They other day I was in a meeting talking to a client about the benefits of corporate blogging and other social media. A long way in to the conversation we could agree that it would have some really positive effects on the companies communication with their customers. There was one time in the conversation though were I couldn't give my client a straight answer. The question of: how can I measure the effect of social media on the companies' bottom line? The client works in communication and he knew that for him to ask his bosses to use money on something that can't be directly measured on the bottom line was going to be difficult. I wish I could have referred to an analysis that showed this calculation but I couldn't. I could talk to him for hours about how his customers might be positively affected by the companies use of social media and therefore becoming more loyal to their brand and therefore buy more products....but somehow that is not enough to convince the financial director! Therefore Im on a quest to build a convincing argument that will make me able to convince even the hardest number crunchers. So I´m hoping to get help from you guys. Does anyone have any knowledge of any research being done to find out how to measure social media, in particular blogging? I will leave you with an example of the type of argument that I was putting forward in my meeting, here made by Jeremy Wright: One of the main schools thought relative to where blogs are going is that they may eventually completely replace most typical corporate websites. Instead of having an "About Us" page that stays the same, companies will have an "About Us" category on their blog that gets updated at least once of month with new company-related information. Instead of having an "About the CEO" page, the CEO will have his or her own blog. At their core, blogs are simply websites that empower communication. Why wouldn't a company want to empower communication across its entire website?   

HC Andersen is walking the streets of Copenhagen again. Only now he is in an animated version. Today Guppyworks launched the computer game HCA and the creative director of Guppyworks, Per Rosendal visited “Go’ Morgen Danmark” this very morning to talk about the process and the game. Guppyworks have been developing the game of HC Andersens adventure life for the last 3 years and the costs is around 6 mill. DKr. What puzzled me is the fact that Per Rosendal & Co. haven’t been receiving any kind of financial support from the Ministry of Culture (Kulturministeriet) – because computer games aren’t considered culture. But why is that? I believe the computer game not only plays an increasing role in the entertainment industry and in the field of economics (exceeding the movie industry), it is also one of the most significant cultural contributors of our time. The language of new cultural media is dominated by the computer game. Am I wrong?
The fact that this particular game is about one of our times greatest pieces of fine culture has nothing to do with my wondering - it could have been a game of war - but it is worth mentioning.
What do you think? Do you consider yourself cultural when you play a computer game?

Hmm... In my last post, I promised to come up with a design of a meeting situation, that would eliminate the effects of what I call the Ego Game. This is definetly easier written than done! Right now I haven´t got anything new on this subject, but I will make it a personal quest of mine to pursue "The Perfect Business Meeting". But until I find it, here is something to think about.

In a danish newspaper I read about this guy, who´s applying a large financial corporation for a new job. Along with his resume, he sent this video of his job application. Take a look, it´s sort of special.

As any other applicant would do, the guy presents himself in the way, that he finds best. He stresses his competences, shows his hobbies and generally acts as we probably all would at a job interview. He is even well dressed in a dark suit. Nothing wrong here. The young man speaks to the camera about his understanding of succes: what is means to be succesfull and how to reach your goals. Still no problem - that´s pretty normal in the given situation. So why is it, that this man is currently the laughing stock of  Yale, Ivy league University?

Well, if you haven´t watched the video yet, do it now! It will give you an idea why...

The poor guy´s video was published by the company, in which he applied for a job, and now he´s getting thousands of mails from people he doesn´t know, just making fun of him. The increasing number of "fan mails" has made the guy quit his studies an move back to his parents. I think it´s a bit unfair to treat him like this. After all, he was just trying to get a job in an unusual way. And he even makes a couple of good points about succes in every day life. I think that next time I´m applying for a job, I´ll think of this young man. I´m sure I can learn from his experiences, just not sure what it is...

So... This was quite a long way from "The Perfect Meeting". And still, a job interview can definetly be seen as a business meeting. Both parts are trying to make the most of the situation, and no one wants to loose (a potential employee or a potential job). Anywho, I will continue my search for the holy grails of business meetings, and if I discover something new, you will be the first to know!

I have just returned from Italy...and wine and bruscetta miste and buon giorno...and wow!
I got married three weeks a go and have been on my honeymoon with my husband. My husband! And I am a wife! When I think of “a wife” I see someone who always keeps the house clean and wears cloths that matches and maybe has a couple of kids and a dog and a stationcar – parked in a garage. The car. Definitely not the story of my life. Am I even a grown-up?
It is kind of strange to pronounce each other as husband and wife and Mr and Mrs. It courses confusion and makes us look like two schizophrenics pretending to be normal people. Several times on our trip to Italy, when speaking to someone else than each other of course, sentences like “Im sure my boyf…the guy that was just here…ehh the tall one…ehh my husband will be here in any minute” or “yes hello this is Amanda Karlsson…I mean It's me... I’m the one who’s with the other one... you’ve been talking to on the phone. He is a guy. I know him well.”
It’s like we are being so focussed on our new "titles" that we forget our real names - that married people have different names and that they didn’t receive the name “husband” at birth.
“And you must be husband 2.456.366.398? The son of husband 1.164.952.761 and wife 1.163.496.469?"
In spite of the confusion about ourselves and our names (and why italian women aren't fat when they eat a liter of oil a day??) we had a great trip and it feels good to be married. And I am actually happy to be Mrs. and married and wife. Just as happy as I am to be Amanda.

