You know how it looks. Corporate photography. You see it in company brochures. On company websites. Usually real employees exposed in very unnatural situations. Carefully instructed by the photographer. Always very aware of the camera and the flashing studio strobes. Always smiling like lunatics – although never enough to cover up for their anxiety about the whole situation. As a professional photographer I can see that these photos are usually of very high technical quality. The lighting of the scene is close to perfect. Not a single unwanted shadow or highlight. Everything is sharp. Crystal clear. My colleagues are as professional as I am, and they do their jobs very well.
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Nonetheless, these photos are so incredibly boring. So polished and fake. I don’t blame my photo colleagues. I just wondered what would happen if a corporate client was willing to try something different. And then it happened. While my current employer (idea- and design agency Hatch & Bloom) was developing the new visual identity for Fibertex Personal Care we wanted to do something different, and luckily the client was brave enough to trust us. The art director suggested a much more authentic, contrasty, black/white, soft focus style, and from a photo brief the client agreed to try it. I spent a day at their facility in Aalborg, walking around with my camera, talking to employees and clicking around 700 frames. Large apertures gave the photos a soft look. Also, the exposure times were short enough to avoid general blur, while maintaining a feel of activity in rapid movements. Most of all, however, the photos show real employees, actually working. Dedicated to their jobs. And that is exactly what we wanted to communicate.
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In post production I worked a lot with contrast and also added a small amount of film grain, but that is all icing on the cake. What makes this case special is that technical photographic perfection was exchanged for authentic and dedicated workers.
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The CEO of Fibertex is a hobby photographer, and after her saw the photos in the first draft of the corporate brochure, he requested to have my raw files for review. He simply loved the look and feel so much that he also wanted to see the rejected frames.
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I am very happy that Fibertex had so much trust in me, and I am proud to show the results. Thank you for trusting in my fabric.

Writing is the process of putting your thoughts onto paper. I do this all the time. I write notes. Articles. Thoughts. Ideas. E-mails. I need to share some thoughts on the subject of writing, my writing tools and how they influence the process.

My handwriting is – and has always been – absolutely terrible. I just never really figured it out. Instead I have done most of my writing on a computer. I learned it around 1994 when I was about nine years old using Corel WordPerfect 6.1. Today, using a word processing program seems like a natural extension of my hand. However, I have also discovered that my choice of writing tool greatly influences my writing process.

Around 1997 I switched from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word 97 (you might remember the introduction of the famous Office Assistant – that tiny little animated paperclip that constantly disturbed you while you tried to use the program). Despite the stupid office assistant, I learned to love Word and I became a bit of a super-user. I developed my own templates, and worked a lot with layout, columns and advanced formatting features. I honestly don’t have anything bad to say about Word 2007 – the latest version I have personally used. It is a fantastic piece of software with a very sleek, minimalist interface.

The only problem I have with a program like Word is this: I feel it forces me to combine the writing and the editing process. E.g. when I type it starts underlining my typos with red lines, which distracts me from the writing. I stop. Go back. Correct the typo and then I have to start writing again. There are also many formatting tools that I would rather not have available when I write my first drafts. Finally, since it is on a computer, there is always the beep of the new e-mail or IM, and of course you also need to check Facebook for any new updates. Again, distractions from the writing.

At some point I started practicing my handwriting. I felt I needed another tool for writing drafts, than what Word could provide me with. I also bought a typewriter (see the picture above). The typewriter is fun, but it makes a lot of noise and it is way to heavy to use outside of my home.

Then one day at a seminar, someone introduced me to the concept of Zenware i.e. software with a distraction-free design approach inspired by Zen. She explained how she used WriteRoom for OS X, and said that there were two Windows clones of the program called DarkRoom and WriteMonkey respectively. All of them were full-screen plain text word processors with a minimal set of features. I was very skeptical at first, but it quickly started to make sense. I loved the typewriter feeling of the programs. WriteMonkey even comes with different sound schemes that gives the illusion of typing on an old Remington or Olympia typewriter. I still used Word for the editing, but I always used WriteMonkey for the first drafts.

I have recently switched from a ThinkPad running Windows to the latest MacBook Air, so I have had to give up WriteMonkey. I never loved WriteRoom as much so I have been looking for a similar program and stumbled upon a little program called Bean. It has some layout features but you can create plain text documents and avoid it, and you have the same full screen interface.

