Stain your forehead with blue

"All beauty is best as Nature made it:
'Belgic colour is shameful on a Roman Face'
If some woman has stained her forehead with azure dye
on that account to be desired?"
Propertius, Elegies late 1st BC, as quoted in Wode by Boudicca - The Book.

The French surrealists really thought their young friend Salvadar Dali was crazy when he waxed his armpits and painted them blue. But crazy for real or just posing as one, Dali got what he wanted: he won the heart of Paul Eluard's beautiful wife Gala.
Maybe Dali got his inspiration from the cobalt blue war paint that Briton and Celtic warriors, like Queen Boudicca's, wore on their faces to look more fierce. Or as Caesar described it in 54 BC: "In fact all the Britons dye themselves dark blue with woad, making themselves all the more terrifying in battle."

Last year British fashion designer duo Boudicca launched Wode, a sensual perfume that leaves a blue mist on your skin after spraying. The Yves Klein blue colour makes it look like messy graffiti at first, but then it dissolves completely.
Awesome.

• BoudiccaWode.com
• WODE b BOUDICCA (YT)
• Platform13.com, corporate site for Boudicca. The website was named after the train platform in St Pancras International where, according to legend, ancient warrior queen Boudicca's body rests.
• Boudicca Couture and its 2009 collection Real Girl

Thelma, Louise, high heels and an Audi R8

If I ever had to ride into the sunset Thelma and Louise style, it would have to be in an Audi TT Roadster. I've driven one during one exclusive and unfortunately rainy day somewhere in the spring of 2000 and the only thing I regretted was wearing high heels on that day. Riding a sports car in high heels is not a good idea, so I drove it bare footed and threw the shoes in the back. By the time I had to get out of the car at the fuel station, I realised my shoes were squashed underneath the canvas roof when we took the top down.
They were really good shoes, but then again, the Audi TT is a great car, too. Nothing quite says "money, brains and beauty" as a shiny new Audi sports car.
I am telling you this because somewhere last week Audi launched the contest site AudiForza.be. There are only two days left, so hurry up to win an Audi R8 5.2 FSI quattro an Xbox 360 system. If you already have an Xbox, make sure to check out the Forza Motorsport 3 racing game, which features the Audi R8 5.2 FSI quattro as its "hero" car. Smell of burning rubber not included.

UPDATE: Good news! Contest runs until mid November. Last winner is announced on 16 November, and the website will remain online until a month after that.

Just another day at the prosthetic foot factory

The title of this blog post is a recycled one: the original tweet was "Thirsty but too lazy to get out of the chair". The prosthetic foot one recycled 82% of the characters in the lazy one. Recycling is that easy! See who else is recycling their (or their follower's) tweets by tagging it with #recyclethis.
For each Re:cycled Tweet a penny will be donated to recycling education programs sponsored by Global Inheritance. Global Inheritance is a nonprofit organization working on empowering individuals worldwide to creatively solve global imbalances.

My 3 LeWeb09 favourites

I was just looking at the impressive list of speakers at this year's LeWeb conference (9 & 10 Dec, Paris). I'm not sure if I'll be able to, but I'd like to shake hands with at least these three people:

1. Chris Pirillo, aka the Lockergnome. His bio says he's been participating in Internet conversations since 1992, but I only heard about him somewhere in 1999, when I was one of a team of three to run a web-only radio station. One of the seven weekly shows was about technology, and I don't know how I would have managed to scrape together all those topics without Chris Pirillo. And Tom of Tom's Hardware.
2. Japanese activist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist Joi Ito always moved so fast it was hard to keep track of all his projects. When I started blogging pictures from my mobile phone back in 2003 he was already getting tired of moblogging. When I made it to Google's social network Orkut in 2004, Joi Ito was already the number one user. And, you guessed it, already looking out for something new. Year after year, Mr Ito was way ahead of the race without even running. So you can imagine I'm really curious about what he's been turning his back on lately.
3. When I started that online porn lovers community back in 2004, American writer, podcaster, blogger, editor, sex educator, and sex columnist Violet Blue was definitely someone to look up to. She's funny, witty, open-minded and to me one of the only web women who manages to talk and write about sex and porn openly without getting those weird looks. OK maybe she did, but she simply didn't care.

