I am the visionary behind Conferize, a platform aiming to disrupt the trillion dollar global conference industry by making conferences more social, transparent and relevant.
I'm also also Co-Founder of Issuu, a Time.com Best Website. Issuu, a 'YouTube for publishing', is now in the US top-100, serving 55+ m users and almost 4 bn pages every month.
I'm also a 2011 member of BNY Talent-100, and hold an MA in Culture & Communications. In 2006 I gave up an international PhD fellowship for the love of entrepreneurship and (almost) never looked back. Generally I operate within culture & technology, innovation & design.
I also co-founded the band Epic Typo that opened for Einstürzende Neubauten.
"Martin's value to enterprise is considerable - his skills as communicator and visionary have a fluidity, malleability and elasticity which are a dream to have when faced with the ever-changing context that is business today. He is the enterprise equivalent of a star football player in the ascendant; disarmingly, he also has rare qualities of geniality and modesty which one does not normally associate with virtuosity of this order."
- aladin
Phew, time flies when you're busy changing the world. That wasn't just a oneliner to get your attention.
So many have been asking about Conferize, my new startup (see my last post). I'm currently in San Francisco talking about it and meeting with some people. I can't yet share the intricate details, but you should head on over to our blog to learn about what kinds of problems we're looking to solve. I promise to share more as soon as I can.
I was invited to write a short essay for a book called 'I Read Where I Am', ed. by Geert Lovink, Mieke Gerritzen and Minke Kampman after a concept from Graphic Design Museum/Institute of Network Cultures. It was launched in relation to The Unbound Book conference held last week and looks to chart the status and future of reading. I just learned the entire book is available at www.ireadwhereiam.com, an interestingly minimalist microsite well suited for books.
Reading Beyond WordsMy literature professor understood reading as a relative concept: One might grasp the words without yet comprehending the meaning. Ideally the reader would discard her library every five years, because by then she had elevated her perspective…
That’s an elitist notion of reading in stark contrast to the reality of today. Text as a medium is being challenged by ever more engaging forms of communication. And it seems the conditions for deep reading are pretty much being killed by mankind’s ongoing experiment to digitize society. Irony, anyone?
Me, I’ve parted with most of my print library. For good. Ninety percent of my reading now takes place on-screen, although I’m uneasy about digital books living inside those intangible walled gardens. Can I pass them on to my kids, like my mother did with Camus to me? Will they keep my side notes? Will they smell?
Let’s not get overly nostalgic just yet. Text remains a universal vehicle for human thought and often it’s the shortest distance from one mind to another. But as we stumble into digital renaissance, our understanding of both text and reading will have to encompass more than mere words: hyper-connectedness, vibrant plasticity, social interaction, and dynamic contextuality.
Just a quick note to anyone attending Oresund Mobile Meetup or Community Day. I'll be speaking about Issuu at both and am thinking about what to say. Let me know if you have any topics you'd like covered, or if you want to meet up.
I've been asked to do a couple of interviews, and if you're into deep reading of prolific and scrutinizing scribbles, you're in for a treat. Enjoy.
Update: Seems Posterous crops the video, so check it out here instead http://nmd.arkena.tv/012894769531322/apps-strategier-i-en-guldfebertid
In case you missed it, here's a nice video of my panel about mobile apps at New Media Days 2010. It's in Danish.
I thought it went really well and that we covered a lot of important ground in terms of strategy, technology, payment, marketing and more in relation to mobile apps for media companies.
I was hoping someone would catch a photo of this slide. It's from Joseph Turow's presentation at New Media Days and shows (just some?) of the display advertising services available today.
It's insane, right? As more and more advertising budgets are poured into digital advertising this space can only get more crowded than it already is. Good luck creating a map like this only a few years from now. One slide won't cut it, you'll need an entire deck!
Photo by New Media Days / Peter Erichsen. More about the presentation http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=166745890003939
Maybe you didn't know I had a band. I do. In case you want to hear Epic Typo play live in Copenhagen and Roskilde here's the lowdown:
Tomorrow the influential New Media Days conference is taking off in Copenhagen, and I've been invited to sit in on a panel about mobile apps. It's looking to be one of the most popular slots of the conference, and why wouldn't it? Mobile apps is a hot topic in the media world right now. Many media organizations are looking to cover lost revenue by releasing apps for the popular platforms, but there are many strategies, technologies etc. to consider.
