Last week we were fortunate enough to receive The Danish Communication Award 2011 from the members of Danish Communication Association (Dansk Kommunikationsforening) in the concert hall of DR. About 250 participants in the audience of corporate communication professionals voted after presentations of the five nominated communication projects. A few hours later we got the result and were called to the stage to receive the award. I went on stage with the executive of the project from Movia, Maja Nellemann, and my colleague Louise Kramer, who is project manager at Stagis.

Many of the participants (including myself) summed up the events on Twitter - look for #komdag. You can see my tweets on twitter.com/#!/nikolajstagis. At Stagis we've been blogging about the project quite a few times since we started implementing it in 2008. Here's the most recent about the nomination for the award. Or you can find more about the project on our website by clicking "cases".

We are really proud of the award and the acknowledgement we've received from our colleagues in the field of corporate communication. Our project "Bus drivers with character" received about twice as many votes as the next nominated project and the audience cheered after seeing a short introductory video with bus driver Torben who was - as always - quite entertaining. What makes me just as proud as receiving the award is meeting some of the bus drivers who has been involved in the project, and who tells me that it made a difference in their lives. Like the bus driver Linda, who was awarded the Danish bus driver of the year on September 2nd and is soon flying to Singapore to see public transportation there and meet bus drivers in that region. She loves the bus and the passengers and now she is going to board an aeroplane for the first time in her life to fly to Asia! You can meet her on "Bus driver TV".

Danish article about the project online (Update November 18th)
Danish Commucation Association (DKF) just released a Danish article about the project. You can read it on kommunikationsforening.dk. There are videos and lots of other articles from the event on the site, too.

The Danish Communication Association (Dansk Kommunikationsforening) has nominated five projects for the Danish Communication Award 2011. One of them is ’Bus drivers with character’, a project that was initiated and executed by Stagis. The project integrates efforts in the fields of organizational culture, corporate branding and corporate communication in order to create more ”character”, pride, appreciation and job satisfaction for the bus drivers and managers in Greater Copenhagen. The ultimate aim is to deliver a higher level of service and create a better experience for the bus passengers and get more copenhageners to use public transportation.

Three years ago we set out on this wonderful journey with a test project that proved it was possible to change attitudes and pride within the bus companies that participate. During the past year the project has been supported by the Danish Transport Authority which has made it possible to bring the project to a higher level. Almost 7.000 bus passengers have sent their stories about ”Good Moments” to the bus driver website www.buschaffor.dk, the bus drivers have been in the media with positive stories every month, a group of bus drivers are making ”bus driver TV”, the training program ”Movia Akademi” is on it’s way to be integrated into the regular bus industry training institutions and on September 2nd the bus driver of the year was announced at a great event in central Copenhagen. There has been lots and lots of other activities to help everyone make the bus experience better.

On November 9th the Danish Communication Association is hosting Communication Day 2011 (Kom-dag’11) and we are happy to be one of the five nominated projects. The criteria for professional communication is defined as:

-       Target managed (clear goals)
-       Involves management
-       Target audience oriented
-       Multi-pronged and integrated (several integrated activities)
-       Return-oriented (return more than invested)

We try to make all our projects live up to these criteria (and more!) and Bus drivers with character is no exception. It has an extreme degree of integration and especially in the first two years lots of people from all sides of the project asked me if I thought it was possible. We were trying to get seven private bus companies, one public company and the union to work together in order to change culture and attitudes within a group of 4.500 employees and 200 managers across 20-odd work places. And to begin with there was no funding. Everyone involved had to find a way to fund the activities. Why didn’t I give up when things are so complex and difficult? I always thought it was possible – I just didn’t know exactly what the obstacles where. And today it’s paying off. When I meet bus drivers Lars or Rene or Linda, just three of several hundred bus drivers I’ve met, they tell me it’s made a huge difference in their lives, beyond and above their work hours.

I’m really excited about the award. There is an award given by the professional jury and another award given by the audience on the day. I will be there on the day together with my colleague Louise Kramer who is the project manager of the activities we are running and Maja Nellemann, executive of the project and representative of the public transportation authority Movia. Keep your fingers crossed!

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.

On Valentines Day we launched a new campaign in the Copenhagen buses. Some 300 bus drivers handed out roses to some of their passengers in order to create conversation and good vibes. We named it 'Good moments' and several thousand text messages returned from happy customers who appreciate what the bus drivers are doing every day. Like waiting for a moment to pick someone up. Or giving good advice. Or telling a joke. The character of the moments are many - just like the passengers and the bus drivers themselves.

Here's one of the messages that was recently sent as a text message to the website:



(Quick translation: The bus driver welcomed everyone in the bus this morning and now the driver is trying to comfort a baby over the loudspeaker)

Lots of local newspapers covered the story in February. Now we are working on a series of new projects, campaigns and initiatives. Last year the Danish Government decided to expand the project that Stagis started in 2007 and this year lots of projects have external visual impact. Right now we are creating a new design for 'Chauffører med karaktér' (bus drivers with character), a new website, outdoor campaigns and we are planning to inspire the media to forward the good stories about bus drivers in several different ways. The project is defined to run throughout 2011 and many initiatives are expected to become the new standard of the industry.

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.

Last week I signed a contract with the public transportation organization Movia who represents the public bus industry in Copenhagen and Sealand. In July, the Danish Transportation Agency decided to allocate a little less than 10 mio. Danish kroner (about 1.3 mio Euro) to giving the bus drivers a better image in the general public. The project covers training of the bus drivers, better internal communication in the industry and numerous activities and communication that will change the public perception of the bus drivers. Most of the activities will be happening over the next 15 months.

Bus drivers thrive after pilot project
During 2008 and 2009 Stagis developed the strategy as well as the project in details, gathered the parties involved and gave the project the it's name and visual identity. From March to October 2009 we orchestrated the pilot project called 'Chauffører med karaktér' (Bus drivers with character), testing some of the ideas in order to prove the effects of the strategy. As you can imagine, the results were overwhelmingly positive. As mentioned in the casestudy on www.stagis.com and a May blog post, 90 percent of the bus drivers claimed to thrive at work in October of 2009. Six months earlier, only 68 percent agreed. Generally, the bus drivers know that people don't have glorious thoughts about them. In the same survey, only 13 percent of the bus drivers thought that their job had a good image in the public. When the pilot project ended, that had increased to 24 percent. Partly due to the positive media appearances that we spun off. Partly because the passengers had sent hundreds of text messages with their stories about good experiences in the busses. The strategic goal behind that change is simple: If the bus drivers are happy about the work, they will treat their passengers better and hence the perception of the bus ride will change for the better.

So what's next?
There are already several courses going on at 'Movia Akademi' this month and next week I'm meeting with a group of bus drivers who was attending the Academy last year. They created such a strong relationships with each other that they still want to meet and bond now, a year later. I'm really looking forward to seeing them again!

In a couple of weeks we will start to announce more about the specific plans and the ideas will start to materialize. For now, I'm really pleased that the ideas we developed will continue to live and that the bus drivers will continue to make positive changes. For themselves and for all of us in the back of the bus.

Check out four bus drivers 'with character' on the Danish website we created at the end of 2008 on buschauffor.dk. I love all of them but my favourite is Sezgin who was the youngest bus driver in Copenhagen at the time.

Last weekend I had the pleasure to participate in the seminar: Map Marathon, an event that is part of the annual Frieze Art Fair, based in Regents Park, London. The seminar had an impressive line up of scientists, mathematicians, graphic designers and artists all talking about how mapping can be used and unfolded in different directions and for various purposes. Two sessions caught my mind in particular. One was a presentation made by editor of Wired, David Rowan and Hal Bertram. They revealed the technology behind some amazing new technologies for turning dynamic data into useful mappings. For instance the showed us how OpenStreetMap - an open map system generated by people all over the world - helped the rescue workers when the earthquake hit Haiti, and how the timetables of London buses can show the density of traffic in London. And how the air traffic was monitored during the ash cloud incident last spring.

The other was graphic designer and cartographer Joost Grootens. Joost runs a design studio in Amsterdam, specialized in making books – Atlases in particular. It was impressive to hear Joost explain about the history of mapping, and how the graphic reproductions has developed. The concern of detail in color, typography and precise communication of data in his work, has result in beautifully crafted atlases, that is worth a study in information graphics. 

How do you market an executive master program that excelles by letting the participants shape the program themselves? At Master of Management Development, an executive program for experienced managers at Copenhagen Business School, the managers attending the program decide for themselves what to read, what they want to explore, what the content of their exams are and how they will implement their learning in the day-to-day work in their organizations. Every participant in the program is evaluated on six different parameters, among them are personal leadership, reflexivity and relational abilities. If you are to lead management development processes, you have to be able of developing yourself and to evaluate that process. To make things more difficult the market for executive master programs has become somewhat strained by the financial crisis. Most companies think about the budgets twice before they send their managers off to school.

The authentic strengths of MMD
In 2006 and 2008 Stagis helped the program get more attention in the media and fill up the program with curious leaders who want to develop themselves as well as their organizations. Since our longlasting collaboration with Copenhagen Business School began, some 40-odd articles in the Danish media has passed. We also created a series of podcasts with the participants and professors called 'MMD Refleksion' in order to convey the people and the ideas in the program. This year we are helping the program get the much-deserved attention again. This time we are using the authentic strengths of the management development program by creating an experience that will help some 200 leaders, consultants and change agents see for themselves what the program is about. We are setting up the 'Be the change' conference. Three professors and two executives are the main attractors at a half-day conference on November 9th that will demonstrate the idea about changing your world (being Society, the company or your department) by changing yourself as a leader. The much-needed side-effect is framing the theme and creating an event that will generate several types of communication in the press, newsletters, word-of-mouth etc. The conference is set up with Danish newsmedia Berlingske Tidende on their businessliv.dk platform where you can buy tickets.

Be the change
Working together with my colleagues Christel and Niels, I named the conference 'Be the change' with inspiration from Ghandi's "You must be the change you want to see in the World". In organizations, too, you can't change anything if you're not ready to change your own way of thinking or putting yourself to use in the transformation. During an intense three week period Christel booked professors John Christiansen (head of the MMD program), Jan Molin (founder of the program and CBS dean), Patricia Shaw and executives Jens Moberg (former Microsoft and Better Place) and Michael Christiansen (former Royal Danish Theatre and now head of DR). They all have theoretical or hands-on experience on how to transform yourself in order to change things. Personally, I'm looking forward to hearing Michael Christiansen talk about his experiences at the Danish Royal Theatre where he went from being what he calls 'Napoleon' to 'Cousin Sensitive'.

Stagis is making it happen
We set up the conference at the Danish National Museum where 200 participants will experience a great mix of practical experience and advice and get a sense of the theoretical ideas flowing through the master program. Hopefully they will also partake in networking, getting inspiration from one another and talk about the experience to colleagues, employees and friends. The Stagis team is setting up invites and newsletters, dealing with the location, preparing talks and slideshows, posters, handouts, handling press, running the facebook and google platforms and documenting the event.

Want to be part of the change on November 9th?
If you want to know more or participate, take a look at the Be the change page on the MMD website where you can also sign up. The conference is in Danish except for Patricia Shaws part.