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Skills of a misspent youth. Or: a rather personal story about my generation (and the generations to come).

Polle de Maagt (@polledemaagt) for BVH

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Hello. I am Polle de Maagt.

I failed in most things during my

life (including being a rock star) but am

still trying to reach world domination.

This time by helping companies

change. Change to a company that is

about consumers and driver

conversations.

Guess that makes me a change agent.

Guess that makes Nike, KLM and

Telenet my clients of change.

Last year, I worked for a pretty modest advertising agency called Boondoggle in Amsterdam and Leuven. For Nike, Rabobank, KLM to name a few. BTW, this was my boss Gaston.

This year, for a company that is committed to obtain world domination (whatever that means), InSites Consulting. Marketing research agency turned consulting agency.

Read this manual.

Seriously.

Read it.

Why? Because advertising is the slow lane towards world domination. And I fell in love with this girl. I moved from Amsterdam to Ghent and work from Rotterdam, London and Ghent.

Most of my friends change the world every day. Mostly not with a large corporation. Mostly not in The Netherlands.

We are products of our youth and the impulses we had when we were young. Just a quick example.

There is a reason why people in Northern Europe play with Lego’s. And it has much to do with the way we raise our kids.

Think. For a moment. Without judging. Imagine how some things that are happening now will influence this generation. It may be good. It may be bad. But it IS happening.

What if you had a technology overload?. Laptops, smartphones, iPads, tablets, game-devices and even Nike+ and other tools. Don’t blame @ouilouis, @tijs and @mattijsd though. They are ubergeeks.

What if you could find everything about everything? Google, Wikipedia and even Twitter and Facebook.

What if you were trained to make choices a specific way? Kids are trained to make the best decisions under high pressure. They learn how to achieve goals and co-operate. They are trained to get instant rewards.

What if you faces a brand overload every day? Banners, product placements, targeted ads.

What if you were raised in a reputation economy? Likes, retweets and views. Popularity contests.

What if technology is the easiest way to keep in contact? Birthday wishes, old holiday sweethearts.

That would give you some advantages and disadvantages over other generations. Just to name a few …

1) Don’t bullshit us. Seriously. We can find everything about everything. We just know better. Be genuine.

We can find everyhing. Tripadvisor, Google, Facebook, Twitter, we will find any dirt on you.

We’re fed up with bullshit. We WILL strike back. Sander Spolspoel does a great job in telling Proximus what he thinks the value is of

their ‘personalized’ messages (sorry, in Dutch).

No remarkable talks, remarkable acts. Advertising is great, really changing people’s behavior is even better. Nike launched

their Take Mokum campaign and City Graffiti application.

Albert Heijn doesn’t talk, it actually helps. Make notes, find recipes.

2) We’re changing the world, whether you like it or not. We know technology, we connect, we will change. We are change agents.

Technology made things easier and opened up new possibilities and niches, like TS2AS.org. Technology made things easier. Gave us reach. Made it easy to compare.

Using their skills to change a category. Wakoopa once was a geek tool, now a very promising marketing research tool.

A platform for even more creative talent. Lev Kaupas stimulates young talents to cooperate and even co-creates new business models.

Influencing popular culture and branding. Nalden redefined ‘influentials’ and the way we transfer files with Wetransfer.com.

Changing the way businesses work. Nick de Mey helps creating and new business models. And showed the world what future business models look like.

Change the way consumers and organizations work together. Tom de Ruyck is one of the world’s leaders in community research.

Gathering and networking. This is a group of twitter and Facebook fanatics called ‘Young Scum’. More at http://youngscum.com

3) Don’t tell us where to work and when to work. We’re committed to change the world every day of the week. What is work, really?

I created this presentation here, from home in Ghent. Why work from your office if you can work from home?

But it could have been here, at Schiphol airport. Why work from your office if you can work from home?

Or here, for that matter, from a Starbucks in London. Why work from your office if you can work from home?

Or maybe even at my old collegues. Why work from your office if you can work from home?

4) Recognize our reputation and respect. Yes, we respect you very much, but not because you’re older.

Yes, we respect others. One of my old heroes, the presenter of ‘De Wandeling’.

Books are a great way to build reputation. Ernst-Jan Pfauth wrote a book about blogging.

5) We want to be challenged. Yes, we respect you very much, but not because you’re older.

Show your skills. Nike challenged youngsters to prove they were better than Wesley Sneijder.

6) We want it maxed-out. We want to enjoy work, life, friends, holidays and all our side-projects.

Different projects. Boris Nihom is strategy director and DJ. Party-organizer and lover.

Work hard, play hard. Sam de Bruyn: radio DJ, musician and party-animal.

7) We’re better communicators, so let us join and give us stuff worth sharing. We want to enjoy work, life, friends, holidays and all our side-projects.

We’re pretty connected ... Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter ...

“ “ Advertising is the fee for being unremarkable.

Robert Stephens (GeekSquad)

Influentials. Adidas, Nike and other brands spend a lot of time adding memes and cultural references in their content, to make it more worth spreading.

Appealing to signals and traditions. Adidas, Nike and other brands spend a lot of time adding memes and cultural references in their content, to make it more worth spreading.

Organizing our own culture. Brands realized they had facilitate instead of shout.

It is about creating happy customers. Even in a procedure-heavy company like Starbucks, there is room to put a smile on customer’s faces.

8) Respect our privacy. We want to enjoy work, life, friends, holidays and all our side-projects.

Yes, we share a lot, but we have our private spaces. Renato Valdes Olmos is a pretty interesting twitterazi at @renn, but even more at @talktothehat.

9) Be worth working for. Be awesome.

Company culture makes a difference. Every company has it’s stories and ambassadors, like Nike’s Ekins. Capitalize on these stories and turn your employees in an army of ambassadors.

Zappos doesn’t sell shoes, it delivers happiness. Customer service and great logistics do the rest. A small story about free shipping. Oh, and read Delivering Happiness.

You can forget most of the things I said in this introduction. But please, remember these 3 things.

We are products of our youth and the impulses we had when we were young. We’re seeing some radical shifts so it shouldn’t come as a surprise youth behaves in different ways.

1)

This differences are both positive and negative. But respect them. They just are.

2)

We WILL obtain world domination. Watch us hacking the system.

3)

I hope I was worth sharing.

Send me an email at

polle@insites.eu or find me on

twitter at @polledemaagt.

Find the presentation at

http://polle.me/bvh11