Met SmartPresentations willen we bedrijven, organisaties en keynote speakers ondersteunen bij het creëren van hun presentaties. We kiezen doelbewust voor Powerpoint en Keynote, zodat iedereen de volle vrijheid behoud. Echter, we willen die presentaties naar een hoger grafisch en inhoudelijk niveau tillen. Waarom? Omdat je simpelweg met een sterke presentatie veel meer impact creëert. Een boodschap die blijft kleven. m dat te bereiken combineren we daarbij 4 elementen: story, design, content & marketing.

Om dit allemaal mogelijk te maken hebben we onze Sam een paar weken naar Canada gestuurd, om de knepen van het vak te leren. Over de grote plas ontdekten we dat het creëren van sterke presentaties een echte ‘métier’ is, waarbij ervaren spelers niks anders doen dan bedrijven gespecialiseerd ondersteunen. Hier bestond dit niet echt. Je kan het ook niet studeren. Vandaar onze drive om het zelf in de markt te zetten. En uiteraard met een unieke meerwaarde, die we er vanuit ons standpunt aan toevoegen: onze marketing kijk op de inhoud en de zoektocht naar meer resultaat.

Meer ontdekken? Surf eens naar www.smartpresentations.be. Vragen of denk je aan een leuk project, contacteer ons even.

Maar wat bleef nu na het gesprek van gisteren toch zo’n 24u hangen, los van de de conceptuele fratsen? Het feit dat we allemaal 3 keuzes hebben:

1. Niets doen. In je luie zetel wachten tot de wereld vanzelf beter wordt en hopen dat anderen het oplossen. De weg van de minste moeite dus en voor sommigen wellicht ook de weg van het genieten, met een korte-termijn-visie.

2. Vluchten. Boelke hier pakken, huizeke verkopen, spaarcentjes meenemen en ergens naar Indonesië trekken waar je perfect met € 7.000 euro in een jaar rondkomt. Af en toe komen de vrienden langs (als ze het nog kunnen betalen) en is er elke dag zon en vis in de zee. Op zich geen onaantrekkelijke gedachte, maar stel je even de vraag: is het niet veel te vroeg? Of: zit dit wel echt in het aard van het beestje?

3. Vechten. Blijven er voor gaan, ook al het moeilijk gaat. Creëren, ondernemen en andere motiveren om hetzelfde te doen. Want daar ligt blijkbaar de sleutel: alleen kun je de wereld niet veranderen. De kracht van de ‘crowd’ kan ontzettend groot zijn, als meer mensen in dezelfde richting zouden kijken. En tegelijk zal het steeds moeten vertrekken vanuit een idee en een persoon.

Iedereen heeft natuurlijk de vrije keuze, maar wat is het grote probleem vandaag? We kunnen geen keuze maken. Het grote dilemma van de positieve keuze. Europa maakt die niet, overheden maken die niet en uiteindelijk maakt niemand die niet, want men blijft maar lekker in diezelfde pot rond draaien. Behalve enkele zotten die er gelukkig blijven voor gaan. Wie verdient dan de aandacht? Ik kan er wel een aantal opnoemen, maar bv. woensdag as (9 mei 2012) is er de uitreiking van de JCI Vlaamse Jonge Ondernemer van het jaar. Mijn hoed doe ik nu al af.

As a young man, Peter Thiel competed to get into Stanford. Then he competed to get into Stanford Law School. Then he competed to become a clerk for a federal judge. Thiel won all those competitions. But then he competed to get a Supreme Court clerkship.

Thiel lost that one. So instead of being a clerk, he went out and founded PayPal. Then he became an early investor in Facebook and many other celebrated technology firms. Somebody later asked him. “So, aren’t you glad you didn’t get that Supreme Court clerkship?”

The question got Thiel thinking. His thoughts are now incorporated into a course he is teaching in the Stanford Computer Science Department. (A student named Blake Masters posted outstanding notes online, and Thiel has confirmed their accuracy.)

One of his core points is that we tend to confuse capitalism with competition. We tend to think that whoever competes best comes out ahead. In the race to be more competitive, we sometimes confuse what is hard with what is valuable. The intensity of competition becomes a proxy for value.

In fact, Thiel argues, we often shouldn’t seek to be really good competitors. We should seek to be really good monopolists. Instead of being slightly better than everybody else in a crowded and established field, it’s often more valuable to create a new market and totally dominate it. The profit margins are much bigger, and the value to society is often bigger, too.

Now to be clear: When Thiel is talking about a “monopoly,” he isn’t talking about the illegal eliminate-your-rivals kind. He’s talking about doing something so creative that you establish a distinct market, niche and identity. You’ve established a creative monopoly and everybody has to come to you if they want that service, at least for a time.

His lecture points to a provocative possibility: that the competitive spirit capitalism engenders can sometimes inhibit the creativity it requires.

Think about the traits that creative people possess. Creative people don’t follow the crowds; they seek out the blank spots on the map. Creative people wander through faraway and forgotten traditions and then integrate marginal perspectives back to the mainstream. Instead of being fastest around the tracks everybody knows, creative people move adaptively through wildernesses nobody knows.

Now think about the competitive environment that confronts the most fortunate people today and how it undermines those mind-sets.

First, students have to jump through ever-more demanding, preassigned academic hoops. Instead of developing a passion for one subject, they’re rewarded for becoming professional students, getting great grades across all subjects, regardless of their intrinsic interests. Instead of wandering across strange domains, they have to prudentially apportion their time, making productive use of each hour.

Then they move into a ranking system in which the most competitive college, program and employment opportunity is deemed to be the best. There is a status funnel pointing to the most competitive colleges and banks and companies, regardless of their appropriateness.

Then they move into businesses in which the main point is to beat the competition, in which the competitive juices take control and gradually obliterate other goals. I see this in politics all the time. Candidates enter politics wanting to be authentic and change things. But once the candidates enter the campaign, they stop focusing on how to be change-agents. They and their staff spend all their time focusing on beating the other guy. They hone the skills of one-upsmanship. They get engulfed in a tit-for-tat competition to win the news cycle. Instead of being new and authentic, they become artificial mirror opposites of their opponents. Instead of providing the value voters want — change — they become canned tacticians, hoping to eke out a slight win over the other side.

Competition has trumped value-creation. In this and other ways, the competitive arena undermines innovation.

You know somebody has been sucked into the competitive myopia when they start using sports or war metaphors. Sports and war are competitive enterprises. If somebody hits three home runs against you in the top of the inning, your job is to go hit four home runs in the bottom of the inning.

But business, politics, intellectual life and most other realms are not like that. In most realms, if somebody hits three home runs against you in one inning, you have the option of picking up your equipment and inventing a different game. You don’t have to compete; you can invent.

We live in a culture that nurtures competitive skills. And they are necessary: discipline, rigor and reliability. But it’s probably a good idea to try to supplement them with the skills of the creative monopolist: alertness, independence and the ability to reclaim forgotten traditions.

Everybody worries about American competitiveness. That may be the wrong problem. The future of the country will probably be determined by how well Americans can succeed at being monopolists.

Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal

Zijn er regels? Ja, maar het zijn vuistregels en alles hangt ook af van je hoofdtekst en subteksten. Ze zijn geldig voor de leesbaarheid van je teksten op een te bepalen afstand: Regel 1 (raden we aan) Neem de afstand in cm en vermenigvuldig maal 0,0015. Dus voor een afstand van 200 m betekent dat: 20.000 cm x 0,0015� = lettergrootte 30 cm Regel 2 Neem 1/500ste van de afstand (in cm): Dus voor 200 m = 20.000 cm = lettergrootte is 40 cm

Regel 3 (voor print ads) De ideale corpsgrootte van de letters is afhankelijk van het gekozen formaat. Een goede regel voor een print die op een afstand tussen 1 en 3 m wordt gelezen: Headline:� min. 100pt Subline:� � min. 50pt Body tekst:� min. 25pt

Fonttype

Het ene lettertype is al leesbaarder dan de andere. Lettertypes kunnen dus een ontwerp maken of kraken. Gebruik van cursieve tekst geeft aanleiding tot minder leesbaarheid, zo ook voor een tekst die je volledig in kapitalen plaatsen. Om bepaalde woorden meer te laten opvallen, gebruik je bijvoorbeeld beter vette tekst, of zet je het in een ander kleur.

Een visuele vuistregel

The mouse and the keyboard are the two major clicking sounds. It’s rare, but sometimes you ‘hear’ that people leave the clicking sound ‘on’ on their mobile or smart phone. A mouse has a higher sound compared to the keyboard and you have three types of mouse clicking: one click, a double click and the repetitive clicking (probably an average of seven).

Maybe all irrelevant, right, but what did strike me the most: it doesn’t irritate us. All the time, from dusk till dawn we’re surrounded by clicks. Fast, slow, high, low, affirmative, hestitating. Whatever. Just take a minute and try to listen to that strange vibrating sound that has no rythm or theme. It was just nice experience.

