Monthly Archives: December 2010

December 21, 2010
StagisLife

High expectations for a happy New Year

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This afternoon, December 21, we are shutting down the office for almost two weeks, celebrating the holidays and the new year. The year 2010 certainly hasn’t been easy for us at Stagis – a bit of a bumpy ride. Where the global crisis of 2009 left us untouched (actually it was a very good year [&h ...
December 20, 2010
Branding, Communication

Bus drivers rap MC Einer Christmas song to create new image

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Every year at Christmas time a Danish hit from 1988 by rappers MC Einar is played on Danish radio. ”Jul, det’ cool” it’s called, meaning ”Christmas, it’s cool”. The rappers talk about an angry bus driver. Last week the ”Bus drivers with character” faced the old hit with their own r ...
November 28, 2010
Branding, Communication, Creativity and Leadership

Experience-based communication for CBS a success

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A few weeks ago we launched the conference ‘Be the change’ for the executive Master of Management Development program from Copenhagen Business School. The conference was designed to create attention and be a platform for interaction between the executive program and potential participants. The f ...
November 24, 2010
Talks and events

Kom-Dag 2010 on Authenticity and Credibility

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I was fortunate enough to participate at “Kom-dag”, the annual event created by the Danish Communication Association. The theme this year was Authenticity and Credibility. Apart from a 30-minute talk in the morning, I gave a brief interview that you can watch on YouTube and an article ab ...
October 25, 2010
Communication, StagisLife

Major branding project about the bus drivers in Copenhagen

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Last week I signed a contract with the public transportation organization Movia who represents the public bus industry in Copenhagen and Sealand. In July, the Danish Transportation Agency decided to allocate a little less than 10 mio. Danish kroner (about 1.3 mio Euro) to giving the bus drivers a be ...
October 24, 2010
Communication, Talks and events

Map Marathon

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Last weekend I had the pleasure to participate in the seminar: Map Marathon, an event that is part of the annual Frieze Art Fair, based in Regents Park, London. The seminar had an impressive line up of scientists, mathematicians, graphic designers and artists all talking about how mapping can be use ...
October 23, 2010
Design and Identity, StagisLife

New knowledge base in London

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The last few weeks has been the first, in my new position as both a member of the Stagis team and as a master student in London. I had the privilege to be accepted at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design’s MA in Communication Design. The school is located in Clerkenwell and Holborn [&he ...
October 21, 2010
Communication, Creativity and Leadership

Be the change conference – Marketing by demonstrating the authentic strengths

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How do you market an executive master program that excelles by letting the participants shape the program themselves? At Master of Management Development, an executive program for experienced managers at Copenhagen Business School, the managers attending the program decide for themselves what to rea ...
Authenticity Book, Creativity and Leadership

NOMA – Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine (book release)

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Last month, Rene Redzepi, the celebrated No. 1 chef of restaurant NOMA, was introducing his new book at the Sydney Opera House. I just received the book by mail this morning. It’s beautiful and well worth reading. Inspiring story (and diary) and inspiring photos. Out on Politikens Forlag in De ...
Design and Identity

Trade union crisis makes organisations look inside themselves

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‘The crisis makes the trade union look inside’. An article on the website of Danish trade union FTF is concerned with the organizational crisis of their market: the members of the trade and labour unions are fleeing. They interviewed me to get a perspective of possible solutions in regar ...
October 3, 2010
Authenticity Book, Design and Identity

Authentic Patterns

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We have been working on the book cover for ‘The Authentic Company’, coming out in 2011 in Danish and in 2012 internationally. Here is a shot from Annes screen I took the other day. The hardcover has a black and white pattern illustrating boxes. At the center of the front page you’l ...
September 14, 2010
Communication, Talks and events

Stagis part of Kom-dag 2010 on Authenticity

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I’m thrilled to tell you, that I’m participating as speaker at Kom-dag 2010 (Communication Day 2010) on November 23rd which is being organized by Danish Communication Association. The theme of the year is authentic and reliable (trustworthy to be exact) corporate communication. At the e ...
September 1, 2010
Anthropology and Culture, Communication, Design and Identity

