Archive for January, 2007
January 29, 2007 at 3:28 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz
It’s been a hell of a week and lots of things have happened. We’ve received a ton of press coverage already on national radio, in the newspapers and so on. It’s great to be part of something that spans such a wide audience. In this post, I’ll line up the final state as it is in Second Life for ‘our’ Vista/Office 2007 launch event.
Today, we are present on 10 official locations, where billboards and branded players have been put up to announce the event.
The Strawberry Estate is the first one. It’s my very own chunk of land in the game, with in the garden a miniature version of the Atomium, the monument where in real life the event is being organized. In every sphere of the monument, 10 people can reside. In every ball, a plasma screen has been put upon the walls. Normally all the balls will be colored as they will be lighted out in real life. In the Strawberry Estate Club, two giant screens have been put up next to a few sets of dancing balls, so people can enjoy the concert while dancing. Outside there are a few billboards to direct people to the right location, to other clubs in Second Life that have teamed up.
Next, and this is truly a top of the bill, is the Parioli Club, in the Virtual Italian Parks region. What they have done is beyond all imagination. They’ve created a themed location and it looks very very cool. These guys have done an amazing job! It’s been a pleasure working together with them.
Third, The Sanctuary Rock. One of the most popular locations, is also joining the event. They’ve also put up billboards to announce the concert. The club is an ancient looking castle on a hill, an hosts tons of events.
Next participant is Club Elements at the GoL (Goddess Of Love) region. Also a high-roller in Second Life, a top location club with an impressive reach. Very trendy design and highly popular.
Continuing the line is Crayonville Island, the home of marketing guru Jaffe Juice, very well known with all marketing bloggers and new marketing adepts. Crayon is the first virtual marketing agency that also has a real life department. They’ve opened up their events amphitheater for us, and are welcoming the event with open arms. That will lead to quite some blogposts, without any doubt, since Jaffe Juice (aka Joseph Jaffe) is one the web 2.0 marketing pioneers. Bert Van Wassenhove from ‘One Agency‘ arranged our presence here. Cool!
Next is the Isle Of Lesbos, an island made just like the real one, with ancient ruins of the old Roman and Greek buildings. We get the entire beach front with ocean view and waving palm trees.
Then we have the Mermaids Gentlemans Club. This club has a subwater level, with animated tropical plants and fish. The dancefloor is see-through and above the reef, and at night it has a very cool effect.
The 8thth partner club is ShowGirls, a casino and club that hosts a lot of events day in, day out. The video player is placed directly at the teleportation point and it’s outside on the terrace in the poker area. Looks very classy.
Closing the line is the Liquid Dreams club. An industrial strip joint with a load of Lords of Acid fans. They were amongst the first to literally beg to become a partner, and they’ve been arranging ad space with most of their partnering malls and clubs. These guys are overjoyed to be part of our little initiative.
Then last but not least there’s the Irie Vibes Club, one of Second Life’s most popular open air reggae clubs. I don’t know why they want to partner, but Bert from the ‘one-agency’ (our marketing agency) also set this up. They’ve also hung the billboards and screen and are advertising in their own network to get the word out. Looks good as well!
Here are examples of the billboards that have been distributed to appear on various locations in the game, mostly in malls and on crowded locations.
The last billboard is scripted, in the game, clicking on a name will give you a teleportation link to that location. Clicking the ‘experiencethewow.be’ link will open a browser and it will load the site of the event.
The branded player we handed out to all the club owner can be copied as many times as they want, and it lights up in the dark. Once we’ve enroled the streaming and the URL is known, we’ll hand out the right address and everyone will be able to connect. The player is 8 meters wide and 6 meters high, that should work out fine.
And so, that’s where we stand now. Let’s break it down into numbers for reach.
Second Life has a region limit (per land) of 50 avatars, to be sure, let’s count 45. That means that through the official partners, we reach out to 450 to maximum 500 people who can watch the event for free, at the same time.
