Friday night it was officially announced that Copenhagen is awarded the title of European Green Capital 2014. The title is awarded by the European Commision in Bruxelles and given once a year to the city in Europe that shows the most initiative and innovation in creating green, sustainable solutions for cleaner and healthier city life.

Copenhagen competed with 19 other cities in Europe for the award. Three cities were selected to present their bid in front of a jury in Bruxelles. Frankfurt Am Main, Bristol and Copenhagen were the final three candidates.

Stagis’ role in Copenhagen’s bid for the award was to help the Municipality of Copenhagen to put into words and images the many great green initiatives and innovative solutions that Copenhagen offers its citizens. The end result was a great presentation; although deciding on which green activities and initiatives to include in the hour-long presentation was a difficult task – Copenhagen really has so much to offer in this regard. For instance, Copenhagen has a unique central heat distribution, we are becoming the no. 1 city in the World in terms of using the bicycle to get around the city, and the city is developing new recreational areas to make life in Copenhagen greener and easier.

Through a workshop and several meetings with the Technical and Environmental Adminstration of Copenhagen, Stagis helped to concentrate the many green initiatives and solutions into a concept which provided a red thread through the presentation. The concept, which we named ”Sharing Copenhagen”, describes not only the green solutions and the benefits to all Copenhageners, but more so the actual way the City of Copenhagen works in creating a better, cleaner, healthier and greener city. The Municipality of Copenhagen has a unique approach to making the green growth happen: Whenever there is a problem to be solved, they try to find a solution that will work in several ways. For instance, there is a growing problem with traffic congestion (just like so many other big cities) and the solution doesn't only solve congestion - it also aims to create long term health improvement, more green areas, less air pollution and lower cost. That's why the streets close to my house at Dronning Louises Bro has wider bicycle lanes than car lanes. It helps more people bicycle and less people to choose the car. So, the way we solve problems in Copenhagen is by thinking "smart" solutions across several boundaries. The other strength that is important in Copenhagen is our ability to share. We share ideas, we get people to participate, and the city is open to share solutions with the rest of Europe. We thought "sharing" was a key concept in the way Copenhagen works. And certainly an important part of the role Copenhagen takes on in 2014.

I am really proud and happy that my team has helped Copenhagen (and all you copenhageners!) claim the title as European Green Capital 2014. I think there are so many things that we can share and teach to other cities in Europe, and around the World. Although I might be a little biased, I believe that it is well deserved. First of all it is well deserved by the team that did an extraordinary effort during May, developing the concept and preparing the copy and design for the presentation for Bruxelles (well done, Marc, Søren and Michael!). Secondly, I think it's well done by the City counsil and everyone in Copenhagen. We look forward to 2014 when Copenhagen will have many great activities celebrating the city’s year as the greenest, most livable city in Europe. We might not be the biggest city or the biggest country, bu we should still participate in being a role model that others can follow.

Here is a selection of the 66 slides of the one hour-long presentation that was delivered by the director of, and his colleagues from, the Technical and Environmental Adminstration of Copenhagen in Bruxelles:

There is an article on the award on Danish newspaper Politiken.

The reviewer, business commentator Henrik Jørgensen, had his doubts when he first heard of authenticity as a concept for improving the business of a company. However, after reading ”The Authentic Company”, he acknowledges the topic and the book as a useful tool to highlight internal strenghts in the company – and to use these strenghts to actively create value and growth.

He especially notices that the book delivers on the question of "how?" a company can use its internal strenghts to grow and develop a unique competitive power and Henrik Jørgensen recalls the focus on core competencies from the nineties (which I also mention in the book). He also comments the way the book tackles this by using a spectrum of historical, reflexive and expressive authenticity and how these different varieties of autheticity helps the reader to appreciate the constant journey a company neccesarily must be on to discover its authenticity.

I recently visited Henrik at Børsen for an interview about the book and the topic of authenticity. The interview is available on borsen.dk (in Danish).

A brief quote from the written review: (in Danish)

"Udnyt virksomhedens indre værdier
For som bogens undertitel antyder, "Gør indre styrker til fremtidens vækststrategi" handler det meget omkring hvordan vi benytter organisationens interne værdier til at udvikle og skabe en unik konkurrencekraft.

Det er et fokus som nærmest så småt blev glemt da de fleste skulle besvare det ekstremt vigtige spørgsmål, som jeg ynder at udtale med min udprægede Århusianske accent, ”Hvordan?” – for hvordan sætter vi rent faktisk fokus på at udvikle vores virksomhed ved at sætte fokus på de interne styrker?

Det kommer Nicolai Stagis med et rigtig godt bud på i bogen. Hvordan virksomheder ved at sætte fokus det der er Autentisk i virksomheden kan komme frem til noget der er unikt og på rejsen der til være med til at udvikle virksomheden."

You can also read the full review of The Authentic Company: "Derfor har Emmerys problemer og NOMA succes” (in Danish).

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at a conference at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) together with my good colleague and dear friend, professor Majken Schultz. As always it was a great experience to share my theory and experience with an interested and engaged crowd, who were keen to learn more about how to create value in a company by using authenticity to grow a passionate brand.