City of Copenhagen wishes ‘GOOD TRIP’ with new magazine

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Municipality of Copenhagen wants to raise the traffic safety between so-called ”soft” and ”hard” road users to get less injuries in the busy metropolis. And as Stagis has worked a lot with different institutions and organizations in regard to traffic and safety as well as the bus industry of ...
August 31, 2010
Talks and events

Internal communication means better business (from MobilTech conference)

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I was attending a conference on the use of mobile technology in business and communication today, as I was presenting a Stagis project called Busdrivers with character (“Chauffører med karaktér” in Danish), presenting the way we’ve been working with customers as a means to change ...
August 27, 2010
StagisLife, Talks and events

DDA Bar #21 at Stagis

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Yesterday afternoon and evening, Stagis hosted the 21st DDA Bar, an event for the members of Danish Design Association. Peter Kreiner, CEO of Noma gave a brief talk on the success of Noma. He also added an important comment on the window of opportunity that not only Noma and Danish restaurants have ...
August 23, 2010
Communication, Jobs, StagisLife

SENIOR KOMMUNIKATIONS- OG PR-RÅDGIVER MED PARTNER-POTENTIALE (Danish job-posting)

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Vi søger en senior kommunikationskonsulent til at skabe og gennemføre projekter som udvikler virksomheders autentiske identitet og markedsposition. Konsulenten får til opgave at rådgive om identitet, PR, pressehåndtering, opbygning af image og omdømme og gennemføre projekter med udgangspunkt ...
August 3, 2010
Branding, Design and Identity

Going for gold

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To be honest I’m not a huge sports person, nevertheless the European Championship in Athletics dragged my attention yesterday. It was the medals round the necks of the champions I found exciting. The medals are in my opinion quite remarkable due to the v-shaped design, and as the medals are ha ...
July 8, 2010
Branding, StagisLife

Literary humor

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I recently became aware Timothy McSweeney’s – an American Publishing house. I was intrigued by getting to know them more as I read this hilarious text – I’m Comic Sans – published on McSweeney’s humourous litterature site McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. A part fr ...
July 5, 2010
Anthropology and Culture, Design and Identity

New Case film: Identity for the Corporate Governance Agency of the Danish Cultural Ministry

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Today we’ve launched a new video about the process and the results of the new authentic identity of the Corporate Governance Agency of the Danish Cultural Ministry (Kulturministeriets Koncerncenter). The mapping of the authentic organizational identity and the creation of the visual identity w ...
StagisLife

Summer Break – Stagis Office Closes Last Two Weeks of July

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On Friday July 16th everyone at Stagis will be on summer break for two weeks until August 2nd. In case you need something solved, have questions or want to book a meeting, please let us know before Friday of next week as telephones will be off and email only answered in case one of us […] ...
July 2, 2010
Design and Identity

Leadership with drive

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During the past few weeks I have worked on an identity project for a small management consultacy firm. Heliotrop is offering team and organizational development from the perspective of the mid-level manager. Ulla, who is behind the company has a background in the recruitment industry and as an ingin ...
Authenticity Book, Talks and events

August Event on Authentic Identity with Noma Case Study

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On August 26 we are hosting an event for the members of Danish Design Association, primarily professional design agencies. I will give a talk on organizational authenticity and Peter Kreiner, CEO of Noma restaurant, will join us and give a brief talk on the success of Noma from a business perspect ...
June 30, 2010
StagisLife

Stay connected

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To enhance our ways of interacting with all the smart and interesting people around us, we have decided that it is time to shut down our current Stagis Facebook Group and build a brand new Stagis Facebook Page instead. All our Facebook activities will be moved to the Stagis Page, and we would love f ...
May 3, 2010
Communication, Design and Identity

