In these days of over-hyped social media, where everyone is grasping to digital as the next new goldmine, and everybody is a social media consultant or expert or whatever. There’s often two words that comes to mind: SLOW DOWN. Seriously. Slow down.

I could write some buzzline here saying “it’s not about me it’s about we” here, but I wont. It seems like we’re constantly searching for the next piece of content, our 5 seconds of fame on twitter. The golden link that other people can’t resist, so they’ll retweet it and you get more twitter fame, for a split second – and then they are on to the next link, or next conversation.

One thing I see is missing is the art of acknowledging that people don’t care about your product, people don’t care about your brand. But the trick is, to take them from ignoring you, to turning you into the lovemark of the century in their minds. They should love you! but do you really love them back ?

Return on involvement has become quite a iconic book in danish business circles over the last 2 1/2 years, but as where people they get the part where they’re supposed to be on facebook and gain likes from their community, they are not really giving anything back to the people who helped them with gaining a bit of that 5 seconds momentum by supplying that inspiration. Something like dropping a comment on a pin on pinterest. or writing a comment on a blog. In my business world I always call that proactivity, and I say that if you want to build a brand you need to at least do 2/3′s proactivity OUT THERE – instead of hanging on to your facebook page and twitter account and posting links there like crazy.

You need to be in the interactions. The interactions are everything. Mihaly chechekmihaly (I don’t even want to look up his name because everybody spells it wrong) got it totally right when he said that creativity lies in the interaction between people – given the circumstances of the world around them. It’s not you who decides whether or not you are seen creative, it depends on the community. The same with trust and branding. It’s not you who decides if people trust you or love you or like you. It’s the community. And a lot don’t give anything back, unless it’s on your  own playing field. Well guess what. As I preach and write in Return on Involvement. The involvement you want so bad ? The buzzword of the decade that you’re dying to implement – needs to come from yourself.  it’s not about dumping links in linkedin groups. It’s about building trust by interacting with people where they are, and normally they are not on your twitterstream or your facebook page.

Slow down! get the eagle eye going. Spot the places of interacting with the community (normally the interaction part, takes part in the commentfield – even if you’re just repining their pin on pinterest – you can write a comment)… Every social media out there- has “call for interaction” and that rockers, is where the battlefield is. Not your facebook page.

Very zen right ? Slow down. please =) aum.

Sometimes when I roam facebook as research for my strategic client work, I think there’s two things I see out there that makes me sad. It’s really obvious who has decided to put a lot of money in facebook and who hasn’t. It’s also really obvious who just has decided to purchase it as an add-on and who actually cares to convert it to sales by their actions out there and not the glossiness of the facebook page. I want substance and sometimes facebook leaves me crying because I can’t find it there. I can find competitions, expectations from “likers” to get 10% off their purchases because they “like” something. Expectations to get a shot at winning something or getting something for free.

And sometimes I am stunned by how unserious companies are taking facebook. If they had only booked me. I could have taught them how to love their community.

Today I almost wept because I found something as pure as a loveletter to a brand on facebook. not like a band or a cool company. But just the reason why she stood by them in thick and thin and would never change to another supplier. I say that if I was that brand – if somebody wrote me a loveletter to my work as a huge organisation, I would give them cake. I would send them flowers – I would have my CEO do a videoresponse – I would do anything more than a “like”. I think a “like” from the owner of a profile or a page, in a comment thread is the ultimative conversation closer, unless the conversation is very active.

here are some of the scenarios where I would seize the opportunity to grow more trust  and sales instead of clicking the like button.

“hey I love your products – especially that bag looks awesome”…. you should say “yeah we love it too -feel for it at first eyecatch. it’s especially imported from argentina where an old man called Diego has made it. he has two daughters and a sheepfarm and you can see a video recorded on our recent visit there.

“here’s the reason why I will use your product always and always”… Send them flowers or candy or chocolate – or record a happy dance of people in the office thanking her (at the same time you tell the rest of the world that you put your customers at the centre of the universe – how awesome is that ?)

Does this has anything to do with facebook really ? no not at all. it’s about how show the world you care and gaining marketshare because of it -  even though you’re a mastodont company.

