5 Projects That Are Pushing The Creative Boundaries

In this video, that I found thanks to Mitch Joel, Clay Shirky describes five student projects that he thinks are pushing the creative boundaries – from interface design to how people cluster to build new work.
He ends the talk with an interesting take on the rules of creativity… Continue reading “5 Projects That Are Pushing The Creative Boundaries”

Top 20 Social Media Influencers and Beyond…

Kristi Hines (@kikolani) published a nice list of “The 20 most influential people in social media” and Simon Kemp (@eskimon) did a good job in this thread reminding us all that since more than 80% of the world’s social media users live outside of the US it would be a good idea to add some other influential names beyond America’s shores to the list.

Brava Kristi and bravo Simon. So far so good.

Krishna De is an outstanding communicator and a long time digital-friend. She suggested that I could be considered as an influencer in Finland. First of all, I’d like to thank Krishna for mentioning me as an influencer. I tend to work with my “head down”, putting all the passion and commitment I have into everything I do in this industry. Ultimately, my greatest reward is to see a satisfied smile on the face of whoever I’m working with because what we did together meant something to them and made a difference. So, when someone points me out for any reason related to what I do, I feel honored.

Secondly, though, after reading the following comment I felt that I should probably clarify my position a bit and give out a little bit more information about what I do since I have been – and still am – very involved in the Finnish social media and technology space…

Jaana Nyström - Not wanting to promote myself but I'm the "Google+ envoy in Finland", according to the local Google Industry Manager... At least I'm diligent! :D

If you can’t see/load the picture above:

Jaana Nyström – +Krishna De New York in Finland now? 🙂 +Andrea Vascellari has nothing to do with Finland, I think? Must be an error this…

Not wanting to promote myself but I’m the “Google+ envoy in Finland”, according to the local Google Industry Manager… At least I’m diligent! 😀

For those of you who have been connected with me for a while now, you are probably aware that my company and I work on international projects, but for the sake of this thread on G+, here’s my reply which just focuses on some of the ways I’ve been “influential” in Finland.

Hi Everyone,

Hi Jaana,

Jaana I’ve been living and working in Finland since 2005 and I’ve been researching and studying the Finnish information society cluster since 2002.

In Finland, I’m currently running several projects for national and local governments, regional development, B2B, B2C, pharma and education. If you have a look at the people/connections we commonly share here on Google+ you’ll notice that I’m well-networked with the Finnish social media sphere 😉

I’m often a contributor to various international podcasts sharing my point of view from the Finnish perspective (but not only, since I have Italian-Canadian roots) specifically in the fields of PR, marketing and communications. In addition to that, since public speaking is part of what I do, I’ve been invited to speak at some of the largest conferences in Finland i.e. Mindtrek, ITK, etc. If you quickly browse through my Linkedin profile you’ll notice that I’ve been invited as an official blogger to many industry conferences, such as the LeWeb, Web 2.0 Expo, etc. and I’ve also represented Finland at two editions of the Bloggers World Forum respectively in Bucharest and Vienna. So these are most likely some of the reasons why you’ll find a fairly large group of people worldwide referring to me when they think of Finland – it’s the same for me when I think of Ireland and 2 names immediately come to mind Krishna De (@krishnade) and Bernie Goldbach (@topgold).

On the other hand, leading an international digital strategy agency requires me to travel quite often, but my home is currently in Finland. My team and I work across 4 continents and we recently opened a new office in New York (NYC) so the information you see on my Twitter profile refers to that. I hope this explains and clarifies everything.

Andrea @vascellari

– Good to meet you, Jaana. Andrea

itive.net Foursquare Mayor gets a free coffee

via itive.net


itive.net Forusquare Mayor gets a free coffee

If you followed Itive for a while you probably already know that we always try to find new ways to extend the online interaction that we usually have with our community to offline world. This is why from now on we decided to also give a reward to the people that engage the most with us on foursquare by offering a free cup of coffee to who ousts the current mayor of our headquarters.

