Henriette Weber

Today I am heading down to Roskilde Festival – a place I have visited at every opportunity I’ve had since 1997. Anyway this year there’s a lot of connectedness tools going on down there (foursquare camp, tweetups etc.) and I will attend as much as it as I can.  It’s awesome sitting here looking on twitter at the #rf10 tag and see what people are doing down there – I can’t wait to participate myself.

At Roskilde Festival 2007 I worked with a client of mine Jaiku.com – one of my favorite webapps of all time (and I may still add, in my opinion used to be superior to twitter as a microblogging tool), and one of my favorite clients of all time. We tried to set up to use Jaiku.com as a part of the “roskilde community” site (before it was integrated in the overall site=). I think we where around 30 people using jaiku at Roskilde 2007. It was good fun.  I remember @shevy and @aj42 and @wendelboe and I tried to plan a meetup – it was really hard though because the jaiku client drained our phones of batteries.

This year – three years down the line, things have changed and the apps are everywhere – the online/offline relations are booming and it’s a joy for me to see -  My only problem is that if I bring my iphone I will run out of batteries in a day or two. I am thinking about bringing a really old nokia instead – but then I will miss out on all the geolocated fun.

It seems like the collective education of the crowd when it comes to social apps has come so far, where as in my camp 3 years ago people where sitting and asking if I was a reporter or why I was fiddling with the phone all the time. When I said that I was updating the internet they looked puzzled to say the least. Today I don’t think anyone will ask that question. It’s a part of people’s behaviour nowadays. Even though some of it are slightly geeky, the 3 people who asked me questions about “updating the internet” will probably poke a person or two on facebook or send a tweet.

It’s amazing how fast the collective education of the crowd has gone. I wonder where we will be in 3 years =)

by the way – this blog is probably going to be quiet while I am down there – I will however upload pictures to my flickr, so you can have your daily share of me (if you miss me too much=)

I was at a Marina and the Diamonds concert yesterday. It was a mixed experience but overall it was really good inspiration – anyway she did a cover version of starstrukk at the concert that I previously listened to online.

it goes a littl’ something like this:

Now – until today, I haven’t heard the “real” version and I was awestruck at how different it where. It’s not my type of song at all.

I think the cover version by Marina is so much better. Sometimes songs and content in general can be interpreted differently by who’s saying it and how they have added their own point of view. What are you waiting for ?

Yesterday was a busy day for me – I had the pleasure of working with Chris Heuer on a workshop (strongly recommendable for anyone who wants to get your fingers into the world of social media and not just leave a workshop with a bunch of casestudies and a feeling of “this is something we need to do”. – Chris rocks in a workshop format=)

But the real highlight of the day was the Social Media Club Copenhagen launchparty. We where about 50 people who met up in Rummet at Republikken set out to find the vision of the Social Media Club Copenhagen. We where so lucky to have Karin Dam Nordlund with us as a facilitator who made us work real hard in the concept of sharing, networks and vision for the club. After looking at about 300 post it notes this morning and the visions we made last night I have a good idea on what the vision for the social media club copenhagen will be, but it’s not final. it’s summed up in the three words “best” + “next”+ “practice” and we still need to find a way to put them into an actual vision. Social Media Club Copenhagenis going to be an association that is non-commercial and where people can trust each other and where they respect each others ideas. We’re going to focus on the physical meetings – but it’s not going to be a social gathering of likeminded people, it’s going to be a place where we explore, where we play and where we grow.

Best: being inspired by what’s the best stuff out there – what works and especially what doesn’t. We are interested in hearing the experiences whether they are some you’ve done in the past or they are more “real time” and something you’re currently struggling with. What kind of tools? What kind of values?

Next: what’s next ? both on a tendency level, but also on a more personal basis – what’s the next thing I need to look at within social media from where I stand and what I want from the world ?

Practice: people want to find out how stuff work – there’s an urge to figure this out and play this out together.

Finally it’s my hope that Social Media Club Copenhagen will be something more like a “business cluster” where people from different companies share their experiences and by that way make everyone smarter and get input from.

