UX, digital signage, Web 2.0 and stuff
I went to Shanghai to the World Expo to give a speach on how we’re developing visualizations to the facade at the DR Concerthouse and to visit the Danish Pavillion made by BIG, Martin Professional and CAVI.
Great conference and an amazing world expo.
Just a couple of images from Shanghai, The Danish Pavillion and my talk at the conference.
The four best presentations I experienced on w2e this year.
Web 2.0 Expo SF 2010: Ben Huh, “Becoming One with Internet Culture”
Great talk on the ‘new pop culture’ and subversives vs. hackers.
Web 2.0 Expo SF 2010: Tim O’Reilly, “State of the Internet Operating System”
The man himself speaks about the clash between the ‘new’ open Microsoft, Amazon’s cloud and the closed business model of Apple.
Web 2.0 Expo SF 2010: June Cohen, “Ideas Worth Spreading: TED’s Transition…”
June shows the new TED translation feature that is truly impressive. And she’s just a great presenter.
Web 2.0 Expo SF 2010: Eric Ries, “The Lean Startup: Innovation Through Experimentation. …”
A bit hyped presentation, but still with a lot of good stuff on lean startup tactics.
Just a link to the presentation on TechieTalk about the project and how we have used the Martin Gobo Projectors in the installation. http://www.techietalk.co.uk/news/message-cop-15/
And the case story from Martin Professional:
http://www.martin.com/casestory/casestory.asp?id=2124
A few pictures from the test of the COP15 illumination in a reasonable resolution.
It’s a live installation that shows animated messages from the COP15 Climate Greetings website. More pictures and video will be available next week when we go live.
Just launched a fan page for the Blue Screen surrounding the DR Concert House.
Join to get updates on new events, pictures, videos and come with your ideas to future events.
Just a couple of images of the Concerthouse illumination from last night. We’re changing the illumination everytime a major event is taking place in the Concerthouse and this time it is the Outgames’ Conference about human rights for gays and other minorities. The illumination will be on until wednesday from around 22:30 until 06:00.
Note to self: Don’t go down this road… use overlays and popups with extreme caution.
For the first time in 10 years I’ve been playing with my old high school band ‘Cosmic Ride’… and this time – it was on TV!!!
http://www.vimeo.com/3407943
Vocal: Kathrine Hesner
Bass: Lars Silberbauer
Guitarist: Mikkel Bøggild
Keys: Johannes Langkilde
Drums: Laust Orlemann
Title: ‘Black Coffee’
New York Times delivered a very good review of the Copenhagen Concerthouse. I’ve been creative project manager of the Blue Screen Video installation that is covering the whole building. So it’s really nice to see that the building has been noticed.
A short report from ‘TodaysArt08” in Hague in Holland.
What is TodaysArt?
TodaysArt is a two-day festival with electronic music, video installations, art and dance. It draws mostly a local crowd from Holland and hasn’t got the same international atmosphere as fx Sonar in Barcelona.
Was it any good?
No!
Even though we experienced a couple of highlights, it wasn’t worth the money. The basic impression of the festival is that the event has been putting too much effort in promotion instead of creating great content. And that will not bring me back to Hague next year.
A couple of things were great but the rest will quickly be forgotten and I recommend saving the money and going to Sonar in Barcelona instead.
The good stuff:
Augmented Spaces by Pablo Valbuena
The best thing were definitely the video installation ‘Augmented Spaces’ by Pablo Valbuena. It was a really impressive installation that made a great use of the extremely white Richard Myers building. Great use of the technique and the two projectors placed on the corner of the big white building.
The only problem was that the installation ran for two nights and that was way too much. Even though it was impressive, it quickly became a bit boring and it was weird that they didn’t bring more content to the festival.
And finally, the strangest instrument ever. The lightning scratching device. Fun, but once you’ve seen it – you’ve seen it.
/Lars Silberbauer
A couple of scenarios where this software from Aimersoft might be useful:
1. You are the (un)lucky owner of an Ipod and at the same time you have more than one computer and you really want to upload and download music to your Ipod from both computers.
