The softer side of blogging

Links for Motorcycle enthusiasts

Kasper Krogh — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:19:39 +0000

MC travel-blogs:
Must see: http://www.kccd.no/
http://4qconditioning.blogspot.com/

Danish blogs:
http://www.ossianbuilds.blogspot.com

http://wrenchmonkees.blogspot.com/
(Killer-Bobber) http://customsfromjamesville.blogspot.com/

International:
http://honaha.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/honda-goldwing-gl-1000-cafe-racer/
http://honaha.wordpress.com
http://8negro.blogspot.com/
http://therealmrcartoon.blogspot.com/
http://kemosabeandthelodge.blogspot.com/
http://chopperdaves.blogspot.com/?zx=179f793d7cb56782
http://boylecomm.blogspot.com/
http://psychowheels.blogspot.com/
http://greaserstemple.blogspot.com/

Honda
(Goldwing)
http://motos.home.att.net/gl1000history.htm
http://motos.home.att.net/gl1000.htm

MC design inspiration
http://caybroendumsparetime.blogspot.com/
http://www.czombieblog.com/
http://thevintagent.blogspot.com/
http://wingnutsmotorcycleclub.blogspot.com/
http://noisefastloudhard.blogspot.com/
http://www.greasykulture.com/

Diverse:
http://bluemoonkustoms.blogspot.com/
http://bornlosermc.blogspot.com/?zx=cc5e1913ca6dcc89
http://www.generatorland.com/glgenerator.aspx?id=84

Lots of other blogs:
http://nostalgiaonwheels.blogspot.com/

The Aristocrats Joke

Kasper Krogh — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:50:25 +0000

It always starts out with: “A talent agent is sitting in his office, and a family walks in to see him….” From there on in it’s all improv and it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes of verbal blitzing. More background here on “The Aristocrats Joke”. If it’s told good, it means it’s extremely explicit and graphical in a kind of LSD-tripped out sex-warped beastiality epical drama kind of way – and always over the top…always…

Dennis Pennis Hooligan Kung Fu

Kasper Krogh — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:00:44 +0000

There is indeed a lot to be learned from modern martial arts: From the younger students careful study of the sing-along prefight seance, to the higher level students absorbed in the advanced sections of “Dress-code deciphering” and “Proper use of Keys”.

Behavioural economics: Predictable Irrationallity

Kasper Krogh — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:15:14 +0000

If you’ve ever read anything about thought patterns and how we as humans find ourselves pre-wired for certain motion and thought processes, then Dan Ariely has done research that might intrigue you.

Dan Ariely Morphed

Often it seems the problem is making the research tangible for the layman due to a lack of consumable communication to the masses, but this is where Dan manages to come pull through. Check out these short snippet videos with recaps of his observations. Very interesting indeed. Check it out here and once you’re done with those, continue here for some videos and playlists.

James Nachtwey war photographer

Kasper Krogh — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:56:06 +0000

“I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.” -James Nachtwey-

To help out achieve the above wish, I’m trying to expose the work done by James Nachtwey. It must take some guts and willpower to keep on going through each an every single war…from Sudan and straight to Rwanda the next day. Deep thoughts will occur when you visit at http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/

New motorcycle

Kasper Krogh — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:45:13 +0000

I just bought a Honda VT500FT Ascot from ’84…and here is the actual TV commercial from way back then. Catch-phrase? Of course – it’s “Follow the leader – coz’ he got a hondaaaaaaaa”. Priceless

I actually did manage to find a few blogs on Honda Ascot’s here and here – but it seems like I bought an import to Europe from the US, and meeting similar models in the old continent will be tricky. My last resort has been to rip the parts page, and buy the official Honda vt500ft Ascot service manual.

The Client/Vendor relationship

Kasper Krogh — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:21:37 +0000

Not far off at all…

Even flaming can be put to good use

Kasper Krogh — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:12:45 +0000

Recycling has reached new states of being – this song is written only with flamers way off topic comments.

Check this video here

And while on the topic of flaming and random slander, this is pretty damn funny too.

Possible blog-titles

Kasper Krogh — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:53:08 +0000

Can’t decide what to go with for the title for the title of this blog, but definately something that will manage expectations straight off…considerations so far include:

Have a blog and smile
The odorless and lint free blog
Go on, get your blog out
Nothing does it like a blog
The blog just around the corner
Let your fingers do the blogging
KK’s blog, since 1903
Grab life by the blog
You can do it when you blog it
The real smell of blogging

Very refreshing design :-)

Kasper Krogh — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:18:10 +0000

Cool Stop-motion

Kasper Krogh — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:17:30 +0000

FYI if coming up with Heavy Metal band name

Kasper Krogh — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:26:30 +0000

I'm temped to go for the north-west corner for nostalgic reasons

Powerpoint is Evil

Kasper Krogh — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:45:09 +0000

Found this article on Wired. “Powerpoint is evil” nails a lot of the issues with powerpoint, and spells out the problems about PowerPoint totally missing the point of getting something across, not to mention the fact that is makes it very hard to align elements, change typography and especially that it just looks bad due to the digital presentation. Read a more elequintly written PPT-bashing here

Advertising agency: When do you actually go for a pitch?