IF you want to find out what’s happening in the Social Media Club Copenhagen - do so in the facebook group here

finally I want to thank everyone who took time to contribute. Thank you for sharing your input. Also I am so lucky that we are a team of 8 who will work with this and get it going, If you have any input or you want to help setting it up, please tell me =). Also a special giant thank you to Chris for helping us out and being with us on the launch=)

oh and here are the notes from the workshop – it’s a looong list of social networks in DK, thoughts on sharing and thoughts on the vision… it’s in half danish/half english… but still extremely valuable knowledge for the social media space in DK…

values of sharing:

i feel good when i can share and help someone with a problem in prgramming that I know of and the opposite

Network
Knowledge
Transparency
Friends
Creativity
Comes back to you
Trendy
Collaboration
exposure to new ideas
creating relationships
verification
Education
(product)innovation
everyone gets greater value
easy proces of learning
growing trust amongst people
innovation kan ske
finde nye fællesskaber
viden
nye forbindelser
nye løsninger
mindre hierariker
viden
øget fællesskab
inspiration
help
multiplication of knowledge
learning from others mistakes
non-commercial
generousity
action
værdi give/modtage
synergi effekt
få nye ideer
udvikle andre
nedskriver tnaker
udnytte den fælles akkumulerede viden i et givent netværk
kreativitet/positivitet
energi
common gain benefit
2+2 = i2
edumokation
feel good
$
viden finder vej til den som har brug for den..
empowerment
skaber taknemmelighed
awareness/sharing
personlige værdier
egobehov
lære fra sig
få ny viden
finde partnere
merværdi
værktøjer
netværk
real time cases
a post tech/geek sm. group
sm. featured case
return on internet investment
state of the art
best practice
education: transfer of knowledge access to knowledge
givers gain
expanding knowledge
publising
openness
close one door 3 more will open

social network dk:

kvindelige virksomhedsledere
erhvervskvinder
owit
karrierekvinder
BNI
drupal camp
poets and plumbers
reboot
new media days
linkedin
professionelle brugere af sociale medier
twitter
k-forum
wordpress camp
webgirls meetings
øresund academy
geekgirl meetup
dansk dynamit (online)
blogger dinners
85broads
sams (sammenslutningen af mediestuderende)
mediekvinderne
social media camp
dansk kommunikationsforening
girl geek dinner
ted x copenhagen
dona
k-bar
professionelle brugere af sociale netværk
geekdinner
dabgo
bni
creative pros in copenhagen
danske mediefolk på google wave
bølgen
a small world
nordic meetup
barcamp
twestival
wikiwednesday
likemind
geekdinner
aminotastic
coworking
copenhagen startup weekend
art day out
mobile moday
k-forum
cbs arto
mr. green
lama
kaospiloterne
århus school of business
iværksætteriet@fb
copenhagenairporthostel
twedagsbar
last friday

vision:

no more metatalk
failing casestudies
creating a public spare for sharing/creating/not just a social gathering
respect other peoples ideas
feedback collaboration and input
practical how-to’s: how to use twitter
thrust/honest/critical/constructive

1 årligt event for os der driver innovation
integration af erhvervsliv/virksomheder
accessible info
- possible actions
-best practices
-strøm af ny brugbar viden
-sprede indsatsen

needs identity
problems/dreams
Partnership
integration
-consultant
-client
- profit ?
non-profit
integrating partnerhsip

en platform

sharing is caring – why ?
create skills
development and growth

So a couple of nights ago I decided to do it – give the pressrelease and the date of the launch of the book to the public. danish press release here and google translation of press release here. It feels great to launch and give the date of when you can get the book in the bookstores (august 31st 2009) still there is a lot of stuff PR and marketing wise that needs to be done (oh and the logistics=).

I think it’s been a great ride, but it’s been a tough baby to bear, I guess I knew I had to do it on my own when my ex-editor told me that she didn’t think it was time for me to publish a book, i should be doing other stuff. Now one of the first triggers to get me going is when people tell me what I can and what I can’t do, I just knew that I had to get this book out of my system – and right away.

