I’m working with Mikael and Anders (plus a few other clever helpers) on a brand new website for Wulffmorgenthaler. Part of the website is some “Internet TV” features and for this I’ve found a few plug n’ play solutions that seem cool - but I don’t know which to choose?

http://www.narrowstep.com
http://www.maven.net
http://www.brightcove.com

Anyone?

Share This

Last year Morten Lund enrolled me in a business talent competition (below 35 years old) - which I won. This year the magazine has asked me to nominate a few candidates.

Here goes (in Danish, sorry):

—————-

Christian Lausten, 31, Stifter, Seismonaut

Christian Lausten er et sjældent supertalent. Han er intellektuelt de fleste overlegen og sidder i dag med sin store viden om “strategisk innovation” i en unik position til at videreudvikle Seismonaut – en konsulentvirksomhed han var med til at stifte for under 1 år siden.

“Innovation” er i dag af de fleste virksomheder anerkendt som en af de væsentligste konkurrenceparametre i fremtiden og efterspørgslen er allerede sindsyg høj efter konsulenter med indsigt i denne komplicerede disciplin.

Efter en årrække som Head of Insight i Innovation Lab med direkte reference til Direktør Preben Mejer stiftede Christian for et år siden Seismonaut, som meget hurtigt er vokset til en 7 mand stor konsulentvirksomhed med kunder som TDC, DR, Sonofon og TraceWorks - sidstnævnte er netop nomineret til “mest innovative virksomhed” i den årlige e-handelskonkurrence.

—————-

Anders Lau Nielsen, 33, Stifter, TraceWorks

Anders Lau Nielsen startede TraceWorks fra scratch for 5 år siden og han har siden vækstet virksomheden til i dag at være blandt de mest lovende mellemstore danske softwarevirksomheder med 35 ansatte og over 500 kunder.

Virksomheden udvikler SaaS løsningen Headlight; lidt på samme måde som CRM software hjælper “salg” eller som ERP software hjælper “økonomi”, så hjælper Headlight marketing teams og bureauer med at håndtere en i stigende grad kompliceret hverdag, som byder på større og større krav om øget prdouktivitet og veldokumenteret ROI%.

Som et bevis på at Anders og TraceWorks er på rette spor har Nordic Venture Partners for kort tiden siden investeret DKK 30 mio. i selskabet.

—————-

Kim Gulstad, 31, Director, Nordic Capital

Kim startede sin guldkarriere ved - som nålen i høstakken - at blive valgt foran tusinder af andre ansøgere til jobbet som analytiker i investeringsbanken, Goldman Sachs - kun 24 år gammel.

Karrieren har efterfulgt fortsat farten med job i Nordic Capital og som bestyrelsesmedlem i Falck A/S.

Kim er blandt de mest driftige bankfolk og hans CV taler simpelthen for sigselv … med det tempo han har på ender han som finansminister som 35 årig.

—————-

Tobias Andreasen, 29 år, Kreativ Direktør, Frank & Able

Først var han Rising Star på DBA.dk og med til for alvor bringe gratisavisen på landkortet online. Derefter brugte han sin energi på at få Wulffmorgenthaler placeret blandt Danmarks 20 mest besøgte websites med en årlig trafikvækst på 100%. I dag har han startet en idéfabrik, som han kalder for Frank @ Able.

Frank & Able fungerer som en art filmproduktionsselskab - i stedet for film producerer Frank & Able prototyper på virksomheder. P.t. har Tobias været med til at udtænke og lancere 3 virksomheder på bare 6 måneder: Hello Fitness, som bedst kan beskrives som udendørs træning til folket til 99 kr., Baby Mood, som er et nyt og friskt alternativ til det eksisterende udbud af babymad og så er der virksomheden Findbilsyn.dk, som er hvad det hedder.

Sidstnævnte projekt er allerede gået fra prototype til virksomhed. De to andre forventes på markedet i starten af Q2 2008.

