‘Cross The Breeze

I really don’t get it. I’m a frequent flyer and as such I have an airline (or group of airlines) of choice. Simple reason, you try and get as much miles with one and not just shattered around across many different offerings. My choice? Star Alliance. The initial reason for this was because I think flying SAS to our HQ in Seattle is just the best way for me to travel, and once you made the choice you stick with the program.

This means that also when not flying SAS, I will check if there’s a reasonably priced option with Star Alliance to get to my destination and only fly with someone else if there isn’t. As a result for being loyal to Star Alliance, I’ve been Eurobonus Gold for quite a while now.

Now where is the reward? There are 2 things that bother me a lot about this so called loyalty program. First of all, these miles don’t mean much. I wanted to go to NYC with my wife in August to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I got the miles so I started looking for Eurobonus available seats on flights to NYC (and back obviously). The trip would be for 5 days or so but there was some flexibility to it. Tough luck, it’s impossible to find 2 Eurobonus seats on any Star Alliance flight to NYC… and even if there were, chances that you would find seats for the flight back is pretty much non-existent… so much for being loyal.

The second part that bothers me is the lounge. The Eurobonus Gold card allows access to the Star Alliance lounge with one guest… well, if you’re flying with Star Alliance that is. So this week for instance, I was flying Brussels Airlines to Budapest, I went to the Star Alliance lounge before my flight and to my big surprise I wasn’t allowed in. Just because I wasn’t flying with them, gold card or not. So basically you only get rewarded with Star Alliance if you’re flying with them right now, not because all the flights you’ve done with them in the past… so much for being loyal.

It seems ages since I last opened up Live Writer last time. This is not because I stopped loving it, but because the blogging rhythm on this blog (and on I Blog Mustang) have been very slow lately. It seems like the only times I get to do some writing lately is when traveling. The last posts were all (or almost all) written on trains and planes.

While I see people writing about how Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, … or whatever other service has taken over from their blogging, that is actually not the case with me. I am indeed more active on Twitter than on this blog, but that is because of the short and instant nature of the service vs the time you need to spend writing blogposts. I do still dedicate the time I need to reading my RSS, luckily enough as I’m addicted to news - couldn’t do without.

In the meantime we’re working hard on releasing some new campaigns for Windows Live and MSN in Europe (more on these at Live In Europe) and we’re also gearing up in the planning for next year as our fiscal year starts at July 1st and not January 1st like with most companies.

For now, I’ll just try and write some more posts about things that I’ve been meaning to write now that I am on my way to Stockholm. Share your travel via Dopplr if you want ;)

This year I really wanted to get to most of the best interactive/technology/marketing conferences in Europe (and a little bit US). I already made it to conferences like LeWeb3, LIFT08 and MIX08 but also smaller events like Euroblog 2008 and Plugg. I missed DLD so hopefully I can make up for that next year.

The next conference that was on the list is The Next Web. This conference takes place on April 3rd and 4th in the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam and has not only built up some serieus ’street cred’ over the years, it really looks like an interesting event to be at. With speakers such as Leah Culver, Werner Vogels, Chris Saad and Kevin Rose, presentations from 24 startups and more you might want to think about going there. And watch out for the Diggnation episode that will be live recorded at the event. I can’t go unfortunately because I’ve already planned on going to the Blogger Social in NYC the same period, but if you’re thinking about going then you can register here, and use this promo code (thekrismaster) which will give you a 200 EUR discount! (First 10 people only)

After all that, I hope I can make it to reboot on June 1st normally (if there’s going to be one - is there?) and PICNIC on September 24th. I’ll definitely be at the Next Conference in Hamburg on May 15th in the meantime as I’ll be on a panel at the event.

But first, there’s The Next Web, mark it in your calendar. And to Patrick and crew - good luck ;)

A bit more than 3 weeks to go to Blogger Social in NYC, a unique gathering of mainly (but not only) marketing & advertising bloggers from across the globe. With just over 80 attendees and a fun agenda of events this is really something a lot of us are looking forward to for many months.

There’s one downside to it though, and that is that it takes place the exact same weekend as the Tour of Flanders, the classic of all classics in road cycle racing if you ask me. The race, first organized in 1913, is an experience of its own and (trust me) appeals to everyone who is up for a heroic day of sports. With many steep hills, often paved with cobblestones over a distance of approx. 260 kilometers… it sure isn’t just a race like any other.