The book to me is something that’s missing out there. Not focusing on the social tools (to me they are 10% of social marketing and branding), not to focus on why you need to do it, but simply to give people an overview on what it takes (and it takes a bit) and how they create business unusual – the type of business I find is most suited for what I call the “anarchistic ways of the internet”. So it’s been a fun progress – it has a bit of everything I have been working on for the last couple of years – rockbandism, tools, identity, revolutions, movement, marketing, branding – stuff like that.

The best that I have taken with me from writing this book is the process of it. It was hard work (not just hard- but darn hard), and yet I still know what my next book will be about, I have even started to structure it in my mind, which is scary because I have promised myself that I need to take care of myself after this first insane project.

I have a saying that I can only take care of one baby at the time – now up is my health (I need to loose weight and these days I am loosing weight as we speak =), next up I am gonna ruin my weightloss by having another real baby. (Princess P is 5 now and tired of not having any siblings), heck I might even do 2 babies in a row (aka. weightloss probably pretty much ruined).

Also if you want to know more about the bookwriting process – I did a summary a couple of weeks ago

There’s gonna be a booklaunchparty on the 28th of August where all of the internet is invited.. So I hope to see you there.. be-fan the book at facebook if you want to know more.

ps. crossposted on toothlesstiger.com

Today I write history – well a little bit of my own history that calls for champagne, dancing and a bunch of laughter- I uploaded the free introduction to my book called “return on involvement – how to use the social web to create business unusual” (in danish only so far – sorry non-danishspeaking people). The book in itself is going to be available for purchase medio june. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the process of writing this sucker =). It started out in January 2008 where I decided that I needed to put all my thoughts on the social web and business down in a structured format – which became known in my head as “the book”.

When the first draft of the book was finished – A danish publising house contacted me because they where curious about the book. We arranged for a meeting, and after a couple of meetings – they decided they wanted to publish it – i was exstatic for a while but my smile soon faded. The book they wanted my book to be, where not the book that I had written.
they wanted a how-to book on social tools
I wanted to write a book about why social tools are necessary and what effect they can have on business – which meant no deal, they called it off first, but I am glad they did today.

A couple of days after I decided to do my own publishing house – Toothless Tiger Press , mainly because I could not see what my former publisher could provide me with at high cost, that I could buy myself and with a greater gain in the end. I don’t really think we are going to be having that many big publishing houses anymore – to me, what I have encountered that a publishing house does – doesn’t really have a place in todays world of connectedness on the internet. You have to transform and you have to transform big time. =) Toothless Tiger Press has been used as a platform for my own (only) free ebook on rockbandism so far.

In January I decided to add two more chapters to the book, in february the first round of editing started, march 2nd round of editing and in April my hands where off the manuscript and I could leave it in the hands of my excellent editor for the 3rd round of editing. These days it’s having it’s final layout, a last round of editing and then it hits the bookstores in Denmark. Meanwhile I have hired someone to translate it all to english – so you english speaking people won’t wait long ( we are talking mid-september or someting here)..

The absolutely hardest part for me, has been to let go of the book. In this area of work you can continue to work on it forever and ever. It was my wonderful husband who told me that if I didn’t stop adding stuff to this book he would go insane – and I really couldn’t have that on my shoulders. I am one of those people who are so terribly afraid of being un-original and not-that-genuine at all. So I really wanted to do my best. I think it has it – a bit of everything that I believe to be important, combined with a couple of why? how-to’s and best practice.

I hope you will all enjoy it when it launches both in danish and english !

I can’t sit still these days – so I have decided to do another event within the field of social media : Socialmediacamp Copenhagen.

Socialmediacamp Copenhagen is an un-conference that seeks to research and teach people about social media: blogs, podcasts, video, social networks, online communities and transitional web apps. An un-conference is a conference/workshop-y format where all the participants is prepared to participate in the camp in different ways. Putted another way, you have to prepare something that you’re passionate about that could occupy the other participants for a minimum of 30 minute

Who is it for ?

Basically everyone can participate in Socialmediacamp Copenhagen, no matter if you are a super social media user, an expert or a newbie. If you have any interest in Social Media Socialmediacamp Copenhagen is the place to be. So take a look at it, and sign up.

ps. Crossposted on Toothless Tiger.com

I had an out-of-the-body-AHA-experience this morning. As a marketer, you have always been taught that you need to target your marketing to a targetgroup. In social marketing you focus much more on the single user instead of a “group”, and you don’t target a group anymore, because the chance that you actually are going to shoot and hit this target group is relatively small. If you have to target your marketing, target a lifestyle.