But, there’s also about 8 other clubs who joined ‘too late for the marketing train’, and they too received a player and some billboards. If I count those in as well, we have a potential reach of between 800 and 900 avatars. (an avatar is a second life citizen)
As for ‘general reach’ I’ll list up the daily traffic of each event location, traffic for today:
Irie Vibes Club: 24,533
ShowGirls: 7,853
Mermaids: 3,600
Liquid Dreams: 4,723
Parioli Club: 22,759
Elements at GoL: 132,049
Sanctuary Rock: 59,984
Crayonville: 397
Strawberry Estate: 1,790
Isle Of Lesbos: 47,906
That totals a daily reach of: 305,594 avatars.
Suppose only 10% of them looks at the billboards, then we still reach 30,000 people a day, with simple brand awareness. I know for sure more people look at the billboards, but I’m trying to be negative, just to not overestimate it.
Most of the clubs and locations have their billboards up for a few days already, so you can at least multiply by two (or three), and then we do not count the billboards in the 8 clubs that aren’t on the partner list, and we don’t count the effect of the billboards that have been put in several malls and other crowded locations. And we can’t measure the word of mouth effect either. But at least you can say: we’re making a point, and it’s being heard.
The guys from One Agency also made a ‘road show’ t-shirt which will be distributed for free, and they’re taking care of the technical part, the streaming and convertion. If all goes well, we’ll be able to feed a live Praga Khan concert to 2000 citizens of Second Life. That would be awesome!
I’ve had a lot of discussions with people in Second Life about brands and marketing, but I do know that everyone is really ‘pro’, because at least we didn’t just buy our way in. We come in with something that has never been done before, on an unseen scale. And we don’t take from the community, we give. That’s the best place to be for a brand.
Now the only thing I hope for is that Second Life will not be down at the time of the event. I’ve noticed the Linden Labs (the creators) through their support channel a week ago, but they haven’t got back to me (yet). Fingers crossed, and let’s have some fun!
All of you have the opportunity to follow the exclusive Praga Khan concert tomorrow, organised for the Belgian GA Launch, via streaming. Tune in at 11 PM CET! Check out http://www.experiencethewow.be/streaming and Experience the “Wow”!
As Pascal kindly pointed out in the comments, the shortcuts to the Second Life locations can be found at the SLForum.
Thanks!
January 26, 2007 at 1:00 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife
Very technical day today, with just a few sessions. First one was about OEM, next one about Legal and last one about Procurement. Interesting breakouts, but sometimes a little bit too much in detail. I did learn some very convenient things though which can help me out while managing my expenses or trying to get approval for a budget for a certain project I’m setting up.
All in all, these were very busy days. In the course of this seminar, we also had a few interactive workshops. We were divided into small groups and each group had a topic to work on.
One group had to do a musical thing, another had to create a mascotte, I was in the ‘Sketch’ group and we had to make a sketch about ’something related to Microsoft’. Then there was also a support team and a group that needed to make a song.
The interactive workshop presentation is about to begin. After that we get our certificates of attending the MS 101 seminar and then there’s a closing session. Normally everything’s finished at 3 PM and a bus is going to take us back to the Munich airport.
Forecast of the airport: wait 3 hours until my flight is boarding :(
I think I’m going to make some phonecalls and sort out my inbox. That should bridge the gap. If all goes well I’ll be home at 10 or 11 PM.
I have to go to Redmond from February 2nd, but I’m still trying to work around the strike on Heathrow. The British ground staff is on strike and ‘just my luck’ I have to go over the UK with a British Airways flight. Hopefully AmEx can sort it out and get me on another plane via France or The Netherlands. I’d hate it so much if I have to miss the evangelist pre-TechReady summit in Seattle. Fingers crossed.
January 26, 2007 at 9:01 am ·
Filed under MicroLife
Yesterday was a good day, with some very interesting presentations. The day kicked off with a showcase of MS Research, by Alexander Brändle who works at the research center in Cambridge. The things he showed us were just plainly awesome! I could never have imagined how far research already went. They think 10 years ahead, and the interfaces he showed us, the technology… damn. I’ll cross-check first what I can write about it because all these prototypes… I don’t want to take any risks. This is without any doubt the best presentation I’ve seen so far. After this, there were some slightly more boring presentation about CPE and Response Management and also an IT Showcase.