2. Your harddisk sudddenly breaks down and leaves you with a lot of music on your Ipod – but no way to get it back onto your new harddrive and with no possibility to upload new music to your Ipod without deleting all of the music.
3. Your best friend has got a lot of cool music that you want to ‘backup’ from his Ipod onto your harddrive (remember to ask your friend if he holds all copyrights to the music before you start to download… ).
If you recognize one or more of these scenarios? Then Aimersoft Ipod Backup Software will definitely be useful.
What does it do?
Well, then name says it all – it simply just copies all you music from the Ipod onto a specified folder on your harddrive.
What does it cost?
This is the best part… IT IS FREE!!
Does Aimersoft Ipod Copy Manager have a lot of hidden spyware and keyloggers?
This is the worst part… I DON’T KNOW!!! (but for what it is worth – I don’t think so 
Anyway, it works great and you will enjoy the feeling of once againg taking control of your music and bringing it back from the greedy hands of Apple and Steve Jobs who still is using the positiv ‘Apple Brand’ and great design to harrass their customers with stupid limitations to their product.
One might wonder why Apple has gone through so much trouble to limit their Ipods in this way. It keeps reminding me of Microsoft in the old days and their connection with some kind of bad empire or something… it seems to me like… well, I can’t quite remember…
Take a look at this CNN weatherforecast of hurricane Ike from today. At 1:20 in the clip he uses the 3 dimensional multi touch display. For once it is not only eye candy but has value and gives a good impression of the hurricane. Nice use and integration of Google Maps as well.
If the embedded video doesn’t work then use this link or see the clip on Baekdal’s blog
If the embedded video doesn’t work then use this link:
Just a small video of the DR Concerthouse. It is shot from the largest crane doing a 360 degree around the Concert House. We’re right now developing the illumination of the large Blue Screen surrounding the Concert House. It will be lit up by video projectors and gobo lights. Besides this there will be around 20 video projectors placed inside the building lighting the foyer area.
So, I haven’t been posting for a couple of weeks because I’ve been extremely busy at work and at the same time had to finish my HD (Business diploma in Innovation and Management).
The Sonar Experience
But I have to share the experience I’ve had this weekend at the Sonar Festival in Barcelona. I went with a colleague to get some ideas to our the next big project which is to create a very large scale video projection solution in and on the new Jean Nouvel Concert House in Copenhagen.
How can I describe the Sonar Festival?….
In a few words: an utterly mind blowing experience!!
If you don’t take my word for it, then hear it from Miss Dubstep herself aka Mary Anne Hobbs from BBC1 in this clip from Sonar Night 2008.
And again, if you don’t think that this blond know what she is talking about then look at this clip I shot during the BBC1 Showcase at the festival Thursday night. Watch the crowd goes wild when she drops the bass line in around the middle of the clip.
The sound is of course terrible and can by no means give a real impression of the subsonic bass line which makes your nostrils spin – but the Sonar set of Mary Anne Hobbs, Flying Lotus, Shackleton and Mala is available on the BBC1 Sonar website or the direct link to the BBC1 Player. Check it out!!
What about the visuals?
There were a lot of visuals at the Sonar Night stages. I believe most of them were by Pfadfinderei which also gave a presentation at the Sonar Day Event about their work and methods for creating visuals. Great visual work with a big technical setup. The visuals worked great to enhance the musical experience. A small sample a recorded at the Sonar main stage.
The visuals were combined with a great ambient light setting created by gobo lights. This is a small clip from early in the evening when it wasn’t too crowded.
But is Sonar just a big rave party??
No, it’s so much more than that. It is SonarDay, SonarNight, SonarMatica, SonarPro, Showcases and much much more. But its too much to describe all the events taking place but take a lot at the gallery and then just sign up for next year and get the full experience. I will definitely be there!!
AMAGER LAST NIGHT: An empty building just across the street from my apartment (Oliebladsgade) was last night taken over by squatters (‘autonome’ in Danish). Here are the pictures and a small summary.
This is the building that were occupied by squatters. Notice the red banner hanging from the 2nd floor window. A few squatters were walking around outside the building at this moment.
Squatters outside the building.
The police is setting up the perimeter.
More police arrived and began clearing the area around the building.
