You probably all know that I had a dream when I was a kid that I would be in a rockband. But another ebook I haven’t written (yet) is the story about me running a club. I also wanted a magazine (but I have a lot of blogs now and that kind of covers the magazine dream).. When I was a teenager I spend a lot of time in “Elværket” in Elsinore, dancing to underground music (and dreaming of that dark gorgeous guy in the back of the room that turned my stomach to butterflies for 3 years without me even talking to him). However when I went to Les Foufounes Electriques I was totally sold to the underground club scene. So when Chris Heuer starting talking to me about Social Media Club and the idea behind it – I totally started jumping up and down saying “I so want to help doing this”… and now it’s here: Social Media Club Copenhagen, and Better yet Chris Heuer is going to be in Copenhagen for the launch of it (we are also doing a workshop on social media strategy which I can guarantee will blow your mind=)

So guys – we have a club now  - and it’s for everybody (I think my presence will provide the underground part)… welcome =)

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 ?

I have, during the past week, had a lot of clever conversations with cool people about the secret behind social media. Because let’s face it, what we are really after is what the viral effect could possibly do for our brand/company/NGO – and with social media it has become a bit easier – or so we believe. But going back to before social media/communities/forums etc was mainstream I tend to believe that it was easier to stand out. It was easier to rock and be cool online – because not that many else did it – or tried to do it.

But viral effects today – is something that people believe can be attained if we start engaging on social media – well it’s both true and not true. It depends on the initiatives and the creativity, and for most companies, it’s utopia. A perfect country that is completely unrealistic.

However – every minute spend on a crazy creative idea – accelerated on social media, gathering people, not only lets you into their mindspace, but creates a momentum that is continiously updated from every tweet and statusmessage.
Meaning that people who are interested enough in you to become fans or followers or whatever you’ll call them – will actually know what you’re doing – which to me is a priceless opportunity, But it’s also an empty space – it’s what you put in there that matters, and that’s the creative anarchy of my everyday life as well.

So maybe the version of viral effects that we can attain – the realistic viral effect, are the effect of people who knows you and like you and trust you enough to become fans and followers.

I would work with the know/like/trust combined with the viral effect utopia. Oh and I would proactively get to know more people – not because they are potential fans/followers/clients – but because most people are cool and fantastic and rocks =)

I stumbled across this section in a book I am reading entitled ” confessions of a public speaker” that is getting more and more fantastic by the word.

“From a planetary view, if you’re reading this book indoors, under an electric light, within walking distance of a stocked fridge or a take-out delivery menu you can afford to order from, and rarely find yourself worrying about malaria or dysentry, you are doing quite well. And if you’re still not happy, consider that compared to most of the galaxy, a place comprised of 99,9% dead, empty space, the fact that you’re even alive and in a form of a species evolved enough to read books reminding you on how rare life is, makes you astronomically fortunate. We should be happy about this, but mostly it seems we’re not”..

Adding to that:

I have a man in my life that makes me happy everyday
a daughter that is a perfect child, a huge family that loves me
I can do with my time whatever I want – and I have still managed to make a living for the last couple of years outside of the cubicle.
I am in a position where I can value time over money, because money don’t need to be important to me.
Im a self-published author!
People thinks I am cool!.. They even give me money to speak to them.
I teach people and companies how to rock – and they are loving me for it
I work on projects for clients that are really fantastic and they are changing the world
People who are changing me as a person and my life, are people I have never met – which is fantastic
I am creative and inspired in every breath in and out..

Oh and all those things like weightloss, insecurity, camilla skovgaard wedges, an mgb roadster from 1954, saving the world and end poverty – NO PROBLEM.. we are doing it everyday, and you can join us too if you set your mind to it.

Radical self love is so much my thing=)

Ps – it’s been such a long time since i’ve seen a meme in the blogosphere – if you want to tell us what you are grateful for – please do =)

I just wrote a picturesque blogpost on my danish social media blog on amino.dk, I normally don’t do this, but I think the blogpost was really cool so I decided to translate it and crosspost it here.

it’s about involvement/engaging people – which in my opinion is starting to get as much of a buzzword as social media is. To me it’s quite bizarre because I have been in this creative game for a long time, I have gone from people thinking that I was completely crazy talking about “community marketing” and “the power of online relationships” and how it could be used for business, and then now where everything I have been working at, for a while suddently is so HAWT and the talk of the town. I guess this is a post that is a warning on how you shouldn’t teach people to “involve” people in your brand. It’s a raised finger and a “be careful” because as far I am concerned, it’s taking the beauty and the substance out of engaging and involving people.

Anyway here goes:

There’s so many people that suddently talks about social media and involvement – it’s everywhere ! and even though it’s a joy to me I can also see it exploding in the face of business anytime- in a bad way. Im a person with a deep drive to make a difference in this fantastic and creative world of social marketing, where I earn my money for my cornflakes and my sugar everyday. There’s a lot of people that are wondering how you can use this  ”social media” that in my point of view does one thing and one thing only: they get you closer to people. If these people are clients, suppliers or potential clients really isn’t the point here. It’s probably a simplistic way of looking at social media, and of course there’s a lot of creme de la creme around it so it becomes sweet and cool and hawt and iphone/facebook/twitter hyped- BUT if you think about this as the only thing that social media does – then it also becomes easier to work around as a company.

Let’s say that you (as a company) is standing right in front of a potential client. You can even see in each others eyes and it looks like a person you would be interested in having in your company network, and maybe selling a product or two. because you are so close to each other, you can hear what he says, and he can hear what you say – even though if he’s not speaking directly to you – but to his network that has the same relation to this fine gentleman as you have.

