marks.dk
Closing the accounts for Copenhagen Twestival
On March 25, 2010, we were able to have more than 250 people come together for a single cause: Supporting Concern Worldwide. All of these people have one thing in common: They are Danish Twitter users.
Getting Marie Fisker and Rune Kjeldsen to play on stage, and Thomas Madsen-Mygdal to interview Morten Lund about his entrepreneurial endeavors, created a unique experience for those involved. Tom Collins even played for us after being called early in the evening on a cancellation, and it just goes to show the efforts everybody are willing to put into this crazy project.
Lots and lots and lots of sponsors provided us with gifts for the lottery and money for the cause. All the money from the ticket sales, lottery tickets, sponsorships and donations have finally been tallied and we can give the final score:
94,000.- kroner.
It has taken a long time to end at this amount because of some problems here and there, but this is what we’ve sent off to Concern Worldwide on behalf of Copenhagen Twestival.
The videos are still (!) on their way, but hopefully we can show you what happened in glorious technicolor sometime in 2010.
Kristoffer and I started this project with the intent of meeting a couple of interesting people, and the fact that 250 people agreed with that on a cold March night is still beyond my wildest imagination.
We started out with the goal of reaching more than last time in every way. That meant more than 30,000 DKK in profits from more than 150 people. We met that target and exceeded it significantly.
However, what amazes me the most is the level of support we get from sponsors, participants, performers and partners. Especially those who helped plan and execute the whole thing: Morten, Benjamin, Jacob, Ronni and Laura. They deserve all the love they can get for agreeing to help with this.
We have a lot of things to improve for next time, but we’re doing our best and hope you have a great experience the next time as well.
If you have any questions or comments, do get in touch.
(Cross-posted on the Copenhagen Twestival blog).
New music video from Trentemøller
This is the music video to “Sycamore Feeling” (iTunes), taken from Trentemøller’s upcoming album, “Into The Great Wide Yonder” which will be out in May this year. Marie Fisker – who also performed at both TEDxCopenhagen and Copenhagen Twestival – is featured on vocals.
She wrote a bit about the video on Facebook:
The new video from Trentemøller is written and directed by the Danish video artist Jesper Just, and it shows a woman who moves through an abandoned house in an isolated and smoke-filled town. The video is shot in the ghost town Centralia, PA, which is known for the mine fire that has burned underneath the city since 1962 [Centralia on Wikipedia]
The female role is played by the actress Diana Wagner, as well as the well-known New York drag performer, Princess Diandra, and the fragmented construction makes it terrifyingly difficult to tell the two actors apart.
Given Trentemøller’s recent remixes of both Bruce Springsteen, Lars and The Hands of Light and Franz Ferdinand as well as his “Harbour Boat Trips” remix album (iTunes), it’s not that surprising he’s exploring the indie sound a bit more. It’s difficult to evaluate the whole album based on one song, but I truly hope he doesn’t deviate too much from the sound on “The Last Resort” (iTunes) – one of the best electronica albums ever made.
Also, I’m sorry for Soundvenue’s sorry excuse of a flash player, but it’s the best I could find for now.
Update, March 6: As Dennis rightfully point out in the comments, the video is now up on YouTube, so I’ve changed Soundvenue’s ridiculous player and replaced it with YouTube’s.
A personal note on 2009 and what 2010 will – hopefully – be like
Ever since the Christmas holiday I’ve wanted to make a post on what a crazy year 2009 was, as well as what I expect of 2010. Now I finally have the time to do so, and it’s personal so feel free to skip it.
2009:
On New Years Eve 2008/2009, I had just arrived back in Copenhagen from a semester abroad in Boston that was far from perfect. I had a nice time now and then, but I felt that the daily life on a campus 12 miles from Boston is too unlike my way of living that it became unbearable as the months went by.
I missed Copenhagen, I missed my girlfriend, friends and family and I just wanted it to be over.
I came back, and I got a new job at zyb/Vodafone that I was very happy about. I enjoyed working there until this fall when budget-related issues popped up, and I was relieved from my consultancy contract. Now I work at 23 which is something completely different, yet somehow very related. I don’t get these jobs because I apply for them, but because I spend crazy amounts of time on Twitter and at events around Copenhagen, talking to people that share my interests. This is something I want to continue doing, and especially Copenhagen Twestival has established some relationships that I value a lot, and hope to nurture more in the future.
It seems that 2009 was all about breaking down and establishing. In the summer I became a bachelor in more than one way, and I like the diploma I got from CBS, but not the feeling of being all alone that the breakup created. It’s over now and I learned a lot from it. “Taking less for granted” is sure as hell one of the lessons I took with me on that account.
2010:
I normally don’t do New Year’s resolutions, and I don’t plan on starting now, but there are still some things I’d like to focus more on in the coming year.
Listen:
Listening isn’t always my best skill, but I need to listen a lot more than I speak. I want to read more, and have removed a bunch of the shitty feeds clogging up my feed reader (Mashable, TechCrunch, TUAW etc. are all gone – it’s too much fast noise). I’m looking for good writers (hopefully making me a better one as well) that don’t publish often, but publish something worthwhile. I’ll share what I’ve found soon.
Act slow:
Again, this relates to the fast news being thrown out from Google Reader. More slow, less fast. Hopefully that affects how I work and think as well – it’s been too much fast stuff blazing past and too little of the meaty blogging/article-writing that really matters, and gives a worthwhile perspective on things.
