Young Global Leaders

The World Economic Forum has published a list (pdf) with 230 young global leaders, Finland is represented by Misiter of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Stubb. The list includes also a good bunch of people from tech industry, like Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg. Times like these need new brains and new leaders, new ideas and new perspectives, and radical ideas. Just like Obama understood, we need change, let it be on a societal, political, economical or environmental level. The recession we are facing now gives us the opportunity to correct things which went out of hand. This fact is also true for advertising, where the industry is transforming fast after decades of standing still. Go, young global leaders, go!

ps/ 

Try to keep the rebel in you! By fighting for change there is a danger to assimilate to status quo pretty fast…

Read the press release here

The Light of Snow

Two weeks ago Stockholm Furniture Fair closed doors, time to take a resumé for my work with Finland’s leading furniture producer Martela. The theme we created for the fair was ’The Light of Snow’, for obvious reasons: One of the product innovations Martela presented at the fair was ’The Tree W’, a light and space devider designed by Finnish design legend Prof. Eero Aarnio, the fair stand, designed by Finnish architect group Valvomo, was shining in total white while Stockholm was covered by a beautiful snow blanket. Or in other words: ’The Light of Snow’. Next to the theme we developed invitation materials, a press kit and the brochure, naturally all in simple and clear white.

Typoberlin 2009 – Space

Over the recent years the ’Typo’ in Berlin has grown to be one of the most important international conferences on typography and graphic design. Next to the big names from the design industry the conference offers unique Berlin atmosphere and relaxed networking possibilities. Now the theme of the 2009 conference has been unveiled: SPACE. The conference dates are 21st - 23rd of May, and until 29th of February you can register with a 100 euros discount. Students get the unique chance to register to the conference for 250 euros until 29th, after that the registration fee is 645 euros for everyone. I really like the conference and encourage everybody to give it a go.

Why I am part of a global trendspotting network

The Palmerston Group has set up a global trendspotting network operated via twitter. The system is ’live’ for a couple of days now, and the idea is to let people report about the latest trends, movements, atmospheres etc. from their homebase. I was asked to do the reporting from Helsinki, and as I benefit from tweets around the globe and as I like to promote Helsinki and Finland I am happy to do the job. As twitter allows you just 140 characters, the project is not very time consuming. My personal tweets are still available on this blog (in the box on the right) or on twitter, @tobiaswacker. For Helsinki tweets follow the link below.

Follow Helsinki trend tweets from here

No idea what I am talking about? Read more about twitter here

Microsoft forever

Ok, I really don't like Microsoft, who does. Anyhow, now that the Mobile World Congress is going strong in Barcelona, I browse through news, watch press conferences etc. Microsoft launched a new operating system for mobile devices, Windows mobile 6.5, and called it Windows phone. Of course it is the same crap than Windows 6.1 mobile operating system, just some pimped surface. I thought that they should have learned something out of the Windows Vista disaster, but they didn't. But now to the point: I wanted to see the MS press conference, and they want me to download their stupid silverlight plugin, otherwise I can’t see the press conference. Never, never I will download this lousy flash imitation. Never. Microsoft, your power is vanishing, as you refuse to learn anything from the past. Good bye. 

ps/ 

Pumping hundreds of millions in Crispin Porter & Bogusky advertising doesn't help. Not a bit. You Redmond guys will never be cool. 

Recession is fun

In media the recession is described as something extremely negative, and after thinking about it for a good while I take a contrary position. So, here my reasons why I like the recession: 1) We get rid of stuff we don’t need and want, like bad quality cars ruining the environment, greedy bankers with ridiculous salaries, extremely high consumption of natural resources, too many airlines, impossible to pay real estate prices and stupid women- and car magazines. 2) With the physical and mental ressources having set free in this process, people start to be creative again, doing things they want and they believe in, without trying to protect status quo. Naturally there is a downside in the recession, people who lost their jobs and have to struggle to make a living. I would support more social security for these people, accept higher taxes. If we care more for each other and support small businesses we can turn the recession in something fun.

Berlinale

The 59th Berlin Film Festival Berlinale just closed doors, with the big win, the golden bear, going to La tete asustada (The Milk of Sorrow) from Peru. Check all the awarded films here, and read more about the golden bear winner from here. Cinema rules!

