Blog of Ronnestam » branding

There are no High Streets on the internet.

ronnestam — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:04:06 +0000

Now that’s your future challenge. That’s the problem that defines the requirements for digital brands.

In the real world you’ve got great locations and shitty locations. Let’s say you wanna open a coffee shop. If you place it on the High Street you’ll be sure to have clients dropping by. As long as you do an ok job of keeping your products in shape you’ll do good. There’s of course one problem – not many people can afford to open a coffee shop on the High Street.

There’s no Times Square online. Photo cred: Jo Quint

Just outside the town however, there you’ll find space more or less for free. Your problem however is that you won’t have anyone dropping by unless you’ve got a killer product or a killer service. Suddenly kick ass budgets come into play again, this time for marketing activities and product development. Online however you’re competing with every other shop in your country…or even worse, you might even be competing with every other shop in the world.

This is exactly what the internet is all about. No one will buy something from you unless you’ve got killer products, a killer website and provide people with great value. And you can be sure that if you don’t, they’ll never come back. There’s one more challenge of course – In the real world you are only competing with other shops in the same city. There are no High Streets on the internet. There’s only fantastic products and services…and great marketing activities…over and over and over and over again! There are no shortcuts!

There is a fantastic opportunity here. Traditional brands haven’t really figured it out yet. As I’ve written about before they’re stuck in the past. This is your opportunity!

Go rule the world!

Case: Revamping Vasakronan. Swedens largest property brand.

ronnestam — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:35:56 +0000

Sometime last year I was approached by Vasakronan, Swedens largest property brand with a property portfolio valued at SEK 80.3 billion. Being a market leader the felt their digital presence had to reflect that position. Their question: What do we do? As always I teamed up with Caroline Karlström and accepted the challenge to answer that question. In this project I took on the role as both head of strategy and concept as well as actually delivering the top level designs of the new Vasakronan that Britny later implemented and refined.

This is what we did. Parts of the new Vasakronan digital brand presence

The new Vasakronan.se runs WordPress!

Me and Caroline started the project with an analysis phase and analysed their existing presence, the traffic to their site, the content, the design and the site structure. We interviewed representatives from Vasakronan as well as their clients and potential prospects. We also performed an extensive technical analysis of their technical platform. Their brand presence online was running on Episerver, one of Swedens most common content management platforms and the front end was about three years old. It was classical site with tons of sections and also some flash content.

The old Vasakronan.se site.

On top of that the site was connected to their back end, partly built on Sharepoint. Already from start I felt that there was no need for this complex set up. If you also include the fact that Vasakronan intended to lead – not follow, then I also thought we needed to look at modern platforms such as WordPress.

Once we’ve passed the analysis phase, it was clear that there really was no need to run Vasakronan off Episerver. Instead we decided to give WordPress a try. WordPress would, beside the fact that the platform is free, give Vasakronan the ability to adapt to the world outside, fast! WordPress has got some 20000 developers devoted to making sure the platform is up to date. Future branding is all about making sure you stay on top technology instead of being dictated by technology due to the fact that you’re stuck in a slow developed platform. Vasakronans ambition moving forward is also to be a part of that community, meaning develop new plugins and functionalities that other brands can make good use of.

A new brand plattform needed to be digitalized.

Part from the fact that Vasakronan’s digital presence was a couple of years old another important fact was also that they we’re redesigning their brand language. Not their logo – but their tone of voice, their graphical expressions, colors and how they worked with images. This was a challenge.

Parts of the Vasakronan brand manual that we had to digitalize.

Their new brand language was classical yet bold, however it was clearly developed to be used offline. I’m personally a big fan of simplicity and there was something in that brand presentation we were handed that struck a chord inside me.

The new Vasakronan.se – on brand!

The challenge to bring this stuff online was something that made me smile. After some tweaking back and fourth I felt that I had nailed the graphical concept quite well. It was fresh, clean, usable and on brand.