Try for yourself: Bean for OS X, WriteRoom for OS X or WriteMonkey for Windows.

Today I use Indesign for layout. Goodbye Microsoft Word.

Just bought an old school label-maker from DYMO.com today. Nothing more to say.

Today I’ve been in Vejle – a 40 minute train ride south of Århus. I had been invited to give a short inspirational talk about myself and how I use Facebook – and to moderate a Q&A session with Facebook Denmark Account Excecutive Jan Christiansen.
Photos of people giving presentations are always bad – usually a dark silhoutte in front of a brightly lit yet still unreadable PowerPoint projection. Today I wanted to take a new approach and so I shot a photo from my point of view – so you can see some of the attendees.

Almost two years ago, in June 2008, I helped my good friend and co-entrepreneur Andreas Lemche launch Eventuelt.org. An online gudie to (sub)cultural events in Århus. Like my own street style project GadeMode.dk, Eventuelt.org has grown and changed considerably since then.

Now, Eventuelt.org is a full blown guide to help you get the most out of your city (if you happen to live here). With a team of 15 contributors covering everything from food and theater to nightlife and events you won’t be left behind – and with a strong focus on tight and to-the-point language the site won’t be wasting your time either. It’s about high quality and journalists with an opinion.
Today Eventuelt is relaunching itself with a brand new visual profile and an even tighter focus on high quality content.
As a new feature on the site, Andreas has invited 10 interesting profiles – local musicians, artists and entrepreneurs – to blog about their daily lives in a short and almost Twitteresque format: what have you done today? Among these profiles you’ll find my name and my contributions about recent photo shoots, interviews, talks etc.
I really look forward to this new Eventuelt and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I will.
Visit Eventuelt.org

Yesterday I talked about my favorite subject (myself) at Pecha Kucha Night, Århus.

Pecha Kucha is a presentation technique where you have 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide. You can check out my slides here.

Yesterday I celebrated the opening of my first solo exhibition: Signs Of Time.

It took me about a year from the first idea until I arrived at the final result, but it has been a wonderful journey. Thanks to everyone who showed up last night at Htch & Bloom Gallery.

The photos can be seen at live at the gallery until March 26th and are available online at www.mathiasvestergaard.com/signs. Prices available on request.

Posterous is an online service that allows you to run a blog simply by e-mailing stuff to the site.

I have been using Posterous for half a year now and I really like the informal structur and the way it handles everything from videos, photo galleries, sound, pdf’s etc.

You can follow my live stream of random content on here.

I will also integrate the stream into the website.

In this new book future researcher Anne-Marie Dahl and teacher at Grenaa Gymnasium Oluf Kjær Nielsen depicts an image of the new generation called The Popstar Generation.

Their focus is the young generation who have been raised with a n enormous amount of media fantasies and a surplus of opportunities and choices. How do they act in the workplace? The book explores the question through case studies of remarkable youngsters. I was one of them.

The book is no revolution for other youngsters – they are well aware of the trends. However, the target group for the book is the 50+ year old CEO who wants to understand her younger employees and their life world.

You can order the book here.

Interview with me in Dagbladet Information.

You can also read this interview with me in URBAN.

One should be allowed to dream. My dream right now is something like this:
First of all I have established a New York based company – Mathias Vestergaard LLC or something. This company does the same as my Denmark-company: photography, writing and web development.
It is located in a huge loft/studio in SoHo – furnished in line with Yellow Cock Studio in Denmark. In addition to being my home in New York, it’s also huge enough to house a professional photo studio with light and editing equipment. When I’m not in New York the apartment will be available for vacation rental on a daily and weekly basis. Also, the photostudio is available for a daily rental.

N.B. the above description is just a dream. It has not been realized (yet). However, for the past weeks I have actually been working on something like this. I have seen some potential places and filed a petition for immigration so hopefully I can get a work permit.

Mathias Vestergaard operates globally with administrative headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark. 

We have chosen the exclusive and internationally recognized Yellow Cock Studio as a premium business network, sharing office space and professional photo studio with creative talents like photographer Thomas C K Priskorn, art director Ivan Hvam Hvam and artist Jaroslav Dorma.

Feel free to drop by the studio if you have any questions or new ideas or if you want to try one of our new products: CoffeeMeeting.

Read more about Yellow Cock Studio.

