Magdalena 2008

This weekend (15-17.5.) I was attending the Magdalena festival held in Maribor. It is a festival of creative communication which is addressing especially the younger creative generation (-30 years). I sent some of my recent works, even tough I knew they were not the “wining material” but I wanted some feedback from the crowd and it worked.

Otherwise was this years Magdalena a bit low level in comparison with earlier festivals. OK, the lectures were interesting and well prepared, but the program should be announced earlier and should be better organized. Perhaps that’s why there were only 400 and something works and relatively small number of participants. And there was only one creative brief (Promote use of condoms), which could also be a reason for low participation.

AND THE WORKS?

There were some great works and some really creative ideas, but I think that works on the creative brief were not nearly as good as expected. Because many of them were not following the brief, even though they were well executed. That’s why there was only one winner on the brief and only one special mention.

In other categories we have seen some really good ideas, even tough some of them didn’t even make it to the final. The jury has picked up good works, but some of them are… well who am I to judge. Instead of judging or praising the winners, here are some works. ;

AWARDS

The winners definitely had an amazing idea and a well done execution, even tough it could be done even better. But still, a big applause for Dora Budor and Maja Cule.

Among the Golden bra awards I think there could be some changes. For example the music video was not really a state of the art, and the video from Aljoša Bagola (& Nenad Cizl) for Amnesty was really in a higher league than everything else. If you want to check all the awards and finalists go to www.magdalena.org.

CONCLUSION

This years Magdalena should be something special (it was the 10th) with great lectures and amazing works. It was great, creative and inspiring but let’s hope next year it will be even better, fuller and richer with quantity and quality.

And some of my favourite works:

Mountainbike Pohorje 2008

WoW. I spent an amazing weekend. Not only it was sunny and a weekend without any kind of work (ok, except some animal cleaning in our reality show with degus at Mamut.si), I was the whole weekend in the company of adrenalin freaks on bikes. I used my press pass to enjoy some first person action and managed to get some nice photos. Check them out at on my Flickr page HERE

Here’s a sneak preview

Podim and the power of networking

PODIM 2008

Last three days, I was at the Podim Conference (ning page) in Maribor. Podim is a conference about entrepreneurship and innovation. This year’s topic was »The power of networking« and that’s the main reason why I attended the conference. Lately, I’m interested in SNS more and more. Especially in implementing social networks onto the mobile platforms. And yes, I also needed a break from working on my diploma and a run away from work.

WHY GO?

I attended the conference all alone and decided to meet new people and establish new connections, hell if the topic is networking, than, let’s throw the nets. At the same time I wasn’t sure if this is the place to be for me, because I’m not really an entrepreneur type of guy. But, it’s always good to widen the horizons and after all it’s good to know how to set your price tag. Heh.

 FIRST DAY

The first day started with an excellent talk from Terri Whitesel (USA). She was speaking about identifying and addressing the »influencers« and how to build the networks upon them. Really a great talk. After Terri, there were 3 Slovenian speakers, which I must admit, were not interesting. At least not for me. Although I have my outmost respect towards the founder of Instrumentation Technologies, Rok Uršič (SI). His company is building important parts for particle accelerators around the world. You know, those are the huge pipes buried in the biggest research centers, such as CERN in Europe. Respect. After that, there was a great »history lesson« about Cambridge college and how it became the business incubator of the greatest ideas and also a business success. The speaker was prof. Alan Barell (UK). After that, again one lecture which was not to my taste. But after that, there were two great lectures. First was John Allen (UK) who formed the Manchester  Science Park and is also helping to form the Maribor Science Park. After him there was the most interesting talk from Les Squires (USA), whose theme was Social networking. He is a professional network builder, and helps to build social networks around the globe. He’s also a great speaker and has also vast experience. He has build networks for Disney, Microsoft and others. He was speaking about skype, Ning, and tools such as Google Reader. After that, there was a round table discussion, which was interesting, but I think that some people were not chosen correctly. I had some comments, but I wasn’t in the mood for arguing J .

 SECOND DAY

Second day started with two great lectures from a Swedish and a finish speaker. First was speaking about the importance of innovation in big companies such as Volvo and Porsche. He showed as different approaches towards project management and was talking about the open innovation. The second talk was about the finish university in Turku and the mergers which are happening in Finland on universities. Later it got was even better, because we were »networking« even more intense. We had a workshop with Miloš Čirič about business networking. We were working in groups and exchanged many thoughts and experience. I also met some new and fascinating people, with which I’m sure we’ll build strong relationships. After the workshop we took the lunch together, exchanged the contacts and au revoir. See you next year?

 WORKSHOP WITH LES SQUIRES

Oh, yes. There was the workshop on Saturday with Les Squires. I decided to participate because Les is THE master of social networking and a very interesting person. And yes, also because I’m interested in SNS. We worked with Skype, build our site in Ning ( http://mamutrevija.ning.com ) and went through Google reader. It was really a great workshop and great opportunity to meet new people. And off course an opportunity to bombard Les with questions about his experience. Thank you Les!!!

 NEX YEAR?

Well, I must admit that I didn’t expect much from the conference, but I gained a lot. The new connections and friend are more important than the knowledge itself. And that’s the main point of networking, right?