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The Institute of Glorious Failures

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 »

House of Denim at Amsterdam Fashion Week

Making Plans

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.

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Fronteer Presents: Co-creation Crash Course 2010

Fronteer Presents: An introduction to the theory and practice of co-creation in business

Co-creation is currently one of the hottest topics in innovation and management theory, but the benefits, risks, best practices and repercussions are less than clear to many managers.

Each session will include a presentation & discussion of a recent case by one of our clients and end with informal drinks, during which you will have the opportunity to share thoughts & experiences with colleagues from other companies & industries. Register now - a limited number of seats are available per session. Mail us at events@fronteerstrategy.com

When? March 24th & 31st or April 7th
What time? 12.30 - 18.00
Where: Amsterdam centre, The Netherlands
EUR 125,-            Download the flyer here

We definitely hope to see you there.

The King and I

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: http://www.amsterdaminc.tv/2009/11/20/veenhoff-wint-ij-prijs/ Read the rest of this entry »

Business Unusual

thursdayatcompagnietheater

Een filosoof, een research director, een kinderboekenschrijfster, een industrieel ontwerper en een innovatiestrateeg over Business Unusual - van egosysteem naar ecosysteem.

Donderdag 12 november van 11.00u tot 18.00u in het Compagnietheater te Amsterdam.

Interesse om mee te doen aan een inspirerende workshop met onder andere Ad Verbrugge en Martijn Pater? Lees hieronder meer over thursdayatcompagnietheater.

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The Copenhagen Co-creation Manifesto

I have seldomly experienced such a rich event as the Copenhagen Co-creation summit a few weeks ago. The level of discussions and participants was fantastic. I needed weeks to digest all the information. I am back now. What was going on? The Danish Design Association had decided to take a bold step. Why not writing a Co-creation manifesto rather than beating around the bush all the time? Let’s nail it! But we didn’t. Of course not. When you have 30 people co-creating, the answer never comes immediately. It will take some time. Some more thinking. But: I was very happy with the definition my group came up with after the sessions:

- Co-creation unlocks collectivy creativity of people to create deeply relevant solutions -

It might sounds a bit dreamy, but so then the event was. We dreamt about a future world where co-creation would tap into the unlimited resource of collective global brainpower. New solutions would create far better worlds and would end the one-way consumption currently going on.

My conclusion after the event was: yes, co-creation is very difficult - and especially because of how organisations are structured right now - but it is a movement that cannot be stopped. There is no way back. We are all opening up and will refuse to close again.

Read the Manifesto and watch the great video.

The 1% rule in mass-customisation

I was quoted the other day in Dutch newspaper ‘De Pers’. I argued that the 1% principle (1% of each community is a ‘creator’) also holds for mass-customisation. Only the real affecionados are interested in tweaking and personalising their favourite products and brands. However, the generated buzz affects all consumers. The other 99%.

Here is what I said:

“Volgens merkenexpert Martijn Pater van Fronteer Strategy is de groep consumenten die ‘customizet’ relatief klein, maar gaat er een gigantisch marketingeffect van uit. ‘Wij hebben onderzoek gedaan naar het effect van personaliseren op het merk. Daaruit blijkt dat het merk er een open en toegankelijk imago van krijgt, als innovatief wordt gezien en daardoor populairder wordt. Het effect slaat dus over op het hele merk.’ Hij wijst op een slimme actie van Nike ID dat vorig jaar voor de wedstrijd Arsenal-Manchester United bezoekers van zijn website de schoenen van spelers als Wayne Rooney en Cesc Fabregas liet ontwerpen.”