Great content and simplicity is the new black.

Until now Vasakronan had been working quite a lot with SEM activities. However, their SEO presence was nothing to brag about. In order for this to change I developed a concept that was based on how blogs work. Basically, the content bloggers pushed ends up further down the site structure as more content is being pushed.

An example of how content from the first page is being pushed down in other sections

Considering the website analytic part of the project pointed in the direction few, if any visitors, were interesting surfing the Vasakronan website, instead people landed on one page, clicked one or two pages to get what they were there for and then left, I felt we needed to simplify everything – the site structure, the navigation, the amount of pages and way you search for new properties and of course also the design.

Simplicity was something we kept on striving for all through the project

Yet we also needed people to actually find Vasakronan. There’s of course tons of traffic ending up on Vasakronan via typed url’s or a search for Vasakronan. But there’s also a huge potential in attracting people through generic search. In order to establish a broader and better presence on Google we decided to make better use of Vasakronan’s customer magasine ‘En bättre värd’ (A better host).

Making sure content is spread over multiple platforms to do good for the brand.

On the old site this magazine was published once a month as a PDF. Fine, the PDF attracts Google spiders too – but the content is not very readable online. This magazine was packed with quality content that will do a great job when the spiders comes crawling. Said and done. We established a section called Inspiration & lägen (Inspiration and locations) where the magazine is now portioned in smaller bits over time – just like a blogger would publish it.

iPhone and iPads. What should you do?

If you ask around I think most agencies out there will tell you that you must have a site for mobiles and one for iPads and other tables. I beg to differ. My point of view is that the visitors you have will visit your brand from different devices but that doesn’t mean they’re interested in learning new ways to navigate depending on which device they use today.

People should not have to learn new navigations from one device to another.

This is why I, when I started to design the site, aimed to create a design that would work on your desktop computer, your laptop, iPad and ultimately the smartphone of your choice. Of course it’s important to make sure you’ve thought about mobile sites and apps too. I don’t think there’s ever a need for a specific app or mobile interface to browse the generic content on Vasakronan.se if it’s built and designed right.

Trying out how content could be swiped in potential future apps.

However I definitely think there’s a need for apps that gives landlords, tennants and other target groups the ultimate way to access information and nurture their relation with vasakronan. For these needs we of course designed extra proof of concepts to make sure we didn’t launch anything that could not be developed further.

Now it’s time to put the concept into action – we need more pro’s!

Brands like Vasakronan hire me to make change happen. My assignment usually includes a strategy phase, a concept phase and a visualisation phase. With a set of different tools such as strategic and technical analysis, problem definition, conceptual and creative develoment and prototyping I help brands, in this case Vasakronan, to establish a communication platform. It’s extremely important to deliver the conceptual and creative concepts without having to think about your own organisation – this is why I do not recommend having an agency that delivers both the concept and the implementation – it usually ends up being something that agency makes money off suggestion.

In this case me and Caroline together with different freelancers delivered a concept that focused on creating the best possible solution online for Vasakronan – now it was time to find the best fitted consultant that could take our concept and implement it. In order to find that consultant we, together with Vasakronan, selected five agencies. After having heard the agencies present themselves we also asked them to present how they were to implement the concept we had delivered for Vasakronan. Britny, Swedish kick ass web agency that I’d been working with before, delivered a fantastic presentation. It was clear that both their creative department and technical department understood why we’d chosen the solutions we had and how we intended them to be implemented.

The listing of properties – the concept brought all the way by Britny

Said and done – Britny and Vasakronan came to an agreement and they started working on the implementation of our project. From our side Caroline left the project and I stayed on board to secure that the concept we’d delivered would be treated right. It was also important to make sure the kept to our technical strategy when using WordPress as the content management system. We’d built in tons of strategical and graphical executions that only made sense if you’d built them into WordPress the right way. The team at Britny did a fantastic job when taking our concept further. They treated it with great care. I especially found it rewarding that their lead designer, Daniel Stridsberg and head of tech Fillip Wastman, embraced the design platform I had initiated and nurtured it well. Except for Daniel and Fillip the team consisted of Iyob Mesfin, Jonas Rogert and Jonas Eriksson all equally important.