Read more about the team behind Mathias Vestergaard.

During 2009 Mathias Vestergaard™ was team of three. In addition to myself, the team included two part-time assistants: Tone Frank Dandanell and Lina Søgaard Nielsen. 

Lina handled a lot of administrative tasks and is also an excellent photographer. Tone was a great writer and was responsible for the product Ghostwriter. During the summer of 2009, PR manager and publicist Marlo Saalmink was also hired to promote the photo exhibition ‘Signs Of Time’.

Lina is now exclusively involved in running GadeMode.dk, while Tone has decided to focus her energy on her studies.

If you want to become part of the team, please send your resume and a description of what you can do to m@mathiasvestergaard.com. All applicants will receive an answer.

You can have profiles on Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, K-forum, Younoodle and more than a million other social networking sites. I can’t even keep track of them anymore, and yet I keep creating new profiles. Now Google has created an official Google Profile-system.

Do you need it? I don’t know. But I want to do everything I can to make my personal brand easy to find. Check it out and see for yourself.

Check out my profile on Google.

I’m a big fan of public transportation, especially trains. Thus, the implementation of the new IC4 trains in Denmark is of special interest to me. I live right next to the train service centre in Århus, so for the past four years I’ve seen the new trains parked literally next to my house. The new.. trains are gorgeous from the outside. Long and elegant with pointed noses, these trains signal speed and efficiency. Today I had my first ride with one of them.

Unfortunately the interior doesn’t live up to my expectations. The new IC4 seems noisier, the seats are not as good for sleeping since you can’t rest your head to the side, the interior looks like cheap plastic and the speaker system has a hissing sound. And worst of all: the brilliant flip-tables in the silent zones of the IC3 have been replaced with tables that make it uncomfortable to use even an ultraportable laptop. The only improvement I found was that the sensor-automated doors are more responsive.

Conclusion: for me, as a frequent traveller between Århus and Copenhagen, the upgrade form IC3 to IC4 is insignificant. However, the old IC3′s will replace several pre-IC3 trains on reginoal lines and here the upgrade will be almost overwhelming.

In the late 1980s “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) editors streamlined text production. You could now write, edit and layout your text in one tool.

But streamlining is not always the best solution. I’ve found that the mix of writing, editing and layouting text, e.g. in Word, can be incredibly distracting. The automatic spell checker with the curly red underlines interupts my writing. I feel I need to go back and correct my mistake. Annoying and counterproductive – at least for creative writing. However, I never really thought about all this before someone showed me a little program called WriteMonkey (mac-people: check out WriteRoom). With an incredibly minimalist interface, the program has pretty much nothing to disturb your concentration.

I’ve now been using the program for more than a month and I’m falling in love. It’s not the perfect solution for everything, since it adds an extra element to the process. After writing I always need to use a different program for spell check and layout. For e-mails I still prefer Outlook/Word. But for everything where I need to focus and concentrate on the writing itself, I find the tool to be brilliant. Give it a try and see for yourself.

We all know and love Wikipedia for its great content. Always there to assist you with relevant info about everything from nuclear weapon design to the life of James Joyce. Now there is even a wiki-page about me.

As of today, it is still “flagged” because it doesn’t have any categories, and Wikipedia rules doesn’t allow me to edit it myself, since autobiographies are often strongly biased. However, since it is a wiki everyone can contribute and edit it, so if you have a few minutes you can help Wikipedia (and me) by improving the article. You can add more references to relevant sources or improve the language to make it more neutral and objective.

A danish translation would also seem appropriate :-) Thank you so much!

See the Wiki-page about me

Every now and then I’m invited to give inspirational speeches about my life and my work. Recently I was invited to give a very short eight minute presentation at IT Forum Update 09 – read more about that speech here.

I’m always incredibly nervous when I give speeches. Not that I’m afraid that it will go wrong or just be bad – I’ve seen a fair share of incredibly boring speakers so I know I’m far from hitting the bottom. But I still want to do better. I want to be present in the room. I want to look people in the eyes. I want to deliver my points with precision and accuracy. And I want to be able to stick to my time window. If I have eight minutes I want to make sure that I use the time available without risking to miss the conclusion. As my ole Heuer stop watch clearly shows, I succeeded at least in terms of keeping in time. 7 minutes and 54 seconds – click! “Thank you for listening!”

