bootstrapping.net

The last couple of years i’ve spent a great deal of time exploring the visual paradigm, the shift from textual to visual communication and collaboration. A long the way i co-founded 23, a photo sharing service in 2005 -and saw people sharing unexpected photos. Small shops taking photos of their goods and the life in their store, organic farmers uploading photos of their lettuce in order to sell them, a small communication agency communicating through photos, big organizations sharing photos from their events - the story goes on,

But they we’re all struggling with what they didn’t have. They wanted control of the design, wanted it to run on their own domain names, wanted an experience that was about them - not about the tool that they are using. Wanted support for having multiple users on one blog, wanted to be able to easily do private blogs for internal use. All the simple stuff that they’re to from from websites and blogs.

So we decided to do yet another blogging (how crazy it might sound). One that natively was build to do photo and video really great. One that really could get visual communication and collaboration into our daily work habits onto our websites. Combining the best of blogging and the best from central photo/video sharing services.

It’s called Visualblog, it’s launching globally! today and it’s at http://www.visualblog.net. There’s a free trial, mail me if you want that extended if you like what you’re seeing. We’ve worked our asses off to get it done - i’d really be happy to get your feedback on what we can do better, help spread the word around, try it with your clients or in your projects/companies. I’ve attached the press release for rhetorical effect and you can check a visualblog in use at http://www.livefrompicnic.com .

-Thomas

AMSTERDAM, SEPTEMBER 25TH 2008
23 launches Visualblog, the first photo/video blogging tool

Until now, creating a photo or video blog has been a tedious process of hacking text blogging tools, embedding videos from Youtube, or using centralized photo sharing services. But now, 23 is introducing Visualblog - a new hosted blogging service that allows you to have a photo/video blog up and running in minutes and push-button easy publishing of your photos/videos with one click.

Visualblog brings the ease of publishing, which text blogging tools made possible 10 years ago, to the world of photos and videos. It is a simple tool that allows individuals and organizations to embrace the new visual sharing paradigm by providing an easy way to share the immediate and rich authenticity of photo and video.

Visualblog features
- Your own domain, your own design, full control over the user experience
- Easy upload of photo and video with one-click publishing
- Everything you know from video and photo sharing
such as slideshows, tags, calendar, embedding
- Everything good from blogging such as rss, trackbacks, spam monitorering
- Multiple authors for group blogging, visual comments
- Mobile upload from your mobile phone of photos and videos

A number of bloggers, organizations, small businesses and media companies have been trialing Visualblog:
Bloggers love to have their own identity with their own design and domain name. Organizations are embracing photo and video blogging as an easy authentic way to get started sharing.
Small businesses suddenly find it easy to communicate and actually get around to communicate with the world what they’re doing and media companies find it easy to add photos and videos with their own identity and advertising.

Pricing plans for Visualblog run from 15-150 dollars a month and is available with a 30-day free trial at http://www.visualblog.net

ABOUT 23
23, the visual sharing company, is a European startup that builds visual sharing tools for personal and organizational use. Our products are helping individuals, groups, businesses and institutions to communicate and collaborate visually in more than 200 countries across the globe on a daily basis. http://www.23visual.com

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Steffen Christensen, +45 25327058, steffen@23visual.com
Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, +45 2972 5630, mygdal@23visual.com

The invite for this years reboot.

It’s time to reboot our minds once again; reboot10 will take place in Copenhagen Thursday, June 26 and Friday, June 27 2008.
Two days away from implementing, away from the status quo. Two days together with old and new friends in an informal and open festival spirit…

THE EXPLORATION OF “FREE”
reboot10 is an exploration of “free”. “free” as in free information, free individuals, free societies, free markets, free products and services, free ideas, free minds, free to move, free software, free taxonomies, free culture, free knowledge, free to find our own way, free tools, free platforms, free minds - you continue the list…

Shifting from a world of pre-definitions, fixed structures, high costs to participate and living in the status quo - to a world of being free to determine, free to create, free flow, free to see things emerge.
“free” saturates what’s happening in a world of digital decentralization - and the current fascination of “free” in the economic sense is a great validation of this deeper change.
But “free” is also an ambiguous term, always comes at an extra cost “there’s no such things as a free lunch”, is always in a constant state of flux “informations wants to be free, informations wants to be expensive” and is rather hard thing to get your head around.

So “free” is all around us and shaping us - perhaps it was time to explore it?.

Read more about “free” and contribute your thoughts and insights at http://www.reboot.dk/article-3840-en.html

INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE
Like the last couple of years there isn’t a final speakers list or a black box creation model. reboot is a platform for bringing the European (and beyond) minds ands ideas together.