Why a cup of coffee? Coffee is always a good way to connect, network and find common interests. Let’s get to know each other better, we’d love to meet you!

At the moment we are testing this just at our European headquarters, but if it gets good traction we are planning to extend it also to our HQ in New York. Stay tuned!

Privacy

This is a video (below) that I directed, shot and edited for YouTube Play, a collaboration between YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum to unearth and showcase the very best creative videos from around the world. Leah D’Emilio worked together with me as producer adding her insights and helping me turn the concept I wanted to express into something magic.

The video is called Privacy.

Social media is one of the primary vehicles through which we interact with society. This is redefining the concept of privacy. My intention is to discuss how privacy is being redefined using the following 3 aspects of private self:

  • Watching others/sharing our physical self through video.
  • Written thoughts on personal profiles.
  • Private conversations in public spaces.

– With a Panasonic GF1 I recorded various angles of a woman’s body as she laid in a dimly lit room. It is a test of the viewer’s perception as to which part of the body she is being shown and from which perspective. She symbolizes our desire to watch others and how we become “naked” as we expose our lives online.

– The text scrolling along the bottom of the screen are real updates written by random facebook users who have kept their profiles public and therefore searchable on youropenbook.org. Using key search terms I was able to find very personal written statements from complete strangers who would probably never say what they wrote in public, yet their thoughts are available for public search.

– Finally, the third element of “Privacy” is the audio recording of a public space in New York City. The audio element of this project reflects how anyone can listen in on private conversation in the “real world”, paralleling the idea that anyone can “listen in on” what would be considered “private conversation” in the virtual world.

In this project the video’s role is elevated as the primary vehicle bringing these aspects together to discuss the future definition of privacy.

Privacy” will be examined by a jury of experts that will decide which works will be presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York on October 21, 2010 with simultaneous presentations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice. The selected videos will be on view to the public from October 22 through 24 in New York and on the YouTube Play channel.

I’m really interested in hearing your thoughts on “Privacy“. Feel free to share them here on my blog, via twitter @vascellari, on my Facebook profile or on my Facebook Page.

Andrea

Further Insights on Finland’s Citizens Rights to Internet

I’ve been interviewed by Dario Salvelli for Wired Magazine about Finland and the recent announcement (1st of July 2010) of the legal right for every Finnish citizen to have access to a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection.

The article was published on Wired Italia but since it offers some interesting stats and insights I thought to share an English version here on my blog:

Enjoy it and as usual feel free to share your thoughts with comments or via twitter @vascellari! (please remember to link back to this post so it will be easier to track and aggregate the conversation, thanks).

Andrea

Italy, 2010. Families with no PC were reduced by only 2% in the last 8 years, yet new families subscriptions of users that are willing to pay a surcharge on fees just to have a connection to 100 Megabit grew of 40% and about 78% of households with broadband access has at least one child under 18 years old. An incentive to implement the NGN (next-generation high-speed network) in Italy and not wait for the 2015 deadline set by AGCOM to assign broadband services to reduce the digital divide.

In this context, is it possible to imagine a law that includes the Internet as a fundamental right for Italian citizens? Other European countries are heading in this direction. On July 1, Finland became the first nation in the world in which every citizen has the right to access the Internet with a minimum of 1Mbps connection. This law will serve about 4000 Finnish families that still suffer from digital divide and will force providers to install cables out in Finnish rural areas where 5.3 million people live.

The village of Karvia this year will already have a 100MB connection. The plan of the Finnish Government is in fact broader and plans on providing access to 100 Mbps in 99% of the territory available by 2015 by using fiber optic and agreements between mobile operators who already use UMTS900 technology to build and expand the NGN.

