SIME Amsterdam – 2 days to go!

With just 2 days to go for SIME Amsterdam at Beurs van Berlage, we are very excited to announce 4 master classes / workshops for you to choose from during the day. Apart from the main stage program which is a combination of panels, keynotes, fireside chats and interviews / Q&A with the audience, we also have 4 separate workshop tracks for you to get a deeper understanding of the topics of your choice. These 4 workshops will be held from 1300-1350 and from 1700 – 1750 at the main stage and choir each. The tracks are:

At 1300:

a) MASTER CLASS 1 @MAIN STAGE: MOBILE SELLS OR DOES IT?

b) MASTER CLASS 2 @CHOIR ROOM: IS ONLINE BOOKING TURNING THE WEB INTO AN EBAY OF PEOPLE?

At 1700:

a) MASTER CLASS 3 @MAIN STAGE: THE FUTURE OF PERFORMANCE MARKETING

b) MASTER CLASS 4 @CHOIR ROOM: HOW TO WIN IN “INNOVATION AWARDS 2012

You can read the detailed agenda and speakers per session

Apart from the workshops, we also have shuffled around the timing a little bit to make sure we get sufficient coffee, food inbetween and have an opportunity to enjoy the sun. We have added some more speakers to the roster. Overall we believe its going to be a great day of inspiration, knowledge and lot of business opportunities. And just as a caveat, we take having fun seriously too!

See you on May 25th.

Sara Öhrvall talks about whether iPad is the savior the media industry has been waiting for

If the App Store has got the operators by the neck, the iPad and iBooks embraces the publishing industry. It is a new distribution channel that publishers can track engage emot and connect with their audience. People love the experience on an Apple device like an iPad and automatically the layout and framework makes them like the content they see from different publishers too.

Sara Öhrvall, Senior Vice President, Research & Development, the Bonnier Group and a featured SIME speaker from 2009 (her take on the 5 trends to watch out for) was at DLD Women in Munich, a partner conference to SIME featuring women in the June 10-11 edition. Sara is responsible for the Bonnier Mag+ project, bringing print magazines to digital on the iPad – and future devices. Here she talks about the iPad and similar devices and how Bonnier Media Group is using such channels to connect with their audience better.

Read her blog post on SIME here

Reliving SIME Barcelona 09 – Flickr Stream

[Do you have better photos to share from SIME Barcelona 09?]

SIME Talks Episode 6, Season 2: Story Telling is the product of great real time conversations (feat. Steven Overman)

Steven Overman believes in the process of story telling – tell a story, talk about your brand : the usual marketing jargon, but comes with a real time twist. He wants real time conversations about your brand to be the storyline of your brand, not your ego centric unidirectional message. An attitudinal change is needed to play the game today.

And the reason is two-fold.

i. Values and behaviors have changed – people want to be / are empowered, conscientious, transparent, anxious and impatient.

ii. Technology and Media have changed – new channels give way to new ways to express and communicate. Social, Intelligent, Context-Aware – the technology is breathing its own life of expression.

This he calls a Real Time Conversation. The passion of his is manifested in his Real Time Project that he co-founded.

Visit The Real Time Project Web here

A big SIME star, Steve was one of the most loved speakers in both SIME Helsinki and SIME Stockholm in 2009, giving riveting talks about story telling and love for real time. Below is an interview captured by our video production friends, Radon.

SIME 09 -STEVEN OVERMAN from SIME on Vimeo.

Steven Overman is a great personality. He is a co-founder The Realtime Project, communications pioneer including Lowe Worldwide Global Strategy Director for IPG Team Nokia and as one of the enthusiast behind Wired Magazine as well as in many other innovative teams. Steven was in the room -94 when the first banner was created…

Read more about Steve’s profile at Brandism
Steve’s Twitter, LinkedIN

SIME 09: Highlights

Relive the SIME Magic, the SIME Inspiration through some recorded footage and pictures

SIME 09 was all about the 4 dimensions of digital opportunities: business, knowledge, inspiration and fun, the 4 pillars or the corner stones for this year’s SIME. And we took every step to make sure during the 2 days you got your best business opportunities, learnt as much from the sessions, workshops, drew inspiration from the speakers and the participants and, most importantly had riveting fun before, during and after the conference.

