The day before yesterday it happened again. I received an email that just oozed with “no pay for a lot of work”. It didn’t mention it exactly, but the mail wanted me to do a speaking gig and they said that it was “just 20-30 mins” that I needed to talk about social web strategies in front of people.

Now, a couple of years ago, I made a promise to myself that I didn’t wanted to work for free for people. Not even if it just is “20-30 mins” because it’s not. Here’s my working process when it comes to speaking gigs:

1 – I need to make sure that I deliver real value, and my ambitions drives me to work really hard to give something practical and genuine
2- I need to use a couple of hours to practice, because I want to be badass when I do speaking gigs and workshops.
3- Then I need to make it looks nice and communicate well, oh and use so much time and peace on getting grounded and get in the mood for delivering things on stage.

So you’re not just asking me for 20-30 mins for free, you’re asking me for a days work. I can achieve a lot in a day.

Anyway, when I get a request like this, that reads “free work” I always write a nice email back saying, “sure I would love to help you guys out – how much is your budget ?”

And this is where the phonecall comes from the “client” (if I can call them that), saying that they’re putting this together volunteerily and they can’t exactly pay me more than a couple of bottles of wine (Do you know how many bottles of wine I need before I feel like I’m payed for my work?)

This lady on the phone said that I should look at this “gig” as charity. Because I should be doing it in support of the entrepreneurs. And that was when I got really upset, because if there’s something I do, day in and day out, then it is to support the entrepreneurs. Fuck that, I got really offended. I know she’s probably just had a look on my speaker profile, ans she probably had no idea that she was talking to an entrepreneur supporteur extraordinaire=)
Anyway I just told her no, and that I didn’t work for free (well sometimes I actually do, but then it’s because I can see a reason to do it, like when the guys from Ted.com are calling me in a month or two – I probably won’t say that they need to pay me (because that would be plain stupid – but when I think about it, it would also be completely badass to turn ted.com down -LOL.))

I only do free work if I can see that the value for me doing it, is larger than the money they would be paying me.

But when I think of it, the reason I don’t want to do it, is that it becomes damaging to my brand if I do. People get the wrong perception of me on stage, because if I am not payed, then I know myself enough to know, that I wouldn’t prioritize it – because it’s a free gig.
And if I don’t prioritize it, I don’t feel good about it, and if I don’t feel good about it – I suck on stage. I mean do you know how much a person can screw up on stage in 20-30 mins? plus the audience is normally merciless if you start screwing up.

A thing I think that conference organizers could do, to get people to talk at their events for free, would be to get permission from all the participants that the speakers could mail them afterwards, and thereby enlarge the speakers database. Or they could make the speakers into sponsors instead. Actually stating they are doing it for free. But it’s not visible, it never is. It’s very hush hush, and I think that’s a problem. So make it visible that your speakers are working for free! if they are.

So thank you people for thinking I Rock – but you can’t get me to do things for free.

Have a great weekend =)

Hear ye hear ye social businesses!

On the last day of January (31st) Im doing a social business media masterclass together with Tania Ellis. I think it’s essential to start working with Tania, because she’s the brightest and coolest lady in CSR in Denmark – and Im sure it’s going to be a blast. She even has a book in english out (entitled “the new pioneers” – and you should all buy it – it’s that good =). I can both see myself on the csr side (having been a blogger for the now closed “green girls global” blog) and on the social media side of things. Reduce, recycle and reuse means a lot to me personally, and one of my personal ambitions is to make my old house into one that gives more back to the community than it takes..

In my company, I work with “rethink” (business unusual) and retweet (involvement and viral effects) . It’s a wonderful way of changing the world and giving great people and great visions and missions more air under their wings.