I love the poster for this year’s Jazz Festival in Copenhagen

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 For the first time the artist is a photographer, and there is to variations. Artist: Søren Solkær Starbird. Copenhagen Jazz Festival  ...
May 2, 2010
Anthropology and Culture, Branding, Communication

Large effect from small strategic efforts

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90 percent of the bus drivers in Greater Copenhagen declare that “I thrive at my work place” (“Jeg trives godt på arbejdspladsen”) in a recent questionnaire given to 200 bus drivers and managers in the bus industry. The questionnaire was handed out as one of three types of ...
April 26, 2010
Creativity and Leadership

Authentic Noma Restaurant is now the World’s No. 1

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Today, restaurant Noma was announced the World’s number one restaurant. Tonight chef René Redzepi is being celebrated in London. Last year I was interviewing René a couple of times for the book I am working on. He has rediscovered Scandinavian food culture and reinvented what it is. And when ...
April 22, 2010
Anthropology and Culture, Communication, Creativity and Leadership

Gør virksomhedens kommunikation autentisk

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DE FLESTE VIRKSOMHEDER VIL GERNE DIFFERENTIERE SIG MED ET UNIKT BRAND. MEN DE FÆRRESTE FORSTÅR AT KOMMUNIKERE UD FRA DERES AUTENTISKE IDENTITET FORDI DE BASALT SET IKKE KENDER DERES KULTUR OG AUTENTISKE STYRKER. KOMMUNIKATIONSRÅDGIVERE ER NØDT TIL AT VÆRE LANGT MERE OPTAGEDE AF KULTUREN I DE OR ...
April 20, 2010
Anthropology and Culture, StagisLife

Visiting the National Workshops for Arts and Crafts

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April 19, 2010
Design and Identity

New website for the Corporate Governance Agency

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During the Fall of 2009 we developed a new identity for the Corporate Governance Agency of the Danish Ministry of Culture. Part of this project was to develop the IA and design a new website. During late 2009 and early 2010 the site has been technically implemented and now it’s finally launche ...
April 12, 2010
Anthropology and Culture

The power of context

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I red an article in the Australian jounal ‘Open Manifesto’, written by a design professor who used to live in Denmark. The article is about one of the things he enjoyed in denmark – our well designed post boxes!? Well, apparently postboxes in New Zeland is long, narrow and the ...
Anthropology and Culture

Michael Bierut talking about clients

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2010/01 Michael Bierut from CreativeMornings on Vimeo. ...
April 3, 2010
Talks and events

The Authentic Company and the product brands – lecture in Sydney

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About two weeks ago, I gave a lecture on Authentic Organizational Identity at University of Technology in Sydney as I was invited to join a series of lectures called Future Design Strategies. Martin Kornberger (who’s just published a wonderful book on branding called “brand society” ...
March 1, 2010
Design and Identity

Less and more

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The design ethos of Dieter Rams. The German industrial designer, closely associated with the consumer electronics manufacturer Braun, where he was lead designer 1955-1995. I recently visited London Designmuseum and the exhibition of Rams' landmark designs for Braun and furniture manufacturer Vit ...
Branding, Communication

Are you ever to cool for school?

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 …no you are not! Not even after many years of experience as a leader on the job market. There are always new ways of thinking about management and new perspectives on leadership. At the moment we are working on a project for Copenhagen Business School’s master program Master of Management Dev ...
February 28, 2010
Authenticity Book, Talks and events

Risky management: Seeing something new about your company – lecture at CBS

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“Actually, I saw something new about my organization, that I didn’t see before,” said one of the participants at the end of a lecture I did at Copenhagen Business School a few days ago. She was a senior manager in a large organization and I was asking wether the model we had worked ...
February 19, 2010
Branding, Design and Identity

Making bananas cool

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So this is what happens when an authentic brand integrate their product label into contemporary ad campaigns… Chiquita made this move with their iconic blue sticker featuring a fruit-carrying woman, which has been placed on every single product since 1963. In a collaboration with designer DJ n ...
February 15, 2010
Anthropology and Culture, Creativity and Leadership

