the internet and digital, as I see it. Great content is one of the building blocks to enhance your identity, marketing and branding online. You can’t really have data without creativity,  when you talk about digitalizing. Data is something tangible because it has already been done, where creativity is very intangible.

Data provides the structure Data is such a huge topic that everything digital or mobile or coded has some sort of data. I mean to me it’s something huger than the internet – so I am wondering how the elaboration and the moderation is going to be afterwards. How do you take the subject of data and make it digestible ? I hope I become wiser on that subject at Next.

Data is the digital building block of – well everything Making a conference about Data and your relationship to it, is kind of like making a conference about the whole universe – or what started the universe.

Data has changed the way we rock live Everything can now be documented because of data and it has changed the way we live. It’s not just a minor change, it has changed the whole world – including everything. It has forced businesses to come to terms with, that every step is documented and the reaction to that: transparency and the need to show the world that we as businesses are doing epic worldchanging shit.

That being said, I hope that next will reach philosophical data heights – and I hope to become smarter on the data subject.

So during the last couple of months the amount of times I’ve heard “we need to be based in the valley” from startups has increased – a lot.

Yesterday I found a blogpost about the “european ecosystem” for startups – I think the article has a lot of great points, but I want to add my own more-action filled 2 cents.

I don’t want to move to the valley. I want to be at my own personal silicon mousehole called Elsinore, Denmark. Because it’s cool here and it’s where my kid goes to school. See, we are possibly 3 companies up here working with the internet. It’s not even Copenhagen. I don’t see a decentralized tech scene as something bad, I see it as something remarkably “glocal” and an opportunity to tell a different story than yet-another-startup-out-of-the-valley. I think what we need to aim at, is the “clusters” in the different cities, making sure that companies within the same field works together to ensure further growth.

We have a technical ecosystem that makes sure that we can work on projects from anywhere in the world with video and cms/crm/project management systems located somewhere on the internet. And basically being based in the same city makes me not prioritize meeting people here, because I could meet them at any time. I think there’s a huge psychological thing attached to geographical locations that isn’t taken into consideration when talking about “the whole tech scene needs to be in the valley” and the “competitive advantages of valley startups”.

So how do I make sure that people in the  tech scene knows about this little red tornado (aka. me)?

I often do tours of Europe to be present at the gatherings that are made in and for the european tech scene, it’s important to me because I get a grasp of what’s happening amongst the firstmovers of the internet, it’s important for me because it makes me connect to people, that are easier to connect with here than if they where in the valley. Oh and sometimes I even meet people at a different conference again – and they remember me.

Think about it. If you want to pitch/sell/get to know some hot shot person (maybe the coolest person in the world) it’s probably better to meet him when he’s out of his context, when he’s in Paris or London or Copenhagen for a week and don’t really have anything else to do there than to speak at conferences and attend meetings. If he’s in the valley he’s within his own context and wouldn’t prioritize meeting you as much as he would if he was in Europe and had time on his hands.

So I definitely see that you need to be present physically in the tech scene, you need to meet people where they are (physically as well as on the internet). But I would rather stay put in my small town and fly out to meet the tech scene physically every second month (europe, asia, US ) instead of being present all the time, backing it up with skype calls and tweets and facebook likes and what have you. Get a proactive and strategic approach to the tech community would create so much more for you as a startup than to be present in the valley at all times.

Live from my personal silicon mousehole

at Geeknrolla it sure did…

… I attended Geeknrolla in London, which was an amazing and funpacked conference for startups and investors. Seriously I can’t stretch how important it is for you as a startup/investor to be at places like this. Anyway, I personally, made the trip over to Geeknrolla for researching a new project + I always  love to meet startups with fantastic ideas that they have begun to execute and show to people.

So what’s happening out there?

Au contraire to some of the previous startup events I’ve attended, the startups here was kinda scary- in a good way. Meaning they seemed super smart and it seemed like they’ve got their things really well together, like – on speed.  That was really awesome to see. Also I loved the “geeknrolla school” where the startups  came back and told the audience what they have been doing in the last year (since they pitched for the first time at geeknrolla). It was so inspiring and all of them had actually done really well.

Both the talks and the panels where all  well put together, and I thought a really smart move was to have journalists as moderators – they took their job seriously and it didn’t become a subjective fireside chat between friends, as it sometimes tends to, when the moderator knows the people they’re interviewing already.

If I had to point to one thing that I really think was something that could be worked more on, then it was the demo area: it broke my heart to see the startups out there, most of them having 2 banners and a laptop only and just wanted to pitch their startup when you started to talk to them. That’s cool and all, but there could be so much more done, But I think crazy and curly like that. If I had a startup then I would do anything I possibly could to OWN the demoarea. bring out the homemade cupcakes and the champagne. Make me feel super special visiting you “booth” and make it into your own space=)

Im kinda buzzin’ back home in Elsinore, because I really get so much energy from startup events. Geeknrolla, with it’s edgy, informality and something I would call “the Mike Butcher spirit” is up there at the very top (and hereby also added to my personal conference guide=)

This social web rockn’roll chick is pleased.

Right now I am sitting on the train, on my way to London and GeekNrolla – an event I also wanted to go to last year, simply because of it’s name (but also because of it’s amazing lineup + the people coming there). Tomorrow is going to be a whole day filled with startups, and who knows, maybe sometime in the near future I will do my own ? The coolest thing about being around startups is that they glow and buzz and are normally living a risky life because of a pursuit of an idea they had a some point, that they decided to bring to life.