The last two times I have visited New York City, I have had the pleasure of staying at 99dolla – the most remarkable bed & breakfast in the city.

In an obscure chinatown location, behind a steel door with a hand painted “41” and after climbing seven flights of stairs, you enter 99dolla. It’s a raw space, with visible pipes in the ceiling and cracked concrete in the bathroom, yet you feel instantly at home. This is partly due to your hosts – Jennifer and Emily. In addition to being increadibly nice, warm and friendly, they are also both increadibly interesting. Jennifer is a sculptural artist and Emily is a writer and project manager. They share a passion for good food and coffee and are both up to date on restaurants and galleries around town. For the first timers this information is crucial for a good experience. Of course you could just buy yourself a guidebook, but it is not the same as getting personal recommendations. Even for an experienced New York visitor I still learn a lot from those girls.

For a room in New York City, 99 dollars pr. night is pretty afforable, and compared to a standard hotel you get: access to an amazing living room where you can hang out and relax, watch movies on the projector screen, listen to music etc., free breakfast every morning including great coffee, fruit, eggs and juice, you can shower in the coolest shower I have ever seen, and you get to stay in an interesting neighborhood where you probably wouldn’t get to stay otherwise. There are several GREAT bars around the block, and many top restaurants are within walking distance. Furthermore, you are invited to use the kitchen if you want to cook your own meals or jsut brew some more coffee. However, the best thing is that you get to meet Jen and Emily.

But times are changing and maybe it will soon be over. Jennifer is going back to school to develop her artistic talent further, and she will be moving out of the city. Emily is currently looking for a new partner to continue running the place, but if it doesn’t happen, 99 will be a thing of the past. If you are going to visit New York before August, make sure to book a stay there(or be square)! 99dolla.wordpress.com

All those years, I figured I knew what I wanted to do with my life.  I would tell myself I would save the world. Or I would become an entrepreneur. A writer. A teacher. A photographer. But no. After spending this entire weekend in the kitchen; baking, cooking and eating; I need to adjust my original plan.

Seriously, I had no idea, cooking could be this much fun. I am not your average kitchen wonder,  but I am learning and experimenting continuously. Yesterday, I baked a couple of breads. Today, I made my own fresh pasta from scratch,  which accompanied by a wonderful meat sauce, was delicious. As for tonight, I am planning to make osso buco. Tomorrow I’ll be experimenting on more bread and the  always tricky sauce bearnaise.

Maybe this obsession will go away over time. Nevertheless, at the moment, I just want to stop everything I am doing and move into my kitchen permanently.

Today, I gave a presentation at the Århus Teknisk Skole for a class of multimedia designers. I was invited to talk about one of my favourite subjects of all times – me. I began my presentation by explaining that my ultimate goal was to save the planet and everyone on it.

After my speech, one of the students asked me “What would be the  link between your ultimate ideals and your fashion projects?” Somewhat startled, I tried to answer the best I could. Nonetheless,  it is not always that easy to link my actual work to my ideals. In the end, I don’t want to betray my ideals nor do I want to change my work or projects. My answer  therefore was two folded.Firstly, I am still learning. Learning to change the world of fashion or the world of boy scouts. Secondly, given the nature of my projects, I get to speak to a lot of people. Sometimes directly as I did today or at times, indirectly through the media, interviews and articles. Nonetheless, I always try to inspire the people I meet. Therefore, even if I fail in my objectives and do get caught up merely fostering my own business, I might still have inspired 10 others to go out and make a difference. In the end, that would thus bridge the inevitable gap between fashion and ideals.

Yesterday, I wrote, that I am currently teaching a class in web development. All this working and teaching is a lot of fun, but I’ve also realised how hard it is to be out there all day.

It all begins in the morning. The actual waking up process, to the sound of an alarm clock is something I am already not used to. The alarm goes off around 7am,  which for me is about 1½ hours earlier than normal. The penetrating sound of the beeper is absolutely harsher than it is to wake up to the feeling of the sunlight gently filling up your room. So far, the toughest part. Next is, actually getting out of bed. An hour later, in a comfortable seat on the train, I am starting to feel fine. I now can look forward to a fun and challenging day.

