Sometimes when I roam facebook as research for my strategic client work, I think there’s two things I see out there that makes me sad. It’s really obvious who has decided to put a lot of money in facebook and who hasn’t. It’s also really obvious who just has decided to purchase it as an add-on and who actually cares to convert it to sales by their actions out there and not the glossiness of the facebook page. I want substance and sometimes facebook leaves me crying because I can’t find it there. I can find competitions, expectations from “likers” to get 10% off their purchases because they “like” something. Expectations to get a shot at winning something or getting something for free.

And sometimes I am stunned by how unserious companies are taking facebook. If they had only booked me. I could have taught them how to love their community.

Today I almost wept because I found something as pure as a loveletter to a brand on facebook. not like a band or a cool company. But just the reason why she stood by them in thick and thin and would never change to another supplier. I say that if I was that brand – if somebody wrote me a loveletter to my work as a huge organisation, I would give them cake. I would send them flowers – I would have my CEO do a videoresponse – I would do anything more than a “like”. I think a “like” from the owner of a profile or a page, in a comment thread is the ultimative conversation closer, unless the conversation is very active.

here are some of the scenarios where I would seize the opportunity to grow more trust  and sales instead of clicking the like button.

“hey I love your products – especially that bag looks awesome”…. you should say “yeah we love it too -feel for it at first eyecatch. it’s especially imported from argentina where an old man called Diego has made it. he has two daughters and a sheepfarm and you can see a video recorded on our recent visit there.

“here’s the reason why I will use your product always and always”… Send them flowers or candy or chocolate – or record a happy dance of people in the office thanking her (at the same time you tell the rest of the world that you put your customers at the centre of the universe – how awesome is that ?)

Does this has anything to do with facebook really ? no not at all. it’s about how show the world you care and gaining marketshare because of it -  even though you’re a mastodont company.

Just promise me to go easy on the like button=)

(btw any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated=)

Some things I would never use in million years – and somethings are totally not me. Here are some of them:

Ribbon organizers..  (photo grabbed from craftzine). I guess Im just not a ribbon and wrapping person. Im always out of ribbons and wrapping paper. I guess to do a ribbons organizer you have to be dedicated to ribbons. Im just not. Maybe if they had skulls and simili stones on them though? hm.

Even though Im all for love, and that I do believe in God and that the universe has got my back. I have a hard time with Bible Verse wall art. If it is for you – this is a great place to find it.

Furniture and decorations that just scream GIRLIE. I think mainly because of my husband. Sometimes I look at things and say.. yep they are super nice – but TK would kill me if it entered our house. the only place we really clash is with the use of bright colors and pastels. He likes black and white scandinavian design – so do I – but I want colors.

I’ll add more in here when I stumble across something

A couple of times every year (sometimes only around christmas and new years) I take time to write a letter to all my professional peers, no matter what connection or relevance they have to me or Toothless Tiger. I write about where I am as a person, business, mother, wife, rockstar, all these things. And you know what ? it’s one of those things that makes me really happy, because people replies with where they’re at, they give me the stories of where they are and where they are going and what they dream about, it’s truely amazing.

There has been a lot of talks about blogging being dead and everything going social lately. But a simple email to people I cherish, goes a long way – longer than 140 characters and statements. And I think that’s one of the things that responds really well in my head as opposed to “social”. Because social needs to be statements and interesting to get a retweet or a reply. An email about me, is not smart – but it’s where I am as a person. It’s what’s matters and what Im dreaming about. Don’t do it for business, Don’t do it for everything else, simply do it because you care and you want people to know where you are and connect with them in a way that doesn’t have to be stated. Connecting with them in a way where you allow yourself to show the good the bad and the ugly, in a personal matter. I think I send my mail out to  1600 people – first the danish crowd and then the english crowd – and I am still replying to their replies.