The result?

Vasakronan has managed to revamp their online presence in a magnificant way. The new site is easier to use, we’ve taken away all second level menues we’ve could, the design is on brand and may I say so – ground braking in terms of sitting on top of a content management system, it’s like nothing else and differentiates Vasakronan from their competition and it works like a charm on any platform. Knowing what they’re up to behind the scenes I’m proud to say this is one of the projects I’m most pleased with during 2011! But then again – that’s what I think

Thank you Britny for sticking to our guns. Thank you Vasakronan for daring to be different!

Rock on!

If you wanna be my brand!

ronnestam — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 04:11:20 +0000

If you’re my brand: Never let me down. Keep on making me smile. Stay cool. Always surprise me. Change when you need to, but stay true to your heritage. Dress nice. Make sure I don’t have to hide our love. If you do something bad – stay honest and tell the truth cause I will forgive you. And finally! Never ever take me for granted.

Tokyo in sunrise – A Brand that didn’t let me down. Taken from my Instagram feed.

If you’ll stick to these simple guidelines – I’m prepared to spend the rest of my life with you and give you my all my love. If not – get lost!

Continuing building the Marginalen Bank brand with a new commercial

ronnestam — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:59:23 +0000

As of monday this week you can spot the latest TVC created for Marginalen Bank.

This sweet little flick is the latest short film (I see it more as a short film than a TVC) in a series of three (1 & 2) created by me for Marginalen Bank, the brand I took part in developing and launching last fall. This time I’ve written and Art Directed it. As usual I’ve partnered with Caroline Karlström to make sure the project was delivered on time and quality. This time we contracted Mr Potemkin, aka Magnus Östergren to make sure the dream came alive.

Malin Erkonnen made us all smile with her fantastic illustrations and finally as always we had Erik Heusler produce the music.

This is of course just one of many activities going on right now but I wanted to share this little beauty with you.

I hope you like it!

Passion Makes You:

ronnestam — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 05:44:25 +0000

My daughter Ebba has a passion for Swings. I have a passion for Instagram.

Run a million miles
Walk deserts
Dive to the bottom of the sea
Fly to the moon
Surf monsters
Jump skyscrapers
Dance all night
Party all day
Get a tattoo
Kiss first
Do stupid things
Do bad things
Do good things
Love forever and leave behind
Passion makes us switch.

Passion never takes sides. Passion is never right or wrong. Passion is purely a small spark of genius hidden inside our hearts that guides us into the unknown. Passions is what drives us, it’s the fuel of excellence and success. Find your passion and live!

Answering 10 questions about the future of communication (in Croatia to some extent)

ronnestam — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 09:49:39 +0000

About 2 month ago I was invited to Best Internet and beautiful Zagreb in Croatia to host a full day workshop on the future of communication. Me another 85 people had a great day where I mixed speaking sessions with, what I love the most, open discussions.

Before this event I was contacted by the leading business newspaper in Croatia – Lider. They wanted me to answer 10 questions that they would base an article on. Today as I was cleaning my desktop on my computer I thought – since you probably understand as much Croatian as I do I thought this could be a good blog post. So here we go.

Johan Ronnestam answers 10 questions about the future of communication (in Croatia to some extent

1. Once you are on the internet your competition is whole world and people speak in one language (mostly english). How can local brands stay local or share national values while ‘living’ in virtual world?

Johan Ronnestam: By being just that – Local. In a globalized world people will look for the unique brand that delivers something beyond what you can shop in every parts of the world, every country and every city. The times when we all wanted Starbucks coffee is soon to be over. Everyone who’s been traveling the last ten years recognize the feeling. You travel all over the world only to find the same brands you can shop for at home. Branding and marketing has always been about differentiation – and that’s why building on local uniqueness is the way forward.

2. You wrote that brand should offer value, not just sell, sell, sell…They should teach consumers some skills or just share knowledge. I agree, but how to explain it to CEO or CFO? What and when could they expect return on investment?

Johan Ronnestam: First off. It’s really not that different from a non-digital world. The brands you wanna come back to are the brands that offer more than their product. Traditionally this used to be about well educated sales personel, customer magazines, cliniques and more. It’s time to move this knowledge online but with the understanding that online means transparency. It’s easier than ever to compare products and features. So – the online salesmen (sites) gotta focus on value over sales. Sales will follow. When it comes to return on investment I think the answer is long term growth in social networks, search and obviously brand recognition. The social and search part can easily be measured. The brand recognition is tough to isolate – but that’s always been the case. Hasn’t it?

3. Do we really know our consumers? I mean, which are the easiest ways to get to know them or test them?

Johan Ronnestam: No we don’t. We tend to think we know our consumers but the consumer (if you even wanna call them that today) today is not the same as yesterday. People are more like chameleons. We tend to jump back and forth when it comes to identity. We simply don’t wanna be tagged. Online however we can really know what our visitors do and how they perform tasks. But don’t fall into the trap thinking you know who they are. A 18 year old guy from the suburbs wont react the same way twice.

4. What are your predictions concerning investment in internet as a media? What is going to happen with traditional media?

Johan Ronnestam: In a near future I don’t think we’ll look at the landscape as a media landscape. We’ll look at it more as a formated landscape. What I mean with this is that TV commercial won’t be a TV commercial any more. A forced video message however will live on. We’ll always be in need of distributing messages containing products and brands that people never heard of – for that we can not rely on search, social media etc. Someone has to find it first. PR and ambassadors marketing will of course mean a lot for those kind of messages but there will always be a place for interrupted messages like the ones TV, Print and Outdoor deliver today. The effect of the digital revolution however is that the information gathering, the desire and even the sales part of the consumer journey will be digitalised and therefor transformed.

5. In Croatia experts talk about digital revolution, internet marketing campaigns etc, but still, none has the courage to invest or try those virtual project like those in western market. What should the do first (as beginners) and what are the things they should know before investing in internet communication? What are the biggest signals that market (consumers) are ready for that kind of communication?

Johan Ronnestam: Prototypes. Experiments. Failure. Success. Meaning – you’ll have to mark a certain part of your media budget, not your production budget, for experiments that might lead you forward. The internet is unique in the sense that no two solutions are the same for two brands. You have to find your own way forward. One thing is for sure – as we’re seeing a shift in how people consumer brands we’ll also see new winners and losers on the market. The looses, as always when a behavior changes, will definitely be the ones that doesn’t welcome change.

6. How to boost traffic and where does it come from mostly?

Johan Ronnestam: Great brands today and tomorrow are built on great products. If you got em’ people will find you. If you’re product doesn’t stand the competition. Start there.

7. You wrote that faces, copy and design are very important and warned that competitors are just click away. Can you tell us something about that?

Johan Ronnestam: In the real world if you’ve found your way to a car dealer and everything doesn’t meet your demand it’s still for you to get into the car, drive for 30 minutes and find that next dealer. Online that click is just one step away. If your audience doesn’t get your design, understand your navigation, like your tone of voice he/she will type a new search into Google and move to the next brand.

8. What can we expect in future? Boom of conversational marketing? What about virtual advertising?

Johan Ronnestam: I actually think we’re in a 10-15 year period where small brands can bloom. But once those large brands find their way online for real (yep I think most of them suck at online communication) we’ll see how Adwords auctions will be about money again – and large brands got loads of that stuff. However – I do hope some of those small brands find their way up on the global scene

9. What are your thoughts on trend of branded web-series?

Johan Ronnestam: If focused on value regarding the category in which their products exist – great. Otherwise mostly stupid.

10. Internet is all about speed…What about emotions?

Johan Ronnestam: Technology and user interfaces is not what the brand is about. It’s merely the means to deliver the consumer experience of the product. So, photography, video and copy equals emotions. The actual websites however should focus on conversion, usability. By doing so you’ll end up having consumers feeling positive. I think Apple proves that both can be achieved side by side.

Ah. And before you leave this post. Here’s the presentation I held:

110412 workshop in Zagreb

View more presentations from Johan Ronnestam

Hur följer du bäst konversationen under 24 Hours Live? Så här:

ronnestam — Wed, 04 May 2011 13:40:10 +0000

Du har säkert sett att jag själv och Göran Adlén har kommit på den fantastiska idéen att prata om kommunikation, trender, teknologi, reklam, design och massor av andra aktuella ämnen oavbrutet i 24 timmar i sträck på Clarion Sign Hotel nu på fredag den 6:e maj. Och som om det inte var nog – Robin Danehav, med stöd av Petter Karlsson, sitter också vaken 24 timmar i sträck och ser till att du som inte kan komma och hälsa på oss istället kan följa spektaklet LIVE på nätet.

Besök oss gärna på plats

Nu har du tre val. Vi hoppas att du väljer ett eller alla av följande alternativ:
1. Kom ner till Clarion Sign Hotel och hälsa på någon gång under de 24 timmarna.
2. Följ du livesändningen på nätet.
3. Följ konversationen kring eventet genom att bevaka #24live. Vi kommer göra vårt bästa för att svara på frågor och kommentarer.

Oavsett vilket val du gör tänkte vi ge dig några hållpunkter som kanske gör din planering enklare.

24 Hours Live 6:e – 7:e Maj / hållpunkter:

12:00-13:00 – Genialitet eller galenskap?
Introduktion till 24 hours. Vad är det här egentligen? Ett inledande samtal om framtidens möte och hur möteskulturen kommer att förändras.

13:00-15:00 – Vi intar lunch och slaktar sanningar.
Varför måste vi glömma bort alla de gamla teorierna. En hederlig slakt av många gamla sanningar. En historisk tillbakablick där inga modeller eller teorier är heliga.

15:00-16:00 – Ge fingret till etablissemanget!
Varför och hur kan vi trotsa de gamla spelreglerna. Vad kommer att hända med skivbolagen bokförlag etc i framtiden?

16:00-17:00 – Måste man lära sig Hallands floder fram och baklänges.
Tankar om framtidens skola

18:00-19:00 – Personliga varumärken.
Om man ska bli ett personligt varumärke måste man bli bra på något först – tankar om hur man bygger upp sitt personliga varumärke och varför så många kommer att älska ihjäl sig själv.

19:00-20:00 – Flopp och diss-timmen.
Historiska felbeslut. Varför har så många tagit fel beslut genom åren och varför bygger företagen lådbilar istället för att vara kreativa på riktigt?

20:00-23:00 – Middag med samtal om framtiden.
Samtal om teknologi, sociala media, 3D printing. Miljö, CSR och varför framtiden handlar om de små aktörerna

23:00-24:00 – Sammanfattning av de första 12 timmarna.
Lagom trötta ägnar vi en timme åt att sammanfatta vad som sagts och upplevts så här långt.

24:00-01:00 – Discografi
Vi plockar låtar, Googlar årtalet och reflekterar över hur marknadsföringsstrategier och reklam såg ut då.

01:00-03:00 – Shopping sphree.
Prata prylar och gadgets och skarp test av e-handeln. Vi hoppas inte plånboken sinar helt.

03:00-05:00 – Passion, drömmar och så mycket mer.
Samtal om livet. Göran och Johan berättar om sina liv.