Neither of those actually fitted for me to provide me with ‘new’ information I could use in my current role, but on the other hand, you never know where you might end up, so maybe -futuristically spoken- they might come in handy somewhere over time. At least now I have a more detailed view on how things work and what is possible. The two other keynotes that got 100% of my attention again -instead of 90, of course :) - were the SMSG Overview by Tim El-Hady, an Egyptian UK’er. He brought his story very well and explained a lot of the SMSG cluster within Microsoft. I liked that, even though I’m currently not in it. The ‘last but not least’ keynote of the day was about CompHot.
Dave Barnsley came to tell us about what CompHot can do for us. CompHot is like ‘the wise librarian’ within Microsoft. If you need support to close a deal, if you need to blow away the competition with showcases and information… just drop a line to these guys and they’re on it. That’s very good to know, especially because they have a very rich archive stacked with information on dozens of cases. If I don’t look at it ’saleswise’, like for instance when I need help on a Microsoft VS X (random other brand), and I need to have detailed information to set foot in a market segment or collect background data to prepare presentations, it’s very good to know you can escalate to these guys. It’s like a backup parachute.
The evening ended with a big dinner, seeing it was ‘our last night’ at MS 101. Straight after dinner, Charbel El Fakhoury gave a motivational speech about ‘why Microsoft’ by telling his own story. Charbel came a long way and established a lot in the Middle East. He started a lot of subs and actually helped Microsoft to set foot in a region that is constantly subjected to some sort of conflict. For instance, Charbel is from Beirut. You can imagine how hard it must’ve been to kick off business in a land that is still recovering from a civil war.
I was getting really really really tired due to lack of sleep these last few days, so I took a cab to the hotel and after a nice hot tub I slept for over 8 hours. It felt like I was on a holiday. Ready for a new day!
January 25, 2007 at 9:56 am ·
Filed under MicroLife
Ugh. I only slept a few hours yesterday because I really had to finish up things for the Vista launch in Second Life. I should really really catch up and get some sleep, but there’s only 4 days left before the big day, and still a bunch of things to take care of. I haven’t heard back from the Linden Lab yet, so I really hope they’ll get in touch to confirm the game will be up and running and we don’t face downtime when we’re streaming. Fingers crossed for that. I skipped a few presentations yesterday as well because I had to code the teleportation buttons to the places that participate in the launch event. In the end I realized it wasn’t working like I had in mind, so I had to come up with a new alternative. So, I looked for a script that could hand out objects and finally found one after hours of searching. Now, instead of teleporting directly to a club, you can click the name of the club on a billboard and then a landmark is handed out to you which you can click to teleport. It’s the closest I got, and probably even better because the landmarks are added to the inventory of the Second Life inhabitant that clicks the names, so they can keep it to come back later, or travel more easily between different locations.
The list of clubs that want to participate keeps growing, but ‘oficially’ we only partnered with 7 clubs. In total, over 10 clubs are already streaming. Super!
The most interesting session yesterday was from Patrick Gifford, who explained the concept of SMS&P. (dealing with Small and Mid Sized Companies & Partners). It’s not really my cup of tea, but Patrick was very passionate in explaining what it was all about, and he knew how to grab and hold the attention of the group. The rest of the day the sessions were about licensing, enterprise strategy and some other things that didn’t really fit in my role. Licensing to me is boring. I understand the need of it, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll never be in a position to advize it or offer it to companies, because I’m working with end users and basic consumers. I’m just glad I know what it’s all about and that I know the basics. That’s enough for me. If it gets more specific, I’ll just point the people to the right colleagues in the right sub, and they’ll help that company or person out.
After the presentations, we went on a sightseeing tour in Munich, but I fell asleep on the bus, so I missed most of the tour. The tour ended up in the historical center where we went to the Hofbräuhaus, a place that has typical Bavarian activities and a huge amount of food. I had two beers. The beer is served in glasses of 1 liter, so it took me a while to drink it, but it wasn’t bad. It reminded me of the big Oktoberfest. I got back at the hotel around 10.30 PM or 11, and I thought I’d quickly do a few more things before I’d go to bed. Then all of the sudden it’s 4 AM and there I was with my big mouth, saying I would go to sleep in time. Getting up today was hard. I really really really will go to bed in time tonight. I’m going to take a nice hot bath, and sleep. Damn I so looking forward to that.