Just sayin’ – do something not that stated or funny. Just do a “you” letter. Non public. Non stated. Just let it all go and write what you really want to tell them. A letter.

pic of the audience by Erno Hannink during Eric Schmidts talk at le web

So when I was sitting in front of the stage at le web day 2 – listening to the “money” panel – which normally is one of the Best discussions of le Web – if you Are a startup, I got that feeling again. the “omg I know now what to guide people and companies to do with their brands – digitalwise. Anyway the panel is five guys (who happens to be some of the worlds top venture capitalists) sitting on a couch talking about money in the startup World.

THIS IS KEY TO KNOW IF YOURE A STARTUP LOOKING FOR MONEY. Because they basically spill the deeds on what they are investing in – which to some extend also signals what will be developed in the startup community within the next couple of years.

They give it all to you- saying what it is they are looking for In a startup and what characteristica you need to have before you’re relevant to Them. Super important information.

This year they are saying “SoLoMo” – which also is the subject line for the le web conference. “SoLoMo” is an abbreviation for “Social”, “Local” og “Mobile”. So this is where the money primarily are going to be spend within the next 1 or two years. I think it’s an exciting trend because it holds a lot of possibilities – both offline and mobile – but not so much for the web. Can it really be that we are starting to develop more to connect people in general instead of developing for the web ? I think so. is the World Wide Web on a decline? Maybe not so much yet – but something tells me that it’s a very likely scenario in the near future. that is kind of exciting.

I saw this presentation today on google + about lean-back media and the shock of the old:

Which I also think says something very relevant about the offline/local/mobil transition.
Could it be that laptops will turn more and more into an advanced typewriter where all the reading and the playing and interacting is done on tablets ? a likely scenario again =)

Anyway a huge pointer from here – and a real exciting one.

picture by Chris Heuer: Kristie Wells of Social Media Club, Annika Lidne of Disruptive Media and yours truely)

So this draft was created on the last day of the le Web conference in Paris, but I first got around to finish it now.

Le Web has been a very interesting experience. Even though it has been very different from last year- but a lot fantastic people where met, speakers seen, friends dined and cool British bands such as the ting tings where experienced. All compiled in 4 days in Paris.

I think to some extend the Le Web conference is like a fashion show. 

in one of the presentations somebody used the phrase “undercover fashion tech a la creme”. To me it describes Le Web very well;  It’s the best of the best in tech and you’re left mesmerized. I think Le web has become for tech what Paris is for the fashion scene. The conference is so well curated so if you’re leaving Le Web not knowing what is going to happen within the next 2 – 3 years, then you haven’t been paying attention at all at the conference.

Le Web has become the European event hub that’s most vital for your business.

You need to be present as a startup or as a coolhunter/trendspotter. There was some agencies down there who I overheard a conversation by, and they had simply thought that they would get a recipe for social media they could sell to their clients (if that’s what you want – feel free to contact me over at Toothlesstiger.com and I can help you out). But they didn’t get the whole startup/venture capitalist part of the conference. Some of them where annoyed that it seemed like that the whole conference where more about startups and what they are building. But you need to know this – even as an agency. You need to know what cool ideas are out there – executed by the finest in Europe.

Anyway Im looking forward to Le Web again next year. It’s my december kick and a good way to ignite and plan for 2012 =)

photo by Chris Heuer

One of the things I’ve been working on lately, is my whole attitude towards other people and especially people who takes themselves too seriously. Because a lot of people do. As I Said in a previous blogpost- I dont want to be taken seriously too much – I want to inspire as a primary
goal. And i totally got inspired yesterday. If you’ve been following me on twitter – you would have notised that i saw Karl Lagerfeld yesterday. I would have love to say “me” instead of “saw” but unfortunatly that wasn’t possible.

However, he did the keynote here at le Web- and i was totally amazed. I
mean i have only seen him in “Elle” and “In Style” and other fashion magazines. In
Real life he surprised me, because he seemed like such a down to earth
man- and in my world that doesn’t really go together with the fashion
Industry.

So i had to change my perception a bit there.

Secondly, he seemed like a true artist, taking His art seriously. It didn’t seem like he was the center of a huge fashion machine. He seemed so grounded. As he Said himself ” i
don’t do promotion- im just being myself. And a lot of people Are saying
that these days- but I totally believed him- in All His Karl-ness. Im convinced that what he
does and what he creates is so amazing and energetic, that he doesn’t
Need to relate to promotion. And that, rockers, is one of my questions for you today.