Now, after my work-day is over, I sit down and contemplate. Overall, it was great. However, I do realize now, that a day of real work, an actual full day of stand-up comedy/teaching,  is really exhausting. When, I got home, I just wanted to lie down on the couch (which I don’t have – but the bed will do), sip a beer whilst reading the paper. For me, anything creative or remotely challenging seemed impossible.

This was an important realization for me. When my rather arrogant ego is annoyed with some other person’s lack of creative enthusiasm, I will now remind myself that it’s not because he or she can’t be creative, it is probably just because he works too much to have any energy left.

This week, I will be teaching a class in web development at a school in Randers. It is an international group of Hospitality and Tourism Management students. Many of them aim for a job in the tourism industry. Of course they do not need to be overly skilled web-developers. Nonetheless, it can be helpful, to learn some basic skills related to working with websites; both technically and conceptually. And that is where I come in.

For the past year or so, I’ve been considering the idea of hiring someone to help me to get organised and focus on administrative tasks. This, in order to let me concentrate on what I do best. Yet, I never dared to actually go the distance. However, back in 2006, I realized the value of an accountant.  In October 2008 me and my friend and co-owner of GadeMode(tm) Helle decided to hire an assistant to run our blog and manage its day to day activities. It took us only about a week to find Mette and she is now doing a great job running the blog. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: hiring Mette has been one of my best decisions in a long time.

Naturally, this led me back to my original idea of having a personal assistant. I started to consider all my tasks. Would this task be something that an assistant could do? How can I make enough money to pay someone else? How do you even hire someone? And isn’t it a bit pretentious to have a PA when you’re 23? One night I just decided to give it a shot. I wrote up a job description and posted it on my website, Facebook and MSN Messenger and within two weeks I had five serious applications in my mailbox.

I’m flattered that so many people even wanted the job. Especially since they were all extremely competent and motivated. None of the applications indicated that this was considere a job to pay the rent.

I have decided to hire a part-time assistant to help me run my projects. I have no idea whether it will help me or whether it will just be more work. Since, I figured, even the best assistant will still need to learn something about my projects.

Another decisive factor would be the reward in terms of money. Will I end up spending all the money I make on my assistant instead, thus eliminating my own profit? Actually, this is not that much of an objection, since I rarely work for the money anyway. What I think is the ultimate question in this case is: will work be more fun if I have someone to share it with? And in this case I’m fairly certain the answer would be yes. Nevertheless, it won’t be just good old fun to be my assistant. A lot of it, however is. And anyone who would assist me would become part of this.

If you know someone who you think would be just right for the job, please forward the job description below to them.

Deadline for applications is set to February 1st when I return from my upcoming skiing holiday. Interviews will take place in mid-February.

This job is no longer available.

Embarrasing ly enough, I actually slightly misunderstood the definition of “social entrepreneurship”, but I guess it wasn’t too much of a problem, since my aim was to inspire people in general and to think about entrepreneurship in a different way. Key to my speech: Redefining and perpetuating what I do.

Besides this rather uneasy start, my presentation evolved around the theme of finding “energy” , energy that makes you do something . Therefore I did not focus on: writing business plans, doing spreadsheets and drafting budgets. I rather explained how I started as a self-employed web developer at the age of 15 without any master plan,  it just happened. I also told the more elaborate story of how I met Helle (my business partner) in 2005, how we began writing articles for the student magazine Delfinen and how we ended up founding gademode.dk – one of the most popular street style blogs in Denmark.

To me, entrepreneurship is not just about success. I do a lot of projects that fail. Some project-proposals actually never see the light of day. Furthermore,  focussed on a project on online sales and how I wanted to play a little political prank. The talk evolved into a roundtable discussion and altogether it was a really interesting event that I can highly recommend.

You can download my slideshow from the event here (slides and notes are in english).

Check out upcomming Eship-events here.

Actually, it is not so much the fact that I want to be like everyone else, I do want to stand out in a way. I would like to end up in the position, where neither myself or anybody else perceives me as a tourist or visitor.

It is kind of silly and I gladly admit that but I just want to emphasize that the most important focal point is not convincing others, but convincing myself. It all works inward (as a tribute to my at times introvert nature). Anyway, if you want to blend in too, here are six tips that you might find useful.