06:00-07:00 – Morgonsamtal.
Reflekterar över natten

07:00-09:00 – Långfrukost med diskussion om yrket som marknadsförare, kommunikatör, designers osv.

09:00-10:00 – Framtidens thincasting.
Vad innebär video för framtiden. Hur har det funkat att sända 22 timmar så här långt i sträck. Robin Danehav ger sin syn på eventet och tankar om framtidens produktioner

10:00-11:30 – Sammanfattning av dygnet så här långt.
Johan och Göran presenterar sina respektive framtidsscenario. Det här tror vi!

11:30-11:45 – Vad händer nu.
Var hittar man filmerna. Vad kommer hända i framtiden. Johan och Göran berättar mer om 24 live konceptet.

11:45-12:00 – Alla 3 får 5 minuter att reflektera.
Kommer vi göra det här igen? Blev det bra?

12:00 – Nu ska vi hem och SOVA!

Art, Experiment, Inspiration or Plain Stupidity – Introducing Adlen & Ronnestam 24 Hours Live by Danehav

ronnestam — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 07:50:59 +0000

Me and partner in crime Göran Adlén, one of Swedens most hired and admired speakers on future trends, had a nice lunch a couple of weeks ago. Half way into a wonderful Pizza at Vapiano we suddenly cracked, what probably is our most stupid or…genius idea so far:

“Why don’t we lock our selves up somewhere and chat away about trends, communication, design, technology, the environment, the world and much more for 24 hours without any sleep or pause. NO SLEEP – NO PAUSE! and broadcast it – Live!?”

Seconds later I was off the phone with Robin Danehav, thincasting mastermind, who answered in seconds “I’m in!”.

Göran Adlén & Johan Ronnestam 24 Hours Live at Clarion Sign Hotel! Thincasted by Robin Danehav.

The event will be broadcasted live, both here on my blog and on the campaign website 24 Hours.se, as well as performed on stage at Clarion Sign Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden. So, mark the 6th and 7th of May 2011 in your calendars. Ah, almost forgot. If you’re on Twitter. Use the #24live if you wanna tag along.

Oh, and of course it’s all free. If you wanna pay something – pay me a Tweet or a Facebook link.

See you at lunchtime on the 6th of may!

ps. For you english speaking readers – the event will be held in Swedish but followed with 24 videos summarising the event – these will be text translated.

The Essentials Of Great Branding Building

ronnestam — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 05:38:02 +0000

There are tons of consultants (including myself) selling branding services around the world. Most tend to say (not including myself) that branding is complexed. A quick search on Google image search reveals tons of models. What if we look beyond those models and all those advices that often lead to heavy brand manuals that no one wants?

What is the core of great branding? Here’s my five cents:

1. Clarity

What are you about? Make sure that is clear to your audience either straight up or over time.

Carl Lagerfeldt and Lady Gaga knows great branding!

Clarity is about teaching your potential fans about what you are about and sticking to it. That doesn’t necessarily mean doing the same thing over and over. Stay exotic!

2. Consistency

Whatever you are, make sure you keep doing it over time.

Porsche knows great branding!

Great brands can be found quickly but can only be built over time. People argue Google is one of the most quickly built brands in the world. I beg to differ. It’s one of the most quickly globally acknowledged brands in the world but that doesn’t mean it’s a strong brand. Say Google out of some strange reason went bankrupt today. I don’t think there’s any value in the brand in 5 years time outside the business of search. Porsche on the other side – that’s been built over the last century – would stand the tests of time.

3. Excellence

And whatever you do. Deliver your brand values with excellence in EVERY part of the customer journey. (I’ve written a longer post on this before) If your brand values are quality – deliver the highest possible quality.

Apple knows great branding!

If your brand values are the opposite (say like Rent-A-Wreck) – deliver the opposite with the highest possible passion. It’s not about everyone being top notch quality in terms of design – it’s about being true to your brand and deliver that truth in the best possible way you can.