Just promise me to go easy on the like button=)

(btw any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated=)

A couple of times every year (sometimes only around christmas and new years) I take time to write a letter to all my professional peers, no matter what connection or relevance they have to me or Toothless Tiger. I write about where I am as a person, business, mother, wife, rockstar, all these things. And you know what ? it’s one of those things that makes me really happy, because people replies with where they’re at, they give me the stories of where they are and where they are going and what they dream about, it’s truely amazing.

There has been a lot of talks about blogging being dead and everything going social lately. But a simple email to people I cherish, goes a long way – longer than 140 characters and statements. And I think that’s one of the things that responds really well in my head as opposed to “social”. Because social needs to be statements and interesting to get a retweet or a reply. An email about me, is not smart – but it’s where I am as a person. It’s what’s matters and what Im dreaming about. Don’t do it for business, Don’t do it for everything else, simply do it because you care and you want people to know where you are and connect with them in a way that doesn’t have to be stated. Connecting with them in a way where you allow yourself to show the good the bad and the ugly, in a personal matter. I think I send my mail out to  1600 people – first the danish crowd and then the english crowd – and I am still replying to their replies.

Just sayin’ – do something not that stated or funny. Just do a “you” letter. Non public. Non stated. Just let it all go and write what you really want to tell them. A letter.

We’ve got google + ripples now!  - it’s something that actually shows how your content is spreading through people – and how it’s recieved. talk about return on involvement! – and it’s something that can get me to share so many more links there. Thank you google for making the web less linear and that i don’t have to look at graphs and page views and uniques anymore – this makes so much more sense to me. It gives me the ability to exactly see how my content is spreading and how it is recieved.

Very cool google !

here’s a recap of the changes :

and here’s how to get ripples to work today (it involves something manual work – but it’s worth it)

and here’s the result :

This morning I got access to facebook’s timeline. My first thoughts was that it was kinda memolane.com meets about.me.

(ps. you can get to play with it too – see how here)

but here’s what I think about it :

I like that facebook is finally turning less linear and they are breaking up the browsing format. so there’s not so much scroll or load to do (however I would love to see the newsfeed before Im too exstatic about it).

Another thing I think is spot on is that it looks more like 2011 than the previous version – meaning more sharing, more pictures and I bet it will make people go in discovery mode on their friends more.

One thing I think is kinda tiresome is that the investigation and discovery mode is still mainly kept on people – instead of integrate some of people’s passions as well… or the things that people thinks are cooler than a like – but something they would re-share with their peers.

I was hoping that facebook would have integrated a bit more of a pinterest feel and make it a tad more visual (especially with the likes and shares) – and giving people incentive to like and share and subscribe more – but I think it’s coming soon. I mean for a lot of people facebook is the infrastructure of the social web. Then us firstmovers can stand in the corner and say “to a lot of people the internet is bigger than facebook”… but to some parts of the mainstream crowd  facebook is the no 1. place on the internet. Why not let facebook become the full experience to them then ?

If I was facebook I would do something more with the visual side for sure… keep people inspired by something more than text and “xx liked toothless tiger“. But where the actions that people took where more and more supported by images. It looks like they’re also turning “like” into other gestures – which I am looking forward to as well – and will be an interesting turn.. so exciting days ahead…

I think that’s what I have to say right now.Weekend is coming up and Im feeling good =)

So yesterday I was accepted as a part of “teknik bübblan” a facebook group for swedes that are into tech. I was a bit daring with adding it – mainly because I’m not a swede (well I’m an 8th swede ) and i don’t reside in Sweden.

However Helsingør (my town) is right across the ocean from Sweden and I go there a lot (so much so I’m thinking about moving a part of the Toothless Tiger to Sweden) so I guess that must count for something. But I put together a list of why it’s cool as a dane in tech to live close to sweden. Here goes:

10 reason Why it’s cool as a dane (in technology) to live close to sweden

1. Every time I go over there I get immensely inspired, both by the startups, the support by the society to do startups, and the incredibly sweet and friendly people. I also get inspired by the startup scene in Denmark, because the startups are immensely cool – but it just does’t seem as if they get quite as much support as the startup scene in Sweden.