The squatters brought their own press. Notice the two guys carrying a camera.
Sorry about the poor quality of the picture, but the squatters tried to make a quick run for it but the police had them surrounded and arrested around 6 or 7.
To policemen with yet another squatter who weren’t running fast enough.
They were put in strips (handcuffs) and placed in a line on the ground (fut-tog in Danish).
After night fall, the police went in to search the building. Notice the red banner still hangs from the window.
The search team went going through the bulding. One cop standing on 2nd floor balcony.
“4th. floor – secured!”
Top floor reached.
The search went through the entire building.
The police came out of the building carrying the red banner.
A small crowd showed up to show some support to the arrested squatters.
The police in riot gear going towards the crowd.
A smoke grenade or fireworks were used (not teargas as one of my neighbours thought) and it was all over.
Exciting news from Virgle: the new joint venture between Google and Virgin has announced their plans to build settlements on Mars!!
Nice April’s fool prank. But I really wish that it would be true! We’re getting really crowded here on Earth! But if it’s just going to be me and Richard Branson, I think I’ll just stay put here on the Blue Planet.
By the way, check out Kassei Valles. No apartments with ocean view available right now, but you are guaranteed a lot of red rocks for your rock collection.
Klaus reported the first remarkable sign on a so far unknown connection between car design and weapons. Now I’m ready to disclose yet another piece of evidence on the vehicle that will silence all critics of this claim.
This is ‘Karma’, a premium hybrid sports sedan from the Danish designer Fisker compared with a single bladed throwing knife in stainless steel.
A while ago, Jeff Han demonstrated the multitouch screen at TED. Now it’s ready for the consumer in a less impressive, but more usable trackpad version. It’s definitely the way to go! It seems to be very intuitive and suddenly the trackpad becomes more than just a ‘mouse-wannabee’. Now we just need a bigger trackpad and more actions than just manipulating the size of a picture 
And we need some really clever people to create generic trackpad-language so Mac and Microsoft and other will use the same ‘language’.
Jeff Han’s presentation at TED
Finally, after months of preparation, we have launched the digital signage system in DR’s new headquarter in Copenhagen… and it went well
From a workplace to a place to create.
That was the headline of the project from day one. DR Byen has been built by four different architects who has made four very different buildings.
Pictures from one of the four buildings in DR Byen
Our project was meant to deliver an integrated communication platform and to ‘bring the media’ inside these buildings.
As you can see on this images the last part in the project (the Concert Hall) is still more or less a construction sites (see the official site here). About three quarters of the building is finished and the digital signage project has been launch in three of the four parts of the building.
Number one: To connect the architecture with our corporate identity:
First of all, we needed to make a tighter connection between the architecture and the corporate identity.
Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) is, as the name implies, a media corporation. And although it’s an amazing piece of architecture made by 4 different companies, it is not immediately obvious that it was the home of the largest Danish media corporation, that we are delivering high quality public service content, and that we are the de facto keepers of the Danish cultural media heritage.
Number two
Second, we are experiencing an increasing competition in the media business, and the most important competitive advantage is creativity. Therefore I believe that it is absolutely vital to create a pleasant and inspiring environment for creativity to happen. Of course we can’t do an ROI calculation on how much creativity this project will generate, but I believe that we are creating the ground upon which creativity may grow more easily than usual. And that’s why we have been focusing on the integration of different kinds of visual art in the project and creating an experience instead of just an information screen.
Number 3
Finally, our customers have ever changing needs, and therefore we must able to communicate very fast inside the organization and also be able to change our communication procedures very quickly, if needed. A fully automated digital platform, as the one we have created, is a big asset in this race. In the web-2.0-user-has-the-power communication world of today it’s very important to have non-intrusive way of pushing important communication to your stakeholders, employees and customers.
First of all, the Entrance.
When you step into DR at groundlevel, this is what you see. Three large video projections (one is hidden in this image) on the white and grey concrete walls.
We’ve been working closely together with the architects to create a coherent experience of the room. The content is very abstract and meant to supplement the room with depth, dynamic and a creative atmosphere.