What Can you do to avoid marketing and promotion? Think about it for a bit. One of the things I l believe you can do, is to create something that creates some sort of legacy within your field. It All lies in the creation process for me- not in the tweeting or the facebooking or stuff like that. So take it from Karl- create;)

A couple of weeks ago I was approached by a friend of mine, who was asking me what I thought about this video:

Right from the beginning I just knew that this would upset me very much – sometimes you can just feel it when it’s coming.

She’s entitled to her opinion, but if it’s the truth she’s saying, then I shouldn’t have succeeded in anything I’ve ever done in the tech industry. I have been a women in tech since I was 19, and I think I’ve done pretty alright for myself (to say the least). So now I have been thinking about it for a while, and I think what’s really making me tick, is that she argues that because Im a women in tech and I call myself a GIRL (im 31 so Im still cool with that), I should be afraid not to be taken seriously in the tech scene – especially because I’m standing by “being a girl”. Im the co-founder of geek girl meetup copenhagen. And actually after I’ve been thinking about it (and talking about it with my good friend Lone) I don’t want to try/ to do an effort to be taken seriously. No way! here’s why:

When I was living in another country, one of the things that mystified me was that the women/girls there always went out on the town in suits. I think they did it because they wanted to be taken seriously by someone – but no one really thought about it, apart from some of us foreigners who thought it was really weird that these women would wear suits when they where supposed to have fun. I think they wanted to show the world that they where to be taken seriously – and to me it ended up having another effect – I ended up feeling sorry for them, because they didn’t show a bit of themselves instead of being taken seriously by their surroundings.

It reminds me so much of something I have seen happen again and again in the tech scene – that women they start to resemble men more and more because they don’t want to stand out and show the world what they are really like, because – what if somebody didn’t take them seriously.  What if people deemed you strange or “not qualified” because you didn’t look or acted seriously enough.

I think Im the proof that the techscene has changed – and it can embrace both men, women and girls, because I don’t think that “seriousness” lies in a name or in a “girl” label. I think that seriousness lies in going after what you think is super important, practice what you preach and be a rolemodel to other people. Do epic shit, right ?

The reason I think Geek Girl meetups are so important is because it teaches our kids/daughters that Geek can be cool, and I don’t think “geek women” would do the trick. In my mind it just wants to be taken seriously.

Actually I think that my girl label (that I bear with pride) is the least of my “seriousness” problems. I build a large part of Toothless Tiger (my thriving 7 year old business) telling companies that they should be like rockbands - think more in return on involvement instead of return on investment (biiiig business no-no)  (I wrote a danish book about that) and practice rockbandism and do business unusual. And most of the companies actually loves me for it. And they do take me seriously – why ? because I do what I think is the best fit for me. I firmly believe that I challenge the old systems and I am taken seriously because of it. I would never try to be taken seriously.

I will wake up everyday being myself and do what I believe in. And I think that some people don’t take me seriously at all. That to them Im the biggest joke on the planet. And I think that’s okay, they are entitled to. But to others – I’m the hugest inspiration. And the only thing that hasn’t done anything to aid the effect I’ve had in the scandinavian european global tech industry is probably ta-da! seriousness.

I guess what I wanted to say is that asking for seriousness, to me, is a sign of low self-esteem, it’s a sign of not believing enough in yourself to say “hey I can be totally different and they will still love me and take me serious because of that”.

Because you take yourself seriously. The whole of you. And that, my rockers, is one thing I really do; Take myself seriously.

I love my work – but somethings more than others. Today I feel so lucky because I get to launch my brand new e-book entitled “rock your identity” .Here. Together with you guys. And it makes me feel great. Seriously I love launching stuff and just see how things build up.