2. It seems like even though I would claim that the road from thought to action is smaller in Denmark, it’s more well recognized by the community and the media in Sweden, and more supported to actually carry out your ideas.

3. I love the fact that it seems like the people in the startup community – overall – support each other. We do the same in Denmark but on a much lesser scale – maybe it’s because we’re fewer and we don’t have as many hubs for the startup environment as they do in Sweden. Also, it seems as if they actually have media that keeps an eye out for what’s happening in the startup space – in Denmark it seems like we just have social media consultants that translate allfacebook.com or mashable into danish =) no just kidding… the ecosystem and the support system around the startups just seems better or larger. In Denmark as a tech startup you might get written about on comon.dk, on computerworld.dk – but there’s hope for us more “soft” startups out there: erhvervsbladet.dk is turning into a section of berlingske focused on entrepreneurship, startups and growth. I’m looking so much forward to that.

4. It’s literally not far away – if you’re in Copenhagen it’s a 45 min train ride, or in Helsingør as I am it takes 15 mins with a ferry. Sometimes I feel that the mental barrier of “going to Sweden” or “going to Denmark” is actually bigger than Øresund itself =)

5. I have gotten some great friends from my trips to Sweden – they are cool and greatly appreciated.

And on the personal side (and why I love to visit Sweden)

6. They have cheap food – and in all kinds of varieties. Even their instant (eco) coffee is good. Their dog food is cheap (and the CCSO (Chief Cuddly Security Officer) and CSO (chief shoe-eating officer) of Toothless Tiger eats a whole lot of that). I’m a ICA maxi fan.

7. They have cool (and cheap) clothes – we always buy clothes for P (my daughter) in sweden – Lindex in particular

8. They have lakes and canoes and blueberries and small red houses and mountains (to swedes you probably would call places like Isaberg a huge hill – but hey I’m a dane – it’s a mountain to me)

9. Sweden makes me relaxed and it makes me want to write more than any other place in the world – so if you have a spare cabin somewhere in the woods I would love to go and finish some of the next book there.

10. You have cheap lunches – I would choose a ‘dagens’ at hacket in Helsingborg anyday (if I could=) in Denmark you end up paying twice as much for lunch – in danish kroner.

So that’s it – a little sweden shout from me =).

(Oh and if you’re an internet startup based in Helsingborg (in particular) or Malmø and want to have coffee with me the next time I come over – I would love to hear what you’re about. Also if you have an office space I can crash occasionally =)

In my mind the Sweden startup community is so different from the danish because of the overall supportive role from the surroundings(both on a macro and on a micro level).

Two years ago I was invited to Finland by Finnfacts to go on a blogger tour to see the startups of finland (and if you finnfact people are reading this – I want to go BACK – please ?) and one of the big big surprises up there was to meet the head production company (Energia Productions) behind movies such as Star Wreck and Iron Sky. Here’s the brand new Iron Sky trailer:

A couple of days ago I catched onto some conversations about Iron Sky on twitter and it make me re-live the eufori that I also had in Finland when I visited them in Tampere. As one of the guys up there told us about Star Wreck “Even though we’re big fans of Star Trek – there was just something that we didn’t like about the movies – so we decided to try and change it – and the result was Star Wreck”.

Projects like Star Wreck and Iron Sky inspires me so immensely because it’s crowdsourced movies made from people sitting in different places all over the world. If you want to work at the movies, Energia Productions is the perfect way of starting out, by doing it yourself and then enable your community around you. And that’s what I see in both Star Wreck and Iron Sky – it’s community driven movies and they are super fun.

So what are you waiting for – take their lead and get going =)

Yesterday I launched the involvement manifesto – again. I’ve launched it already once – but I don’t believe that my homemade indesign skills did it any justice. Therefore I let Amelie from Krawatt.se play around with it and here’s what she came up with :

I absolutely adore it.