—————-

Søren Randløv, Direktør for Hello Fitness

Søren valgte at sige nej-tak til direktørstolen og en lovende kariere i familiekoncernen og i stedet realisere sine helt egne ideer i en helt anden retning.

Søren satsede alt på en branche, som ellers er fyldt med store kapitalstærke spillere, nemlig fitnessbranchen … og det er lykkedes! Første år gik med at opbygge virksomheden Kropswerk – som i dag har over 100 kunder indenfor personlig træning.

10. marts lancerer han et helt nyt og unikt fitnesskoncept, som bringer fitness, internettet og et stigende krav om oplevelser sammen på en måde, som markedet ikke har set det før. Han kalder det for Hello Fitness og det er ubegrænset fitness for 99 kr. som i høj grad bruger internettet, som katalysator for fællesskab og MOTIVATION, som i sidste ende er det som skaber resultaterne.

—————-

Anders Bach Nielsen, 30, Stifter, SpotaJob.dk

Anders Bach er marketingmand til fingerspidserne og han forstår som de færreste at få budskabet igennem - bredt og effektivt.

Han stiftede sammen med sine to venner i 2007 jobportalen SpotaJob.dk, som siden starten har oplevet en voldsom vækst - dels fordi ideen er genial og nok også fordi timingen er eminent; Jobmarkedet er presset og der er brug for nye innovative løsninger - og her er Anders stærkere end de fleste.

SpotaJob er en dusør-job-database, hvor “brugere” modtager en dusør på typisk 20.000 kr. for at rekommendere/finde kandidater til jobs i Deres eget netværk.

Virksomheden startede under navnet Most Wanted Recruiting - men er senere skiftet navn til Spot a Job ApS i forbindelse med at selskabet er fussioneret med en hollandsk rekrutteringskoncern.

Share This

I have read “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath and it’s an amazing little book. Go buy it now, read it and grow your business much faster the day after you’ve finished it! Seriously!

The book outlines 6 principles that will help make your business in general and communication in particular really really sticky:

• Simple... find the core… the one true thing.
• Unexpected… you need to surprise people to get their attention in the first place.
• Concrete… drop the intellectual, academic stuff straight away and explain yourself… understanding drives action.
• Credible… credibility (various forms) will let people believe.
• Emotional… it’s not enough to believe… people have to ALSO care about you.
• Stories… getting people to act isn’t about facts and figures, it’s about great storytelling.

I know that Oscar is also pretty enthusiastic about it and he’s fairly hard to impress…

Share This

Help me spread the rumor. Thanks! And good luck; because I’ll pay you DKK 10.000 for finding the right candidate to join our amazing designer dream team.

—–

UI DESIGNER at TraceWorks
see full job posting here 

Your task will be to participate in the conceptual design phase to the final development phase, by visualizing ideas, designing finished screens, to creating html mock-ups for future Headlight modules.

YOUR QUALIFICATIONS
* Passionate about graphic user interface design
* Strong theory of general graphic design
* Creative and has good illustration skills
* Strong knowledge with web design technologies like html and css.
* Fluent in relevant Adobe software
* Good skills with Flash and JavaScript is a plus
* Comprehension of online marketing is a plus

OUR QUALIFICATIONS
Learn more about what the hell we actually do:
http://www.traceworks.com

Learn more about how it is like working at TraceWorks:
http://www.traceworks.com/jobs.htm

Check-out this blog post to learn more about what we find cool and inspirational:
http://www.traceworks.com/inspiration

PLACE OF WORK
You will be working from our office in Copenhagen, Denmark.

HOW TO APPLY
Jesper Bram, Chief Product Designer – TraceWorks.com
Email: jebn@traceworks.com
Phone: +45 33 118 118

Share This

For anyone with a serious interest in magazines and cool/weird/funny design objects, Magma in London is something of a Mecca. Well, not so much “just magazines” but more a thriving micro-industry of printed matter (quote from wallpaper magazine).