Looking back, we did quite much shake the SIME cover. From coming up with a new format, an agenda that boasts of covering most verticals within the digital landscape, and a revised Awards format, we did have quite an uphill task to package them the best and add the SIME touch at the end. At the end, if you had as much fun at SIME as we had arranging it, we think it’s a job well done

The Highlights section is here

Some very good footage from the whole show is here

Interviews with SIME speakers and Participants here and here (thanks folks from 23business, Germany).

Pictures from Tom Solo (SIME’s “legend behind the lens”)

SIME Pool at Flickr (user uploaded)

And stay tuned for the year ahead. SIME is going even more international, so get ready to welcome SIME to your city!

Workshops and More Top Speakers for SIME Stockholm

Experimenting with the format of having the staged show along with networking bazaar and workshops, SIME Stockholm promises to be extremely interesting and an elevated experience this year.

Read about the format here

We are happy to inform that, on top of the great speakers who have confirmed their attendance as reported 2 weeks ago, we have some more top names added into the speaker roster.

Check the speaker profiles here

Most of these speakers will also be present for you to mingle with at the networking bazaar and moderating workshops on various topics. All in all we have 24 workshops under 8 different categories, ranging from strategy, mobile, money to communication and excellence

Check the workshop schedule here

As we begin our penultimate week countdown to the ‘most important event of the year’, the SIME epidemic has begun to grip the region even more. Thanks to some great inspiration from SIME Helsinki, the energy levels are amazing.

Watch out for some high octane inspiration next week. Question is, are you part of the journey, and if yes, are you ready for some action.

Welcome to SIME Stockholm 2009.

Countdown: 17 days to the most important event on digital opportunities. You got your ticket?

Exactly 17 days from now, the smartest people from all over the world will go missing.

And yes, if you are looking for them, you can find them at Rigoletto in Stockholm. When we finished SIME 2008, the DNA of Change edition in Stockholm, we realized that we have upped the ante considerably since 2006, and had a very lofty vision of making SIME 2009 the best SIME ever in the history of the 13 year conference.

May be I am a bit biased, but I dare to say we have the best mix of agenda, speakers and formats, all packaged into a format that will stick. We have learned a lot from the conference goers experience over time, and we believe that the learnings will transcend into an exhilarating SIME experience this year.

So my question to you is: have you got your tickets to inspiration? Stitch your own SIME with the workshops you want to attend (during this week, the SIME Blog will have more information on the speakers and experts who will be moderating the workshops), and the awards gala and dinner. The mayor of Stockholm has decided to give the keys to the city during the 2 evenings, and yes, we will be raiding the best of the best nightclubs to give our international friends some tryst with history starting from the way the Vikings partied (in all good sense that is).

Check out the agenda and speakers

Get your ticket to inspiration

Welcome to the most important event on digital opportunities. Welcome to SIME Stockholm, 11, 12 November.

SIME Talks 14: Kjell Aamodt, former CEO Schibsted talks about changes in media landscape

Back in 2006, when we were still trying to understand the online space a little bit better, there were very few big media companies or “dinosaurs” that really could come to terms with the fact that their core business model probably is going to have to change, and that the change will sweep them right from beneath the feet. They could either jump in or sink, and Schibsted with a CEO who boasted of a fantastic sense of vision rightfully decided to jump in, take the mantle and steer the ship to safety

Schibsted has grown to become one of Scandinavia’s largest media houses with diverse footprints in the landscape, operating in 22 countries, and having some of the leading sites in Scandinavia like Aftonbladet.se (the most read online newspaper), blocket.se amongst other very interesting and successful verticals.