So the platform is all yours, and this is an invitation to participate and help co-create reboot..:
- an invitation to submit suggestions on interesting people you know in your country or profession that has something to contribute, and help get them to come as speakers or participants, http://www.reboot.dk/listpublish-3778-en.html
- an invitation to propose to do a talk, a session, a workshop, anything you can imagine (especially if you’ve been doing some interesting thinking the last year or have created something that’s worth sharing), http://www.reboot.dk/listpublish-3777-en.html

REBOOT10 BUG LIST
The bug list so far of things that needed fixing:
- better food for lunch
- “free beer” will be available for sale in the cafe
- additional icelandic kindergarden staff, bring your kids!
- more room for connecting and conversations, less talk!
- facilitator team to help you do stuff or get a grip on all the sessions
- reboot afterparty changed to the reboot lounge for a relaxed cozy end to the reboot experience.
Add/edit on http://reboot.dk/reboot10_buglist

NEEDED
- crew, if you know some spirited young people that wants to help out and experience reboot please email pernille@reboot.dk.
- sponsors, if you know anyone that would support reboot10 please email mygdal@reboot.dk
- the reboot evenining, got tips on dj’s, acts, great artists, etc. email pernille@reboot.dk.

ACTION
So what’s next if you want to reboot…
- signup now for reboot10 to secure your ticket, only 250 euro if you sign up before June 56h, (350 euro after). http://register.reboot.dk (share travel tips on hotels/flights at http://www.reboot.dk/set-217-en.html),
- spread the word via blogging, microblogging, photoblogging, email, im, etc. about reboot10 and extend the invitation to participate to the people you “just” know should be at reboot10….
- anything else, email mygdal@reboot.dk

Thomas Madsen-Mygdal

PS. Feel “free” to forward this invitation to anyone who’s company the reboot participants would enjoy .

Discussing the idea of rebooting things/minds/societies with friends today a simple insight i astonishingly never had thought of. (not wanting to stretch the reboot metaphor too much).
Even though a preventive reboot of the system now and then could avoid a hard crash, most things first get rebooted when they’ve crashed hard and reached a standstill.
Could explain an absurdity or two in societies and organizations. And could point one’s energy towards rebooting the things that have crashed instead of doing preventive reboots of things that are still functioning somewhat however an awkward, slow and meaningless state they might be in.
But then, the world is a continuous flows of small reboots of direction and one shouldn’t stretch metaphors too much…

So today is the day.
Would never have believed 10-12 years ago that i would experience so much, make so many mistakes, meet so many interesting inspiring people, mess so many things up, try so many things and yet realize how little i understand of it all.
And as all the wise “elders” tells me these days - it only gets better if you let it. And that i guess is the hard part becoming more and more settled in one’s mind and relations.

I’m instigating and sponsoring The Copenhagen Project.

A couple of months ago i “met” a talented bloke Jeppe Kabell in a comment thread in the latest flamebait between mainstream media folks and edge-media folks about protecting old business models, free vs. paid, amateurs vs. professionals, paper vs. digital and objectivity vs. subjectivity. All discussions that in our opinion is taking us away from the essential issue “how do we as humans keep up to date with what’s happening in the world and make sense of it all” - in a world where our capability to deal with complex issues is urgently needed.
We’ve therefore started an open research project to look at interesting projects and experiments, research theory of sense making and the tools people use to stay up-to-date, interview interesting people, challenge core issues of complexity, objectivity and commitment and highlight possible tools, directions and improvements that would represent the media ecosystem of tomorrow.
The project runs until the end of 2007 and might turn into a nonprofit, a startup or who knows nothing - but everything will be done openly and shared.
I strongly encourage you to participate and follow the project - i think it’s the core issue we as societies and humanity are struggling with and need to find solutions for quickly if we want to leave a world worth living in to our kids.

A bit harder birth than normal for reboot9, but now everything is rolling. Below the invitation to participate.

Calling all practical visionaries of the world!

It’s time to reboot our minds once again; reboot9 will take place in Copenhagen Thursday, May 31 and Friday, June 1 2007. Two days away from implementing, away from the status quo. Two days together with old and new friends in an informal and open festival spirit…

THE CHALLENGE
The theme for reboot9 is “human?”. A big word, but a word that saturates what’s happening and all ready on a deeper level has been transcending reboot the last couple of years.
We’re connecting to each others as human beings once again. We’re building tools to empower humans - not institutions. We’re creating new iconic collaborative human manifestations. We’re finding ourselves as humans and our human voices. We’re humanizing our organizations and our socities. We’re reestablishing links to nature we’d long forgotten. We’re looking at the world together as humans - not as consumers or workers.

