I red an article in the Australian journal 'Open Manifesto', written by a design professor who used to live in Denmark. The article is about one of the things he enjoyed in Denmark – our well designed post boxes!? Well, apparently post-boxes in New Zealand is long, narrow and they leak when it rains. And in Denmark it rains, it hails, the wind is blowing and still the professor got he’s mail dry.

As he moved back, he started to get annoyed when he received wet or folded artwork by mail. On a trip to Denmark, he brought back a Danish post box. Problem solved. At least he thought so. For some reason, the postman in New Zealand never really managed to put the post all the way through the A4 wide opening, or they misused the post box in another strange way. 

As a Dane, I think it's rather normal to assume that we receive our mail in a proper condition (actually we're not too impressed with our national post service at all). But what this article frames is, that there is no such thing as unconditionally good design. Its completely relative to context and cultural behaviour. Even a (for some) obvious object as a post box, is relative to culture and who is using it.

 
 Here's a few statements from the exhibition that i found interesting and typical for the experience i had.

 … no you are not!, Not even after many years of experience as a leader on the job market.

At the moment we are working on a project for Copenhagen Business School’s master programme “Master of Management Development (MMD)”. We want to inform potential candidates about their options of further schooling and aims to create awareness of the MMD programme. We want to spread the word – but how?

Our PR project for the MMD program has already showed great results. Two articles were featured in two of the Danish Daily Media: Politiken and Boerson. Both articles focus on the job swops between the MMD participants. Politiken wrote about the Principal from Skovshoved Skole who spends a week behind a desk in the National Board of Industrial Injuries, while Boersen wrote about the Captain from Danish Defense Personnel Organization who exchanged his job with a Partner from Deloitte. The whole idea of these swops is to give the participants an insight in other organizations and different leadership methods. MMD is doing well in the media, and other articles are in the making.

We have also produced four video pod casts with professors for MMD website. The professors explain the benfits of the programme, and what they see as good leadership. One of the pod casts is already now available on the website… here is a little preview.

Chiquita made this move with their iconic blue sticker featuring a fruit-carrying woman, which has been placed on every single product since 1963. In a collaboration with designer DJ neff, Chiquita created 25 different characters which instantly became a hit amongst end users. The ad campaign grew into an online 3D flash game, a micro site containing viral videos and a sticker generator. 

Check out more on design:related.

The Danish Broadcasting Corporation has launched a highly interesting new weekly documentary programme called “Undercover Chef” (meaning Undercover Boss in English). The show lets CEOs experience their own organization from a new point of view – that of their employees and costumers. The CEO plays the role of a new employee under a false name as his employees patiently introduce him to the work routines and daily life in his own organization.

Last week, the CEO of Danske Diakonhjem, which is an organization managing a chain of nursing homes, worked a few days as a health care worker. As the visibly emotional CEO was placed completely powerless in the stand-up lift that constitutes an indispensable part of many of the residents’ daily routines, it was clear that more was at stake than simple role play. This was a CEO achieving a deeper understanding of the emotional and social dynamics in the organization he manages, and he left the experience wiser and more aware of what matters most to his employees and costumers. 

The show airs tuesday nights on DR1 and is available for streaming here (in Denmark only)

  
What are the latest highlights? With a growing network of clients, colleagues, business-partners, students and friends it can be difficult to keep up with what's going on. Today we're sending out the first issue of a newsletter that we've named "Stagis Highlights". About six times a year we'll send out an email with stories about our projects, concepts, ideas, people, events and everything in between. I'll post some of the latest stories about authentic corporate identities around the Globe such as Hästens, Noma, Lego, BMW, Alessi and Ducati and we'll share new projects with you.

We'll make a version in Danish and one in English. If you are on the mailinglist you'll be able of sharing the content with your colleagues, friends or - even better - your boss.

Sign up for Stagis Highlights in Danish here:

"Fascinating!" I thought to myself the other day, as I looked at an art installation. Over the past two months, I've been studying BMW in Munich as part of my ongoing work on a book on authentic organizational identity, which I am planning to finish this spring. The time had come to visit one of the greatest brand museums ever. Back in 2004 the BMW Group decided to spend some 80 million Euro on the renovation and expansion of their corporate museum, initially built in the 1970's. Located in front of the tall BMW headquarters and across the street from the architecturally fascinating BMW World, the Museum looks like a giant tea-cup and would serve well as an iconic entrance to a museum of modern art in any metropolis. Here, however, it's not paintings that are on show, but cars and motorcycles. At least, that was my expectation.

