More than 200 people – bus drivers, their passengers and passers-by - were there when the “Bus Driver of the Year” was awarded Friday 2nd September in central Copenhagen.

Six bus drivers were nominated for the title of Greater Copenhagen bus passengers, who had sent text messages with good moments in the busses. The winner – Linda – was the bus driver who most passengers had voted for.

For the Stagis team this party was the culmination of months of hard work getting campaigns, press work and the actual event going. This year, it started in May with a campaign in the busses that urged bus passengers to send their best moments from a bus trip to the webpage www.buschauffor.dk where users could vote on the best moments and from thousands of text messages, and later on the passengers voted on the nominees to win the award “Bus Driver of the Year”.

Danish entertainer Huxi Bach hosted the event and singer-songwriter Alberte went on stage. Three awards were given to outstanding colleagues in the bus industry, and one lucky passenger won his own bus with a driver for a weekend for having sent the best text message. Movia CEO Dorthe Nøhr was on stage, and Movia market manager Anders Due and Jan Aage Hansen of 3F’s transportation group presented the prizes.

Bus driver Avi Achi, who won the prize "Joker of the Year," thanked his passengers - and Denmark - for giving him the prize in a speech that seemed to touch everyone present. And "Child Friend of the Year", Jan Willum Jensen, sang a children's carrol on stage. For me, these moments were the real treat of the day: Meeting Avi, Jan and especially Linda – the Bus Driver of the Year – and seeing the pride and joy in their eyes. As the first winner of the prize Linda will fly to Singapore with her colleague (who is also her husband) to experience public transportation there. One of the things that thrills Linda, she told me, is that it will be her first time on an aeroplane. Ever. You can meet Linda on ChaufførTV (Bus Driver TV) where she's been active making videos about her life since the spring.

The party gathered bus drivers and passengers to give each other a pat on the shoulder. For the same reason, "Pat Day" (Skulderklappets Dag) was founded - with the bus drivers as ambassadors.

The Pat Day and the party were created to focus on recognition and the bus drivers, who are making an effort to turn bus trips into a good experience for their passengers. The plan is that the awards be given each year, so the focus on good moments and recognition is maintained. It was a proud day for the bus drivers and a proud day for everyone working on the project at Stagis!



Avi Achi is reading a highly unexpected and unusual speech that he prepeared - he thanks his colleagues and Denmark for the life that he now has. The speech touched many in the audience.

A few weeks ago I spent two days with an inspiring group of people discussing thoughts on branding, identitity, the use of social media in the Middle East, city planning and branding challenges in China. I was invited by Nicholas Ind to meet the group in Paris and give a brief talk on organizational authenticity. I really enjoyed the diverse group consisting of branding experts from the US, Europe (UK, Sweden, Holland, France and Spain), Russia and UAE. Everyone joined in a series of small lectures and discussions with a plethora of views and opinions. How do you meet the challenges of working with the Chinese? What role did Facebook and social media play in the revolution for democracy in the Middle East? How will new typologies for fast and efficient architecture that meet the new demand for housing in Dubai and Africa develop?



I was later invited to join The Medinge Group as a permanent member, which I was pleased to accept. I'm already looking forward to our next convention in August.

The Medinge Group has such distinguished members as consultant and writer Nicholas Ind, who wrote numerous books on branding, the latest of which is called Meaning at Work (check out earlier post), consultant and cofounder Ian Ryder of BCS, CEO Stanley Moss who has been a succesful designer and brand consultant for decades and now travels the World, dean Pierre d'Huy of La Sorbonne/CELSA and Management Institute Paris, consultant Simon Paterson, Ava Maria Hakim, executive at IBM and CEO Erika Uffindell of UffindellWest. The group was founded in Sweden by Thomas Gad, brand consultant and author of 4D Branding which has been published in 12 languages. During the past decade the members have met biannually in Paris, France, and Medinge in Sweden to share and develop thoughts on branding.

The philosophy of The Medinge Group is: "We believe that change can happen at a business and societal level simply by pursuing the principles of compassionate branding. Each of our members has particular expertise which enables them to make a unique contribution to the Group and to clients throughout the world." Every year the group awards brands for their humanistic, compassionate, sustainable and socially responsible behaviour. This year the Brands with a Conscience award was given to Aquamarine Power (UK), BBC World News - Newsweek for World Challenge (UK), Caja Navarra (ES) and Masdar City (UAE).

Besides being a think-tank, The Medinge Group is complemented by for-profit activities called the Medinge Consulting Group, which puts together brand development teams to help international clients.

Update: A few more images on our moblog.

Every year at Christmas time a Danish hit from 1988 by rappers MC Einar is played on Danish radio. ”Jul, det’ cool” it’s called, meaning ”Christmas, it’s cool”. The rappers talk about an angry bus driver. Last week the ”Bus drivers with character” faced the old hit with their own rap about how they see themselves. They don’t recognize being as angry as the old 80s rap hit claims. As part of the identity project “Bus drivers with character” that we created for the public transportation industry two years ago, we did a study on people’s perception of the bus trip and the bus driver. Some people used the old rap as a quote: “Get back, goddammit!” (“Gå så tilbage for helvede”) referring to an angry bus driver forcing passengers to the back of the bus. Fortunately, that sort of bus driver is hard to find these days. Several songs from the same rappers give this image of the bus drivers. And neither the drivers or the companies they work for have been successful at answering back. This time, we wanted to help the bus drivers go against the prejudice and create new words for what they want everyone to think of them. Some would say it’s too late after 22 years. I said they should shout right back.