I have lectured at CBS a number of times, however this was the first time after the launch of my new book Den autentiske virksomhed (“The Authentic Company”). I was delighted to share the podium with Majken, who was my supervisor back when the book was still a dissertation in 2006. The whole experience brought me back to where it all started – it has been a wonderful and exciting journey to where Stagis and I stand today. A journey that included visiting owners and managers of companies such as LEGO, Hästens, Alessi, Absolut, Ducati and BMW.

More than one hundred and twenty managers, communications professionals and students attended the conference. They heard Majken and I speak on authenticity, branding and identity and the value of joining these three elements as a means of creating growth, passion and leadership in the brand of the company.

I started the conference by presenting authenticity as a concept and a tool. I had chosen the two companies Ducati and Noma to illustrate where authenticity has been used successfully to respectively create a turnaround and provide inspiration for a new unrecognized position in the market place. I then elaborated on the three dimensions of authenticity (historical, reflexive and expressive authenticity) and how a company can be rated on these three dimensions in order to discuss possible ways forward for the brand. The discussion that followed had excellent questions and insights from the audience and I really enjoyed the debate. For me it's certainly the most interesting part of giving a talk, when the participants want to know more, discuss the cases and the idea and question to what extend it can be used.

In the second half of the conference Majken explained organizational identity and how this ties to authenticity. One of her most important points in this regard was the fact that identity is at the same time “who we are” and “where we are going” and an ongoing internal discussion in the company between employees, managers and stakeholders to reach consensus on this. Authenticity can be used to create a point of reference for all involved parts.

At the following networking reception I spoke to a bunch of interesting people telling me how their companies are working – or not working – with creating a focused and passionate identity. Many of them told me that they felt inspired by my presentation. Well, I am the one getting inspired by all of you. Every presentation that I give leaves me with loads of inspiration and new perspectives and viewpoints on authentic identity and I often receive feedback that I can use in my future work. I know Majken Schultz had a great time too, so hopefully we'll get back to doing more talks during the fall.

Thanks to everyone who participated at the conference – I look forward to meeting you again sometime. The participants have received emails with a link to our presentations. If you missed it, don't hesitate to send me an email. We might put together a few sound clips and video from the event - until then you can view videos from our conference in February.

How can text messages create better public transportation? Well, they can’t. Not on their own anyway. But if the text message campaign is a part of a larger project on delivering a high level of service and better travel experiences for the passengers it starts to make sense.

The project “Bus driver of the year” is part of the huge project “Bus drivers with character” which is initiated and executed by Stagis. The goal is to create pride, appreciation and job satisfaction among bus drivers in order to deliver world class service. The campaign and the text messages focus on “Good moments”, asking the passengers to write about their best moment from the bus. One of the text messages from yesterday reads something like this:

“6A. I was on my way home from school and got a new hair cut, but no one at school had noticed. And then when I was heading home the bus comes and I show my bus ticket. And the bus driver smiles and says, “Did you get your hair cut, it’s nice!” and I smile and say “yes!” and get on the bus. That was my best moment”

For the last three weeks signs and posters in the buses in Copenhagen and all over Zealand in Denmark have called passengers to send text messages with praise to their driver. During the first three years of the project it was focused on Greater Copenhagen. This spring the project has expanded to cover about a third of Denmark. A lot of passengers have taken the possibility to comment on their daily bus travel. Besides receiving praise this effort shows the drivers how important their attitude and behaviour is to the passengers' experience of the ride. This really makes a difference to the drivers – to discover just how significant their daily work is.

Within the next few weeks 6 to 10 drivers will be nominated for the title as “Bus driver of the year”. The passengers will be asked to vote for their favourite candidate on the bus driver website buschauffor.dk and the winner will be celebrated at an event on September 2nd. We’ll keep you posted!

During the last few months Stagis has developed and implemented the new identity for Flakkebjerg Efterskole. The identity is developed in close collaboration with students and teachers of the boarding school. The project began with an investigation of the inherent authentic strengths of the school, by interviewing a range of students and teachers. The investigation led to 3 authentic positions, one of which direct the further development of the identity, both visually and strategically.

The obvious choice for Flakkebjerg was to focus on the core of being a project school. Already, all activities are practical and educational focused on the project approach. From learning to cook in the kitchen to develop project work within the 6 subject fields. With the new identity Stagis helped Flakkebjerg to use this strength to position themselves and use the project approach as a tool to develop and enforce how they want to continuously teach and express themselves.

The new identity plays with the idea of process and development, and the clean design gives space to vivid project content. The website navigation is based on vertical 'curtains' revealing content on the pages. This system refers to the idea of process and projects in a developing mode.
One of the core elements on the new web platform is a project space, driven by students who upload their current project experiments. The projects are presented as work-in-process projects, allowing the students to show what they have learned and how they got there.
The project space is directly linked to Facebook, giving students the ability to share their projects with friends and family, spreading the word of Flakkebjerg with the voice of the students themselves.

We look forward to follow future projects from Flakkebjerg at www.flakkebjergefterskole.dk