noochi

thanks to inreallife.dk, i feel inspired on several levels! i attended a really good lecture/ workshop on community building today, where a very competent and charming expert on communities, portuguese pedro custodio (developer at sapo, the biggest portal/community in portugal) shared his insights. the key take-aways (to me), were

on top of a really good lecture, i am impressed with inreallife.dk - founded by the pretty cool chicks henriette weber and laura kiralfy, and with their approach to networking and seemingly to the world. i felt extremely old-school when asking henriette if they were planning on making money with their newest initiative… as if that was key…

i have previously written that money makes the world go ’round… i am not taking that back, but i have put my apartment up for sale… i am so “#¤%&*>¤ privileged that it would be an awful shame to use money as an excuse not to carry out more experiments (with that said, i also really feel like getting some experience with community building, which i have great opportunity for, in my current job). it’s all good! thank you henriette, laura and pedro! have a pleasant reboot.

this is hip, baby (or it was in 2003, but now i am realizing it too)! reverse graffiti. all you need is a dirty facade and some eco-friendly cleaning agents… and you can bring nature (or whatever) back into the streets. it is not even against the law (although the british authorities have had their doubts).

found on inhabitat through my best web buddy stumble. graffiti nowadays is also made out of moss… and i also stumbled upon another artsy dirt lover… (the infamous car tag: “wash me” is likely where the inspiration to reverse graffiti arose). if you like these, you are welcome to check what other good stuff i am happily stumbling upon.

2 major fluctuations since october; food is making headlines in the news and the searches for love increased quite a bit… the downward trend in art and business continues, whereas the mentioning of freedom and business continues to slightly increase in news articles.

i am listening (passive and reflective) at the moment. to inspiring voices in my network, and to critical voices too. some believe it, some don’t. and i am looking. at courage in others (henriette who quit her job and started a network and event organization with a friend, and dorthe who sells slippers with a friend, for example). and i am trying to think like a genius:

8. Prepare yourself for chance.
Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components, and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask the question “Why have I failed?”, but rather “What have I done?”

all it takes is doing… says my own inner voice.

here is another web shop i wish i had made: new york based mastodont picture box. it is an artsy publishing and art shop that produces and sells literature, art books, comics and graphic novels. it also offers other stuff such as prints, posters and hooded sweaters, which reminds me of artrebels.com that i have previously written about, and which could be seen as a danish baby sister version of picturebox. picturebox seemingly reach (a number of) niche markets, and it has all the fancy amazon sales features like “if you liked this…” etc. which makes it work quite efficiently.

PictureBox specializes in bringing artists’ visions to print in startling and unexpected ways. […] The web site functions as both the PictureBox catalog and a hub for a carefully curated international selection of artists products.

the site is edited by Dan Nadel who is also behind the ganzfeld (among many other things), an annual book on arts (and a web site with the coolest header ever seen - don’t forget to caress it!). credits to my superb brother for links and insights.

i think picturebox is cool because it runs its own show while curating others’. i would love to do something like that.

the web’s core is about search. that is why i see great potential in travel tuner, made by brilliant design student maria. it explores a new, intuitive approach to search, using traveling as an example. it allows you to navigate within different parameters (people/ crowd, city life and nature) and to add sound levels and color toning to each. from these, travel tuner submits a search query to a travel tuner group on flickr, that you would not likely have put together yourself. my own intuitive searches may not have produced the most useful results, but that is not the point.

the point is that searching is not what it used to be! there is no right answer, or right result. more often than not, we don’t really know what we are looking for. we want to see and explore the world, the physical one, as well as the virtual one that is right at the end of our fingertips. this is of course also why we have started stumbling and digging and whatnot. and progressive shops like etsy, offers various ways to shop; by color, user ratings etc. - knowing that their customers don’t really need anything… they are merely searching for things they might like, and so the searching becomes the most important “need identifier”… turning browsers into buyers.

by actively involving the user’s semi-conscious preferences and curiosity, travel tuner meets a need. the web offers something on everything you can think of. but your imagination may not be strong enough, or your needs not explicit enough, for you to take yourself to the site or search results that will meet your needs. therefore, travel tuner is not only a good idea, and carried out in a very sweet and cool manner… but i think maria’s contribution to the scene of search has the potential of being a very powerful one. i wish her great success and loads of fun and good fortune!

4 out of 5 grandparents in my family were entrepreneurs, and 3 out of 4 were even entrepreneurs by choice. probably the foxiest among them is shown in the picture above: clara thorhauge at the age of 21, taken in 1929. i’ve made a slightly superficial description of my entrepreneurial family roots, as i feel it fits my blog.

klondyke’s new cd dejlig dum (delightfully daft) is available in record stores from today! as a very privileged fan with a signed copy (playing as i type) i thought i would let you know that you should air your credit card in this connection. i am no music reviewer, but i consider it my duty to inform you that klondyke’s new album goes well with any activity, besides dedicated listening which i highly recommend! from entertaining guests, to blogging, cleaning, showering, getting ready, getting up, getting down, you name it. any activity! this makes it an extremely safe investment in my book. listen on myspace.

be cool, be hip - buy it before your most trendy neighbors do.

i am proud to introduce: www.bpos.dk - a blog-based website that i have made for mr. lee. it presents a new coaching-based approach to team development, achievable in the course of 3 days of intensive team training. i feel absolutely certain that this course is worth every single krone (danish for dime) and more, and i wish mr. lee great success and loads of fun with this project.

bpos.dk is much cooler than my own blog, because it runs on the newest version of wordpress and it rocks! i also really like the hypereal theme. the theme is not only search-optimized, sharing enabled, recognizes returning visitors and more, but was also made by an 18-year old! his name is hans and he lives on mauritius. knowing that an 18-year old can make a beautiful piece of work like that, with such attention to detail, makes me extremely enthusiastic about the future.

i am quite pleased with the result (clean and simple and mr. lee can handle all the updates and loves wordpress like any other sane person!). and i learned how to easily install the blog, which is already coming in handy as i engage in yet another sweet project (…). i also got acquainted to a sweet handwriting generator. and noochi is now link-loved by the first footer of someone else’s site.

this time of year is the most beautiful one, here in denmark. the sun is warm and shining through my open windows, and i hear the sounds of people enjoying it, as i engage in the first noochi-related “privately held”, semi-commercial web project. i like the idea of making little projects, finish them, and learn from them. i have started to believe that this is the way forward… instead of waiting for that one brilliant idea. there is a ton of energy in going for little ideas, and in carrying out asap. more to follow when i have something to show for it. i feel very enthusiastic about my future as an entrepreneur (as well as an employee, btw). and very grateful for the feedback from beloved friends and cool network! my hands of ideas now pay off.