Hi!
I just discovered this awesome site:

www.pandora.com

If you, like me, love to get to know new bands (and stun your friends with your amazing musical knowledge) this is the site for you!
It's very simple to use. You just type in the name of your favourite band or artist, and it finds similar bands or artists. And I've been quite amazed by this. Found the coolest bands! Even unsigned, underground bands are featured in the machine. This is really cool ! It's also possible to sign up, and have the site save the artists you've found so you can show 'em to your friends after you've found them!
Hope you find loads of new bands you'll come to love!
Have a nice weekend!
x
Emma

Ps. FINALLY it's spring in Copenhagen!

What’s the deal with the new postal service CityMail? It’s clearly a good initiative and Post Danmark also need the competition. But their campaign with acrobatic - almost flying delivery service. I really don’t get it. Shouldn’t they compete on the pricing? And not on how high they can jump and how well they’re able to do a headstand. And then there’s a hole other issue. I thought that the number one rule in the business world was – differentiation! You have to differentiate your business on the market in order to legitimize your products and your business altogether. Isn’t that correct? Post Danmark have and are still using the classic yellow bike (and car) when delivering the mail to the Danish people. Therefore an easy way for CityMail to differentiate their business is to choose another colour for their bikes. Need I say more? Anyway the delivery boys are very friendly and they visit us here at Stagis almost everyday - although they seldom have any mail for us....

As you probably already know it’s finally spring in Copenhagen - and therefore also in the Stagis Office. Liva bought a bucket of lilys yesterday - and this morning there is nice atmosphere of spring here at the office.

So, I spent a couple of days in Berlin with my class. God, why am I living in Copenhagen I ask myself? It's no wonder so many creative people are 'fleeing' this city to go live in Berlin. Because never have I been in a city quite like that. Everywhere you go, creative stuff going on. Concerts, art, street art, photography etc. etc. A truly cool city.
One of the really awesome (or "spitze", as on would say in Berlin) things we saw, was this street sign pictured under. As Nikolaj mentioned earlier on the blog, there has been huge demonstations and whatnot, concerning 'Ungdomshuset' on Jagtvej 69. So, here I am, in the middle of Berlin. And what do I see? A 'Jagtvej'-sticker on the normal street sign. (As pictured below) Later, we were told that there had been massive demonstrations in Berlin as well, but I still thought this was kinda cool.
But, alas, the house is no more.
Below is some pictures of other cool stuff me and my homies saw in Berlin. Once again, this is a really, realle 'spitze' city, so if you ever, EVER get the chance to go there - DO ! I assure you, it's not like anywhere you've ever been before, that's for sure.
Hope y'all are doing great and enjoying spring!
Emma
Ps. I wrote an article in The Danish Film Institutes magazine called 'Film'. It's in the new number, which comes out on 30 March. It's on YouTube and media on the internet in general. So, if you want to check it out, that would be really, really cool ! Remember the name: Emma Holten ;)

(The pics were shot by my good friend Troels, who snapped them with his cell phone)

The Jagtvej sticker

Setting up all the gear for the Deftones concert on 27 March on Brandenburger Tor.

I just read a short article about the weblog awards 2006, which introduced me to several cool blogs. Some more serious than others:

Check out the full list - I think the large number of categories shows the extent of areas where blogging can really make sence!

I do not know if you have heard the hit single from the Danish underground duo Trolle Siebenhaar. The instant I heard ”Sweet Dogs” I thought it was a fantastic tune. I just didn’t know why. Today I read the answer in the morning paper. The singer, Ane Trolles vocal has been recorded in Martin Siebenhaars bedroom (the other half of the duo). She was singing into a mike covered with a sock – primitive but also very authentic. But that’s not all. Ane Trolle had that same night made up her mind: She wanted to be a professional singer! Maybe it's that passion and determination you sense when listening to “Sweet Dogs”. Fact is that when they tried to record the vocal again later on Ane couldn’t get the same kind of mood into the vocal. So the vocal on the single is the originally recorded vocal – the one recorded in a bedroom. What I’ve read this morning is in my opinion storytelling when it's best. From now on I will listen to ”Sweet Dogs” with this story in mind, and the story brings something extra to the experience. In the end I love “Sweet Dogs” even more. Have a nice and hopefully sunny weekend.

Donate 20 dkr to Henning Dyremose (the former CEO of TDC) or other CEOs. The website www.redchefen.dk is created by the recently founded Communist Party and they give you an opportunity for helping CEOs in need. "Save the CEO" is clearly an ironic campaign - but the Danish communists are not the only ones who is blacklisting CEOs of large Danish corporations such as TDC, Copenhagen Airport, ISS to name a few. Some of them are in desperate need of a helping hand with their image. How can we help them?