Kasper Krogh — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:49:22 +0000

What do you do when a Request for Proposal comes across your desk? The natural reaction seems to be a sensation of “new client – let’s go for it!”. But choosing your battles wisely seems to come to mind, when backtracking the number of hours spent on free pitches over the years. So here’s some ideas on what to look at when you do get an RFP in the door:

Dig into the client on the following info: What is the historic media-spend, how was it placed and what was the creative level of it. This will give a good indication as to what the budget will be, what kind of media you get to work with and of course what type of assignments you’ll be getting over the time to come.

I.e.: Make sure you want it, and it makes sense to engage with front-loaded work.

Should you still want to continue on this pitch for financial, branding or prestigous reasons, then consider the following as well:

How much time do you want to set aside for this pitch, and what is the expected pitch level: 3 hours on strategy and numbers, or is the client into a highly creative/visual solution. A combination of the 2 would be the ideal, but the client/recipient of the pitch needs to be taken into account as well; The client might have a certain focus on sales, on external communication or they answer to a higher authority in the organisation, and these are things that all affect the leverage of creative vs. strategy in the pitch. Combining this with the fact that you need to take out time from you existing organisation at zero income/hour, the plot seems to thicken.

Know your requirements internally, for the externally expected pitch format.

So – if you’re still up to the challenge, here are some comments on how to proceed:

Do your research well; Everything from company history to visiting shops. Make sure to allocate a proper strategic planning angle on this, and get a solid foundation before coming up with creative ideas.

On the following strategic solution and creative output: This part of the process if where the bulk of time wasted is seen. The answer isn’t there right of, and if the project team isn’t set and guided in a short deadline highly colaborative manor then it will take a lot of avoidable sweat and tears to get anywhere. A specific approach on how to avoid this is to do a number of short sessions with 2 hours deadlines over a couple of days. This will fascilitate a lot more communication and cover a lot more ground than the same 4 people working out of different (non-synergetic) tangents. The planner/PM is an intricate part of this setup, maintaining and guiding the team(s) an hourly basis. This in turn sets very high standard for focus and personal skills for the PM, as well as the team. See http://www.12manage.com/methods_revans_action_learning.html for some more ideas on how to do this.

Manage process tighltly to avoid wasted time and a avoid headless chicken-run.

Once you have your pitch is prepared, one simple action will get you in much better shape with minimal workload: Practice before presenting.

Berlingske: “Bush, the Man who ended up as a failure”

Kasper Krogh — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:19:19 +0000

I want to share this cover of Berlingske Tidende which was on a few weeks ago. Berlingske is the Danish newspaper that can call itself the largest liberal business angeled daily publication, which has a very affinity of modern/individualistic readers. This major denounciation of Bush, in a very public manor, probably isn’t going to get them that many interviews with the White House for a while, but I guess they deemed it necessary to simply say Bush equals Failure, and take the heat afterwards. My own opinions on this aside, the point is that Danish media manage to put stuff out there, without it being sensationalism or a run for ratings – but simply an observation on behalf of the editorial staff – non-lobbied. The Bush = Failure observation first of all goes against the fact that we’re still in the coalition, and you’d think we try and rally together somehow. Secondly, this cover goes against a long term ally which has been a very mutually beneficial acquaintance. However, the cover also supports free speech in people and media alike – which is how is should be.

Bush article

Berlingske tidende – business and corporate segment.

International talk like a pirate day

Kasper Krogh — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:33:43 +0000

One of the most memorable yearly returning days of “whatever” is the International Talk like a Pirate day. Being called a swashbuckler or a landlubber is something that is too rarely seen in office environment these days – especially the fact that bringing a cutlas to the office is seen as both reasonable and practicle on this fine day.

I’m pretty sure a few people at the office will be dressed up tomorrow – and as the enthusiastic Pirate I am, I have am offering everyone at the office a two for one deal on tattoos through Amina Charai (yes, actual tattoos – which you get done on the day – 2 for 1 discount rebate extravaganca).

Let me just repeat the above in pirate-lingo, so as to give you an idea on what’s to come

Ahoy!

Avast, me buxom beauties and bilge rats.

All who say arrr be prepared to swim in Grog and dance to the hornpipes. For all the lubbers there be punishment, so be smartly and dress like a true pirate on this fine night the 19th day of September unless ye’ fancy a keel haulin’.

