I was honored to bring Tinkebell a short visit in her temporary studio in Bushwick! Tinkebell is known for her controversial work. She will be exposing at the Pulse Art Fair in NYC this week. I was the lucky one who was given a chance to sneak peak in her temporary studio. I must say: her work is again mind blowing and very provocative ;)
Thursday she will expose at the Pulse Art Fair in New York!
Ability is a poor man’s wealth.
John Wooden
It’s sometimes fascinating to see how much people I know who are doing amazing things. Most of them coming from nothing or I met just before their so called “Tipping point”. How come? And why am I sometimes so lucky with these amazing people around me.
Or how do you build a great network (of friends), here are some tips:
Nobody is important
Most people tend to believe that the guy who just entered the room is the one you definitely need to talk to. WHY?!: He knows the president, he’s wealthy, he has a lot of connections, he’s a celebrity, etc. Does that make him more interesting? Sure! But it’s not a reason why he’s more important then the guy or girl standing next to you.
Treat those people like you would treat anyone else. Don’t ignore your friends, people around you, value all people, not just one or a handful. Some people might not be as influential, but will be more valuable because you can offer them something they don’t have: your network and knowledge. The chance that you can offer ‘that’ cool guy something, he doesn’t have access to, is pretty low. So don’t waste your energy on trying to reach out to people like him.
Sooner or later the people around you, who you shared your knowledge with, will have used that know-how and will be further ahead. And how grateful they are! They won’t forget you, and share their network and experience in return. That’s great value.
Be friendly to anyone
Everyone who mails, talks to you or just says hi, please be friendly back, honestly, don’t force it. Take your time. Show respect. Be honest and straightforward. Appreciate him/her. Be polite and grateful for having people being interested in what you do and be interested in them. Everybody has their story.
Whoever asks you for advice. Help him or her. If you see passion and love give him/her your playground, a list of valuable connections and access to knowledge. It’s amazing what people can do with your network. Most of all: how much they give back.
Eigenlijk heb ik hier geen zin en geen tijd voor, alleen de verleiding is te groot: Ik denk dat het nodig en interessant genoeg is, om dit 1ste wereld (marketing) probleem even aan te pakken: DOUWE EGBERT’s nieuwe marketing strategie. Het idee waar het naar ruikt: hip worden zoals Starbucks dat doet. Of nog: main stream hip.
Polle plaatste dit ‘instagrammetje’ met de voortreffelijke bijtekst:
“Gasten, het is maar koffie. En niet eens hele goede #blend1753”
Ik zeg: “OPHOUDEN NU” keep it damn simple.
Maar niet dit: want “Mooie verpakking, strakke campagne dan nog eigen winkels en DE, bent klaar om dood ten onder te gaan aan het kopiëren van Starbucks.”
Dit is de strategie die Douwe Egberts eigenlijk zou moet voeren, gaat met de volgende quotes:
Douwe Egberts moet zich juist positioneren als het simpele maar vooral altijd aardige buurjongetje uit de straat. Zeker niet de hipste, maar gewoon gezellig en low-key. Starbucks is het hippe nieuwe amerikaanse buurjongetje met de sportauto van de consument. Natuurlijk is dat uiteindelijk doorgestoken kaart: Douwe Egberts moet dus inspelen op de nuchterheid en het oer oude calvinistische Nederland… Oh kom op nou… Een skim milk latte macchiato met pumpkin spices… Jongens waar gaan we heen. Een pot is genoeg. GEEN GELUL.
Dit is hoe Douwe er nu voor staat:
“Hey buddy, Look at me, look at me, I’m a hipster too!!”
Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.
"— The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity (source not 100% sure)
About two years ago I had the honor to join the ‘BKB Academie’. The ‘BKB Academie’ is an academy which is part of the Dutch campaigning office BKB. The academy teaches you the ins and outs of political campaigning.
[BKB Academie members Sywert van Lienden (middle) + Ieteke Schouten (second left)]
Sometimes its sessions were very confronting. Especially one session where we you got to learn how the Dutch government is being formed. We played a simple game: a group of 25 were given each:
I was Ivo Opstelten of the VVD (Dutch Liberal Party), my goals:
I failed tremendously. Simply said because the game was disgusting. People got rid of all their values and were only eager to get what they precisely wanted. Getting their goals with as little compromises as possible.
What I learned were mainly two things:
[Industrial Design Engineering Students in Delft]
At the faculty of industrial design engineering in Delft I learnt two things about the process of designing a successful product:
Funny thing: Politicians do the exact opposite, they have:
Competition in politics is what crushes good people with good ideas. So in order to rethink politics, we should learn from our designers:
Until the day that politics does not change I will never have any ambition to become a politician. How do you think we can change current political systems in order to make it more solution focussed? Comment or answer on Quora (or on FB) what you think.
PS: Here’s the full Delft Design Guide for you to take and learn
PS II: My next blogpost will be about: how we can make politics more productive, using design methodology.
OK! There’s nothing more exciting then discovering the fact that everything around us is built by people who were not smarter then we are. Neither are you smarter then them, but it gives you an enormous power knowing that you can actually CHANGE the things you see around you.
Doesn’t it bother you that the most valuable people in the world:
TEACHERS!!!
…are the ones that get paid the worst. That’s because we invented a system where the ones who are the most ‘inventive’ getting your money on the table, are the people who are most ‘successful’. Broker vs Teacher. Broker wins, that sucks, right? Let’s change that.