What Finland has achieved is unique not only in terms of technology but especially socially – says Andrea Vascellari, the CEO of itive.net, a digital strategy agency with offices in Finland and New York – This step also represents a turning point for strategy and communications for business, government, education systems and public institutions. In an era where the Internet is no longer an option but a core part of our daily lives we just have to hope that this decision made by a small country in Northern Europe like Finland will inspire others to move in the same direction.

Anne-Mari Leppinen is Finnish and works for Suupohjan Seutuverkko [disclosure, Suupohjan Seutuverkko is itive‘s client], a company owned by six local municipalities (an area of 3700 km2 for a total of 30 000 persons) which aims at building an open fiber optic network that is already among the fastest in Europe. The purpose of this company is to build the network and use it but not to offer services: all the service providers have the same opportunities to provide services to clients on fiber and users can freely choose who to trust.

The network built in the city and region of Kauhajoki can already replace all the data traffic such as broadband, cable, satellite, digital TV and phone connection. In addition to this in Kauhajoki the fiber is used to improve the efficiency in real estate surveillance, remote control of industrial production and it also enhances the quality of life of the elderly people that live at home.

At first I thought this law wasn’t a big deal because I thought the minimum speed of market regulation should be more than 1Mbps – writes via email Anne-Mari – This is because here everyone already has a connection with access of 1Mbps or higher, our clients already have some 10 Mbps and some 100Mbps symmetrical connection. When I read that Finland was the first country in the world, I immediately changed my mind. I hope that the next step is to implement an open access fiber optic network because it is the only way to get a qualitative competitive network and reach people who live outside the cities: in fact the problem is that the network operators want to invest (i.e. in fiber) only in the 20 biggest cities in Finland to receive higher revenues from the investment. This is understandable but what about all the other people? In rural areas people have no choice and are blocked by a monopoly that makes the total price and quality of connections far from reasonable. I hope the situation will change after this new law.

We were among the first to create an open access fiber optic network and many others are now following our path. The Finnish government has promised that by 2015 all the citizens will be able to access 100Mpbs but can only guarantee that the fiber optic will not be more than 2km away from all homes. This last section to get the fiber at home will be expensive for families (from 500 to 1000 euros) and I think the Government should give grants or support for these miles if you want people to really connect on fiber optic. The other problem is that so far the Government has not specified whether the network will be an open access network: this could potentially re-create monopolies that build closed networks with public money. This year, for example, on about 8 fiber optic projects that have public support ours, Suupohjan Seutuverkko, is the only non-commercial and open access one.

Finland is not the only European nation that looks at the Internet as a civil right of citizens: In France, the Supreme Court has ruled that Internet access is a right, while Spain and the United Kingdom have similar laws in the pipeline that should be approved respectively in 2011 and 2012.

The Finnish ICT Minister Suvi Linden recently declared to the BBC:  “We considered the role of the Internet in Finns’ everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment

Super Bowl XLIV on Rocketboom

Rocketboom.com is a daily international news program based in New York City that covers and creates a wide range of information and commentary from top news stories to contemporary internet culture.

Earlier this week Leah D’Emilio (Director/Producer at Rocketboom.com) and Rocketboom host @mememolly recorded a Super Bowl episode with Ryan Hunter from Poykpac (http://youtube.com/poykpac) and guess what… they had an extra role for me as an ‘American’ watching the game. It was great working with everyone to make this episode! + It was really nice to meet Neal Bledsoe with whom I had really nice chat on the evolution of traditional media.

This Sunday I’ll be in New York and of course I won’t miss the New Orleans Saints VS Indianapolis Colts for Super Bowl XLIV so let me know if you are in for it and we’ll meet up! (drop a comment or reach me via twitter @vascellari).

Andrea

UPDATE: all backstage photos here!

Molly goes to her first Super Bowl party. This week’s Casual Friday was written, directed, and edited by Ryan Hunter. MemeMollyJenn Lyon, Taige JensenNeal BledsoeBrett Haley, and Andrea Vascellari.