Time for the big race – Obama vs McCain

Finally, the race within the democratic party is over, as it seems (still waiting for Hillary to call it quits…) and it’s time for the big one – the race for the presidency.
And it seems during this day it has already heated up; McCain seized on his rival’s trademark slogan to say: “That’s not change we can believe in.”
His campaign went a step further, playing off Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In” slogan with a green sign behind McCain that read: “A Leader We Can Believe In.”
I’m curios what the Obama-campaign will respond with, anyway, we’re on our way… it will be interesting to follow.

A good day – exciting new colleges

New possibilities, a good customer meeting and very a sunny and beautiful day in Oslo. It’s always exciting when new things comes around, in my case I have started to work as a senior advisor at a very thrilling company, Confetti . To work with the net as a business channel, ad’s, media – a real mixture of how, when, why use the digital medias, a great thrill and I’m really looking forward to this one!
I will keep you posted on what we will find out during our journey.
Now it’s time to go and see John Fogerty at Sentrum Scene with HP 😉

Ad’s on the net tops TV-ads

Listening to the radio this morning, one of the biggest news was that companies spends more money on ads on the Internet, than they use on TV ads. Still, most spent money is traditional, ads in the newspapers.
So, what we happen with this in the future, I think it will create a flood of ads on most of the netsites where people are, which in the short term will be extremely annoying for those reading on the net. It will create more opportunities to make good websites, campaigns and so forth – and it will demand a much better structure on how to reach the potential customers/friends/target groups.
You’ll find the article here: .

A lot of things happens…

Things are happening at a frightening speed – the disasters in Burma and China which is horrific, the yet again discoveries about child abuse, the repelling father in Austria – sometimes it’s time for afterthought – think how fantastic we really have in up here in the North part of the world, and we are probably looking forward towards a fantastic summer.
The only thing today I would like to say today is: support something, but do it! The are several needs in the world!

Let get rid of it – Arion lusitanicus!

The Norwegian government has gone to action, if it can’t solve the financial pressure, what to do? Do something popular; get rid of the snails!
I agree to some point, those small disgusting bastards (I don’t like swearing, but those small/big one deserves it!) is all over the place, so too get rid of them I support!
But, and there is a big but, to make this a major issue is a simple and quite obvious thing – the red/green government can’t handle the real problems in Norway, so suggest a quick fix which hopefully, for them, takes peoples mind of the real issues!
Here is a link to the speach.
from minister Terje Riis-Johansen.

Why not your own TV-channel ?

It this days where everybody is talking about new social technologies, ranging from blogs to profiles on social networking sites. But almost all of these efforts are one-off technology deployments, instead of being part of a master plan on how to engage customers and employees on a strategic level.

Some ideas on how and why companies need to build their social strategy:

People: You have to understand how your target customer uses social technologies today—and in the future.
Objectives: Given how your customers use technologies, what business objectives can you realistically meet with social technologies? We believe there are five objectives companies can meet better and faster because of Web 2.0 technologies:

1. Listening
2. Talking
3. Energizing
4. Supporting, and
5. Embracing.

Strategy: After identifying your business objective, what is your strategy on how you are going to achieve it? A deep understanding of which Web 2.0 technologies and approaches work for which objectives is essential.

Technology: Once the other steps are done, then, and only then, should companies focus on which technologies to use. All too often, we have companies asking us “Which blogging software should we use?” when the question should be “Why should we have a blog at all?” Knowing your objectives will make winnowing and selecting the right technology vendors a much easier process.

One of the things that I ca me across lately is the idea of making/having your own TV-channel, besides just putting your videos on YouTube.
Instead of Twittering, which I from a business point of view, doesn’t find to have any ‘usp’ (If you have some, please let me know, I curios!), why not use the the TV media to stand out amongst all this social networks. I think it’s an easy way of communicating and really have to use the TV-media for what it’s worth. I know that TV is usually is a passive way of communication, but doing it the proper way, together with an rss-feed for example to downloads and notifications.
Ideas and business cases, let me know.

About football or rather – an excuse to be a moron!

I first planned to write something about the new fabulous opera in Oslo, but since the first football match in Stockholm between AIK and, in this case, Hammarby happened, I had to comment it.
Again, as every time, a lot of guys were morons again! Since my team (AIK) got a guy sent off with the red card, all hell break loose again. Trowing stuff into the field is absolute ridiculous!
Make the clubs pay as the costs, (security, police and so forth) I think this is the only way of getting rid of those people, because they know who they are.
This saturday, I went to see Brann and Stabekk played in the norwegian Tippeliga – there it was the way I would like to see fotball, parents was there with their kids, and despite that my ‘heroes’ lost and played terribly, it was a kind and nice atmosphere around the arena, and that is the way it should be!

The sellout from the Norwegian Labor Party

What a heading… well, it comes down to the agreement between LO and NHO (we’re talking norwegian here) – and as many comments was, it’s a sellout for the Norwegian Labor Party. An agreement whichm one cost billions of NOK and second, just undermines he idea of supporting the “working class”, rephrase: giving the 40′ – generation all what they want and don’t think about the future. I do disagree with the chairman of FRP, Siv Jensen most of the time – but in a debate last night she had a point. How could the government, especially the Labor Party, refuse to give the senior citizens with the lowest benefits the needed money, the reason for this was the lack of money….. – and instead give that amount and much more to the people who are ok? I’m not saying that there isn’t any need to the ones with the lower incomes, but this, this is pure a sellout to win the election in a couple of years.
And besides that, it’s us, the 60’s and 70’s generation who have to pay for it…

Some predictions about sports!