I’ve watched the race on television for as long as I can remember, most of the time with a bunch of friends, and for the last few years we’ve been going to the ‘Muur van Geraardsbergen’ (or ‘wall’ of Geraardsbergen) to watch it live, courtesy of Lotto. With several thousands of people at the key positions of the race and close to a million people over the whole length, the ambiance is incredible.

So not this year, and the Social will rock for sure, but a part in my heart will miss this raceday a lot. I’m sure Tim ‘Masiguy’ Jackson understands ;)

Here’s a great ad from Het Nieuwsblad (newspaper) for their upcoming coverage of the Tour of Flanders.

I wanted to draw your attention on something. On May 16th, in Lausanne, there’s going to be a new conference called Going Solo - being a freelancer in a connected world - organized by Stephanie Booth. This one-day conference is targeted at freelancers and small business owners in the internet industry, to learn from other freelancers how to succeed in this rapidly changing world.

Stephanie is a freelancer herself within the internet industry and given I really only met her at conferences so far it’s fair to say she knows a bit about conferences as well ;) I think, knowing Stephanie, this is going to be an exciting event for all you ‘connected’ freelancers out there, hence why I like to spread the word a bit as well.

Currently there is not full program available yet, but confirmed speakers are Stowe Boyd, Suw Charman, Martin Roell, Laura Fitton and expect more counting down to the event. If you want to be part of this event, then register quick to benefit from the early bird price which ends March 16th.

This last post about the MIX conference is not that much related to the conference anymore actually. The conference stopped on Friday around noon and since most of the Belgians only left on Saturday morning, we had booked a helicopter flight over and trough the Grand Canyon with Sundance Helicopters. What can I say, if you are ever in Vegas do treat yourself with this, because it’s absolutely brilliant!

The Sundance company comes to pick you up with a limo by the hotel and drives you to their spot at the airport. Once you get there you sign in and about 15-20 minutes later you’re airborne, over the airport straight to the mountains. The total flight time is close to 90 minutes back and forth, and there’s a scheduled stop somewhere in the middle of the Grand Canyon offering you a fantastic view accompanied by a glass of champagne and a small lunch.

And as an image says more than a thousand words, here is what it looked like.

During the flight the helicopter films both inside and outside of the whole trip and you can buy the DVD with that footage. I’ll let you know if that’s any good by the time it arrives via post mail. Anyway, here is the full set.

We ended the day at Morton’s Steakhouse (a personal favorite) making this the perfect ending to a great event.

There’s always one difficult part about going to conferences and blogging and that is that you hear so many interesting things you want to talk about, but no time to do so because you’re paying attention. I do have some time right now though before going to the official MIX party at TAO in about an hour or so I thought I’d share some first thoughts on the conference.

Together with most of the European invites of Microsoft to MIX, we arrived in Vegas on Monday night as we had a pre-conference scheduled in on Tuesday, the day before the official start of MIX. The pre-conference is a unique opportunity to get up close with some people that will present at MIX later as well but given we’re with about 200 people it makes it more accessible to get into a conversation. In the afternoon we had the choice between some activities, for which we chose to go for the “High Rollers” - a training basically on gambling, to get you started ;) This training took place in the Stratosphere Tower, a nice enough opportunity to take some pictures and stitch them all together in this panorama.

Today MIX officially started. We had the keynote in the morning with Ray Ozzie and Scott Guthrie which got covered pretty good live by Duncan Riley at Techrunch. I’d say check out their post to get an idea of the keynote, or watch the video. There’s one thing that struck me the most and that was the Hard Rock Memorabilia demo, using the Seadragon technology within Silverlight. You can see it right here, make sure you check it out. Really cool, trust me.

After the keynote (and the following lunch) I went out to see Lou Carbone again. I saw him at MIX07 already and found it a fascinating speech, reason enough to go see him again. Unfortunately, his MIX08 speech was the same as last year. Still very good, but been there done that.  Too late to go anywhere else so and my next session was in the same room anyway. Next up, David Armano with the Fuzzy Tail. David and I have been in touch occasionally through the AoC and on Twitter but here in Vegas we finally met in person which was good. The Fuzzy Tail wasn’t new to me as I followed the development of the presentation on his blog a couple of months ago, still good to see it presented by the man himself.

Other than that we saw some cool stuff related to the new IE8, we had again some demo on the Surface - always fascinating - and finally we joined the other MIX attendees for the official MIX party in TAO.

More images from MIX can be found on my Flickr account, and for more news and videos you should check out the MIX website.