Who would you like to meet? Are you coming, too? Use the BLOG09 promo code when you register to get a discount.

Picture credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/violetblue/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Speaking at Personal Democracy Forum, Nov 20-21 in Barcelona

"Across the Continent, political leaders and grass-roots activists are embracing new ways of running for office, influencing the political debate, and governing. Inspired by the success of Barack Obama’s campaign for president of the United States, people everywhere are using the Internet to open up politics and make governance more transparent, participatory and effective.
For six years, Personal Democracy Forum has been THE place in America where politicos and technologists gather to learn from each other, network, and glimpse the future. Now that conversation is coming to Barcelona, November 20-21, at the spectacular Torre Agbar. Register Now."
And if you dare to refer to the Torre as El Dildo, I'll slap you around a bit with a big trout. It's a great building. And I can't wait to get inside and meet all these bright minds from all over Europe and the US.

Reputation management: what would Google do?

I used to run a large profile pages website and once got a call from a professional clown, who demanded that one of the users, who happened to use the same (very generic) name, give up her nickname forever and delete the profile page. He claimed her profile page's higher position in Google cost him customers and threatened to sue me. I told him that if he tried that, I would mobilise the whole online community to Google bomb him into oblivion. Never heard of him again.
But at least the clown did one thing right: he had tried to contact the site owner. Some complainers don't even bother to do that: I really wouldn't want to be the one at Google who has to answer all these angry owners of small and medium sized companies who still think Google is the internet and is responsible for all the content it displays after a Google search.
That was five years ago, but not a lot has changed since then. Belgium's latest blogstorm (tworm?) is centered around an angry Belgian jeweler who demanded a tweet to be deleted. How could this have been avoided? Simple: by following Google's tips for Managing your reputation through search results. Replace "site's webmaster" with "Twitter account's owner" at will.

1. If you can't remove something [on the internet you dislike] yourself, you can contact the site's webmaster and ask them to remove the content or the page in question.
2. After [the] site's webmaster has removed or edited the page, you can expedite the removal of that content from Google using our URL removal tool.

But what if the one who published that nasty stuff about you can't be reached, is playing deaf of refuses to remove the content? Then you can always use a tried and trusted crisis communication tactic: let it snow. Flood the interwebs with what Google calls useful, positive information about yourself or your business. Google illustrates with a couple of examples:

• Create a Google profile. When people search for your name, Google can display a link to your Google profile in our search results[...].
• [...]ask some of your other customers who are happy with your company to give a fuller picture of your business.
• If a blogger is publishing unflattering photos of you, take some pictures you prefer and publish them in a blog post or two.

More helpful tips at the Google Web Search Help forum thread.

Clicking is so nineties

I just spent the last five minutes yelling "Design. DESIGN!!!" at my computer, while waving frantically with my hands. The reason? This young man's online portfolio: AndreasLutz.com.
Amazing.

ANDREAS LUTZ - Because clicking is so 90s! from andreaslutz on Vimeo.

The most average of them all

Grader.com offers a number of tools like website grader, twitter grader, blog grader etc. Today I discovered they also have a personality grader. My grade is * drum roll * 27 out of 100. In detail:

Frequency Score: 59
Your frequency metric is moderate. Congratulations, you are average.

Sentiment Score: 31
Your low sentiment score is a result of your negative demeanor in your online interactions; to improve your score, we recommend terminating your constant complaints.

Reach Score: 15
The system has determined that your reach score is deplorably low. To improve this score, try making a commitment to the network of your choice and engaging other users in more conversations.

Intelligence Score: 03
The low result of your intelligence evaluation suggests that you are either a “digital immigrant” or have abused the right to use “AOL-speak” online. NEthing else I can do 4 U?

Ouch.