Solid pure golden mouse by MJ

Waarom? Er is nu eenmaal dat verschil tussen mannen en vrouwen als het om de perceptie over die computer gaat. Zoeken, snuisteren op het net is ‘meer voor mannen’. Iets aankopen en betalen via het net, ‘mannen zijn daar veel gemakkelijker in’. Vrouwen stellen zich de vraag ‘en wat als dat ding nu niet doet wat ik wil?’. Daarnaast moeten ze naast de job inderdaad ook vaak nog koken, strijken, wassen, plassen,… (en dat bedoel ik zeker niet denigrerend).� De Walt-veiling was nu een ding, maar ook andere e-commerce sites ervaren hetzelfde probleem, omdat hun doelpubliek net die vrouwen zijn. En dan hebben we het over een leuke doelgroep van 25 tot 40 jaar. Die concreet bereiken en tools aanreiken waardoor ze in alle vertrouwen digitaal zouden shoppen, zoals ze op een zaterdagmiddag in de Veldstraat te Gent zouden doen, zou pas een revolutie zijn. Massa’s opportuniteiten liggen dus nog in het verschiet, als we maar rekening houden met het denkpatroon en de leefwereld van diegene die vaak de portemonnee bepaald. Of moeten we meer vrouwelijke ontwikkelaars hebben?

I commented at the time that reporting only the bad news leads to a more pessimistic mindset in the consumer. The negative impact of negative communication is enormous. Why were journalists always talking about questionable scores from American rating services? Did they have their own secret agenda? Why was there so much attention paid to banks that managed their institutions incompetently? Why only focusing on a few public companies and their poor results, while the real economy is in fact powered by thousands of SMEs that try to do better each and every day?

The answer is probably that cynical news bosses think that bad news sells more. Shouldn’t they consider the impact of such a one-sided approach and the damage it causes to our society? Do they think that entrepreneurs love a negative economic atmosphere? Media occupies a powerful place in society and their recent behavior has proven it.

I spoke this morning to a friend who has a retail shop in Brussels. I asked what the situation was today and the reaction was clear and unequivocal. “Since February, it is going better again. We have had two months like before the so-called crisis and the only reason is that people don’t hear a constant stream of bad financial news anymore. The prior four months were dominated by a continuous flood of negative insights and dire warnings of imminent total financial collapse. In fact some businesses didn’t feel the pinch at all although it is true that the man in the street was scared and did not buy goods and services in their usual manner.”

People require correct information and yes, this is often the direct result of the efforts of investigative journalists. A free and accurate press is at the very heart of all of our hard won liberties and progress. But it is essential that they play their real role in a free society which is reporting the truth in a fair and unbiased way and let the public decide how to view what is going on. There is news and there is opinion. Opinion must never be disguised as news nor selectively reported. The news media can make or break a person’s or a business’s reputation and even a society’s spirit. Perception is everything. They have the power to drive their audience with their words, and that audience needs to be able to trust that the news is accurately and fully reported in a balanced manner. This is a responsibility that hopefully will be taken into account as the situation begins to return to normal.

The role of journalism in our economic world

By Claire Gascoigne for the The Times

Two leading figures in the luxury sector argue the case for and against embracing technology and online selling, writes Clare Gascoigne

Andre Loult: Chief financial officer of luxury and leather goods retailers Longchamp Poppy Charles: Brand manager at Savile Row tailors H. Huntsman & Sons

“There’s been a change in the mindset of the consumer in the past ten to fifteen years,” says Mr Louit. “High fashion brands have changed the way women buy; they expect something new on a regular basis and all the luxury brands are having to cope with this trend.”

Luxury no longer simply means the highest quality goods. Developing and maintaining a luxury brand means creating a whole lifestyle image, and technology plays a key part in that, he says. “The key word in the luxury brands and technology debate is consistency. We have our own history and tradition, and we want to present ourselves in the same way in this new media as we would do in a bricks and mortar store. The story is the same; we’re not changing the way we are. It’s more a matter of form than substance.”

Longchamp has embraced technology for nearly a decade, having started selling its folding bag online back in 2003. “We entered the e-business world with the idea of customising the bag; the customer is able to pick the shape, the handle, the colour and make it unique,” he says. “It is something different to what happens in a bricks and mortar store, where such an offering would take up space and need someone dedicated to walking you through the process.”

Customisation is still a part of the Longchamp website, but it has developed other technology-rich elements, such as videos of ready-to-wear clothes and a mini film, Oh! My dog, by choreographer and director Blanca Li, while previous years have seen successful collaborations with model Kate Moss.

Facebook and Twitter are also part of the mix, with behind-the-scenes films and interviews with Longchamp’s creative director to explain the “Longchamp” woman, as well as frequently updated comment and product images.

“The idea is to show that there is something fresh, it’s not a case of showing one season’s products and then having to wait for the next season before the website changes,” says Mr Louit.