I think it’s important, to be very courageous and to use an abstract and symbolic content that will activate the viewer instead of communicating in the usual corp-speak discourse. We should stimulate experiences with the use of symbols and montage-effects and not with the use the very powerful media to promote corporate taglines. See for instance how Jason Eppink is transforming standard commercials to street art.
The entrance from another angle:
The foyer from one of the side entrances. Four 19″ monitors placed on a white concrete wall.
The ‘Main Street’ on the 2nd floor:
The connection between the four buildings in the ‘DR City’ is a giant glass-covered street (12*18 meters) with a bridge crossing the water channel going through the area called ‘Ørestaden’.
In this part of the building we have placed 6 46″ screens. The content consists of news from our own news-channel and news from the department of corporate communicate. Besides that, there are breakers made by young visual artists. They we’re given access to our media archives and used some of the old material to make new artistic expressions.
The ‘Main Street’ viewed from the bridge on the fourth floor.
Every screen has it’s own unique flow of information configured to the specific physical context and user behaviour.
The Meeting Center:
In our Meeting Center we’ve made an integration to MS Exchange Server. In this way our meeting booking system is automatically updated on the screens next to each meeting room. The interface is based on Flash using xml-data from Exchange generated by AgendaX.
What’s next??
Well, this is just phase one of the project. In the next 1-3 month we will be creating a lot more content to the system, for instance the weather forecast, trailers, traffic information and of course more visuals. In february we’re having the first art exhibition with the project ‘Runner’ in collaboration with Illumenart and EPI. Hopefully, we be able to extend the system to the other parts of DR in Jutland and on Bornholm and most importantly we’re learning a lot about what it takes to maintain and use this kind of communication platform.
Besides this, we’re of course looking forward to completion of the concert hall and to the exciting task of creating the digital projections in and outside the concert hall See the pictures. That’s gonna be amazing!!
I will hopefully be able to upload some video soon. It gives a better sense of the look and feel of the displays.
Please comment if you have any good ideas or experiences with digital signage solutions.
/Lars Silberbauer
Just some slides (in danish) from my presentation at the seminar on “Corporate Branding and Architecture” last week.
foredrags_resume.pdf
Politics are amazing, you gotta f….. love it.
I just stumbled across this beautiful and completely self contradictory article from the (supposed to be impartial) commentator Ralf Pittelkow.
In the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten he is analyzing the campaigns for the upcoming election and today he wrote this piece of art
If you don’t want to read the article, here’s a recap:
The Danish tv-channels are not acting fair and objective towards the current government. Instead they are (un)consciously supporting the opposition. This happens because of the fact that most journalists, according to Pittelkow, have a leftwing bias and that they cannot act professionally and separate their personal opinions and their daytime job. I won’t judge whether Pittelkow is right or wrong, because of my job at DR, but I would like to give a piece of free advice:
If you want to attack media institutions and question journalists’ ability to be professional, fair and objective, you are not helping yourself by placing the attack on the same webpage as your wife’s pro-government banner-ad. Pittelkow’s wife (and co-writer on a book about the dangers of Islam) is the current Minister of Social affairs…
Maybe I’m just being silly, but in my opinion it’s not gonna fly
Note to wanna-be credible media commentator:
- If spouse is campaigning for her political career
- Then check banner ads before questioning the motives of others….
Using the basic material from his book “Free Culture”, Lawrence Lessig is presenting his view on how to solve the conflict between end user-recreation and copyright issues.
I highly recommend the book and his TED-talk
Lawmakers! Please listen to this talk…. and read the book!!!
Just another post on the use of digital billboards in NYC.
On his website, Jason Eppink is showing how to create street-art out of the commercial content on the digital displays in the NYC subway entrances.
There is a lot of money involved in marketing on the digital displays in the New York Metro:
(estimated $274,000 for a ten-second spots every minute on each of the city’s 80 digital displays for a month). That’s a lot of money! But you’re not getting you’re moneys worth if you are broadcasting the same standard made-for-tv commercials as always.
The content should be made especially to the digital displays and be somehow adjusted and relevant to the specific physical surroundings.
Or why not hire Jason Eppink… it looks great!