Authentic BMW
The architecture of the Museum itself is a piece of art. The building is listed, protected by the German Government. I soon found myself happily surprised at the first installation. What seemed like a thousand silver pearls were floating in the air, changing from arbitrary swarm to orderly sculptures depicting the forms of old and new cars. When the BMW started the revamp of the Museum, they hired Joachim Sauter, a specialist in new and innovative media. "He told us 'Be authentic!'," says Dr. Andreas Braun, who is in charge of the communication of the 5.000 m2 museum and was deeply involved in the development of the museum throughout the 2000s. 

The team behind the new museum wanted to follow the codes of the BMW identity and create a place of fascination. "There has to be a secret, there has to be magic, you have to wonder how it worked," he told me. But what can fascinate nowadays? Imagine you are in charge of the physical embodiment of one of the World's greatest brands. How do you do that? What poster, film or space do you create, that will create the sense and experience of the organizational identity of BMW?

The team behind knew that they wanted to tell stories and they wanted to fascinate. Just like the cars have fascinated for generations. "Fascination is the ’clothes’, the style by which we tell the stories," says Dr. Braun. One of the first sources of inspiration that the team worked on, was puppets from mideval time. Sauter finally developed the installation of pearls hanging from the ceiling. 714 pearls, to be exact, expressing fantasy and inspiration, one of the driving forces of the BMW identity. 

Return on investment
But why would any company spend enormous sums on a museum? Visiting BMW there should be good answers to my question. After all, they are employing about 160 people in the museum alone, spending an amount in the double-digit range each year. Here are the effects they are going for:

• Media exposure and press clippings (easy - got that, lots of events that are covered)
• Contact to new target groups
• 400.000 guests per year (informing and educating)
• Fascinate and involve fan-base from around the World
• Create prolonged periods of quality time with the guests

Quality time with the brand
"Actually," said Dr. Braun, "the goal of quality leisure time is probably what is most important. At big events like car-shows we count the exposure in seconds. Here, the guests spend 1,5 - 2 hours immersed in the brand universe." The first installation - the floating pearls - is a good example. The Museum measured the time that each guest spends at the installation. 17 minutes on average! The cycle of the installation takes about 15. I only stood there for about ten minutes but that's still a long time compared to the last time I stood still, staring at anything from a commercial brand. There were two things that fascinated me. The floating pearls and the sculptures they formed in the air for one. But then the crowd I was part of, all watching the pearls. Kids, young couples, seniors, men and women, locals and tourists. Every economic and social part of society. I made this short clip of the installation:

See more of the Sauter kinetic pearls project here.

Expressing the authentic identity
Good corporate museums seem to deliver the same look and feel as the organizational identity. It goes by the same rules of behaviour as everything else in the company. "Every time there was an idea, we had to ask ourselves: What does this tell about BMW?" explains Dr. Braun. But what is good museum design? The idea of the BMW Museum is to enlive the profile of the company and to act according with the identity. And to seperate from others means choosing and letting some ideas go. "It has to be authentic. Whatever BMW produces, it has to be a BMW – even the museum,” explains Dr. Andreas Braun. "BMW is a little bit cold, has distance, it is innovative, technical, loves design and shows good taste."

Last year the Corporate Governance Agency of the Danish Ministry of Culture changed it's purpose and name. From being an "Administration Center" it was now going to leave behind some of the daily routine operations within IT and finance and focus on delivering advice and support the cultural institutions in Denmark.

Pinar Tilif tells about her experiences through the identity process in the article "My personality comes along when I visit the customers". Read the full article in English or hele artiklen på dansk (PDF). 

The visual identity will go public on the agency's website during February 2010. The mapping of the authentic organizational identity as well as the development of the identity essence and the visual identity was conducted by Stagis.

This Sunday, Danish newspaper Politiken featured an interview with Nikolaj Stagis. In the article, Nikolaj tells the story of our company and talks about the Busdrivers with Character campaign mentioned in the post below. Nikolaj explains how the idea of transforming the experience of the bus ride for both drivers and passengers emerged in his head while watching the news one night, and how the idea developed into the final concept that you meet in busses today.

You can read the article here: Jagten på firmaets autentiske identitet (in Danish only - "The hunt for the authentic identity of the firm")

The material was hanging all over the bus, for instance this sticker was hanging on the busdrivers door, to meet the customers when they entered the bus

Hanging in the window:

Hanging on the backside of the digital sign:

Hanging by flyers and informations signs: