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    • links for 2010-05-29

    • Mai 30, 2010
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    links for 2010-05-27

    • Mai 28, 2010
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    Persuasive Presentation

    Take a look at this video:

    Nick Vujicic is a total inspiration.

    You see, I have been thinking lately about persuasion. Especially the really complicated kinds that go deeper than selling stuff, but touching people and changing their attitude (about themselves or important issues). I believe there are many people out there who tell these kids exactly the same things as Nick, they probably use exact the same words, but their words could never as resounding. Why is that, I wonder?

    I have written down some thoughts about this, but it needs more thinking.

    links for 2010-05-26

    • Mai 27, 2010
    • Links
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    Why I want to work in Planning

    Great news in my mail today: I have been accepted to the Miami Ad School Europe’s Account Planning Boot Camp in Hamburg. The program will start in July.
    I am super-excited about this opportunity and about being able to see St.Pauli play in the German Bundesliga again.

    One of the questions posed for the application was: “Why do want a career in Account Planning?”. Here is what I wrote:

    First, because it is the field that makes the most difference in advertising. My perception is that the outstanding work of the last years was only possible because it had a firm strategic foundation.

    Second, it will be the most challenging and exciting discipline in advertising. We are just at the beginning of the digital age. The maps of human behavior and communication will be redrawn. What a great time to be an explorer!

    And third, because I hate being bombarded with lame, irrelevant and meaningless advertising. I want to change that.

    On a more personal note, I have been excited about account planning and it’s practice since I studied it at the University of Oklahoma. It never let go of me. I kept myself informed and took courses. What I learned I put into practice at my job with DMS, but never worked as a planner.

    I am applying here because I want to turn a hobby into a career.

    links for 2010-05-19

    • Mai 20, 2010
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    PR 101: How to place yourself on the map

    So you are the President of a country whose name sounds like a veneral disease and everybody expects you to wear an iron mask and green cloak. But nobody knows that you exist nor where your obscure European country is actually located.

    So you have tried everything: you brought the Chess World Championship to your capital in your position as the President of the World Chess Federation. You introduced mandatory chess lessons in schools, but still nobody really remembers you, your republic nor heard of a chess child prodigy…

    Here is what you do: You go on television and tell everyone you have been abducted by aliens.

    This is what Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, President / Economic Dictator of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia did. And – Wow! – it worked. Because now I know where Kalmykia is.
    In case you are interested, too: Kalmykia.

    • Mai 15, 2010
    • Weird, fun, video
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    Only Freaks have no Guns (in Afghanistan)

    I just read an interesting piece in this month’s Geo Magazine about the U.S. Army’s HTS (Human Terrain System) program in Afghanistan. The HTS recruits ethnologists and sociologists and brings them to the war theatre to better understand the tribal cultures of Afghanistan.

    Somebody figured out after four years (the HTS started in 2006) that it might be useful to listen to and learn from the people there what is important for them, what motivates them, how do they earn their living, what they want and what they need. Turns out it unravels actual insights into Pashtun communities, helps to understand why some sympathize with the Taliban and how to win them back.

    However, the most intriguing quote for me was this one:

    Many civilian ethnologists complain that their colleagues in combat carry guns. This would  contradict the scientific rule not to put opposites under pressure. These scientists obviously have never been in Afghanistan. A gun is the last thing that would intimidate a Pashtun. Instead, he will consider someone not carrying a gun a freak.

    Important knowledge.

    • Mai 7, 2010
    • People
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