Check out the interactive installation at Union Square in New York. It’s really amazing and hasm a lot of ‘wow-effect’. But I would love to play with the equipment for a couple of days and try to combine the astonishing visuals with for instance live video/data or live data from a RFID chip 
Really good slideshow about the economics of micromedia, connected consumption and the snowball effect.
Nice to see a web 2.0 slide show that’s not focused on technology but on the development of the New Media Economics.
Although 107 slides is a lot, I liked the intelligent analysis of broadcast/blockbuster media and micromedia. Enjoy
And now for something completely different:
A couple of snap shots from my holiday in Italy.
Gasexplosions from the volcano on the small Island of Stromboli. According to Wikipedia and my experience from two days on the island, it’s one of the most active volcanos in Italy. Stromboli is definetly a ‘must see’ if your on Sicily or in Naples. It’s a bit difficult to access, but definitely worth the trouble. Spend a night or two, it’s amazing!
Mount Etna:
The highest volcano in Europe. The pictures was taken near the summit, at aprox. 3000 meters above sea level. It’s a picture of the main crater, which is always smoking. The major erruptions takes place once or twice in 10 years period.
One of the larger craters, where you can see the sendiments from previous erruptions. Notice the person in the middle of the picture and the cones in the background, it’s a very large volcano!!!
The new French president Sarkozy shows up drunk to the press conference at the G8 summit.
Why do you hire communication professionals if they’re not stepping up to the occasion and preventing the president from going on stage drunk??…
Thank God it was just a microphone at a press conference and not the launch control to the nuclear missiles.
A small YouTube clip from a Tom Peters presentation. Play the clip for your boss, the next time he wants to benchmark you against the current Market Leader
Enjoy !
Just a recommendation to check out the Sultan of Slide Shows – Management Guru Tom Peter’s slides. You could argue about the design of the slides, but the message is clear and important for everyone engage in innovative and creative work. In the slide you get fx punchlines like this:
Enjoy!
Microsoft has launched their Project ‘Milan’, which is basically a large touchscreen with a new multitouch manipulation software.
I tried a similar product in New York last year (based a projector instead of a touch screen) and based om my experience it makes a big difference when you’re using a multitouch display instead of a keyboard.
If you’re using a multitouch display on a horizontal surface it’s often becomming a social experience in contrast to using a keyboard where you’re mostly interacting in a individual manipulation and interaction mode. So give me a couple of those, thanks … but could someone at Microsoft please make sure that the blue screen of death is not all over my coffee table?
It would ruin my creative mood, I’m sure.
<
Check out MoMA’s site about Doug Aitken’s ‘Sleepwalkers’. I wish I’ve seen it live in NY, but the site gives you a good impression of the video-installation.
By the way, one of the ultimate highlights of the excellent ‘Sip My Ocean’ videoexhibition at Louisiana (in Denmark) was definitely ‘Can’t Stop’ by Aitken. It’s a definitely ‘must see’ piece of videoart!
Enjoy!
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2007/aitken/
This week we’re testing large videoprojections in our new HQ in Ørestaden (Copenhagen).
The headline of the project is: “From a Place to Work to a Place to Create” and we’re trying to create an ambience of innovation, creativity and communication.
If you’re in the neighborhood drop by this week an enjoy the impressive prototype, else check out the videoclip.
What do you think?
In this video, captured on our trip to New York last year, a well known architect (no need to mention his name is showing off his new accomplishment of building the new World Trade Center number 7.
But the usability of the very fancy big screen display lets him down…
I guess the mouse will remain the preferred pointing device for most users anyway and that they’ll include a usability expert next time…
It’s true, Web 2.0 is a great thing! But, you’re not guaranteed a special place in the Great Hall of Buzz just because you call it 2.0. (and 3.0 isn’t any better
A couple of examples:
Publishing 2.0
Business 2.0
Global PR Blog Week 2.0??
Branding 2.0
I’ve just launched our DRs new corporate site: http://www.dr.dk/omdr
I did: strategy, Project Management and IA.
I think it went really well: (we got minor issues with supporting Firefox… i know…)
What do you think?