What is desired is for the computer to become an appliance, but not a mere appliance. Its presence must be taken for granted by its user, but in the long run, the act of programming itself must be taken for granted as well.
In the short run it will be, if successful, an information appliance.
Sorry, here's the updated edition. Great conference so far!
Download from here http://issuu.com/ferrogate/docs/democamp
I'm speaking about Android and Issuu at Mobil Apps 2010. Looks like all the seats are taken already but there's a waiting list.
If you'd like me to talk about something specific, please let me know.
I've just spent a couple of days drafting a proposal for O'Reilly's TOC for Publishing 2011. As you probably know it's THE conference for anyone interested in where publishing is going in the digital age. I'm posting the proposal below for anyone interested.
If you would like to invite me for your conference or event, to speak about this or a related topic, feel free to contact me.Magazines in the Mobile Era: Creating The World's Largest Open Magazine Platform Teaser:
In these times of Marvel movie madness, where one forgotten comic hero after another comes alive on the big screen and in computer games, it can be hard keeping track of the origin.
Much to my own surprise I've become rather the fan of HBO's True Blood and I'm not going to get intellectual about it. Just thought I'd share the comic version I stumbled on today. It's interesting to see the characters recreated in print.
According to Wikipedia, True Blood is based on a series of novels, so I guess it's no wonder the comic versions look pretty much like the actors in the TV series. The comic verison came after.
In case you didn't notice, the quest to own online identity and personal content has pretty much ended, now ruled by just a few big multinationals.
This morning I came across the billboard above. Notice the huge green button, leading directly to Facebook. I think it's probably an effective (and cheap) campaign, and surely it's very convenient for the marketing people who set it up ("Yes! No need to involve IT, Facebook is just plug-n-play."). And through Facebook it's easy to engage consumers, even though a FB Page is far from ideal (!) for selling a product at all. But Facebook has now become the de facto standard for companies looking to get social with their customers. It's not that I'm really frightened about this trend. I'm just sad to see open alternatives performing so poorly. Consider this: In most countries you are required to have a bank account to get a job. How else would you get paid? Modern companies prefer not to deal in cash. Yet no one seems concerned that banks are commercial entities that don't care about being evil or not and are only motivated by profit. Could you imagine a future where a Google or Facebook account is required to get a job? In some ways you're already socially stigmatized if you don't sign up. That's rule number one in The Social Game: You must play to be a part of it.
"According to Morgan Stanley, within five years global internet consumption on mobile devices will surpass the same activity on PCs. This sounds like good news. It's natural to think that browsers on the third screen (phones) and the fourth screen (tablets) will simply replace time spent in front of the same on a PC. That's not the case. Mobile devices, by their nature, force users to become more mission-oriented. As more internet consumption shifts to gadgets, it's increasingly becoming an app world and we just live in it. Innovation, fun, simplicity and single-purpose utility will rule while grandiose design and complexity will fall by the wayside."
Stevel Rubel makes a few good points about how mobile adoption will change content and consumption on the third (mobile) and fourth (tablet) screens.
Sorry about the cheesy title, but it's true: Dull and gray will always be considered less friendly than eye-catching colors.
This project reminds me slightly of what artist and mayor Edi Rama did with (to?) Tirana http://www.pbase.com/blphotography/edirama .
Only this project is much more beautiful and (I hope) more bottom-up. Would love to learn about any long-term effects, both positive or negative.
Last night I finally had a chance to play with Google Navigation that was recently released in Denmark. It's part of a Maps upgrade so make sure to get this first. You'll need the GPS turned on, and also to increase the brightness of your screen (or it'll be too hard to see in the car). If you're using an old G1 like me you'll need a power source or the trip will be very short, trust me. I have a cheap Garmin GPS that uses mini-USB so that was convenient, and also allowed me to compare results of the two very different navigation devices.
Here are my impressions
I actually think the idea of 9-5 and an office is dumb. People should have autonomy in self-prioritizing/organizing their days. Its hard for me to think about working in an office now that I work from home and am at least 10x more productive. I probably work 2-3 hours longer per day due to convenience of my laptop just being there. When I think of a problem I can sit down and solve it right then and there.
A few days ago I posted a video from RSA about work and motivation. It received quite some traffic from Y Combinator's Hacker News (where it had been posted before) and then this interesting bit, quoted and linked above.
It's from the friendly guys behind Peek, a singular mailing device that I find quite awesome. Their post describes their pretty interesting working process without fixed agendas, offices or hours.