One: knowing the right places gives you so much credit. It is almost unbelievable, how much respect you can gain with this. Of course, not everyone will respond to this, but if someone asks you which places you want to go to, then you should know just a few of the places that are interesting. If you can just memorize this list, you should be well ahead of the competition: La Esquina (you love the tacos and the atmosphere downstairs), Freeman’s, Marlowe & Sons (in Brooklyn – very exotic, I know), Barrio Chino (their spicy margarita is fabulous), Frankie’s 17 (not as well known, but just insist that it is good) and the Beatrice Inn. Maybe even Prune (really good brunch). Having actually gone there is the next step… Of course there are plenty of other great places too, but those places seem to be well known and highly respected.

Two: learn the language. New Yorkers talk fairly fast and the say “fuck” all the fucking time. It’s like a fucking curse that fucking fucks with their fucking minds (hence the exaggeration). Just replicate – it is pretty fucking easy, right?

Three: memorize the map and have a backup on your phone. The more you are familiar with both the basic anatomy of the city and the actual street names, the more easily you can get around, without always looking at your maps. A little tip, when leaving the subway: always look on the sign above the exit, e.g. “EXIT Essex & Delancey NE corner”. When you reach street level, look for the crossroads – if you are at the north east corner looking at the intersection you’ll be facing south west…

Four: dress normal. Just because the 1986 edition of the guide book you’ve borrowed from your parents states that “New Yorker are always walking around in their white sneakers” , things have changed since. You don’t have to paint your face white and wear black layered clothing – not all  New Yorkers are considere fashionable. On the other hand: there is no harm in making a little effort.

Five: use public transport. Yes, you could walk from 8th avenue and 23rd street to Washington Square, but why not take the C or E train that takes you 90% of the distance?

Six: Tip as Rockefeller. Just do it. If you can’t afford a 20-25% tip at an expensive restaurant, just find a cheaper place to eat. You can get a burrito in the street for $5…

The above guidelines are not meant as an attack on your average tourist. I have no problem with the fact that some people actually want to spend their time visiting the Statue of Liberty. It must make sense to them and I respect that – it is a cultural symbol. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’d rather just live here and relax and for me it makes great sense to get under the skin and know it. The decision is yours!

I know what I want to do. I want to write a book, move to New York, drink cocktails, hang out with friends, etc. Today I discovered a new activity that I really enjoy: running errands.

After two days, working as a volunteer for The Moth (theMoth.org), running around Manhattan picking up various packages for their benefit auction, It  suddenly hit me; I actually enjoy this. The concept of bein a professional, presentable, polite and very patient errand boy feels great. Furthermore, I think it is an important job. You are representing an organization in the first degree, so acting nice and being friendly, without getting smug, is mandatory.

I’ve tried explaining this new idea to people and I think a lot of people don’t’ really get it. They seem to interpret it as a sarcastic remark,  this whilst I am in fact completely sincere. I really love going around town with public transportation, I really love those moments of waiting and I love it when people appreciate what I do. This of course feels very satisfactory, despite the fact I was, in the end,  a frowned upon errand boy.

One guy I talked to, however, really seemed to understand the idea and actually helped me understand myself even better. He told me that he liked my attitude. I hadn’t thought about it this way before, but I think he really hit the spot there. For me it’s not so much about what I do. Being an errand-boy is not what matters. What matters is the attitude I have,  whatever task I take upon myself. That and being humble and appreciative of my life as it is.

On the street style website www.gademode.dk there has recently been a debate about censoring negative comments. Some contributors found us too strict, in the way that we censor too much. I joined the debate in order to add my perspective, and suddenly someone also commented on my book-project, even though this was not really part of the discussion. My friend Helle later told me that she had found it uncomfortable on my behalf that someone knew about this project and pulled it into the discussion. This situation made me think about a recurrent theme in my life (and in the lives of many others) namely the distinction between public and private life. The development of personal websites in the 90′s and through MySpace and Facebook now, has created a platform where everyone can publish parts of their private life, thus making their lives public property. I don’t want to sound technophobic – this is not about avoiding Facebook or never sharing anything online. I personally share a lot of myself online. What I would like to argue is simply that the difference between what is private and what is made public reflects a choice, instead of merely replicating what others do.

For me, almost everything in my professional life is publicly available in some form. I write articles, give speeches and tell everyone what I do. Some projects fail miserably, and this is no secret. Furthermore, my contact info is also readily available. If you for instance, find me on Facebook, you can have at least some insight about my friends and who they are.

