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.

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.

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.

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.

Last month, Rene Redzepi, the celebrated No. 1 chef of restaurant NOMA, was introducing his new book at the Sydney Opera House. I just received the book by mail this morning. It's beautiful and well worth reading. Inspiring story (and diary) and inspiring photos. Out on Politikens Forlag in Denmark and Phaidon elsewhere.

Today, restaurant Noma was announced the World's number one restaurant. Tonight chef René Redzepi is being celebrated in London. Last year I was interviewing René a couple of times for the book I am working on. He has rediscovered Scandinavian food culture and reinvented what it is. And when I say invented I do mean it. It's a creative and innovative place that dares to stand by it's beliefs and tries to challenge the tastes and opinions of it's guests. The first mental border they crossed was shedding light on the exotic side of home. When everyone was still looking at France, Italy, Spain, Vietnam, Japan and all the other well known gastronomic territories, Noma began to worship our own terroir.

Imagine for a moment that you have everyone's attention. For one precious moment, the whole room, crowd or maybe even the entire country is gathered to hear your words of wisdom, hushing each other, pushing to get a good seat in front of the television sets, eagerly awaiting your words of wisdom, holding their breath. What would be your key message to put out there?

Say what you will about Seth Godin, marketing-guru, blogger, best-selling author and self-proclaimed agent of change. But the man got a brilliant idea. Seth organized for seventy successful leaders, writers, thinkers and entrepreneurs to consider what matters most to them right now - and to express their valuable observations and life lessons in a short e-book, adequately titled "What matters now".

The book is available for free online via Seths blog, and I think it is extremely interesting to see what these seventy smart and extremely successful people choose to do when provided with only one page to express their main concerns, thoughts and messages for all of us.

Download the book as a free PDF here: 

Something extrodinary is going on at the Copenhagen Airport. I’ve been wondering about it for the last few months. Today was no exception. As I was pouring coins, belt, watch, jacket and my beloved Mac in a plastic tray on my way to a Munich-bound flight, a handsome man at the age of my Dad welcomed me with a smile and “how are you today”. Suddenly I found myself chatting with Uncle Security. There are two odd things going on here. First of all, if you are not part of Danish culture I need to tell you, that Danes have a peculiar way of not talking to strangers. So being met by a stranger who greets you and invites to conversation is not as common in Copenhagen as in many other places around the Globe. The other odd thing that took me by surprise here, which most air-travellers and especially commuters will recognize, is that Uncle Security is usually in a really bad mood, easily offended and clearly demonstrates has had too many passengers through the counter already. The US security cousins are the worst. It seems like they have been instructed by some TSA-director (Actually, I think there is no director at the moment) to look evily at every passenger and see if any terrorists might admit themselves. This is not the place for a joke, as some has experienced. But things were different with this Danish security check family member.

“I noticed you guys have started to smile a lot lately,” I said. “Yeah, work is so much more fun now,” he smiled even more and nodded. “I’ve been trying to help the bus drivers be a bit like you guys,” I said. “Great idea,” he said, giggling, and helped my things onwards as the other happy uncle was waving me through the scanner. “What in the hell kind of program have they gone through,” I thought to myself as the next happy uncle was padding me down and commenting on my new winter boots.

Security Aunt was waiting with my Mac ready at hand by the end of the conveyor belt. Same tie and perfect white shirt. “Is this your Mac?” she asked. Real auntie-curls, same age and same golden framing on the glasses. Surely the sister or wife of the giggling guy. I opened the computer, she checked, while chatting about how many passengers are now travelling with two laptops. I asked if I could photograph them, but rules didn’t really allow. “I’m really impressed by the changes here,” I said and auntie tried to explain as she was taking care of the next traveller: “Work just flows easier when you’re helpful - it makes our time here so much easier,” she said as she smiled to a Japanese woman while pulling a bottle of water out of a handbag. “Have a safe flight,” she finished.

Just a year ago I was usually waiting in line for 10-15 minutes before I could put my bag on the belt and the greeting would be along the lines of “Empty-your-pockets-any-last-coins-there-and-your-watch?” while the person would stare somewhere else, not noticing that my things were already in the plastic bin. Today, as I walked to the gate, I was reminding myself how every kind of job has the potential to be fun, involving and something that employees can be enthusiastic about. Nomatter what the job is. Because every job has the potential of finding a meaningful purpose. It’s a matter of mentality and choice wether travellers are dumb-asses and the work is tedious tasks at a conveyor belt or if it’s a fun day with the ‘cousins’.