Hi everybody,

About two weeks ago, on march 6th I went to Ireland with my class. More precisely, I went to Galway, Ireland. For those of you unfortunate enough not to know about this little piece of heaven on earth, the following pretty much sums up what Galway is about and what to do, when in Galway.

There is exactly one street in Galway, worth mentioning. On this street, which is about a quarter of the length of Strøget (in CPH), you have about 20 shops (and one very small underground mall) and about 150 pubs. Right now, I bet you’re sitting there, thinking: ”But how do they stay in business?” Fear not, dear reader. The incredible demand for beer and pubs in this city, will blow you away. It so weird though, because in the daytime there’s like no people at all in the streets, but then at night it is like the Saturday night of Roskilde Festival. It is absolutely amazing.
Right now, I’m writing an essay for my English class and it’s about alcohol and Ireland and why alcohol is so popular over there, and when you’ve been there and experienced Ireland first-handed the reason is clear: It’s the rain. It’s funny, because before you visit the island, you read all these guidebooks about Ireland and all they ever say is basically: “The landscape of Ireland is absolutely amazing, with it’s green valleys and mountains, beautiful plants and so on..” - And I bet it is really beautiful, but the end of this guidebook-sentence should be: “Too bad you won’t ever be able to see it because of the non-stop, constant rain.” It rains literally ALL the time. I’m amazed anyone’s ever been fortunate enough to actually experience this supposedly “beautiful country” when it’s impossible to see five feet in front of you, because of the rain. I really can’t imagine an Ireland without rain.

But in a way, the rain brought us closer together as a class, because every time it rained, we went to a pub and drank either Guinness or hot cocoa (depending on what time of the day), and there you go – the reason for why there is a need for so many pubs in Ireland is because of the constant rain and the Irish peoples need for a place to escape the rain in a cozy environment.

Anyway, I’m not really being fair to Ireland now, and I don’t want you all to think that my trip was horrid, because it really wasn’t. I had a fabulous time with my fabulous friends and lots of fabulous Guinness. It was great, and the truth is, despite of the rain, I miss it. The people, the pubs, the nightlife and everything else. It’s a great country and it’s really blossoming these days, in regards to new arising businesses, the tourism and new firms moving to Ireland. Speaking of which, Nikolaj, the floors in the office are getting quite worn down. So, how about it? Ireland? Well, think it over. Let me know. And for everybody else – go there as soon as you can. It’s fabulous.

This pretty much sums me on my trip to Ireland up.

The other day Sandra was posting about my lecture at RUC. We discussed how product placement and stealth-marketing is increasingly becoming part of PR-strategies, more specifically how delivering stories to individual bloggers is possible and what the ethical challenges are.

I think the question was something like "Is a company ethical when they deliver a product or the story about a product to a blogger in order to have him/her post the story on their blog". My answer was that I think this is not an ethical problem on the side of the company. But I think it is very much so for the blogger. And hence I think it is a pseudo-discussion in a corporate communications-debate. But certainly a consideration that any blogger has to make as she chooses the content of her blog.

I wrote a bit about it on Kommunikationsforum at one time as there was an increasing tendency to talk about bloggers as media which they are not. As I write in the comment to the article "Blogospheric PR", bloggers are people - not media. And this is really the challenge when it comes to spread the word of a product or service in the viral community that any organization has to consider its role in: How do we communicate our "news" to the network? Some have argued that this is a matter of "changing the pressreleases". It's not. If it is to really work out both on a short term and in the long run you have to create real relations with the people that are going to blog about you or your company. Otherwise they'll feel used and abused and do their best to make you and your company feel equally.

I guess the question also origined from a misunderstanding about who's doing what in the process of delivering stories to bloggers. As the blogger choses whatever content they want to put in their blog it's completely a choice on the side of the blogger and in their own right to chose what they want to write about. And if the subject of an indivduals blog is design there may be a story that has exactly that content and will fall in the interest of the blogger. Luckily so.

Last week we helped Kræftens Bekæmpelse (The Danish Cancer Society) launch their blog "Blog om kræft". It's going well so far. During the first week 13 readers with some connection to this hideous disease chose to comment on Frede Olesens first blog post. And today Frede has been blogging about the coordination of the danish healthcare services which seems to be an issue that many cancer-stricken patients and their relatives are challenging.

I wonder what the members of the organization that haven't been involved in the process of discussing blogging and the organizational effects of the blog are thinking about the blog? One of the objectives of blogging as a manager or team-leader is to set the good example or put focus on critical issues. But how is this seen from the perspective of colleagues in the organization?

You can see the blog here.