Beware! For all Hello-pirate souls that fancy guns, women, muskets & dubloons, there by a 2 for 1 price on all tattoos at Brightside Tattoo on this fine day – no tricks and no rats, this be the real deal – so step lively and get your parrot and your treasure-maps on your chest so as to never forget your hearties.

Google ranking try-outs?

Kasper Krogh — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:29:01 +0000

As a small experiment, I’m crosslinking all my webpresences to see if it will lift my google ranking…probably won’t do too much of a difference, but then again – can’t hurt I guess the next step will be to get in the papers and my name get into the public forum and have that validate my name from a public, popular source (now noted on my to-do list: “Get into online-newspapers to boost google ranking”). Blog comments probably help as well – so better start trashing-up on whatever might be a high profile debate out there…mmmh…Nyhedsavisen comes to mind….better not touch that one

Skiing with new friends

Kasper Krogh — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:11:49 +0000

Just went skiing for a week in Val d’sere – fantastic, off-pist is the best Met quite a few good people there as well, amongst other a great photographer and a soulmate from my time in Barcelona. Check out http://www.tonykellyphotography.com – excellent boarder, and good with a camera as well.

Guess who Tony is on the picture below…

Thoughts on advertising

Kasper Krogh — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:02:51 +0000

To some extent, creating value is a matter of pleasing certain aspects of a clients life -aspects that may be fully recognised or have the form of an unrecognised need. The question of being favoured is no longer a matter of top-of-mind or retail-space management but very much a question of appealing to, and succumbing to other aspects of human desire such as usability, user-friendlines, product design and interrelation of complementary products.

The advertising industry is currently facing a challenge in regards to maintaining profit margins and delivering according to client demand concerning the focus of how to solve the core-issue of adding value to customers. A number of inter-organisational expansions have been made, primarily concerning production-capacity and existing core competences in relation to communications-based problem solving. Despite market demand for something else, as is underlined in the declining marketing-budget of most companies, advertising agencies focus on keeping the industry standards in place. As if nothing, or very little has actually changed in recent years, agencies approach the market with the same approach as ever not unlike a person wearing blinders, unable to see the changes or contours of the peripheral vision. So, if this is the case, what could be done?

During the past years in academic circles as well as progressive companies, focus has been on innovation, as a means of creating value. The core concept of innovation is that value is a format highly difficult to define, but highly valuable when defined. Not unlike inventions, it is the process of seeing and understanding a market need latent or recognised, and then solving this to stimulate demand. With this in mind, it is not unlikely that an advertising agency would be able to harvest and put existing competencies to good use in this manor. Deep understanding of customer and company variables is already a core competence, which would serve as a substantial foundation for creating innovative solutions instead of solely focusing on the communicative aspect of any given clients challenge. Thus, the operationalization of existing competence profile of the advertising agency, will enable these to create value on a higher level, thereby proactively sustaining their competitive edge.

Second Life thoughts

Kasper Krogh — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:20:04 +0000

Well, This is a follow up to a presentation I did on friday. I’m posting a few of the links that best show various sides and potential of the Second Life concept.

(Presentation uploaded under “Presentations…)

What we can expect from the Second life development, both in the hearts and minds of users as well as media is that we are seeing a concept go from the initial stage to a mature stage in it’s development. In other words, Second Life amongst other virtual reality metaverses will most likely see an exponential climb in sign-ups, i.e. more users – hence more traffic and content development. BUT this is the focus a some media attention, which again might very well lead it to be a self-fullfilling prophecy. So, where this is going is hard to say – but there is a certain curious linearity from the phone – to PC’s – to cells – SMS’s – on to Palm’s – to games – to interconnectivity within all platforms – to virtual invisible networks that benefit from personalising the nicknames. In other words, virtual worlds help us understand the tip of the iceberg of possibilities that arise from the mix of clients, content and connections.

The issue of content development should be understood in the broadest sence possible – e.g. wheelies nightclub or having a dot.pet…all still 0’s and 1’s – but that seems to work almost just as well as the real thing. But, of course – more convenient use to both have full-time jobs (1 real), pets (1 virtual dog), 4 girlfriends (3 virtual, one real)…

The theory of natural selection might very well apply to the development of platforms like virtual worlds. In this case though, the question at hand is not strength, but interconnectivity – who will then survive? Well, the concepts that can expand from web to cell – from outlook to thunderbird – from kitchen appliances to your shopping list – something best explained by the likes of ZYB rather than Myspace.

So is Second Life hype og the real thing – well, it is too soon to tell, but anyway way this thing is gaining momentum, I’m keeping an eye on it…and under any circumstances mediacoverage both internally (1, 2) and especially externally(1, 2) might be at good indicator that something is on the rise.