It is infact a husband and a wife on that picture. And if it looks like the wife is running away she's not. She's just trying to figure out where her car is parked...?

I come from a very sarcastic family - my entire childhood is based on sarcasm. Now, I don't know why, I just know we are. My granddad is from Gibraltar, and he has this saying that he keeps repeating to us all – Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.
Despite all of this, I never saw myself as being a particularly sarcastic person. During the previous weekend I have been called sarcastic not once, not twice, but three whole times from 3 different people. Why is this? - I ask myself. The first stage I went through was denial. I am not a sarcastic person. I don't do sarcasm. Sarcasm isn't my thing.
But it got me thinking - why would they perceive me as being sarcastic? What did I say? And for the life of me, I couldn't recollect having said anything particularly sarcastic. I was just being myself. It occurred to me that in order to get to the bottom of this problem I couldn't rely on my own instincts and judgment, seeing as they would be too subjective in this matter. I needed somebody who could be somewhat objective and who truly knew me as well. So I turned to my very best friend Lærke, who's known me for as long as I can remember. When I asked her, her first response was to laugh. After she had cooled down a bit, she told me that, of course she thought I was a sarcastic person, but that was just who I was. After she said that, I couldn't deny it any longer. I had to settle with the fact that my middle name now is Sarcasmo (my mothers idea of a joke) and just deal with it. And now, that I'm aware of my sarcasm I've learned to live with it.

Hi, my name is Liva and I am sarcastic.

We all know that this summer hasn’t been great for CPH airport. The queue in security has been awful and usually the airport has blamed the security because thy have been on strikes and so forth. Having spent (to much) time in CPH airport lately, I find myself puzzled by the fact that it isnt a problem with the people at security as such. The problem why I’m always half an hour to an hour late when I take of is because I sit on the plane waiting for people who hasn’t come through security. Is it because we have a tight security and we all have to take our shoes of one at the time and cant bring fluids on board in our hand luggage (Like in the UK)? Is it because these people checked-in to late? No, its because there are two places to go through security in CPH Airport. These to places are in each end of the airport and one entrance has 3000 people waiting in line and the other about 30! Obviously not everyone knows that there is an entrance with only 30 people waiting in line for security - but you would think that the staff in the airport and maybe the communication department would know about it and think that it would be a good idea to tell people? But who are these people - do the even exist. Is there any communication department in the airport? I don’t know...I have never seen (or heard) them. Last time I decided to change queue (because I had a flash back of the short line in the other end of the airport) I thought that someone surely would have tried to let us (the merry 3000) know that there was no queue in the other end...When i to my surprise saw that there was only 30 people waiting in line I asked the guy in the security why there was no one informing people that this was the case, so that people wouldn’t be late for their flights - i thought he might have blamed the infamous communication department. But guess who’s fault it was...the passengers standing in the long line. Because, as he explained to me its because when people have chosen a queue the are reluctant to move from that specific queue?! Its practically impossible to move them. He also mentioned that they did have people on site walking around telling people that there was a better chance of getting through security (maybe that day!) in the other end of the airport. Hm... again I most admit my eyes couldn’t see them. Maybe communication in CPH airport takes place in a parallel universe?

The airport seem pretty confident though....I found this wonderful site I can visit to write about my best experience in CPH airport - so maybe I will do that;-)

A very good friend of mine is studying in Island these days and just came home to visit. She told me about the nature, the wild horses, the hot water, the very special light in the evening and how she is actually getting used to the beautiful view outside her window...

You can see more pictures here

I have just red the comment on my post on Lego. It was well hidden, Søren ;-)

I agree that it is a challenge to write in a language that everybody understands. You can never be sure that people read and understand what you "put out there" just the way you want it to be red and understood. That is a chance you will have to take when you communicate and you must be willing to take the possible heat afterwards – I’m prepared to do both ;-)

How far can you go? Well, I believe you know that when you are a part of a team and when you are a normally sane, commonsensical and reasonable person. Of course I would never go any further than my responsibility concerning STAGIS - and my responsibility as a human being - allows me to go. Which means that I would never write anything I felt could harm anyone in anyway. Nor do anything on purpose to damage our relations to clients, colleagues and other relations. That would be very cruel and also very, very stupid.
That is why you don't find anything specific about our meeting with Lego System a/s in my post. A meeting which by the way went fantastic and was both a pleasant and an educational experience. And that is also why you don't find any names on people who participated in the meeting, in my post.
What you do find is a description of my boss and I playing in the hall - because to us that is what Lego is about. Playing. And if anyone is exposed I believe it's us.

One of the wonderful things about blogging is that it is the "voice of a company". And it wouldn't be that if we had an editor, say for an instance if Nikolaj were editing our posts before saving them on our weblog.
If that was the case it wouldn´t be a corporate blog, would it?