Technology is also key to attracting a younger customer, he says. “We have to keep up with this new world, so we need to be found on this media, though it needs to be presented in a way that is very close to our stores. We use the two to create the brand environment.”

Certainly the increasing use of technology does not change the need for a high-street presence. “It goes both ways,” says Mr Louit. “We have customers coming to our stores, who have checked the website at home with their families or friends, and also people coming into the shops wanting to touch and feel the products, but who then go home and buy online at 10 o’clock at night.”

But central to the successful use of technology is having the right products, he believes. “You have to have products that appeal to younger customers, otherwise it’s useless.” For Longchamp, it is the folding bag (Le Pliage range) which is often the entry point for new customers; no doubt partly due to its price, which is significantly lower than many of the fine leather bags that are Longchamp staples.

“The website is a learning curve for the brand; it showcases bags with higher price points as well as the less expensive ranges,” he says.

At the end of the day, technology is simply another channel to amuse and impress customers. What counts is the interaction between the customer and the company. “If the final contact is not right, then all the effort and money spent to get to that point will be wasted,” says Mr Louit, “And it’s exactly the same on the web.” “What we do hasn’t changed in over a century,” says Ms Charles “You can’t order a bespoke suit online and you shouldn’t be able to. It’s a personal and unique service.”

Savile Row, the iconic home of fine tailoring, has its shop fronts, but to call those who work here retailers is somewhat missing the point. This is part craftsmanship – it takes six years to become a cutter, and that’s only the starting point – part heritage industry – Huntsman’s illustrious clients include Edward VII, Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Lawrence Olivier – and part theatre – the shop, with its leather sofas, roaring fire and pair of stag’s heads left by a customer in the 1920s, would seem a better setting for Downton Abbey’s Earl of Grantham than retail expert Mary Portas.

“It’s all rather soulless online,” says Ms Charles. “Customers like coming into the shop; it’s part of the tradition and history of Huntsman. They want to see the familiar faces [each client has a dedicated salesperson and cutter]; they come here to be recognised and welcomed. We can explain a lot about who we are and what we do on our website, but a website won’t make you a cup of tea.”

A Huntsman suit is the ultimate in luxury tailoring, taking three or four fittings and on average 85 hours’ work to create. A bespoke suit has its own individually made pattern, and at Huntsman your personal paper pattern goes into the archive and is kept – well, until you no longer need it.

“A Huntsman suit is almost sculpted to the body and you have to measure the customer properly to be able to do that,” says Ms Charles. “Endless companies will make you a suit online, but they are not measuring the customer properly.”

Though many clients research Savile Row via the net before choosing a tailor, the process of bespoke requires a personal visit, if for no other reason than it would be hard work to click through pictures of the thousands of cloths available. Huntsman makes much of its own cloth, in conjunction with historic mills, such as Fox Brothers or the Islay Woollen Mill, and customers will wait for a particular tweed to be woven rather than rush into buying.

“People come for the experience and the service. Many of the choices in a suit are about communication and people rely on the guidance of a salesperson. Our people are paid to explain face to face. Things haven’t changed in so many respects,” she says.

Huntsman does, of course, use technology. It uses email to keep in touch with clients; just under a third of customers live overseas, so email is a valuable means of making contact without having to worry about time zones. The company also now logs customer information electronically, rather than in the magnificent leather-bound ledgers that make up its archive. But sister company Budd shirtmakers has only just joined the 21st century, having made do with a fax until last year.

“Technology does make a difference and, by the end of this year, you will be able to buy some items, such as ties and nightshirts, online. But a bespoke suit will last 20 years or more and it won’t change with fashion,” says Ms Charles. “We even offer a ‘Good Look Over’ service, which is like an MOT for suits, to give it a whole new lease of life.”

I immediately think about a specific brand from my hometown: Wortegemsen. It’s a very tasteful lemon gin that drinks like lemonade, but leads you to dangerous alleys. Long ago they launched a radio campaign to gain national popularity. Everybody hated the radio ad, it was annoying and would it make you buy Wortegemsen at that moment? No! But, you were not in the store at the moment you heart it. You were in your car, at the office or just at home. When you passed the liqueur shelves in the retail shop, I can tell you that everybody remembered Wortegemsen. Because everybody talked about it, how bad and annoying the ad was.

So, was this an example of purposely creating something annoying so it becomes cult? Or doesn’t it matter if something is good or bad, as long as they keep on talking about you? Being excellent, orginal and becoming viral is everyone’s wet dream and most of the time this costs two arms and leg. But what if a low cost production reaches the same communication level because of disputable criteria. It’s certainly something to think about.