Speaking at Digital Marketing First

More than 2,000 marketing professionals are expected for this 4th edition of the Digital Marketing First exhibition in Tour & Taxis. On the agenda of this edition: 75 exhibitors, more than 50 workshops, and 8 keynote speakers - not to mention the presentation of the Mixx Awards in which more than 500 professionals will participate in an unforgettable evening.
I'm speaking 11:15 - 11:45 in room 3 about What makes women click?.
The main themes of this edition:

• DIGITAL MARKETING: email marketing, mobile marketing, interactive direct marketing, narrowcasting, idtv, ...
• ONLINE ADVERTISING: regies & media, search engine marketing, web analytics, cms, community marketing, gamevertising, ...
• CRM database marketing, contact centers, telemarketing, ...
• E-COMMERCE: web development, online paymant solutions, affiliate marketing, logistics, ...

Price: Free!

Want to see who else is coming? Check out LinkedIn: Events.

Toyota's Eco Chic

I've like the Toyota Prius brand ever since their product placement in the Weeds tv series. Seriously: which other car brand would agree to have its car used in a drive-by shooting, stating that it's perfect "to sneak up on mother &#%'ers" because the engine is so quiet. In fact, the drug dealer is so impressed he later buys seven for his crew.
Another great selling proposition for this car is, of course, that it's nature friendly. Toyota has been really creative lately around these values:

• Wifi Solar sunflowers
• Harmony floralscapes
• Harmony tweets

The Facebook application random acts of Prius now calls for you to take action: "There are a million little positive things you can do every day. So, every day we're posting a new suggestion. You can accept these Random Acts of Prius, send them to friends, and even share your stories along the way. As you complete each Random Act, you help make the world just a little bit brighter." The acts so far:

1. Go to a farmer’s market and buy something you’ve never heard of. (25 pts)
2. Write a handwritten letter to a faraway friend. (15 pts)
3. Put on old music and think about the future. (5 pts)
4. Host a dinner party and invite each of your guests to wear a hat. (50 pts)
5. Go for a walk and leave your MP3 player at home. (15 pts)
6. Learn how solar cells work, then teach somebody who's older than you. (25 pts)
7. Write a goal on a piece of paper, and hide it someplace you’ll find later. (10 pts)
8. Use a lemon to clean your kitchen, and another to make lemonade. (25 pts)
9. Find five items you haven’t worn in a year, and donate them. (15 pts)
10. Make a playlist for your mood. (5 pts)
11. Coordinate a brown-bag lunch. (25 pts)

Reminds me a little of the Green Thing campaign I wrote about two years ago. And I absolutely love the way they consistently use all the media at hand with the same message. The only thing I would do differently is the acts themselves: some sound as if they're targeted at eleven year old girls - not the kind of segment you'd expect to buy a car that costs between 25,000 and 30,000 euros.

My Twitter Times

The baseline of The Twitter Time.es is: "News and Blogs Selected By People You Trust." The idea is to bundle the news items and blog posts that have been tweeted and retweeted by your followers and their followers. The fact that it includes one degree of separation more is the interesting bit.
Lots of the Twitter Times news items are from Mashable, and today's big news is the Report Spam function at Twitter. So far I could only manually block Twitter users who used mention spam or flooded my IM inbox after befriending. I'm pretty confident that this flag system will help weed out the annoying Teeth Whitening Conspiracy and Get Rich On Autopilot accounts. The irony is, that the most retweeted story in my follower's ecosystem is spam. Made it easy for me to report them.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

Yesterday evening I went to see The Cove, winner of audience awards across the world, including Sundance, SilverDocs and Hot Docs. The Cove follows a team of activists and filmmakers as they infiltrate a heavily-guarded cove in Taiji, Japan."
Ever since the hugely succesful Flipper tv series, people have come to like dolphins. They appear to be always smiling and playful, and are said to be even more intelligent than us, humans. In reality, show dolphins like the ones you see in Sea World, have very little reason to smile. Dolphins love travelling long distances but are forced to live in captivity, and to make matters worse the noise of the crowd in dolphinariums is literally deafening. A show dolphin costs about 150.000 dollars, and Taiji is one of the places where they are caught and sold. The hundreds and thousands who weren't selected are butchered in a cove by local fishermen, who believe it's a form of pest control. They sell the meat, which contains toxic levels of mercury and often gets labeled as whale meat, for 600 dollars per dolphin. The images of wounded dolphins, struggling and dying in a sea of blood, will haunt you for days.