View Schibsted’s profile here

Kjell Aamodt, who has led Schibsted for 20 years decided to step down mid this year. Rolv Erik Ryssdal is the new sergeant at the helm. You can catch Rolv Erik Ryssdal at SIME Stockholm this year, he is one of the speakers at the conference.

View the speaker listing here

View the agenda here

Below, is a video dug out from 2006, which I think is still relevant, as many media companies are still questioning the viability of the online model and holding the traditional channels too near and dear to their heart. Probably, the alarm bells are not loud enough, or may be, a Lehman brother kind of shock is needed for people to realize where the money is being spent. At the end of the day, its a simple mantra of “Follow your customers”, and when the customers are going online, what’s stopping them, they only know

SIME 06 – Kjell Aamodt from SIME on Vimeo.

SIME Speaker Series: Johan Siwers, Managing Director of Match.com, "The Silent Years is when real business is built"

Below is a guest post written by Johan Siwers, Managing Director of Match.com CEO Nordics. Johan Siwers is a seasoned online media executive with a passion for entrepreneurial game changing companies. Johan has over the past 15 years been involved in breaking ground for a wide range of media and online media ventures within companies like Kinnevik, Spray, Shibsted and InterActive Corp (IAC). Johan is also part of the SIME Awards jury.

I recently sat talking to some friends and fellow online veterans.

We started talking about a number of companies that we remembered as the cool and hot media darlings of the online world only a few years ago, but that we lost track of. What had happened? Did the founders loose interest, did they scale down their business when they were about to run out of cash or did they simply go bust? What happened with Polar Rose – Technology pioneer at WEF 2008; and Table Finder – Seed camp winner 2007 or Rebtel – celebrated internationally and raised $20 million in 2006. What about Jaycut – årets nykomling IW 2007

We started to unwind 10-15 stories of these and similar hyped companies and found some interesting cases:

1) About a third of the companies had actually gone bust, sold or merged in a way that had left very little value left
2) Another third were still in business, but was just barely struggling to survive and had lost most of their visions
3) The last third had realized headlines in the media does not pay the bills. They had gone silent, worked on their business model and come out on the other side with a strong offering and business.

In the first category the “entrepreneur” could often be stereotyped into a financial entrepreneur, i.e. a person that put the monetary aspect of running a business first – I want to become rich.
The second category had entrepreneurs that lost the sparkle in their eyes. They often seem to have a problem accepting that they were not saluted success stories any longer – and as success junkies they lost their drive and momentum.

The third category of entrepreneurs and companies kept working hard on their value proposition during Silent Years, learnt from their mistakes and step by step they created a strong and solid foundation for their business. The initial media attention gave them a kick start, but that was more coincidental than part of a plan or reason for being. Many times these entrepreneurs had tweaked and adjusted their initial idea quite drastically, and landed with an improved execution better adapted to reality. The improved execution did not always include the-sky-is-the-limit approach any longer, but all showed a sound profitable company.

The Silent Years showed that these entrepreneurs were never in it for the love of making money, not for the love of seeing them self in the news paper but for the passion of creating something out of a core idea or insight. Tetra Pak lost money the first 15 years. It took IKEA 15 years to start its first store out side of Scandinavia, it took H&M 17 years to do the same.

What would those stories tell us?

• If you want to get rich, don’t plan on getting rich
• If you have a passion, work with it, twist and turn, to get it to become a business
• Most business ideas are not invented, they are grown out of passion and hard work over longer – often Silent – periods of time

SIME Talks 13: Esther Dyson, "US Internet's first lady" – She talks, we listen

She talks, we listen – No more, no less, golden words by the Queen of the US Internet, none other than Esther Dyson. Take about 120 seconds of your time and realize how true these words are for your business.

Read about Esther Dyson

SIME 07 – Esther Dyson from SIME on Vimeo.