Now, normally you would be expecting that it’s you that needs to open you mouth and say something smart. But what you say is something like “come and be a fan of my facebook page/follow me on twitter and get 100 dollars discount on your next purchase in my online shop or have the opportunity to win a trip to New York (or if you see it my way what it says is “please buy something – anything really”). Maybe it even is said in a way called “page suggestion” where you don’t even take our time to write a personal note to the person receiving the suggestion – I guess  you’re super busy running your business or something. The potential client is thinking “well it might not hurt to be a fan of this company that I don’t know that well”. He get’s some totally pointless updates about a company that doesn’t provide any value whatsoever to the people receiving the update. And within a span of a couple of weeks the potentiel client, now turned “fan” is not a fan anymore – he is in fact the opposite thinking that this company is wasting his time. He didn’t any value. You on the other hand, got a lot of might and glory by adding another fan to your following of empty talk and no value, Whatever that means.

And then we rewind the tape.

Again you are standing in front of this person. you can hear what he says but it’s not directed to you – it’s directed to his whole network. You are just about to open you mouth and say something that would be “good for business” – but then Henriette tells you that you need to wait and listen to what he says first. Put yourself in his place, talk to him. comment on the things that are important to him. Support him and show him of on your blog because you think he’s super cool.  Tell him why you are following him on twitter or whereever, be personal, invite him as a guest of honor for your next exclusive champagne and cupcake party. Involvement is about how you involve people. How you become a cool brand. But the involvement needs to come from you first, in a way where you give and give and give, because it’s by spoiling your network and the people who are interested/potentially interested in you and your company that the involvement that-you-want-so-bad-it-hurts actually comes up.

This closeness with your network means that you can’t use it for business as usual. You can’t be not-personal and noisy. You have to proactively involve yourself in your network, before the people in your network will involve themselves in you, your brand and your activities. You need to earn every one of your facebook page fans or twitter followers – you need to involve yourself in them and be proactive about it. In that exact way you create the involvement that is oh-my-so-hawt-right-now. They will follow and involve themselves  because you are a company that cares and provide value for them by facilitating their interest and keep on showing them to the rest of your network.

It sounds hard – and it is! – it’s different – it’s hippie-ish it’s rock n’roll and it takes A LOT of creativity. And it’s sooo much fun..

So last week I had a competition for my new product ( the one on one skype sessions) here on henrietteweber.com, it’s a part of a major restructuring of the site/blog -where the blog as I write on and as you guys know it is going to be a fragment of it.
I have an excellent advisor that has told me that I really run two companies – toothlesstiger.com (my everyday strategic and creative playground) and henrietteweber.com – the speaking, thoughts and sessions site which is my outburst on everything in the life of Henriette Weber.
Anyway the winner of the contest is: Stéphanie Klebetsanis. Stéphanie has come up with a lot of original ideas for the name for the  sessions, both here on the blog, facebook and twitter. She has won a “rock it” session with me and I am looking so much forward to rockin her online and offline identity together with her. See the sessions are build up of a lot of research and questions from me that I need answering on before I can really get down and dirty in her business, then there’s around an hour worth of talking on skype, where we kick around ideas and put them into action.

So congrats Stéphanie =) and yey for me and the rock it sessions – an excellent name with a dimensional meaning =) and yeah, I will teach you how to rock =)…

It’s been a while since I have updated you about the project. The boat will sail this summer and this blog is going to be filled with updates when the spring starts to come and we can get to work on the boat (and it’s not snowy and freezing here).. it’s a HUGE project, but it’s soo much fun and we are so motivated… I have forgotten to tell you that we found the mast and the sails for it are “looking” ok (im afraid they’ll rip apart when they are set). And a motor update: We have a sponsor for the whole of the motor into consideration (guys we need to get that rukwubben protocol working for the iphone app) so Pan can be flashy and glamourous and everything it’s not – yet =).

Also I want to thank you so much for your support in this HUGE irl startup/upcycling project – it means the world to me, and the project is so purposeful, I am looking so much forward to taking everyone of you out sailing this summer =) If you are interested in knowing more and helping out,  you can follow the project on this blog – otherwise there’s a  facebook page for Pan and we are also in the process of setting up a webpage for it (oh and if you want to help out with any of it, please let me know =).

So this morning while I was pulling my daughter on a sleigh to the kindergarden – I thought about it being time for me to change the name of the title of the blog. The old title has been there for a while now (I think ruffly  3 years ?) and looked like this. I totally recall that I was so inspired by my film studies and film history that I wanted it to be something with Avant-garde and the belle epoque. It’s something that I firmly believe we still are living – other people call it a paradigm shift – which it also is, but I think “la belle epoque” is so much more glamourous, creative and me =).

Before I had that title, this blog (which has almost always been placed at henrietteweber.com – apart from 2 months to begin with) was called “only the real is unreal” which was me totally rambling about anything. While i still do that from time to time I think it’s important to evolve the blog as much as you evolve over time…

Hence, new blog title – oh and a lot of other cool new things coming up as well.

Picture by the fantastic Lisbeth Hjort

A rose is still a rose =). Anyway this morning I decided that today was the day that I would launch my newest idea/product/way of life: Sessions. With me. Online. and in order to properly launch this I need a name. My first idea was the name “unplugged” but it doesn’t go that well with the online connection thing. I have had so many ideas, and I feel the name of the sessions is right out there, but I can’t grasp it right now. I want to make it rock n’ roll and me.

Therefore i decided to put together a (ta-da) competition where you can do two things to win an online (still unnamed) session with me. So help me find the perfect name and leave it in the comments here or where you normally connect with me.. (also if you can’t come up with anything you can still enter the competition by signing up for my newsletter (pretty creative no ?). Most of my readers has a pretty good idea of how I am/work and look from the outside..

So guys –  help me out with a name and I will eternally grateful =)

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…