Unfortunatly we are having some complex technical problems with people downloading the manifesto in the large format (depending on browser and such) but you can go ahead and see if the internet is with you today and download it on http://www.toothlesstigerpress.com/involvementmanifesto.

Anyway I decided to put it up here on the blog as well (the format on toothless tiger press is larger though – large enough to print out and framing it =). It’s only in english so far, because the danish translation is bugging me.. however danish, swedish and german translations are planned =) Normally you would have to “pay” with signing up for the toothless tiger newsletter to get it, but hey – the technique doesn’t work today (we would appreciate it though if you signed up for the newsletter anyway=)

But even though that’s all good and well (apart from the tech) I want to touch upon how important it is to take large pieces of content and break it up and make it digestable.

The involvement manifesto is a digestible way of reading a part of danish book “return on involvement”, it’s a mini teaser for the english one as well.  There are so many ways to break down large pieces of content – and it’s one of the things I love to do the most because it makes you feel so creative. So have you any done something huge? and have you thought about breaking it down and spread it out like little snippets of you and your messages ? It’s truely important to not only work around your business plans with HUGE books and all these things that makes your brand – because you need small snippets of freebies and information that travels fast. Like fragments of epic shit building the empire of me.

One of the things that I would actually love, was if just one person in the world thought that this was an utterly amazing manifesto, and put it up on the wall in the office and start using it. Believing so much in my thoughts about business unusual that the person would print it out and read through it occasionally. That’s my ambition for this manifesto. However I must say – I will print on canvas and put it up in the Toothless Tiger office in Copenhagen because to me that poster is a stunner –  the essence of the book and I am so proud of her=)

One of the things about the internet that I truely love, is the fact that what one day is super hot and where people hang, is not necessarily the same scenario the day after. People they are like nomads and trying out more and more services and abandoning old ones. Ah the smell of the change in the morning…

So while I have been on a vacation, google launched google + and I think it’s a hands-down fantastic service.

When I started to digg in deeper I decided to structure some of my circles:

- some around languages and other different kind of contacts. Seriously just that it overcomes the language barrier that I have in relation to my network (some I speak english too – others I want to speak danish too, others french or swedish) is a gift for me as an english communicator but a native dane.

-some around interest – business, inspiration, art, music, crafting, creativity, social media, internet tendencies,

- some around relationships: business contacts, friends, family, people I don’t know well, but I’ve met.

The thing is that it gives me a way of directing my content more, it makes me show different sides of my personality and best of all: I think it will make me give more value, love and rockn’roll to the individual person.

So how do I see people use it these days ? I see a lot of people posting interesting stuff, some are starting to push their own offers out there – and even more so in google + than in facebook, it makes me want to block them out. When the social network gets tighter, more conversational and more threaded, I think the broadcasting that you need to do there as an entrepreneur – needs to be more carefully selected. I broadcast my stuff/content/blogposts/e-books too – but I try to measure it up by being an active part of the community as well. So is this the more strategic – more fragmented- less “inside the box” social media of the near future ? I would say “most likely“.

So what are people saying about it ?

A lot of people are saying that it looks a bit like a combination of Twitter and Facebook. But I think it looks like one of the biggest all time tech/web loves of mine (disclaimer: and former client) : Jaiku. Google + is what I could easily picture Jaiku to be a couple of years down the line. (they where purchased by google in 2007).

Im not going to compare them more, they just have a lot of resemblance for which I am overjoyed, Because some of the more conversational touch (and threaded conversations with everybody) of the web ( instead of statements) have been missing. I think twitter is filled with statements, facebook is very narcissistic, and if almighty google play their cards right, I think we could actually see some of the “social” I have missed mostly about the social web: the openness and the old idea of internetforums but in real time. I am have been using facebook extensively for the last 5 years – but I think that google + is going to a new place for me to hang – in a more open and a less restricted way.

The idea that you can connect with everybody in a comment or in a thread and where everything becomes more directed to the community than to the actual person, because it’s more open (I mean Twitter is a mess at this – follow conversations anyone ?)

I truely hope it will make the online conversations less complicated..

I am also looking forward to see more of it all – and see what the response is going to be from the rest of the online social networks =)

let the game begin.

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