So when all is in going away from mechanical industrial models to human natural models where this is leading us?. What is our shared understanding of “human?”. How do we organize ourselves in human institutions and organizations?. How are our tools shaping us as humans, how are we shaping our tools. Is it leading us to chaos without organization and government or nirvana?. What do we as humans want to happen, what can we imagine?

reboot9 is about looking both backwards and forwards. Backwards because history has a tendency to repeat itself but also for staying power of the discussions that we had at reboot8, reboot7 and earlier even. Forwards in order to predict by implementing and to obsolete the pretensions we forget to dismiss.

Explore human and comment on the challenge at www.reboot.dk/set-69-en.html

INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE
Like last year there isn’t a final speakers list or a black box creation model. reboot is a platform for bringing the European (and beyond) community together, a platform for conversations and relationships, a platform for sharing visions and meeting the people you never knew you’d meet.
So the platform is all yours, and this is an invitation to participate and help co-create reboot..:
- an invitation to submit topics you would like on the agenda for reboot,
- an invitation to submit pointers to interesting people you know in your country or industry that has something to contribute, and help us recruit them to come as speakers or participants,
- an invitation for your proposal to host or present if you’ve been doing some interesting thinking the last year or have created something that’s worth sharing,
- an invitation for you to help make sure that we have the people that have open minds and are ready to make a difference at reboot. To connect Europe, to widen the community, to add perspective.

This year there’s an all new collaborative site to do it on, please sign up and participate in the creation process at reboot.dk

ACTION
So what’s next if you want to reboot…
- signup now for reboot9 to secure your ticket, only 195 euro if you sign up before April 20th, register.reboot.dk (share travel tips on hotels/flights at www.reboot.dk/set-217-en.html),
- spread the word via blogging, email, im, etc. about reboot9 and extend the invitation to participate to the people you “just” know should be at reboot9
- anything else, email mygdal@reboot.dk

Thomas Madsen-Mygdal

Ok, this is something that really has been puzzling me for months. The Second Life hype. Today was the tipping point - i need to understand the dynamics of the hype - hope you can help.

A danish IDG arranged event called webchamp honoring great web solutions devotes about 80% of it’s full-day conference to Second Life. Rest aside that Second Life has got nothing to do with the World Wide Web (Web) it’s interesting how mass media is pumping/hyping up Second Life.
Overlooking the very low user numbers compared to for example gaming/sharing environments, ignoring that each decade have had it’s own graphical virtual worlds (the 80’s: Habitat, the 90’s: Active Worlds and ignoring more complex trends like participation, blogging, sharing, etc. Evidence-based the hype is so disproportional to the major trends that are seeing user adaption and the trends that are shaping us, our organizations and societies.

I think ideas like Second Life will have an impact in a 6-12 years time span - especially if they become open standards and open source.

So help me, what is it that makes Second Life so good to hype up?

Did a presentation in the afternoon for a couple of hundred online marketing professionals at the DIA07 conference/award show. A basic cluetrainish message representing the individuals view on the future of marketing customer/company relationship combined with some context and thougths on the customer-driven intentional marketplace.
Started by reading aloud 14 statements from the Cluetrain Manifesto - since they so beautifully captures the zeitgeist - even though they were written in 1999, soon almost 8 years ago. The statements/worldview apparently was somewhat controversial with the crowd, or at least with one of the other panelists, which set the scene for the most confrontational and aggressive personal attack in a panel debate i’ve ever seen or experienced. Still puzzled and somewhat shocked here many hours later trying to gear down. We live in interesting disruptive times…
PDF Presentation in English, 16,8 Mb

Did a gonzo presentation for 100 danish library leaders today. Ended up calling it “Excitement, Fundamentals and Implementation”. Discussing the excitement about the future many people are experiencing. Calling for the library to go back to the fundamentals of giving free access to information. Calling for the libraries to actually implement their core in a digital context by digitalizing all information in their archives and providing danish citizens free digital access to all material published whether in books, journals, dvd, etc. - effectively bridging the copyfight vs. the copyright cartels war. But also calling for world class product design implementation of all their services and modern decentralized organizational principles. To stop accepting losing meaning every day and start winning.
PDF in danish here if you’re adventurous.

Happy Hour is 9 to 5 is the title of my friend Alexander’s new book (aka. Mr. Chief Happiness Officer). Read it online for free or buy a pdf/physical book to support Alexander and his work. Comes very well recommended.
(photo of the friendly Laundromat Cafe staff admiring the first physical copy of the book - big parts of the book was written in the cafe).