Build more and learn new stuff:
I really really want to learn how to write better html(5) and css(3), as well as starting from scratch on how to do jQuery. I don’t know shit about programming in Python, Ruby on Rails, Javascript and what else is there, but jQuery seems like a nice place to start doing a bit of web app-stuff. This will in turn, hopefully, do wonders to what I can share and ship, and I already have a couple of ideas laid out that I would love to work on (a local version of Internet Garage Sale is one of them).
Be happier:
I’ll stop bitching about shit on Twitter. No more tweeting from the queue in the supermarket, no more whining about this and that, and hopefully I’ll start noticing the good stuff more.
For instance, I bought two lovely sweaters today. It’s really cold in Copenhagen these days and I’m cold all the time. What to do? Buy nice sweaters. So I did. And now I’m warm. I like that.
Consume less but better:
I already have too much shit, and I really don’t need anymore. Everything I buy in 2010 will be thought through, and either replace something of lesser value, or fill a gap that is justified in making me do my work, or everyday chores, better. This means getting rid of my CD and DVD-collection (I don’t listen to music or watch movies one physical media anymore), and a bunch of electronics that lie around but are never used (thus making the Internet Garage Sale-clone).
This a bunch of introvert self-praising, but it helps me write what I want to do in the coming year, if I want to complete it. Last year I wrote I wanted to take a photo and blog every day. That didn’t happen. Hopefully I can write one blog post every week; if I stop bitching about shit on Twitter, I should save right about the same amount of time every week it takes for me to write a blog post.
[dk] Hvorfor AidOnline har fat i den helt forkerte ende
Der er skrevet meget om AidOnline i dag, og jeg skal blot henvise til Lars K. Jensens glimrende indlæg for en kort opsummering: Skørt AidOnline-annoncekoncept nasser på netmediernes trafik
Det jeg studsede mest over er det her statement fra deres FAQ-side:
De velgørende organisationer har hårdt brug for hjælp og lige nu henter de ingen penge på internettet. AidOnline er en utrolig billig form for fundraising, hvorfor vi håber at de kan slå igennem, ikke blot i Danmark, men i hele verden.
Sikke dog en gang forbandet vrøvl! Jeg var sammen med min gode ven Kristoffer arrangører af den københavnske del af et globalt event, Twestival (sammentrækning af Twitter + Festival). Arrangementet gik kort fortalt ud på at afholde et event for københavnske Twitter-brugere 12. februar (samme dag var der over 200 lignende arrangementer verden over) hvor vi havde en god aften med masser af glade mennesker.
Overskuddet fra de 200+ arrangementer gik til charity:water – en organisation der kæmper for rent drikkevand til de milliarder af mennesker der står uden det til dagligt.
I København var folk endog meget generøse, og vi fik samlet 15.000,- ind (selvom det ikke var alle tal der blev rapporteret korrekt og vi kun står for 1900 USD, så er det stadig langt over byer som Barcelona, Cleveland, Dublin, Philadelphia og mange mange andre).
Og hvor vil jeg hen med det?
Jo, Twestival blev stablet på benene på omkring tre uger (i København – andre lidt længere) og alt promotion blev gjort igennem Twitter. Ikke plakater, flyers, tv-reklamer, bannere og hvad man ellers kan finde på – kun Twitter, og vores blog på copenhagen.twestival.com.
I alt blev der skrabet 250.000 USD ind til charity:water, og det udelukkende vha. mund-til-mund, eller tweet-til-tweet om man vil. Altså var det et arrangement der er blevet til udelukkende fordi internettet gav muligheden for det.
De velgørende organisationer skal få hovedet ud af bagenden og tænke ud af boksen i stedet for at snylte som en anden parasit på annoncer (som jeg også finder irriterende, jovist) andre har betalt for. AidOnline burde skamme sig over at have sat sådan et projekt i verden og tage 20% for det (de er ikke en NGO, men et ApS), og jeg gider ikke give penge til nogle af de 11 organisationer der er med i projektet, hvis jeg kan undgå det.
Brug i stedet pengene på charity:water hvor du ved hvad pengene går til (100% af donationerne fra alm. velgørende mennesker går til at bygge brønde mens administration, rejser etc. er betalt af sponsorer). Jeg har selv lige smidt 10 dollars i boksen fordi jeg er så skuffet over de danske nødhjælpsorganisationer.
Ps. Lidt til at kaste op i munden over:
Din surfing på internettet kan betyde forskellen på liv og død for mennesker i nød
- Anders Ladekarl, Generalsekretær i Dansk Røde Kors
Copenhagen Twestival
My great friend Kristoffer came by last night for a cup of coffee, as we have signed up to be arrangers of the Copenhagen part of Twitter Festival aka. Twestival and decided to start doing something (hey – it’s only three weeks away!).
If you have any ideas to what we can do on the evening of February 12, or have a company that will sponsor auction items, please get in touch so we can figure something out.
Should you want to blog about Twestival (yay – do that!), please use the tag “#cphtwestival” so we can track the blogosphere/Twitter/etc.
We hope that we can start registration as soon as possible and should have a venue settled early next week, so keep an eye on the @cphtwestival Twitter-profile and our blog on copenhagen.twestival.com where we will announce decisions as soon as we have made agreements with stakeholders.
And hopefully we’ll have a great night and help charity:water raise a lot of money for a good cause.