It’s time for football and baseball, and everybody who’s kinda’ into it always guess champions and so forth; so ok, here is my pick for the closest ones:

Tippeligaen Norway:

Champions 2008: Brann
(maybe not a surprise pick for those who knows me, but in this matter, there is no doubt, they have the best squad to create yet another successful season)
Runner up: Rosenborg
3rd: Viking

Allsvenskan Sweden:
Champions 2008: Malmø FF (I think it’s their year)
Runner up: IFK Gøteborg
3rd: AIK (I wish gold, but it’s gonna’ be a tough ride at the end of the season, that’s why not gold!)

Major League Baseball:

  • AL East: Red Sox, AL Central: Tigers, AL West: Angels, AL Wild Card: Blue Jays
    NL East: Mets, NL Central: Brewers, NL West: Padres, NL Wild Cars: Cubs
    AL Champions: Tigers over Red Sox
    NL Champions: Mets over Cubs
    World Series: Mets over Tigers (six games)

    • And finally, here is a video of this years best pitcher; Rich Harden:
    Rich Harden, Oakland A\'s – this years Cy Young winner

    About internet domination

    Eastern is over, and it’s time to start writing again. By the way, Hemsedal in Norway is a great place to be, skiing. I think it’s the best place in Scandinavia, besides Åre and Voss.
    Ok, back to the internet, I found a very interesting article written by the Think Tank Intertic about the acquisition of DoubleClick by Google. Is it a good thing, well, it’s all up to us to decides, but I think Googles domination on the net is getting a bit too much, I’m waiting for the competitors, and when I mean competitors I mean new ones, with new innovative a creative ideas. Please, if anyone knows anything interesting, please let me know. Here’s the link to the article: http://www.intertic.org/Media%20Briefings/DoubleClick.html

    Had fun, talking about digital branding

    Today, together with the Erfa group at Markedsföreningen in Stockholm, I had the opportunity to talk about branding in general, and digital branding in specific. Since this was my first meeting with them, I felt inspired meeting with a lot of people with a lot of interesting ideas.
    If you are interested, join the group – and become a part of ideas and discussions about branding in Stockholm.

    For me, it is time to have a nice and long eastern vacation, Hemsedal, here we come!

    How to brand a baby…or…

    News flash from the land of flamboyant parenting: Those wacky New Zealand parents who wanted to name their baby boy “4real” (but were foiled by a New Zealand law prohibiting names beginning with numbers) have now settled on a more familiar moniker. Superman, as he will be called in official contexts, will still go by 4real in the home.

    I’ll admit, I’m one of those people who like weird names, but this level of weirdness verges on abuse. What happens when the kid’s grown out of the superhero stage or when instant messenger handles like 4real are really embarrassing? It suggests that baby naming officials — in New Zealand at least — have their work cut out for them. They told the BBC that they had recently rejected the names Satan and Adolf Hitler.

    A recent Wall Street Journal article made much about the new culture of naming in which anxious parents read dozens of books and even hire professional naming consultants to help them “brand” unique children. Is this only in the US? Well, we up here in the north like to think so, but it’s kinda’ the same here. Of course, parents who misuse their naming power are not a new phenomenon. You can read about it in the papers almost everyday, so the real question is, what is this about? Now that corporate branding has saturated our culture, don’t be surprised if more doting parents name their kids after a soon to be released operating system?

    My inexpert opinion is that the current preoccupation with baby naming mirrors our cultural obsession with personal expression in a time when our individual sense of political power is on the wane. In an ideal world, having a baby expresses faith in the future — a faith many parents so conscious of food additives and melting ice caps may not have. In naming a baby you get to engage in a massive act of pure parental projection — perhaps for the last time.

    So maybe that’s why the state gets involved in such matters — like protecting a child from disease, maybe the idea is that communities need to protect children from names that might hurt them in the future.

    Why $0.00 is the Future of Business

    I know, I know, I stole the heading – but for everybody who is working with Internet related things, it doesn’t matter if it’s business development, branding or marketing, I think this article written by Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired and the author of the book the Long Tail is continuing his ideas about business on the net in the future. It’s worth reading. What I think about it, well, he do have some points – why pay when you could have it for free, but it kinda’ lack some solutions, but we will probably read about it in his forthcoming book about the subject – and I’ll guess that ones not for free….

    Elections in Russia and the US

    It’s interesting to see how different elections works in two of the biggest countries in the world. In Russia the power will show the world of unite, gathering together for a better future as a group, in the US the each and one individual try to tear each other apart, in the name of uniting the country.
    It’s more a reflection and I do find it fascinating, it’s so far away on how we do things here up north.

    INLAND EMPIRE – again

    I saw a preview of it last night in Oslo, I prefer the big screen instead of a computer… and I haven’t decided yet what to think, except one thing, it’s half an hour too long. Too many walks round corners from Laura Dern, which is absolutely brilliant in the leading role. And as always, fantastic music/sounds which helps to create the confusion of the content of the film. But to quote Mr. Lynch himself: “This film makes perfect sense – to me!”

    The spam monster

    I really hate spam! Everyday there is an extreme amount of spam in my mailbox from this site… Thanks anyway to Gmail for helping me out on this matter, but it’s really frustrating.
    The summer is over, and I will shortly be back starting to write again, in different matters. Since a election in Norway is coming up, well I’ll guess it won’t get unnoticed on this blog..