It stopped snowing today. Finally. Looks like I’ll be able to get my flight like scheduled. Nice. :-)
Some pics:
The terrace was blending in fine with the rest of the environment
The humpapa band on stage, bringing ‘beer music’.
January 24, 2007 at 10:03 am ·
Filed under MicroLife
Yesterday was a fun day, really. We don’t have a Steve Ballmer, but we do have Phil Rose. He’s a really enthusiastic man from the UK who’s really entertaining. He’s a real ice-breaker. If the titanic had him on board, it would never have sunken. Heheh. No really. He’s good. Incredibly good.
First we had ‘Welcome’ by Holger Deimling, who explained a bit what were doing here and what the importance of it is to our everyday jobs. Then we had a ‘Get In Touch’ moment. Instead of having to introduce yourself, you had 5 minutes to get to know 3 people in the room. You had to know where they were from, what job they did, how long they were at Microsoft already and ‘one fun fact’. Then you had to introduce them to the rest of the crowd.
The rest of the crowd, that’s about 50 people from 20 different countries from all over Europe and Africa. I met people from Algeria, Nigeria, UK, France, Switzerland… pretty cool. It’s a good thing we’re wearing a label with the name on it because it’s hard to remember all the names. After the ‘Get In Touch’ moment, we had a presentation by Michael Silbermann, who’s apparently high on the corporate ladder here in Germany. I hadn’t heared from him yet, but it looks like he’s streamlining the financial & administrative side of the German sub. He talked about core values and things you should really keep in mind while working for Microsoft. Being accountable is the most important thing (next to being honest and open). If you screw up, it’s your head that rolls, that’s been made quite obvious. He did add that he wasn’t here to scare us with his stories though, but that it’s really important for us to know, especially when you’re in a position when you’re negotiating with customers or making deals. I think “accountable” is the first word in his dictionary. Then he skips all the letters until the ‘I’ from ‘integrity’. He looks like a cool guy. A bit like the typical ’soccer dad’, and it looks like he knows what his doing. He makes sense.
After this talk we had lunch. German lunch is a weird. They have a huge amount of food, I noticed that on the first night already when I went out for a steak in the restaurant next to my hotel (half my plate was covered with steak). The food is really good and there’s always soooo much to choose from. Funky. I had chicken wings with mashed potatoes and fried potatoes and lots of cucumber and carrots. De-licious.
After lunch, we had a presentation by Phil Rose about ‘Living The Brand’. It basically is about the MS Culture and Values - again :) - but it was brought in a really entertaining way with a lot of interaction. We were all divided in groups and had to ‘present’ one of the core values. I had to represent my group to talk about ‘Self-criticism’. Phil brings in the American flavor, which means that everytime a speaker comes up front to talk, the entire crowd is stamping their feet on the floor (obviously) and clapping their hands while shouting ‘woooooooooo’. As you approach the front of the room, the shouting goes harder and harder and everyone is standing up. That’s a very weird feeling, but I enjoyed it, so I went up front really really slow. Heheheh. That’ll teach them.
To present the ‘Self Criticism’ value, I talked about what I had learned from the Windows Live sessions I attended before I joined Microsoft. Back then, Kris Hoet organized a session for ‘influencers’ where he had invited Phil Holden to come talk about the latest things that were going on in Windows Live. The first thing Phil Holden said at that time before he started his presentation was: “Listen up people, what I’m about to present to you isn’t perfect, the things are still running in Beta as we speak, but I want to show this to you because your ideas and comments can help us make it better’. It was back then that I realized how much of a turn Microsoft had made. Instead of pretending to be a company that knew best (at least, that’s how I knew them), they were putting themselves on the same level as us, the crowd. Asking for feedback to help them out, admitting that what they present isn’t perfect and definitely needs some more work.
To me, the open communication culture that has been created back then is the best example of self-criticism, although I’d also call it ‘modesty’. It’s closely related to ‘honesty’, and what it means is: we’re doing our best to get it done right. Things can always go better, but we’re here to learn, and what we learn today will be used tomorrow. We have good products, but some of them need feedback from users to make them better. Realizing this is a big step. That’s why I’m glad I signed up for the evangelist job.