Within a week we’ll be on our way to Vegas again for the MIX08 conference. I quite enjoyed last year’s MIX conference with the announcements of Silverlight and Expression Studio, but also for presentations such as Lou Carbone’s for instance (who will be back this year by the way).

What I like about this year’s agenda as well is that there will be a bit more presentations and workshops that aren’t all 100% tech, as that was probably my only wish after last year. With people like Steve Ballmer, Lou Carbone, Guy Kawasaki, David Armano and obviously also Hugh MacLeod and Loic Le Meur (and many others) it looks indeed like that is happening. Anyway, a lot of presentations these 3 days so to make sure I don’t miss anything, I’ve fired up the schedule builder on the MIX website to make sure I scheduled everything I wanted to see (and added that to my Outlook which is an option within ‘my schedule’). Small note on the schedule builder, you need to be registered for the event to be able to use it. And unfortunately, if you aren’t registered already, the event is sold out since last week.

So if you’re going to MIX as well (and you’re reading this blog) then let me know so we can connect in Vegas (maybe in the Blogzone). I guess that relates immediately to the one big thing I’m missing on the MIX website and that’s the social element. Now I’m not waiting for the next social network, but since I’ve got a login after registration anyway, it would have been nice to be able to use that some more. Who do I know that is going? Which sessions are they going to? It’s like adding a bit of LIFT08 to MIX08 :) That said, it was interesting and fun last year, I’m sure it’ll be so again this year.

PS: Oh yeah, and thanks to David Armano, I now known in Vegas as ‘Two Slice’

Lovely day here in London today, big difference with last week when I planned on flying here but didn’t make it because of the fog at LCY. I can tell you, spending like 5 hours at the Antwerp Airport for nothing is really no fun at all. Meeting up with the zerofinfluencer this evening, so it’s going to be a good day today.

Video found via The Kaiser (who doesn’t seem to have such a good day today).

Last week I went to LIFT08 in Geneva, and although it is a conference, I think you’d better describe it as an experience. And an experience I was really much looking forward to, especially after talking to Laurent Haug and Cristiana Bolli Freitas, the creative brains and organizers of LIFT a few months earlier.

Part of what makes it a really interesting experience, is all the interaction and community involvement both before and at the conference. You have workshops & open stages that be suggested and voted on. There was a Live Magazine (”Not so empty book”), the Fontself,  the creating of the LIFT song, etc etc. All very unique and interactive.

It started on Wednesday with some workshops, one during the morning and one during the afternoon:

• Fearless City: Re-routing the digital divide with mobile: I got in a bit late as I only flew in that morning, but that didn’t make it less interesting. The presenter (Irwin Oostindie) and I had a few chats later on about The Fearless City project is about digital inclusion, but looking at this issue from a technology, culture, art and community combined view. I found it quite interesting and hope I can help Irwin out with it somehow.
• Teenagers/Generation Y and technology: The second workshop related a lot more to my day job as MSN (referring to Live Messenger) is a huge part of this. The workshop ended up in being a lengthy but interesting discussion between a few teenagers and ‘the audience’. Although the teenagers present weren’t your typical average teenagers, some learnings were still quite surprising and would most probably have applied to the average teenager anyway. I’m planning on posting a bit more in depth about this on the Live In Europe blog

Thursday and Friday were the main conference days, and while I found only few presentations on Thursday to be really good, the ones on Friday made up for that. This is a list of what I liked (links to video here):

• Rafi Haladjian on the Nabaztag, watch out for Ztamps - RFID for the masses
• Kevin Warwick on his life-project as a ‘cyborg’
• Robin Hunicke (EA) on trends in designing games
• Guy Vardi (Oberon Media) on casual gaming
• Paul Barnett (EA Mythic) on the evolution of multiplaying games
• Kevin Marks (Google) on Open Social

And the open stages from:

• Stephanie Booth on Going Solo, being a free-lancer in a connected world
• Ewan McIntosh on open education through social media and calling out to all of us
• Noel Hidalgo on the Luck of Seven and his extraordinary trip around the world

Next to all of that I obviously enjoyed meeting lots of ‘old’ and new people, seeing some back after quite a while was especially great. And last but not least, the famous Fondue on Thursday night, that was really good as well.

Overall, since it’s not a web only conference, some tech related presentations interested me less than let’s say at LeWeb3 although some did as you can see above. Apart from that the uniqueness, the interaction, the warmth of the event made it a fantastic experience. One I’m putting in my agenda for next year.

Ine, Clo, this is your conference - make sure you mark it in your agenda for ‘09.