Magma is somewhere where a quick visit undoubtedly turns into a whole afternoon, ending-up with a mortgage-sized purchase of magazines from around the globe.

They also have a cool website … quite an inspiration.

Share This

My girlfriend Silvia just co-won (with the rest of the team of course) a prestigious “Robert” movie award here in Denmark for »Ung mand falder« in the category »best long fiction (max. 60 minutes)«

According to IMDB:
“Young Man Falling” is a movie about 17-year-old Hue who’s living on the fringe of a true perception of reality. Cars pursue him, while a world full of rules and systems asks for his attention. How can he concentrate on his preparations for his French exam when the stuffed animals in his room begin to interfere? And what about Irene who disturbs with her invitations? “Young Man Falling” is an experimental film with a captivating visual style.

I haven’t seen it … yet I’m proud of Silvia. She’s always working like a race horse and she really deserves this. Good work, Lille & Co. Congratulations.

Share This

Here’s a list including all the other lists predicting what to expect from 2008

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/2008_web_predictions.php

One has already come true:
“Microsoft will become more aggresive and buy many popular companies at once (remember Ballmer’s quote). Candidates include SixApart, Technorati.”
Emre Sokullu, Feature Writer, ReadWriteWeb

Microsoft has just launched an audacious $44.6bn bid for internet rival Yahoo in a deal that would create an online advertising powerhouse to rival market leader Google. That’s rather aggressive.

Share This

I still haven’t got a clue what OpenSocial is really capable of…

Just read this by Steve O’hear who argues that OpenSocial should be renamed OpenGadget since “it’s all about standardizing the development of ‘widgets’ (sometimes called gadgets)”.

If this is so then I’m beginning to understand it and more importantly I’m actually beginning to find it rather interesting since most of the projects I’m involved with include somekind of “de-portalization strategy” (Thanks to Thomas Petersen of Hello Brand for learning me this fancy expression).

Do anyone have experience building widgets based on OpenSocial? Is this the way to do it? Example: If Wulffmorgenthaler were to build a lot of widgets should we use OpenSocial?

Share This

2007 was a rather eventful year for me.

TraceWorks launched an awesome new product called Headlight and it’s really beginning to fuel an amazing growth. We also took in $5.4 million from Nordic Venture Partners, hired 10 more super talents, and convinced top notch CEO Christian Dam to head our team of 20-something people instead of Anders and myself. All working very very hard … and thank you all for that.

Wulffmorgenthaler - the entertainment company I started with Anders Morgenthaler and Mikael Wulff - is definitely heading in the right direction as well. We doubled our online visitors to about 50.000 per day, took in a little money from Nordisk Film, and convinced Michael Ritto to become chairman. We also sold 3 times as many books and 12 times as many calendars  (brilliant product!) compared to any previous year - all thanks to our 3 man strong team of Tobias Hoff, Martin Nielsen, and Julie Lind-Holm. Thanks!

I also had some good fun helping Kim Gulstad of Nordic Capital bring www.findbilsyn.dk - just a small and simple idea - to the market.  Will be fun watching this small service expand to other countries.

Share This

TraceWorks has been selected as a nominee for the prestigious e-handelsprisen 2008, the region’s premier competition honoring online services and product innovations … Well, it is.

TraceWorks was selected based on its Marketing Software product Headlight in the category for most “innovative solutions” which the award committee defines like this (Danish):

“Innovationsprisen: Gives til en virksomhed, der på en nyskabende måde udnytter online-kanalen til at skabe værdi eller vurderes til at skabe fremtidig værdi (god forretning).”

That’s something we’re pretty proud of since introducing solid, useful and game shifting Software as a Service (SaaS) to the marketing industry is what TraceWorks is all about.

The final winners will be announced on March 27, 2008 at Radisson SAS Falconer Hotel, Falkoner Allé 9, 2000 Frederiksberg. Wish us luck!

Share This