/Lars Silberbauer
Just a small advertisement
I’m speaking at the Confex Intranet Conference 2006 on November 22. My presentation will fokus on how DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation) is using intranet, enterprise search and digital signage as a tool for corporate communication.
If you want to join the conference just sign up here.
/Lars Silberbauer
Thnx to all who showed up at the REFLEKS06 event!
I think it was worth all the hard work and presented the history of DR in a completely new context and showed how our archives can be used to generate new ideas and new experiences.
It basically worked out the way I’ve imagined it and the performing artist were absolutely amazing (MHM One, Bottega Areté, VJ Samesame, DJ Djuna Barnes, Ane Trolle, Copyflex, Je M’appelle Mads).
Thanks to all the guys and girls who helped us with catering, wardrope and security!! 
Click here for more pictures from the event and to give us some feedback.
All photos by Nicolo Fasano.
/Lars Silberbauer
On friday October 13, DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation) is hosting the first public event in our brand new corporate HQ: “REFLEKS06“.
In collaboration with the visual artist group Bottega Areté, we’ve (some colleagues and myself) created an event that combines architecture, design and communication.
The concept is based on the idea that our media heritage holds value that goes way beyond the use as documentation on historic events. Instead we can use the archieves as building blocks for new experiences.
Therefore, we’ve asked a cast of young VJs and DJs to use our media archieves and the new buildings to create a creative media experience that hopefully will be as spectacular as our new buildings in “Ørestaden”.
I think it’s going to be an outstanding once in a lifetime event. And we will definitely be working like crazy the next couple of days to make it happen!
/Lars Silberbauer
Just a couple of books that I would recommend on branding, design and innovation.
Tom Kelley: Ten Faces of Innovation.
A very inspiring book on how to beat the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization. 
Tom Peters: Design
Tom Peters has the ability to get you pumped up with enthusiasm just by the way he writes and in this book the content is just as inspiring as well. This is a book with a message and you feel the commitment throughout the book.
The harsh news: THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL. The microchip will colonize all rote activities. And we will have to scramble to reinvent ourselves – as we did when we came off the farm and went into the factory, and then as we were ejected from the factory and delivered to the white collars towers.
The exciting news: THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL. The reinvented you and the reinvented me will have no choice but to scramble and add value in some meaningful way.
The Danish Brand Guru Numero Uno has created a follow up to his previous bestseller Brandchild.
Anyway, all three books are worth reading. Enjoy!
Søren reminded me that it was about time to make a follow up on my previous posting about digital signage in the Big Apple. Klaus’ Zune posting created a lot of buzz, so we thought it would be appropriate to let it be the topposting for a while.
Right now there’s a lot going on in the field of digital signage and corporate branding. Some companies are leading the way and are using digital signage in their corporate branding and are redesigning their corporate HQ in order to make the ultimate corporate branding experience. They are closing the gap between architecture and communication and creating a more consistent and holistic branding experience than I’ve ever seen before.
One of the best examples is the new Bloomberg Building in New York (created by Cesar Pelli & Associates). When you visit the building it’s obvious that the architecture and digital signage have been merged to create a unique branding experience. The building is absolutely soaked with large digital displays and the architecture is stunning. The visitor leaves the building with the impression of an innovative, creative and open minded organization. I don’t know if this is the true nature of the Bloomberg Corporation, but the building itself gives the visitor this very positive impression.
For instance take a look at this large 3 tier displays which is one of the first large displays that the visitors encounter.
I know, it’s a short clip, but it shows how Bloomberg has made a combination of a large digital display that delivers news content from Bloomberg Media, but at the same time creates an branding experience. It’s not just a news ticker, it’s so much more.
Or have a look at this elevator area. Nice huh? 
I can’t describe the entire visitor experience, you have to experience it by yourself – and that is basically my point.
The corporate headquarter is the ultimate place for making a lasting impact on your customers, the press or your stakeholders. You control all the elements and you can create an experience that will be able to push through our personal “ad filtering system”, that most people has developed by watching the estimated 86.500 tv commercials per year (Ries 2002). Instead of having your customer placed in the couch in a familiar environment, you got your customer immersed in a controlled environment, where you can create an experience by making a complete experience for all five senses. As Martin Lindstrom (Danish Branding guru) says in his book “Brand Sense”:
Brand Communication has reached a new frontier. In order to succesfully conquer future horizons, brands will have to find ways to break the 2-D impasse and appeal to the three neglegted senses. Superb picture quality won’t do it. Rather we should look to embrace all five senses in order to create a foundation for future brand strategies.