I had to interrupt the session a bit later and skip the rest because I had to make a conference call with some colleagues from Switzerland. We have to set things up for Mix07 to create a cool experience for a group of 200 influencers. It seems like a very promising project, but at this time I can’t tell you much more about it because it’s too early.
In the evening we had dinner at the conference center. Again a huge choice and yummy food. I arrived at the hotel, and I started working on the Second Life project because the clock is ticking for the Vista launch. I created the billboards to place around at various locations in the game, to announce the free concert we’re going to stream. Took me quite a few hours to get it right, but I think I managed quite ok. Tonight I’ll dive into the virtual world again and start placing the announcements to inform the inhabitants.
Today, the second day of MS 101, looks promising, but we’re starting with a delay because a few people are stuck in traffic. Tonight we’ll have a sightseeing tour in Munich. Looking forward to that. I’ll keep you posted. The news says we can expect up to 9 inches of snow by the end of the day (25 cm). I just hope my flight back on Friday won’t be delayed because of this. I hope it’ll stop snowing on Thursday. We’ll see.
January 24, 2007 at 8:30 am ·
Filed under MicroLife
7.30 this morning:
“Hello Stephan?”
“Hello Miel, good morning”
“Yeah, hi, I was wondering if you could send a taxi to my hotel”
“We’re going to be late, at least an hour, there’s too much snow.”
“Awch. Then I’m going to be late at the conference…”
“Sorry about that, but people are driving like old women”
“Heheh”
“We’ll try to hurry, the driver will call you when he’s there”
“Okay thanks!”
Well, those Germans… you’ve got to admit they know their work. They recognize my phone number, and they’re willing to hurry… But I’m still going to be late. At least 4 inches of snow, from the looks of it. And the roads haven’t been cleared yet. There’s a strong wind and the snow keeps falling.
Nice.
8.24 this morning:
“Hello?”
“Hello Miel, it’s the taxi company”
“Hi”
“My wife is coming to pick you up with a Silver M-Class”
“An SUV hehe, very good in this weather”
“She’ll be there around 8.35 or so, but the road is crazy”
“Cool, thanks a lot!”
“Zupah, you’re welcome, bye”
“Bye”
How’s that for a service? I think it’s awesome.
The pic below is the view from my hotel room right now. The lights in the back are cars. There’s supposed to be a road just behind the trees. Only… you can’t see it very well anymore.
January 23, 2007 at 10:48 am ·
Filed under MicroLife
Like I already mentioned yesterday, I’m in Munich (Germany) for a 4-day course called MS-101. The program for today is pretty light. Welcome here and there, some objectives of the courses and keynotes. I’m looking forward to the interactive workshops and the ‘Living The Brand’ presentation about the Microsoft culture and values. Not that I haven’t seen that around me already, but I think it’s going to be pretty funny to see how ‘us Europeans’ differ in the presentation style from the videos I’ve been shown that have been made in America. We don’t have a Steve Ballmer here. At least, I haven’t met one yet, so there’s not going to be a brand boost with such a thrill around it, I think.
When I look around me, and listen, I hear Polish, Russian, German… and some other Slavic languages I don’t know of. Last night when I arrived at the airport it was chilly. There were no taxis because apparently, by following the exit signs, I ended up at the back of the airport. Then a taxi pulled up and I approached him. “Microsoft?” he asked? I was surpized. I didn’t know I looked like “Microsoft”. “Yes” I replied. He started loading my bags in the trunk of a big Mercedes. Then he started speaking in German, asking me if there was any snow in Zurich. I told him I didn’t know because I’m from Belgium. Then he looked funny and turned around the car. Apparently a guy from Switzerland called him and he arrived in the airport a few minutes after me. So we waited a bit until he came out of the exit and then we were off to the hotel.
About 30 minutes later we arrived. The taxi driver was really friendly. I know why. My hotel is a pretty far bit away from the conference center. He immediately offered to come pick me up every morning the next couple of days, and also to bring me back at night. Apparently we always start at 9 AM and end at 9 PM. It’s going to be long days, but I’m looking forward to networking with all these new people.