One of the reasons this movie actually mobilises people to take action is the way it has been shot and edited. Very impressive work of the kind you usually only see in Bond films or spy movies. The other reason is that it showcases the passion and dedication of a number of brave (or crazy) individuals, like Heroes actress Hayden Panettiere, freediver Mandy-Rae Cruikshank and of course dolphin activist Richard O'Barry. O'Barry ironically was the one who caught and trained the first 5 "Flipper" dolphins back in the sixties. He's clearly at the center of "The Cove", but eventually doesn't take part in the most spectacular part of the action. But then, in the final scenes, he does find a way to get his message heard and I must say: this man has balls of steel. Respect!

The bitter ash of failure

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best selling book Eat, Pray, Love at this year's TED Conference:

When I was a teenager and met with people who I told I wanted to be a writer, I was met with the same kind of fear based reaction. And people would would say: "Aren't you afraid you're never going to have any succes? Aren't you afraid the humiliation of rejection will kill you? Aren't you afraid that you're going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing's ever going to come of it and you're going to die on a scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth filled with the bitter ash of failure?"

Watch the video to hear what she has to say about why people seem to think that creative genius is doomed, and how this was different in ancient times:

Volt on Twitter, or vice versa

Online version of yesterday's edition of Volt on TV Eén: Volt - Twitter, with a.o. the number one twitter user in Belgium @Mcewenrobbie, tennis player @Clijsterskim and Milk Inc frontman @Realregi. I explained Twitter as a symptom/example of the realtime web.

My first Prezi

Tried my hand at Prezi.com for a keynote this afternoon. Prezi got me cursing at first (the zooming will drive you crazy!) but I'm pretty happy with this first result. Also, it's one of the best ways I know to embed videos and Flash files into a presentation.

What are people talking about in Brussels?

Trendsmap - Real-time local Twitter trends is "a real-time mapping of Twitter trends across the world. See what the global, collective mass of humanity are discussing right now."
A great example of the superlocal trend: people want to know what's going on right now (= the realtime web) around them (= the local or localised web). Have a look at the cities overview. Right now people in Brussels are talking about the Lisbon treaty, and the Betagroup's webmission to Sevilla and the "mental" fmbrussels radio show are hot.

Cheeky French Wine

Not only did Carrefour send me the kind of wine I told them I like most (French!), but the package made it to my house with all six glasses intact.
The bottle I got is a Seigneurie d'Arse Fitou 2009, a wine with a bit of a cheeky name. I couldn't help but think of this Fast Show classic. But according to conoisseurs, it's known for its "pleasing cooked plum nose with well balance red fruits and mild tannins on the palate. There is also a little spice in the finish making a pleasant summer wine and good value for money." Only 3.99 euros for the next week or so.

Magic Formula for Measuring Social Media

Social media consultant Amy Martin of Digital Royalty shares her propriety method and formula for measuring a brand's online Return on Influence (the new ROI) on YouTube."

The KPI's she uses are: 3 KPI's

1. Volume: # fans, followers, TPM (Tweets Per Minute), trending topics.
2. Engagement: RT (ReTweets), subscribers, sentiment, time spent, comments, "likes" on Facebook.
3. Conversion: click-throughs, leads generated, sales.

DigitalRoyalty has also come up with a formula to measure ROI (Return On Infuence):

1. Cold metrics (typically Volume, Conversions) formula: Reach x Frequency / Time Spent
2. Warm metrics: typically sentiment and ecosystem size.

This video made me cringe from second 0:00. At first I thought it was her personal style, but the more she elaborated on the formula, the more I was convinced this was, indeed, mind-bogglingly stupid. Or at least: very shallow. Beware of self proclaimed Social Media Experts, especially when they wear hipster t-shirts and hair extensions and play buzzword bingo with your mind.