Look: Money is something we made up, just as time. So it’s made up that you are poor and it’s made up that you’re always late. Because everything is invented, so don’t worry about being late and poor. If we all decided that sharing more knowledge would make us richer, there would be fewer problems in this world. Woohoo a new currency is born: Knowledge Sharing. Knowledge is power. Knowledge undermines bad governance, it creates infrastructure and opportunities.
What if we would all accept that being lazy is better then working hard: we would consume and produce a lot less and would have fewer problems with lack of sustainability and CO2-emissions, simply because we all decided it’s better to hang a little longer in our hammocks and if we would feel like we would do some effort to get some food. We could think more of consequences and make better decisions.
The reason why I’m writing this, is not that I’m propagating for a world full of community gardens and dancing hippies smoking weed all day, but just so we are not accepting every single thing our society is teaching us.
Let’s face ourselves with simple questions:
Let’s zoom out, question and act. And repeat that over and over. Everything is relative, right? What do you think…
Ever since I’m doing the things I want to do: Les Oiseaux de Merde, Times Square Art Square, Librio and many more. I realize I take none of these things too serious. That can be very helpful I must say. Here’s why:
When I was in high school and university I always was this weird guy who would fall from his chair or paint his hair yellow. People don’t expect very cool stuff from you, neither do they expect you to fail, since you’re already at the bottom: “Ah here’s that weird guy again.” Which they don’t know: it doesn’t take any effort to be weird, much less then it takes to be ‘cool’.
The great advantage of being that particular ‘weird guy’ or ‘freaky girl’ is that there are no boundaries. Nobody will judge you. The problem of presenting yourself as the cool guy in the group is that when you fail: you’ll fail hard, so you won’t try anything new and exciting. BUT when you are crazy, weird and freaky, nobody cares when you fail, since you fail all the time. This creates freedom and space to do whatever you want: a little dance on the stage, distributing socks in the Congo.
The fun fact is that the ‘cool guys’ don’t see you as a threat, so you will be free to go. Nobody will beat you up. To them you’re already a failure. Honestly that’s it’s total freedom in the end you’re judging no one.
If you take yourself serious you can’t accept the fact that you are sometimes hypocrite and inconsequent. Neither can you accept the fact there’s people who are much smarter then you are. Since you already made your choices, and being inconsequent is not cool. So be flexible, be weird. It will be much easier to realize the things you love.
Ever since I left Belgium I always amazed myself how rich its culture was compared to the poorness of its politics. Till today I call it the Belgium blues: bad roads, horrible politicians create a great platform for probably the best bands in the world. I promised my roommate to give her a list of my favorite Belgian artists, here it is:
Jacques Brel
Vive La Fête
Soulwax / 2 Many DJ’s
VADER:
Mevrouw, mijne heren,
Vanaf mijn geboorte heb ik de twee nationaliteiten, niet dat dit iets bijzonders is, maar het is wel mogelijk. Ik ben in Nederlandse militaire dienst geweest en heb nog steeds de tweede nationaliteit behouden (over vrede gesproken). Net zoals de heer Abouthaleb, burgemeester van Rotterdam ook twee nationalieiten heeft. Is dit storend of obstructief? Naar mijn bescheiden mening geenszins!
Doen wij ons werk anders; zijn we gebrandmerkt, staat er een stempel op ons voorhoofd, omdat we meerdere nationaliteiten hebben? Wordt de politiek in Nederland nog meer xenofoob en trekt zij zich terug op een nationalistisch eiland, het lijkt er wel op.
Sta mij toe een pleidooi te houden voor het behouden van het recht om meerdere nationaliteiten te hebben en te houden. Juist de verschillende culturen en achtergronden maken een land alleen maar rijker en interessanter.
Alvorens een puur administratieve beslissing te nemen, zou ik de heren en dames politici willen vragen met een open en internationale geest deze kwestie aan te gaan.
Met vriendelijke groet
Ummo Bruns
Antwerpen, België
OOM, broer vader:
Dames en Heren,
Sinds mijn geboorte ben ik in het bezit van twee nationaliteiten.
Dit was mogelijk aangezien ik in Nederland ben geboren en mijn moeder destijds een Duitse nationaliteit bezat. U kunt zich misschien voorstellen hoe moeilijk het leven in de jaren vijftig was voor mijn moeder in Nederland. Daarmee werd ik al vroeg geconfronteerd met de “tolerantie” voor verschillende nationaliteiten.
Sta mij toe derhalve een pleidooi te houden voor het behouden van het recht om meerdere nationaliteiten te hebben en te houden. Nederlanders die lang in het buitenland wonen hebben soms weinig keus om naast de Nederlandse ook de nationaliteit van hun “woonland” aan te nemen.
| A: | Hi what brings you here? |
| B: | I'm building a website for men's clothing |
| A: | Oh cool, I once had the honor to work together with the head of design at GAP |
| B: | Oh [looks interested because of connections!!] cool, yeah so I used to be very good at buying clothes for my brother in law. |
| A: | Oh so you have a good taste? |
| B: | Yes. |
| A: | Nice. |
| B: | So what do you do? |
| A: | I'm an attorney |
| B: | Oh ok, cool. |
| A: | Do you have a card? |
| B: | Yeah sure [handing over business cards] |
| A: | It was nice talking to you. |
| B: | Same to you. |