Last night on the ride to the hotel, the cabbie was complaining the it wasn’t snowing in Munich yet. He said he didn’t expect it for another few weeks, but overnight, his wishes were granted. I woke up at 7 this morning and the world was looking all white. Damn. I didn’t bring boots or anything. I’m just walking around here in my ‘hooray it’s almost spring’ clothes. I didn’t know I’d had to bring winter clothing as well.
Anyway. Break’s over. Back to the presentations.
January 22, 2007 at 11:35 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz
After a long day running from one meeting to another and conference calling half of the world, I got a lift to the airport to get on the afternoon flight to Munich. I’m tired. I’ve been overclocking the entire weekend to get things done in Second Life for the launch of Vista, talking to club owners, building the branded player, making sure everyone could operate it and looking for locations where the club owners could put it on their land. I had a lot of help from my friends in Second Life, networking for me and guiding me to the right people to talk to. The power of an online community is simply amazing.
I met a nice guy named Arnout Saedt, and he’s the owner of the Second Life version of the Atomium. Since he has no media rights on the land where he’s currently living, we decided it would be best to rebuild the Atomium on the Strawberry Estate. And so, now we have our own virtual version of the event location in real life. I cleaned out all the spheres and I’ve placed plasma screens inside them. Each sphere can host 10 people. The entire Belgian online community is welcome there to participate in the event. (just look up ‘Coolz0r Courier’ or ‘Strawberry Estate’ in the search, and you’ll get there). Arnout did a wonderful job. This is so very cool!
Then I also had a great and thorough conversation with Bruno Cerboni, who is the Founder and CEO of Virtual Italian Parks S.r.l. (the first Italian company in Italy offering SL services), a company formally incorporated in Italy. He is also one of the Founders of the European Consortium VRParks: http://www.vrparks.eu | http://vrparks.eu/?About:Virtual_Italian_Parks - The company is supported by the E2Blab incubator at the Tor Vergata University in Rome.
Bruno is an engineer (degree at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”). He had a 30 years career as a Manager in the field of Information Technology and created the first Italian SIM in Second Life: Parioli , which consistently ranks in 2 of SL’s Top 10 (non-adult) Most Popular Places and reaches from 20,000 to 30.000 daily traffic; Bruno has developed the unique 2L holographic environment using an immersive approach. The entire Italian SIM (region) is cooperating with the Vista Project. Visit Rome in virtual life, and experience the Vista launch near the Colosseum. It’s as impressive as it sounds.
The Mermaids Gentlemans Club is also participating. The club’s dance floor is directly above the water surface, and if you look down, they’ve created the illusion of a subtropical coral reef. It lights up in the dark and it’s taken quite some work to make it look so special. A wonderful location to check out, filled with very nice people.
Another cool region that participates is the ‘Isle Of Lesbos’, named after the famous Mediterranean island. It’s a huge region with a load of traffic to take your hat off for and bow gracefully. The paradise beach is at our disposal and has the most romantic sunset I’ve seen so far. It’s a huge waterfront with close to it a city that looks like it’s the remains of ancient ruins, but crowded with people. You just have to check it out. Too bad they don’t sell vacations to the virtual world and teleport your ‘real life you’ to this fabulous location. It’s close to heaven.
The Sanctuary Rock is also pleased to host our live concert. According to my contactman Schinoa, the Gothic/Medieval castle with a huge crowd of Lords Of Acid lovers (the international name of Praga Khan) is eager to join in. The Second Life stats indicate this place pulls over 50.000 avatars a day, and it ranks in the top 10 of most visited/popular locations. It’s a very special place that looks like it’s been ripped out of some lord of the rings scene, but this too is a perfect location to set up the streams.
Closing the ranks, but not being less attractive, are the ShowGirls Gentlemen’s Club and Liquid Dreams. Both clubs have a special style of decoration and attract their typical crowd of regulars. Time and again, these two places are jammed with avatars that want to be part of the events that are being hosted. This is the perfect time to pay these clubs a visit. Explore them, you won’t be sorry !
So. Right now I’m setting up the billboards. I think I’m going to upload them tomorrow and start placing them everywhere I can to get as much visibility as possible. Last time I checked, the stream we’re sending into the virtual world should be able to manage 2000 requests. I know we’re aiming below that with this selective list of clubs, but you have to have a limit somewhere. Especially when you have 3 huge regions participating where multiple players can be placed to serve the audience. We’ll see where we end up. The important part is that we can reach out to those who really want to be part of the event, and that we can offer them a nice atmosphere “to experience the wow”.