And I literally think that good/human/cool companies are the winners in the social media game of love – because they do something larger than life that people can relate to. and that’s the important part in all of this: the people – both inside the companies but also outside of them. So if you’re doing something larger than life as a company (as a lot of social businesses they do) I think you are going to have to focus other places and maybe have a more creative and it might be a bit easier for you to get peoples involvement, because a lot of the time you already have the attention of your surroundings because you already rock in so many ways… I mean you’re saving parts of the world, day by day right ? you’re making a difference. A lot of companies out there, first have to figure out if they want to make a difference or not. You already have the identity figured out, now we’re just going to accelerate it =)

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 !

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 ?

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

at Next09, Hamburg 5th and 6th of may, I am tranforming my “why every company should be a rock band” ebook into a new speech – the overall theme of the conference is shared economy, but I will be talking about shared branding and where it is that rockbandism is actually helping you a whole lot with your branding. I would maybe even go as far as saying that rockbandism is the precondition for good branding these days. I have been thinking a lot about how you share your brand, mainly I think it’s interesting who you want to share it with ?

- It could be your customers, potentiel customers and the market out there, but it could also be your suppliers and your stakeholders. I work with social branding everyday where you actually talk about what return you get from involving your customers in your company (and there’s a whole lot of strategic work involved in this question, because why on earth would people involve themselves in your company ? – ta da – rockbandism is why.

And a part of rockbandism is actually to share your brand inwards – aka. making sure your company is authentic and a rockband. If you are a company like innocent drinks it’s would take a huge blow to your authenticity if somebody found out that you actually shipped your goods around the world with planes. (They don’t – it’s not an option for the logistic managers at innocent drinks, planes are out of the question).

So if you really want people to involve themselves in your rockband – you need to share your brand inwards before you share it outwards. Other approaches than that would be a shame.

Another thing that you could share is the management of your brand, where you lead the brand and put the management and decisionmaking out to the users, but again, how do make sure that people actually wants to manage your brand ?

hm. more to come.

ps. crossposted at Toothless Tiger

Picture from flickr by Khe

There’s something I really hate as an entrepreneur and as women who runs a business – phonecalls. Not just the chatty cool conversations you have with people you have already met and like and stuff, but the ones with people you have never even seen in person. Outbound or inbound it doesn’t matter – if it’s not arranged in a mail or something I hate them.

The other day I had a guy calling me up on the phone, telling me that he wanted to arrange a social media marketing speech at the executive network he was employed in. That’s something that makes me really happy normally because I love speaking and I am darn passionate about what I do – so thumbs up.

BUT as the conversation progressed, I found out that

1. it was in the other end of the country and

2. they didn’t want to pay me to actually do the speech.

Hm. They would pay for  travelling cost. Hm hm. I decided to tell the guy nicely that I like to get payed for what I do, and since I have a lot of clients paying for speeches, I would really think I was freeloading on them, because they actually pay me to work. The problem was that this was for a business that charged somewhere between 10.000 kr and 16.000 kr for a yearly membersship, and they had no intention of paying me. It wasn’t an NGO, it wasn’t a good cause or an excellent conference, this was hard work.

Today something like the same happened again, which I also politely declined and told the women on the phone that I didn’t work for free.

I don’t work for free. I think the free phoners are rude people who has no respect for me or my work.

Don’t call me if you want me to do stuff for free. hmpf.

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.

I have volunteered to do marketing for blogprisen.dk - and we did an “employee meeting as a podcast on blogmagasinet.dk“ - it was really fun and Rasmus did a good job editing the podcast from 1.5 hours to 20 mins. So go listen (it’s in danish)

it’s not really within any subject – but today I was headhuntet for a job at… my competitors!

Even though I would claim that I am overqualified I wouldn’t even get to the interview.

Ohh and this quote has been twisting and turning in my head for the last couple of days:

We are going to be known as the generation who was having a teaparty close to a natural disaster, and all we had in our minds was and if the table cloth was a damask”.
Carsten Jensen, “Information” last saturday…

I am talking about transitional web apps at mobile 2.0 on thursday at FDIH together with Karin Høgh and Morten Bay.

DO show up, it’s going to be a blast!