3 things. Get going!

Stay Ahead Of The Competition – Here’s How I Do It.

ronnestam — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:36:17 +0000

Back in 1980, Michael Porter (most famous of creating Porter’s Five Forces) published the study Competitive-Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. It was more or less the beginning of what you today would call Competitive Intelligence - the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization.

Be Curious. Wonderfully photographed by Patricia Glogowski.

Personally I think that time has come for change. Organisation and brands today tend to believe managers are supposed to create business development departments that make sure the company stays ahead of competition. I don’t agree. In the complex world we live in it’s time to make each and every employee a part of that competitive intelligence process. In other words it’s up to you. You are the ones that can make it happen.

A constant flow of information.

The world is becoming smaller and smaller. The Internet has erased borders and will sooner or later erase even language barriers. As a result your company isn’t fighting the local competitor around the corner any more. Your brand and even you are going global. When you apply for your next job you’ll find yourself beat by someone who doesn’t even speak your language. On top of this the things you know might not even be worth knowing tomorrow. In fact, the half-life of your knowledge has gone from a lifetimes worth to three years according to research Fredrik Svensson referred to (YouTube in Swedish) as we (and my speech in Swedish) both spoke at Digdel some time ago.

As a result of all this we all have to listen, read and learn more about everything, every day, and every hour. It’ll be what your success depends on in the future.

Here’s Johan Ronnestam’s formula for keeping track of the world.

Back in 1996 I started to gather information online with different tools. It’s funny cause I’ve never enjoyed reading books on trends but online reading never seems to kill my curiosity. I guess it’s the fact that online information often is as fresh as it can come. It’s real time. So, here we go:

Netvibes – My hub of inspiration

My first and foremost tool is my Netvibes reader account that I’ve written about before. It’s filled with all kinds of things and to make sure I read the feeds I’ve entered the Netvibes site as my home page which means that every time I open my browser I’m being fed good things from all around the world – every day, every hour and every minute.

Netvibes – The source of my inspiration

Netvibes is simply an RSS reader that I’ve filled with about 350 blogs and websites that I think is necessary to keep track of. The content is a mix of both things I do have to read and other stuff that surprises me every day. When you’re looking to keep track of the outside world – make sure you’re constantly surprised by things you didn’t know you wanted to know about.

On top of that I’ve also filled it with filtered feeds. As an example I’ve gathered about 70 design blogs that are being pulled into one feed with the help of Yahoo Pipes. Another example is reading the top most saved bookmarks on Delicious. This way you’ll make sure that you read stuff you never dreamed of reading.

Netvibes is also the ultimate tool when it comes to creating dashboards in order to keep track of both your own brand and potentially your competitors. Head over to my other post on that subject.

Sharing is caring
Since I believe in sharing I also decided to post my Netvibes file here (right click to download) so that you can get going faster than you ever thought was possible. Then head over to my guide on how to install it here.

Twitter – Real time social P2P information distribution

Writing about things like this and not mentioning Twitter (here’s my Twitter account by the way) would be a crime. For many people Twitter seems like that stupid 140 character social network where people tell the world (that doesn’t listen) that they just brewed a cup of coffee. Nothing could be more wrong. Twitter, to me, is the ultimate combination of knowing what’s up in the world, keeping in touch with friends and other people who you don’t really know but might be interested what you’re up to.

Once you’ve registered an account you should of course start to follow a bunch of people. On Twitter there’s this thing called ‘follow friday’ where you more or less recommend your followers who to follow. Other people on Twitter tend to follow everyone back that follows them. In my case I actually try to read most tweets through out the day and given the fact that I’ve got more than 4000 followers it would be impossible to do just that. So in my case I’d say that my #FF are the 429 people I follow today.

In Twitter you can create your own lists (here are some I’m listed in) or follow other peoples lists. This is also unmatched. If you quickly wanna get updated (in real time) on a specific subject. Just go ahead and search for some authorities and then have a look at which lists these people are placed in. Follow one of those lists and you’ll be amazed how many great things you’ll learn in no time.

