Maybe it’s just because the ‘Gift Giving’ season is upon us, but it feels like Luxury is ‘back from the dead’. On the cover of Forbes Magazine, Bernard Arnault shares his ambition to sell luxury to emerging markets. In the same week, Bain&Co’s luxury industry expert Claudia D’Arpizio traveled to Amsterdam to talk about ‘the state of the industry’. Whoever thought that luxury goods will be gone for a while… think again.
Last week i had the pleasure of hosting ‘Beyond Green‘ – a conference about sustainability in fashion, organised by Amsterdam Fashion Institute. Beforehand, I was pretty hesitant, i have to admit : the concepts of fashion and sustainability are complicated to bring together in an interesting and fun way – fashion people tend to be more interested in the creation of beauty than in cleaning up the industry.
Fortunately, Beyond Green is not about sustainability per se – it’s about change, new ideas and innovation. We had a diverse and inspiring list of speakers lined up to tackle this challenge. Also, to my delight, the team at AMFI had adopted a strong ‘Denim’ theme throughout the event. Always a good way to grab my attention… Read the rest of this entry »
This week i had the pleasure of being invited to PINC, a TED-like conference about People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity (thanks to COO at Getronics) organised in Zeist, The Netherlands. I had spoken to many PINC devotees in the past years but never been able to attend.
The range of speakers was very stimulating: lectures on wireless electricity (in shops from next year, apparently!), A-frame holiday homes (i want one), images from the microcosm (strange beauty) and the history of the entire world in just over 20 minutes. Truly inspiring.
But the most refreshing example of ‘thinking outside the box’ i’d heard in a long time came from celebrity comedian/conferencier Freek de Jonge. His brilliance came to life through a song, which he accompanied on an electric guitar. Nothing special at first glance… until he told us he’d only been playing for one year. Read the rest of this entry »
Many of our clients struggle with the same question : how to give valuable ideas the elbow room to develop properly; how to protect fledgling ideas from ‘short term’ budget and performance pressures.
What to do if they don’t ‘fit the mold’ or are harder to quantify? What if you need partnerships ‘with the outside’ to develop and monetize them? What if they seem strange but feel right? Read the rest of this entry »
Our initiative to set up a ‘leading platform for high-grade and sustainable denim/jeans’ made some ‘giant steps’ yesterday thanks to an Expert Cocreation workshop and a seminar at A’dam Fashion Week. Read the rest of this entry »
Well OK, maybe not the King, but the next best thing in any case…Mayor Job Cohen. Last Thursday night I received the IJ-prize (an award given to entrepreneurs for their contributions to the City of Amsterdam) from the Mayor at the amazing Hermitage.
It was an overwhelming experience: an hour’s worth of compliments, award from the mayor and then drinks with your family and best friends at the Hermitage, paid for by PWC! Seriously though it is an enormous honour to be listed with iconic Amsterdammers like Joop van den Ende, Geert Mak, Bob Pinedo, Ernst Veen, Jack Cohen, Rahma El Mouden and Maarten Frankenhuis, who have each in their own way changed the City for the better.
I’d like to thank the team at PriceWaterHouseCoopers, Mariette Hoitink for her wonderful speech and everyone else for their kind congratulations, it was really a very special evening indeed. I really appreciate everyone taking the time off to be there with me. For those of you that missed it, here’s a link to an item on AT5. Read the rest of this entry »
Last Tuesday night, i had the pleasure of speaking to Shai Agassi, founder of the BetterPlace company, after a special lecture organised by Picnic and the Mayor of Amsterdam. I had naturally seen and loved his TED talk (those who haven’t… do!) about his BetterPlace initiative, but what struck me again was the clarity of his argumentation.
-He set out to solve ‘Peace in the Middle East’.
-He figured out that what Israel needs to do is end its dependency on oil
-The Arab nations need to modernize, which they will only do when their ‘magic’ and almost free oil billions stop flowing in.
So: his ambition became to bring the price of oil down to zero (by making it useless for cars). Read the rest of this entry »
Maemo – at the risk of stating the obvious -is Nokia’s Linux-based operating system, developed by a global community of open source programmers and enthusiasts. The Maemo community is independent from Nokia and is run by its own peer-elected council. All future high-end Nokia devices (Like the new N900 out soon) will run on Maemo, which means that users will be able to program, develop and share applications freely: a great perspective!
This weekend, the Maemo community organised its third annual conference at Amsterdam’s Westergasfabriek. Parallel to the ‘regular’ conference program, Fronteer Strategy was asked to develop a co-creative development process on the topic of ‘Creativity on the Move’.
One of our current projects combines just about all my professional fields of interest, as well as one of my strongest personal passions. I’m as surprised as anyone to find two of its main components to be ‘the City of Almere’ (a relatively new town to the right of Amsterdam) and ‘sustainability’.
Due to my former role as program director of Amsterdam International Fashion Week, i’m regularly asked to take part in discussions on economic & regional policy, especially relating to the development of creative industries and fashion business. During one of such discussions with the ambitious Economic Affairs team from the City of Almere, we got talking about one of my favourite topics : Jeans. Read the rest of this entry »
We help brands to innovate. Successfully. We are a management consulting firm based in Amsterdam. We specialise in Innovation, Brand Development & Co-creation. We explore the boundaries of companies and organisations. Find us at www.fronteerstrategy.com
Maybe it’s just because the ‘Gift Giving’ season is upon us, but it feels like Luxury is ‘back from the dead’. On the cover of Forbes Magazine, Bernard Arnault shares his ambition to sell luxury to emerging markets. In the same week, Bain&Co’s luxury industry expert Claudia D’Arpizio traveled to Amsterdam to talk about ‘the state of the industry’. Whoever thought that luxury goods will be gone for a while… think again.
This week i had the pleasure of being invited to PINC, a TED-like conference about People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity (thanks to COO at Getronics) organised in Zeist, The Netherlands. I had spoken to many PINC devotees in the past years but never been able to attend.
Many of our clients struggle with the same question : how to give valuable ideas the elbow room to develop properly; how to protect fledgling ideas from ‘short term’ budget and performance pressures.
Making Plans
Well OK, maybe not the King, but the next best thing in any case…Mayor Job Cohen. Last Thursday night I received the IJ-prize (an award given to entrepreneurs for their contributions to the City of Amsterdam) from the Mayor at the amazing Hermitage.
Last Tuesday night, i had the pleasure of speaking to Shai Agassi, founder of the BetterPlace company, after a special lecture organised by Picnic and the Mayor of Amsterdam. I had naturally seen and loved his TED talk (those who haven’t… do!) about his BetterPlace initiative, but what struck me again was the clarity of his argumentation.
Standing on each-others’ shoulders
Love for Denim. And…Almere ?
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