are You cut out...

This week I had the chance to follow a lecture about entrepreneurship, with a theme quoted as "Are you cut out to be an entrepreneur?"

The workshop was hosted by Keith Wallace (see Nebib.nl), an entrepreneur and micro-investor who has seen many an adventure succeed and far more fail. And it started in the morning being the first to join. Luckily some other students showed up, cause I was wondering if I was the only one signed up for the workshop.

And it was indeed an interesting workshop, many presentational skills and many discussions. Which was good, I felt alot like the others; the main fun thing; the people I thought signed up were there. And the other fun thing; or call it interesting thing; many had the same problems.

Problems? Yes, sometimes the workshop seemed like doing a therapy session where everybody talked about their problems. Which problems? Well, that everyone present are doing everything at the same time, many hobbies and interests and feel like doing everything.

I enjoyed the workshop and feel alot more secure now, as well as that I am planning a meeting with Keith in the future as he offered to help me.

Dutch Design Week

From 18 to 26 of October the Dutch Design Week is taking place. If I were you, I suggest you take a visit! Numerous lectures, workshops, shows, seminars and exhibitions are (mostly) free to enter. For an impression take a look at the video I shot yesterday:




With my visit to the Dutch Design Week I would like to point out the following projects which made quite an impression on me and would definitely see them in future environments, as in households and public spaces.

Tender Tub (maren hartveld)
A rubber coated foamrubber bath, easy to transport, easy to use and very comfortable! Not cold and hard like the average bathtub but soft and warm like a sofa.
http://www.detank.com/det/node/2347

Save Our Seeds ( regis lemberthe)
A fascinating experience inviting users to behave more carefully. As well as plants conservation, Regis created tiles, which are easier to break; on streets you see trees which are cutted down because they break out of their public space. The result is breaking them down, but is it the trees fault to grow, and lifting the tiles around it?
http://saveourseeds.wordpress.com/

Kid’s balance (niels smeltink)
This bike can be re-used when the child has grown, as it is double used (one of the major themes on the event). The use of the bike is it simplicity itself, look at the video where the bike is shown.
http://www.nielssmeltink.nl/

Re:act (daan spangenberg)
An interactive installation, alternative to illegal fly posters put up on walls. The installation begins showing images when people move around it (using infrared cameras to detect motion). Pretty cool, imagine what you could do with React in combination with RFID!
http://react.vandaan.net/

http://www.dutchdesignweek.nl/

Fuck The Rain!

Saw this one in a newspaper, made me think of an idea sketched in my dummy some time ago about umbrella's. It would be awesome those 'personalizable' umbrella's... im still waiting for one with a Stop sign on it... pretty handy for when the bus comes!

Smart FireFighter!

Wow, I did not see this before! Firefighters (and some police, so I heard) now also changed into a new appearence, on top of their usual trucks I may hope!

TNT Battle

We (students of College University of Rotterdam, specification Concept Development) are hard working on a new battle, for TNT (within Battle of Concepts). And last previous weeks we had some very nice brainstorm sessions, to give an impression of what we are dealing with:

TNT's battle is quite a something, and we want to make the most out of it. The battle's aim this time is to create a new service within TNT's photo service ("They have a photo service?"- yes they do).

Next week we are finishing the document, hold a presentation and turning in the result. We are working quite on schedule but to work within the boundaries of the assignment is quite hard, as we believe the solution for their problem is already given. Though is their solution truthfully the solution for their problem ? We don't think so.

Nevertheless we should keep within their boundaries, and only hint in the document for the real solution.

Besides, I'm leading my team a little differently now, with support of the team, creating somewhat better results. So what am I doing different now than previous battles? Well, to get the most out of the team, motivating them I created a percentage system which we discussed in the beginning: if you are to late at a meeting, 1% of your share goes down every 15 minutes. If you are not there at all, you lose 5% (aswell as if you come but did not do your homework). This means you have to work harder as a team, but If you perform alright nothing happens and you will only gain percentages...

Werdet aktiv ?

Standing and waiting for the bus late at night my eye glimpsed on this 'advertisement', which made me think. You can find this post in a bus stop infront of a high school in The Hague (displayed next to the bus timetable).

It is saying 'beat the system, and become active' in somekind of matrix style, which isn't that herassing. But what did is the man portrayed on the right, totally in black as in some kind of secret cult... as well as that the whole thing is written in german... which is... well you get the picture...

The Big Box Mystery

On my way to school in the morning I walked into something which wasn't there yesterday. Still in my morning trance I gazed at the object (ofcourse helping me to miss the tram) for a few seconds... what is it and what does it do?



As you can see the object is quite big, it is solid metal and closed from all sides. It is quite overwhelming when you get to this in the early morning as you might understand, though I did not at all. It was as aliens suddenly dropped it out of the sky.


I guess the object was there waiting for it to be deported, nevertheless it stayed there waiting for over a week which made me kind of curious. Present it has been removed but isn't it a pretty sight ? Lots of people walk by, looking at it but walking straight by it. I'm pretty sure it had to with the construction sight near it, and that it is some kind of shipping container or it is a thing that should be underground (like a huge trashcan) normally.