Don’t get stuck with the Twitter site. Use Tweetdeck or something similar.

When you start your Twitter venture. Don’t forget to download some kind of Twitter reader to your desktop. Using Twitter via their webpage just wont work over time. There are tons of different tools you can use. Personally I use Tweetdeck for my computer and an app called Osfoora for the iPad and iPhone. As with everything else – keep experimenting and try different tools as you get more used to this social network.

Finally, using Flipboard as stated below, in combination with Twitter and Twitter lists is the ultimate laid back ‘keeping up to date’ tool.

Flipboard – Social Reading.

This app for my iPad is the most wonderful tool in the world. Not only does it let me read my Facebook accounts and my Twitter feeds as a book. On top of that I can enter other Twitter lists, searches, Flickr accounts and most importantly Google reader accounts.

Flipboard lets you read feeds relaxed and focused

What I’ve done here is analyzed my Netbives reading behavior and then collected the 50 most important ones. I’ve then imported these into my Google reader account that I personally don’t use in my computer since I think the presentation mode stresses the hell out of me and makes it impossible for me to stay on top of my content. But with the help of Flipboard that problems is solved.

By downsizing my Netvibes feeds into the most important feeds and reading these on my iPad I’ve got the perfect tool to keep track of the world when I’m on a plane, a bus, a train or just wanna lay down on the couch and consume inspiration.

Delicious – Social Bookmarking

Another tool of mine is Delicious. It’s more or less a social replacement of your bookmark manager that you’ve got in your browser. The difference is that it’s cloud based and therefor always accessible. Comment your bookmarks and tag them with keywords and slowly but surely you’ll turn your bookmark history into a searchable history. Personally I like to tag things with both keywords, client names that they might be important for and finally cases that I often use when I speak in public.

(Note. Yahoo has signaled that they might shut Delicious down. But it seems it wont happen any time soon)

Instapaper – Turning Internet Pages Into ‘Books’

Then of course there are always resource that might seem to long to read of the screen. The computer screen that is. The Instapaper combined with your iPad or iPhone is the ultimate tool.

Instapaper turns ugly websites into a beautiful read

When you end up finding yourselves short of time, simply save the link to Delicious and then click ‘read later’ that you’ve place on your bookmark bar once you’ve created an account over at Instapaper. Boom – now that site of yours is transformed into book-look-alike that you can open on your mobile device. Once there you can favorite, archive or delete the text.

Ouora – Ask And You’ll Be Answered

Got a question. Quora probably got the answer. Otherwise just go ahead and ask. It’s as simply as that.

LinkedIn groups – Social professionals

LinkedIn hasn’t really turned in to my favorite tool just yet. But I do like the groups in there. The best part of that are usually the summaries that are being sent to me via email. I’m a member of some 40+ groups at the moment and even though lots of them are filled with spam – every now and then a pile of diamonds pour out of that network.

Facebook – Reach more than 600 million people!

Last but not least. Let’s not forget Facebook in this post. Finally, tons of good things come to me via Facebook. Both from the people I’m connected with, but also through the groups and pages I’ve liked. Use the search in Facebook and find the groups and pages that match your interests.

So. That’s how I do it. Of course I could go on about podcasts, Slideshare, YouTube, Flickr tons of other sites. But the stuff mention above is what I constantly come back to every day.

Feel free to leave your own tips in the comment field!

Here’s To The Crazy Ones

ronnestam — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:56:38 +0000

I am at Bromma airport in Sweden on my way to speak in Gothenburg tomorrow. As I’m sitting in the lounge surfing the web I suddenly found myself reading the copy of what in my opinion is one of the most inspiring texts in the world. The think different campaign by Apple in 1997.

To some people it’s an ad. To me – it’s the stuff changes are made of.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.