You cannot send out a press release, make an online ad, create a television commercial or making a blog posting that will be able to make the same impact as the well designed corporate branding experience in your HQ. I know that not all your customers will come and visit you, but you will be able to make a lasting impact on those who does. Bloomberg has definitely showed the way by using digital signage and architecture to communicate corporate values and goals.
Take a look the next time you’re in New York, it’s really really cool.
First of all, no one should be in any doubt that I believe that blogging and wikis can be used as an extremely powerful tool for corporate communication, but this demands a RADICAL change in the state of mind of most communication professionals. You cannot just add blogs or wikis to your existing communication platform without taking into account that this is just not another new tool, this is a completely new way of communicating. If you do not realize this difference, then your corporate blogging initiative is not gonna fly. To succeed, you need to rethink your communication/knowledge management strategy and it’s not done by:
“Lets do some corporate blogging – that will definitely put us right up there with the big shots in the Fortune 500 (and if not, we’ll add a Wiki, that’ll definitely do it).
You need to change! By now, devoted bloggers have praised and glorified this new medium for a couple of years and even the most well defended stronghold of corporate communication have sensed that something is happening outside side of the outer defenses. You can no longer attend a serious seminar about corporate communication without stumbling over talks on how corporate blogging will revolutionize business communication and of course the general worshipping of wikis as the greatest thing since Post It Notes.
More and more companies are showing interest in adding blogging and wiki-tools to their ever increasing portfolio of communication tools. And it’s just great? or is it??…
In my opinion, there is still a huge challenge to overcome and we’re not their yet. In fact we’re not even close!
A couple of years ago the “MUST HAVE” of communication professionals and one of the most popular subjects on communication/intranet conferences was portals and personalization. Did that really help us? Did the promised benefits arrive or have we just silently agreed on that we’ll leave the past alone and move on??
Now we have some new exciting “MUST HAVE” tools and that is the problem in a nutshell. Most communication professionals are just not getting it, they are thinking: “Cool, a new cheap digital publication thingy”. They should be thinking: “Amazing, the world of communication has changed, I must change before I’m obsolete”.
The new tools will not help and will not improve the way your business works if you don’t change your mindset. YOU need to understand that if YOU want blogging to create value for your business, YOU need to know how and YOU need to change accordingly.
Blogging is just not a thing you put on a server or get hosted somewhere in India. Blogging is a strategic decision about your corporate culture and it needs to be aligned with your overall corporate strategy and integrated in your company’s knowledge/information management strategy.
And most importantly – If you don’t feel it, if you don’t understand the media and if your not ready to bet your job on your corporate blogging initiative, you’re not ready for it.
Just returned to Copenhagen from a research trip to New York. We’ve been researching on trends and developments in the Digital Signage Business. Hopefully I’ll be able to share some of my recently gained insights in the next couple of postings.
First of all – The Research Team:
From the left:
Morten Tue Ankjær (Technical Project Manager)
Lars Silberbauer (Project Manager – Communication)
Nilo Kuhlmann Hansen (Project Manager – Architecture).
We’ve spend four busy days in meetings and on field research and the basic conclusion is that a lot is happening, both in content creation, system developtment and business models.
In the next couple of posting I’ll try to some up on the following:
1. Digital Signage and corporate branding
2. New trends in content developtment
3. Business Models and increasing revenue
4. Developments on the market for digital signage solutions.
I’ll be back!
In these World Cup Times we’ve also got some quick soccer results from the clash between the media-titans in Denmark: DR and TV2.
We played on the National Arena “Parken” and TV2 was lucky to get away with af 3-2 win.
Three of the players:
From the left: Lars Silberbauer (Left wing), Casper Bech (Defense) and Kenneth Plummer- (Right wing and General Director).