We invited the Denmark’s best freestyle rapper Pede B and five bus drivers to join forces in creating their own rap. They came to the Stagis office and talked energetically of busses and passengers. A few days later they went to a recording studio to record their Christmas rap with a producer and coaching from Pede B. Danish radio produced a feature on the subject, interviewing the bus drivers in the recording studio. Last Wednesday the five courageous bus drivers Hamide, Ib, Rene, Torben and Harris performed on stage in front of Copenhagen Town Hall before appearing live on the popular talk show ”Aftenshowet” on DR TV (go to 21:33 to see the clip). They talked about who they want to be and did a live rap performance.

That same evening 10 Stagis colleagues were gathered for a dinner at our office, celebrating not only Christmas but the success of an intense process delivering a fun and meaningful project.If your Copenhagen bus driver rhymes along the lines of ”My sleigh is quite cool, quite cool” (“Min slæde den er ret fed, ret fed!” in Danish) you’ll know he’s trying to create a new reputation for himself and all of the bus industry. Meanwhile, we’re creating new events that will help the bus industry shed light on their authentic strengths and abilities as a public service provider, more than transportation provider. The Danish Ministry of Transport is supporting the project during the next full year and the goal is to improve the image of the bus drivers and the bus experience in order to increase the use of public transportation. Look forward to the end of february where the next big thing is going on for the bus drivers and the bus passengers!

See the music video with the rapping bus drivers on YouTube or see pictures on our photoblog.

A few weeks ago we launched the conference ‘Be the change’ for the executive Master of Management Development program from Copenhagen Business School. The conference was designed to create attention and be a platform for interaction between the executive program and potential participants.

The financial crisis has been tough on most executive education and training programs as the management training costs have been cut to a minimum across companies and sectors. Our job was to help the recruitment of participants for the program and the primary objective was to establish opportunities to discuss management education with potential participants as well as senior HR and education executives. We’ve been working with the press to get more attention in the business press, we’ve produced a range of video podcasts with some of the top-professors from CBS and finally we created the conference ‘Be the change’ at the Danish National Museum. Some 140 executives joined the event to meet John Christiansen, Jens Moberg, Patricia Shaw, Jan Molin and Michael Christiansen.

During the past four months MMD has received applications from more than 20 participants, reaching a full class of nearly 30 participants which is the goal for every new class. The interaction before and during the ‘Be the change’ conference has been the catalyst for new relations and bringing old ones up-to-date. In january MMD will start publishing four video-podcasts with the talks from the conference, hence giving a new opportunity to experience and share the ideas behind the program. And we will share the case with you on our website – more about that in the next edition of Stagis Highlights (push 'Newsletter' on top of this page to sign up) and here on the blog.

To be honest I'm not a huge sports person, nevertheless the European Championship in Athletics dragged my attention yesterday. It was the medals round the necks of the champions I found exciting. The medals are in my opinion quite remarkable due to the v-shaped design, and as the medals are hanging from a white ribbon, the medal itself is a perfect reflection of the ribbon.
I'm note sure if the medal lead my thoughts to the sport, but its very simple and beautiful. The designer is the Spanish Martin Ruiz de Azua's who is a man of medals. Among others he designed medals for the 2003 World Swimming Championships, a transparent bubble filled circular design, which indeed leads my thoughts to swimming.

I recently became aware Timothy McSweeney's - an American Publishing house. I was intrigued by getting to know them more as I read this hilarious text - I'm Comic Sans - published on McSweeney’s humourous litterature site McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
A part from the Internet tendency, the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is another initiative that stands out. The journal started out featuring only works rejected by other magazines. And from there they started to publish material that was written with particularly McSweeney's in mind. An interesting way to build an editorial brand, maybe aimed at attracting the most distinctive contributors?
McSweeney's have recieved a lot of awards both on design and content for their selection of books and publications, and I sense that when the Founder of McSweeney's comments on the name of the organization, he frames the sphere of the publishing house in a fine way: "[My family] would always get letters from someone named Timothy McSweeney ... He claimed to be my mother's long-lost brother ...[Letters] would always include flight plans, like he was planning on coming to visit. I don't know if he's real or not. My relatives deny it, but who knows?" I dont think I have visited or searched the McSweeneys for the last time.

"Fascinating!" I thought to myself the other day, as I looked at an art installation. Over the past two months, I've been studying BMW in Munich as part of my ongoing work on a book on authentic organizational identity, which I am planning to finish this spring. The time had come to visit one of the greatest brand museums ever. Back in 2004 the BMW Group decided to spend some 80 million Euro on the renovation and expansion of their corporate museum, initially built in the 1970's. Located in front of the tall BMW headquarters and across the street from the architecturally fascinating BMW World, the Museum looks like a giant tea-cup and would serve well as an iconic entrance to a museum of modern art in any metropolis. Here, however, it's not paintings that are on show, but cars and motorcycles. At least, that was my expectation.

Authentic BMW
The architecture of the Museum itself is a piece of art. The building is listed, protected by the German Government. I soon found myself happily surprised at the first installation. What seemed like a thousand silver pearls were floating in the air, changing from arbitrary swarm to orderly sculptures depicting the forms of old and new cars. When the BMW started the revamp of the Museum, they hired Joachim Sauter, a specialist in new and innovative media. "He told us 'Be authentic!'," says Dr. Andreas Braun, who is in charge of the communication of the 5.000 m2 museum and was deeply involved in the development of the museum throughout the 2000s. 

De sidste par uger har vi lanceret to nye faser af det ambitiøse projekt "Chauffører med Karaktér". Onsdag og torsdag var 12 direktører fra syv busselskaber og Movia på det første Movia Akademi for direktører, hvor de blandt andet udviklede en 3-årig vision om at øge antallet af passagereri Storkøbenhavn med 30 millioner. I sidste uge startede 20 ledere fra busbranchen på et udviklingsforløb for ledere i busbranchen - ligeledes på Movia Akademi, som Stagis har udviklet igennem det seneste år.