Seriously find out what lifestyle you want to be a part of, and become a part of it. Your product isn’t made for people between 14 and 25, it’s made for people between 14 and 25 that listens to depeche mode and has the ambition of becoming the no. 1 chef in the world. We’re so much more fragmented than a target group. If we think you’re cool and we identify ourselves with you – you got a date, awareness or other of those old school mumbo jumbo marketing words that is becoming more and exstinct as we speak.

Marketing has always stroke me as odd. It still does. It’s getting much much better though =)

So I am doing a LOT of talking these days about social media marketing. Which in it’s essence isn’t really marketing, but it’s something on the combination of creativity and people. Actually it’s using a brand creatively to involving people in the brand. It’s good fun, I like it. Now I don’t want to come across as an old hag (well maybe Im beginning to be =). But to me, the medias in itself aren’t interesting. It’s what they can facilitate when they are used creatively that’s the really interesting part – not the media, the network, the effect of bringing people together around objects and brands they want to be involved in. Now that’s how I define social media marketing. And that’s what defines “social” in social objects, in social marketing, and in social media.

That’s what turns me on babies =)

You don’t do anything for people by if you open a twitter account, a facebook page, a blog, or what-have-you. You provide value for people if you can find the magic key to the social network and the involvement of the users. the magic key is coolness (do I dare to say rockbandism) and substance in your brand. Little pointers people can relate too and find fantastic =)

that’s all.

I should have seen it coming long before I started using my “last-five-years-handle”: Redsoda – that one day I would not be known online as Redsoda anymore, but I would be known as my real name. There’s an increasing ammount of communities that really wants to know who you are – IRL and thereby diminishing the border between online and offline even further. If you google yourself, a lot of the stuff coming up is from social media that you are actively using.
I work everyday with online identity and social branding, and a lot of clients asks me to use my social network as a part of the branding and marketing strategy, which I refuse – unless it’s a steady employment or something that I am associated with, not only being freelance. The reason I refuse is because, that if I do that, I would become apart of the brand and marketing strategy and probably annoy my network to hell =)

Sometimes I want to be anonymous redsoda – whoever she is. I am missing a private space – where people can’t find out who I am.
I could just choose a new handle and a new identity, still at some point, people would find out that I was indeed Henriette Weber.
I might just feel nostalgic, but I am starting to miss the online anonymity where I don’t have to be anybody except for a handle.

SXSW has been great. Yesterday Bruce Sterling took the stage and did a keynote – and it was an absolutely amazing keynote. He also mentioned the “global microbrand” a term that Hugh Macleod has been discussing for a couple of years now.

Global Microbrands are or companies without space and time, that everybody know of, in small fragments of a much bigger industry. So people behind these microbrands are extremely valuable speakers at conferences, advisors etc.

I have actually been thinking about it for a while – I love my work. I love running Toothless Tiger, but sometimes it seems like I don’t “do” anything. I talk. I tell people what to do to make things work on the web. My clients think I rock.

Yesterday I even caught myself considering a really great joboffer for a fulltime job. Something I don’t do normally.

I think that even though I like the might and glory of being somewhat of a global microbrand (I don’t see myself as a global microbrand – im probably a mutation of it =) I really want to do something. Because in my head it feels like Im not doing anything. I don’t work. I talk. I write. I help people do kickass projects. But I don’t have a project of my own that I can take to webheaven, a project that is useful for other people and that I have time to work on.

My project is so far going to involve geekculture, sustainability, action instead of talking and is going to be based on community and the now-open-sourced-former-fantastic-rockstar-client jaiku.com. I think I might toy around with it since even though with all this twittering, my heart still belongs to jaiku. Maybe I’ll even do two projects. A geekculture one and a actionpacked sustainable community based on Jaiku.

I dunno yet. In my honest opinion Jaiku is the best functional microblogging service out there. It’s just not being developed anymore and I want to change that.