So guys, You’re ready to launch your new fantastic ubiquitous cross-media cutting-edge Web 3.0 software solution which, without any doubt, will bring you instant succes, fame and fortune.
All there’s left to do, is to launch a major marketing campaign in the Big Apple. If you can make it here, you can make it everywhere.. remember??
Here are the numbers:
The “Noobie” Campaign (no guarantee of instant succes, fame and fortune)
- Starbucks coffee sleeves: estimated 12 to 14 cents each.
- Street hawking with megaphones: $36 per hour.
- Ads on urinals and on the back of stall doors: $100 to $125.
The Medium Campaign (no guarantee of succes, but you will have a lot of fun)
- Airplanes: $8,500 per flight for skywriting; $1,000 per flight for flying a banner.
- Spotlight or projection on a building: $4,500 and up per night.
- Mobile billboard trucks: $5,000 per 50-hour week.
The “Big Spender” Campaign (guarantee of some buzz) 
- Digital subway-entrance ads: $274,000 for six ten-second spots every minute on each of New York’s 80 digital displays.
- New York Marathon naming rights: About $2-3 million per year.
- Naming rights to the new Jets-Giants stadium: at least a $12 million onetime cost.
What are you waiting for? Go for it! (and remember to invite me to the big opening at the New Stadium).
Tomorrow is a special day for me (Lars Silberbauer) and my colleagues in Corporate Communications at DR.
Because tomorrow we’re leaving our present HQ (Also described as a “maximum security prison” by some Dutch visitors) and we’re moving into our new HQ.
I don’t like the corporate punch line: “The New Multimedia Powerhouse” – sounds to me like the promotion of a new pinball machine, but anyway I think it’s gonna be awesome.
This is the “Maximum security prison” we’re leaving.
And this is our new HQ (“the New Multimedia Pinball Powerhouse Machine”). As one might notice – even the weather is better at our new place .
Check out the impressive specs, the live webcam and a lot more on DR’s website: http://www.dr.dk/drbyen/english/
Apparently Microsoft doesn’t own a lot of bandwidth or else they’re really careful about how they spend it. The Mix06 presentations are online (and some are actually quite good), but next time Microsoft shouldn’t be so cheap on the bandwidth.
And a little free piece of advice to Microsoft: If your download speed and streaming servers suck, then you shouldn’t place the “Hosted by Microsoft” logo everywhere on the site
If you have a lot of patience, then enjoy the presentations here.
The BBC has launched a new site to help the ignorant masses use RSS (BBC Feed Factory).
That’s great – nice work guys, but are your graphic designers and information architect on crack?
What have you done with the icons and your labeling?
I won’t comment on the graphics, you’ve probably been forced by a branding guide, but it is obvious that you don’t practice the ancient art of labeling. You’ve made a category called “Talk and Interact” and one called “Knowledge”. How can that describe a collection of RSS feeds???
Please, come on guys – you can do better than that!
If you want to help people find RSS feeds, make a labeling that makes sense!
CNN Money senior writer Paul R. La Monica reports the rising interest in billboards – and more importanty – digital billboards.
Lamar and Clear Channel outdoor are highlighted in the article.
Here’s an excerpt:
For one, billboards, unlike other “older” forms of media, have not faced the same pressure from the Internet, iPods, satellite radio, TiVo and other technology. When you’re driving on a highway, the only way to not see a billboard is to not look out your windshield. Needless to say, that’s not a good idea.
“Technology helps people avoid other advertisements, but we are the one unavoidable media. There is no mute button, no off switch. You can’t change the channel. We’re there,” said Paul Meyer, the global president of Clear Channel outdoor.
In fact, technology is actually something that could help Clear Channel Outdoor and Lamar in the near future. Both companies are testing digital billboards, LCD screens that can change advertisements instantaneously through Internet connections.
That’s a far cry from the old vinyl billboards that only get changed every couple of weeks (or sometime months). “For our industry, technology is no longer a threat, it’s just an ally. Digital displays eliminate the biggest disadvantage to outdoor right now, which is that we are a relatively slower acting cumbersome media,” Meyer said. “With digital signage, there will be no limitations on how often and when advertisers
change their ads.”
Full article here.
Klaus’ Friendfeed