So where is the limit? If you browse my Facebook or website pages you won’t be able to see much about my family. You might notice that it says “in a relationship” and maybe you could track the person down in some way or the other. But the point is: you won’t find photos from our romantic trip to Moscow. You won’t even know if we actually went to Moscow. But why not show your love online? Why should it be secret? For me, there is no perfectly rational reason for this, although I would argue two points here. First,  if I would pull my family and girlfriend into my public life, I don’t leave them a choice. What if they don’t want to be public property? Secondly and finally, my relationship with my girlfriend and family is not improved by public display (in contrast to my professional life, where my projects often need the attention of others).

In my life, projects, ideas and meetings take up a good part of my time. This is what makes my life challenging and interesting.  However, the lack of any overall schedule and the fact that almost every day I have to reinvent my life, is also what makes it rather stressful at times.

Giving a speech or a presentation is something I’ve tried several times before, however, when you suddenly have 250 listeners instead of just 30 or 40, it proved to be just a bit more stressful than it usually is.

Due to incidents like this and due to my general aim to nourrish my inner balance and harmony, I decided to take a course in meditation.  The eight weekly training sessions with lots of homework between classes are now over – so how was it?

It was definitely worth it. What I needed was a extended set of tools that I could use to manage my feelings, frustrations, overwhelming thoughts, stress etcetera. What I dicoverer? I learned simple techniques to feel my breathing and body, in order to be present in the moment.  In addition to this, I also learned more challenging techniques to sort through my thoughts.

Henceforth, the whole process of learning meditation has been like an exciting journey into myself. I’m definitely not done with it. There will be many situations in the future where I can use what I’ve learned.

In August 2008 , a special group of the YMCA Scouts in Denmark organized a brand new type of event. The combination of the best elements of scout camp with music/party marked the creation of Scout Festival. With some additional innovation and creativity, the Scout Festival became a complete unique experience for all participants.

I was lucky enough to be part of the planning-commission for this magnificent event. This naturally, made it even more thrilling to see how well it was received by all participating teenagers. Next to, the selection of the bands we wanted to perform, I was also in charge of a modelling-workshop. However, my biggest task was running the 24/7 movie theater. I had made a rather ambitious selection of new and old movies, which meant following a strict schedule.

Within the next year, I plan to write more about this festival, since it was such a great interactive experience.

My life is about doing what I feel like. I don’t restrict myself to one job or one past-time activity. Personally, I want my virtual online identity to reflect my life style. My identity should be a collection of the diversity of my activities. This encompasses: my cocktail reviews, my website portfolio. my pictures, my random ideas and thoughts and my resume.

This was the purpose when I redesigned this website. However, Facebook actually did it before I was ready to launch. By integrating RSS-feeds, Picasa, Flickr and Yelp, Facebook is effectively making personal websites obsolete.

By integrating RSS-feeds, StumbleUpon, Picasa, Flickr and Yelp, Facebook is effectively making personal websites obsolete

The only real problems with Facebook are: First, that the visitor must also have a Facebook profile to take advantage of the interactional capabilities and Second, you have really no control over privacy when it comes to photos and personal information. The owners of Facebook can pull out all kinds of statistics out of their hats, to analyze mass behaviour. Additionally, it has recently been discussed how difficult it is to actually delete your personal information or your profile on Facebook. Facebook does not guarantee that your data are actually deleted, even though it is no longer publicly available.

My personal (and only partial) solution to the second problem, is to inject just a minor portion of false or misleading information into the system. This will decrease the value of my personal information since it can no longer be perceived as an omnipresent truth.

Visit my Facebook profile here.

You can follow me on my site, but why not get a personal newsletter as well?

There will be no guarantees regarding the ontent or the frequency of my updates, but if you’re interested, click on the subscribe now button.

I’m currently working on a new movie. In collaboration with my friend and former teacher, Thomas Lind Laursen, I’m working on a script. After two years of discussing the project, we’re still very much stuck in the making process. The script is only gradually taking its shape.

However, what I find interesting about this project, in relation to most of my other projects, is that it is extremely process oriented. Normally, I focus much more on getting some product/result out of my work: an exam paper, a website, a collection of photos. This project however, is about doing what feels right. Also, because it’s a no-budget movie, we have to be very creative throughout the process. If a script is good, but not actually something we can produce, we have to reconsider.

This post will be updated as we’re making progress… if.. that is.