January 17, 2007 at 7:23 pm ·
Filed under PR, Video, XBox 360
Homeboarding is an Xbox Belgium campaign challenging Belgian snowboarders with a lack of snow. You can record a video or take a picture of you and your friends boarding at home and send it in. It will be published on the homepage of Homeboarding.be - Viewers can rate the material and a professional jury will choose the winners. Xbox Belgium hands out some very nice prizes.
HomeBoarding season is open and runs till 16 February 2007. Check out the site and send in you best video’s and pictures. Give it your best shot and share it on Soapbox and YouTube.
It’s up to you to show the rest of the world how it’s done. Demo your hottest, sickest, most wicked homeboard tricks – as performed in your home or garden! Make a video or photo and upload it on the web. Tag it with “homeboarding” and drop your link at the Homeboarding.be site. - Ask your friends to rate your clips to get a head start.
Anyone can join, but only Belgian participants win prizes in the official contest. However, if you read this blog, and you’re from outside the .be zone, post your link in the comments and then afterwards I’ll personally set up a mini contest for non-.be participants, and I’ll send you a prize if you’re the lucky winner.
What can you win in the main contest? The grand prize is a “BIG DAY OUT” in Val D’Isère. Runners Up can win Xbox consoles, O’Neill snowboard outfits, Xbox games, O’Neill snow DVDs or giant snow posters. All information is listed here.
The XBOX Big Day Out is a massive freestyle snowboard and ski competition held annually at the end of February, with the finals taking place on the last day. Check out the wicked video.
Warning: this video is 24 minutes. Takes some memory.
What are you waiting for?
Agency: Duval Guillaume E
January 17, 2007 at 3:34 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, MicroLife
I’m helping out the marcom team for the launch of the Vista on the 30th of January and it’s going to be one frigging huge event. I’m going to take care of the virtual part of the launch, together with One Agency, trying to get a dozen of club owners in Second Life to place huge movie screens at their club, and find a bunch of other places as well, to stream a live concert of Praga Khan that will be simultaneously broadcasted on the MSN.be website, 3G (mobile streaming) and then of course also in the virtual world. The real life event will be at the famous Atomium, a national monument that looks like a gigantic molecular structure. It’s a prestigious location, and every sphere of the construction will have its own theme.
Active balls of the Atomium will feature:
- Music Sphere
Unique digital concert, relaxing atmosphere,… Highlights: Vista Music and surrounding features
- Digital Memories
A Unique picture-editing workshop, where the Photo-Touch-Up from Vista will be explained. Michiel Hendryckx, one of the better Belgian press photographers will give tips there as well.
- Innovation Made In Belgium
Innovative cases by Belgian companies. Highlights: Vista’s productivity environment.
- Personal Productivity
Classroom of the future, Office 2007 Quiz,… Highlights: the Vista PC with Office 2007 suite.
- Gaming
Challenge ‘enfant terrible’ Frank Molnar on the gigantic plasma screens. Highlights: Vista Games Explorer.
- Tv & Movies
HD imaging with director Wim Robberechts, learn to create your own movies and pictures in HD. Create your own personalized DVD of ‘Belgium, The Movie’ (and take it home with you afterwards). Highlights: the HD revolution, supported by Vista.
- Top sphere: VIP lounge, surprizes and stuff I can’t talk about yet.
I’ll tell you more as soon as I can. Belgian launch site: (Dutch/French) ExperienceTheWow.be
In the meanwhile I’ve also finished some more trainings here at the New Hire Readiness Academy of Microsoft. The last one I did was the Standards of Business Conduct 2006 training course. I know it’s 2007, but they insisted on me taking it because it’s very important that you know how Microsoft thinks its employees should act. The training I took consisted of several case studies which can be completed in any order, as long as you complete them all. This training is obligated for all employees, every year, to illustrate how important ethically correct behavior is. It was the first course with an intro of Steve Ballmer. Impressive. I caught myself checking out the course twice, just to see the clip again.
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