Anyway this e-book has taken me a while to finish… actually it’s core ingrediens is something I posted on this blog a while back , and now I’ve been working with it in Toothless Tiger and I’ve had succes with working with clients around it – So I thought – hey I should write an e-book about the valueloop I’ve introduced. So this is it. This is how you can rock your identity on the social web. The e-book is out in Danish here and in English here.

oh and btw – the danish pressrelease is here

I’ve loved writing this e-book. I hope you’ll find it useful.

This is a translation of a comment I did in the danish newspaper, Berlingske Tidende last week - you can see the original article here.

Remember to call up your best friends so you know what they really feel like. Im a person who thinks that you don’t know how they really feel, if they only exist in your newsfeed. It’s a twisted image of how other people are, and how they use their time.

Facebook is about to become a gathering of 800 million covergirls and photoshopped identities. More Glam. More whitened teeth. More Cool. More fun because it’s something that everybody “likes”.

During the elections in Denmark, there was a lot of people I know who where ready to delete friends on facebook, who wasn’t made of the same political mindset as themselves. some of those who where either left-winged or right-winged kept telling their friends on facebook their political truth – their believe in what was good for the country. And that, as I see it, is the dark side of facebook and perhaps all of the social web. We have turned into little kings who lives in our own egosystem where likes and comments are the ultimate identitybonus, and if these acknowledgements don’t come and we’re not acknowledged,  we get in  serious doubt about if there’s something wrong with us, if we’re not writing the right things – or people simply don’t love us anymore?

We don’t like things that strain from our perfect profile – if we disagree with someone on facebook, it’s an almost impossible step to take to confront them with it – it takes such a toll, to go against the network and the community.

This scary scenario is wellknown and used a lot these days:

You tell facebook about your perfect world and they use it to earn more money and target their ads even more – so they can raise the price pr. click. Remember that personal data is the currency of the future.

Byt the fact remains that facebook has a patent on closeness on the social web, patent on storyliving where you tell your best stories by documenting them. Because your list of friends on facebook lives on inside of peoples heads, also even if they don’t use 50 procent of their online time on it. It’s a twisted image of, how other people really are, and what they are using their time for.

Don’t get me wrong, even though there’s a couple of negative points here, facebook is a positive experience. People love it and use it. And again, this time it doesn’t seem like that a lot of people are deleting their profiles in protest of the new features and terms of use. Facebook now owns another small piece of our identity – and we love them for it.

Me ? Im eating burger for the fifth day in a row, but I take a shot of some raw food, which I distribute on foodspotting and instagram – content that are automatically posted on facebook. I write in my status that I am at a networking meeting, but im drinking a beer somewhere in the sun. Because why should I use facebook to tell you what my reality is like ?

Facebook is a universe in itself. it’s future is great and filled with covergirls/boys, who all are known enough to digg the facebook identity thing. And even though it’s cool and even though a rather large part of all of us loves facebook – it’s a bit shallow.

So what can we do about that ? Why should we show off some of the ugly on the internet ? How important is it to be real instead of just being trustworthy ?You can say that we, as social web users need to write things on our profiles, that breaks the perfect image just a little bit.

But why should we do that in such extreme measures when we don’t get a lot out of being real ? it’s not important in the social web world “to be” instead of  ”to state”. You won’t get anything out of being judged on who you really are, instead of what actions you take on the internet. We don’t have anything that measures us on how real we are out there – just how influential we are (brought to you by the world of influencer measurement startups such as klout and peerindex – and soonly launched danish startup wosju)

What’s really important is to be real in the real world – or trancend what we postulate on the social web to the real life. It’s in real life that things become well… real.

So remember to call your best friends so you know what they really feel like. Because I don’t believe you know their reality if they only exist in a newsfeed.

We’ve got google + ripples now!  - it’s something that actually shows how your content is spreading through people – and how it’s recieved. talk about return on involvement! – and it’s something that can get me to share so many more links there. Thank you google for making the web less linear and that i don’t have to look at graphs and page views and uniques anymore – this makes so much more sense to me. It gives me the ability to exactly see how my content is spreading and how it is recieved.

Very cool google !

here’s a recap of the changes :

and here’s how to get ripples to work today (it involves something manual work – but it’s worth it)

and here’s the result :