The beginning of twitter

Just found this great document about the beginning of twitter, worth a read as it shows nicely how an idea turns into reality. Good example for business creativity…

Here you go

Twestival: New forms of charity

Twitter managed to set up an event in 202 cities around the globe on 12th of February, named twestival. Under the theme ’Tweet. Meet. Give.’ fans and users of microblogging service twitter, the fastest growing social networking platform on the web, gathered to raise money for a good purpose, in that case for charity water. The money was mainly raised with an entrance fee of 10 euros, and is estimated to exceed the 1.000.000 dollar barrier. The official results will be available by tomorrow, Monday 16th. And hey, join twitter, it’s nice! And feel free to follow my twitter stream on http://twitter.com/tobiaswacker

Bingo Bango… Bongo!

Our dear colleague Mary Lee is planning to open a creative hotshop in Helsinki, named Bongo. She is currently recruiting, so if you need a job, check from here. The concept of a pure advertising agency without any strategy or such sounds interesting, although it is not made for a strategy thinker like me. Anyhow, welcome and good luck!

Read more on shots magazine or in creativity online.

Tweeting

Feel free to follow my twitter stream, here you go. You can find my facebook profile here, the website and blog from the company I am working for is here, my last.fm profile is available from here, here and here you can find my xing and linkedin profiles, my travel dates are available from dopplr, and something regarding me and planning you can check from here. I don’t know where all that will end up, but we will see. It is fascinating living in pioneering times with lots of change in advertising and marketing. A great chance for all of us!

Sony’s new piece of s*** that doesn’t f****** work

Onion news network, America’s finest news source, reported about the latest Sony gadget you just need to have. Here you see the newsflash, but be aware, the news speaker is using surprisingly tough language. Check here to see what is behind the Onion, and enjoy the entertainment.

New e-reading devices from US and Japan

There are lots of discussions going about the end of print media, and indeed magazines and newspapers are in trouble if we consider the global scale and volume. A blogger has even set up the magazine death pool, a collection of print titels which have gone over the river recently. The launch of Amazons’ 2nd generation e-book reader Kindle and a new e-newspaper reader from Japan developed by Fujitsu might not have calmed down fans of print solutions.

TED time

It is TED time again, the legendary conference about Technology, Entertainment and Design. Great people tell how they changed the world, so very inspiring talks. In the last two days fresh talks are are shared online on the TED page, one of them given by Bill Gates. And yes, I recommend.

Total failure

Sometimes in life things just go badly wrong, you can't help it. Thanks to fail blog we can share failures – sometimes tragic but always entertaining. So if you think you failed badly, visit fail blog, for sure somebody exceeded your doing!

Objectified

Just like to give a hint about upcoming documentary Objectified by Gary Hustwit, the maker of typography documentary Helvetica. Like expected the film is about objects, giving some insight in industrial design.

Here the trailer

Gold-digger times for web 2.0 application mashups

Mashups, originated in music field where the vocals of a song are combined with the melody of another, are finding their way to web 2.0 applications. The point is to mix different applications and create a new one. Common 2.0 mashups are e.g. the combination of google earth, youtube and flickr. A concrete example is a world of nirvana, where fans can see youtube videos on google earth to follow the steps of legendary band Nirvana. This is made possible due to open Application Programming Interfaces, and key players in 2.0 world have understood the creative power of mashups and opened their API’s. If you think that this is rocket science und just for real geeks you are wrong – even Microsoft is offering a free online game & mashup creator named Popfly, if you prefer another tool you can try Yahoo pipes. The mashup creators are as easy to use as a website builder. Regarding mashups it's gold-digger time now – people with the biggest imagination and the highest level of business creativity can make a fortune. How about?

Stockholm Furniture Fair II

Stockholm Furniture Fair is over soon, so the international press starts to write what was going on. The lucky ones find themselves in the articles of the important magazines, payback time for interesting and pioneering work. Here a link to a Wallpaper-article about the fair, the image gallary is quite interesting. And very soon I post, like promised, what I have been doing for Finnish furniture producer Martela there.

Innovation Power – Why I love Brand Futurism

Yesterday I visited Stockholm furniture fair, and like expected there were lot’s of big companies presenting nice furniture. The most interesting part for me was the so called greenhouse, the exhibition part for young designers and visionaires. It was the most lively part of the fair, and the young brains displayed real innovations. The University of North Umbria in Italy e.g. was having a look in the future – and showed among other things bricks made of rice from the year 2030. The visit to the greenhouse just showed me once again how important and interesting brand futurism is, and assured me in my approach to help clients to see the future. The benefit of that work is not seen in 2020 – it's seen today, challanging our thinking and activating our pioneering spirit, turning us to forerunners of our field.

Some information about the greenhouse