SILBERBAUER SAYS:

The Oscar goes to... (E-handelsprisen 2007)  

Klaus Silberbauer / Saturday, March 24, 2007

The Danish E-business Prizes 2007 has been awarded - eight of them in all.

The show itself was OK. The Børssalen (the main hall at the 1624 Copenhagen Exchange) is a beautiful place and the food provided by "Gammel Mønt" was tasty indeed. Katrine Ring and Annette Falberg hosted the show. Neither is quite the Danish female equivalent to Billy Crystal, though.

Jesper Kunde from Kunde&Co. talked about branding and e-commerce. I think he came trough as an angry old man who really don't get it. I bet that some of the audience - representatives from large corporations doing quite OK online, felt a bit puzzled when Jesper Kunde told them that they really aren't. Martin Thorborg from SpamBut hey - he's a branding guru, I'm just a consultant, so he may be right, and I may be wrong. Who knows. In fact: Kunde is right in many ways - it's just that what he's saying, we've been saying for years: Danish corporations need to understand that a corporate website isn't enough and that the top brass has to focus on internet strategy as well as on off line branding. And that also on the net corporation need to differentiate between brands and corporation. Aaargh - it's so obvious that it hurts. But I guess some people need to hear from a guru.

Martin Thorborg from Spamfighter (former Jubii and Yahoo) was great fun, telling us how he helped Pernille Aalund raise her revenue 400 % on dildos. He has a very straight forward way of saying things, but I like it. It's refreshing.

As before mentioned I did a "lounge" with Andreas Johannsen (great guy, looking forward to working with him again) on e-business and social networking. It went well, I think, we got a lot of positive feed back. About 80 people showed up and we got quite a discussion going. The 90 minutes went too quickly.

As Creuna co-sponsored the event I also got to say "And the nominees are..." and to shake hands with the Minister of Science. Wauw - my own private mini Oscars-experience. (The image to the left is of me and the Minister. The Minister is the pleasant looking fellow to the right - I'm the short haired moody guy to the left.)

The logistics were very professional. The presenters were briefed, informed, and supported in every way by the nice staff. The timing was very precise and I felt it was all very professional staged. All in all FDIH did a great job this year.

But... and being a designer I have to mention this... (and I'm sorry that I'm always so negative): The big screen graphics sucked magnificently! Unreadable (and I was placed at the table closest to the stage), stamp-sized, screenshots of the nominated web sites flickered across the screen looking like something I made on my Amiga 500 15 years ago. No wait: The Amiga would have done better. Why not hire the fabulous Bottega Areté VJ-crew or someone else in that league to kick some visual ass instead? Maybe next year the 9th show will be really cool.