Going undercover

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The Danish Broadcasting Corporation has launched a highly interesting new weekly documentary programme called “Undercover Chef” (meaning Undercover Boss in English). The show lets CEOs experience their own organization from a new point of view – that of their employees and costumers. The CEO p ...
February 5, 2010
Communication, StagisLife

Stagis Highlights: Bi-monthly newsletter to clients, colleagues and friends

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  What are the latest highlights? With a growing network of clients, colleagues, business-partners, students and friends it can be difficult to keep up with what's going on. Today we're sending out the first issue of a newsletter that we've named "Stagis Highlights ...
Authenticity Book, Branding, Design and Identity

17 fascinating minutes at the BMW Museum

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"Fascinating!" I thought to myself the other day, as I looked at an art installation. Over the past two months, I've been studying BMW in Munich as part of my ongoing work on a book on authentic organizational identity, which I am planning to finish this spring. The time had come to vi ...
February 4, 2010
Anthropology and Culture, Design and Identity

Entering the authentic organizational identity as ‘translator’

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Last year the Corporate Governance Agency of the Danish Ministry of Culture changed it's purpose and name. From being an "Administration Center" it was now going to leave behind some of the daily routine operations within IT and finance and focus on delivering advice and support the cu ...
February 3, 2010
Anthropology and Culture, StagisLife

Politiken article: From idea to final concept

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  This Sunday, Danish newspaper Politiken featured an interview with Nikolaj Stagis. In the article, Nikolaj tells the story of our company and talks about the Busdrivers with Character campaign mentioned in the post below. Nikolaj explains how the idea of transforming the experience of the bus ...
January 29, 2010
Communication, Design and Identity

Small nice moments from the bus ride

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Last summer we did a campaign as part of the project 'Busdrivers with character'. The idea of the project was to make passengers notice small but nice moments from their bus ride. The passengers could send the 'moment' by sms or mms to the website www.buschauffor.dk, where busdrivers ...
StagisLife

just received new business cards for Cecilia, Niels, Anne & Katrine

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January 25, 2010
Communication, Creativity and Leadership

What matters now

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Imagine for a moment that you have everyone's attention. For one precious moment, the whole room, crowd or maybe even the entire country is gathered to hear your words of wisdom, hushing each other, pushing to get a good seat in front of the television sets, eagerly awaiting your words of wisdom ...
January 22, 2010
StagisLife

Come work with us

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Stagis is currently looking for a new intern to work with PR, communication and corporate branding. The candidate will be working closely with our consultants and project managers on various projects within marketing, PR, communications and branding. Employment will ideally be 1 February – 31 May. ...
January 18, 2010
Communication

Did you feel the heat?

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When I was biking to work this morning,I was met by this campaign by DSB S-trains at Nørrebrogade. A very simple S-train vagon covering the cykle lane, and when you bike through it, you actually feel the heat in it! I have never seen this idea before, and i found it quite clever. Especially on [&he ...
January 15, 2010
StagisLife

Have a nice weekend!

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At five o'clock it is time for a cold beer. Have a nice weekend.    ...
January 10, 2010
Anthropology and Culture, Creativity and Leadership

Greetings from the Airport Security Family (or, How to make Work Fun)

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Something extrodinary is going on at the Copenhagen Airport. I’ve been wondering about it for the last few months. Today was no exception. As I was pouring coins, belt, watch, jacket and my beloved Mac in a plastic tray on my way to a Munich-bound flight, a handsome man at the age of my Dad [&hell ...
January 8, 2010
Design and Identity

Identity grows from within – Notebook 2009/2010

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This Christmas we decided it was time to produce a new Stagis notebook. Over time it has become tradition to make a notebook every second year to hand out to clients, collaborators and friends. In addition to blank pages this new version in line has 3 articles and a photo series from our office. Bin ...