MISS CREATIVE CLASS DID MOVE TO…

…MISS CREATIVE CLASSY

Keep moving, that is what I did. As I already announced,  due to trademark reasons I now welcome a “Y” in my identity. And as a new name requires a new home, you will now find me here http://misscreativeclassy.wordpress.com/

Champagne is in the fridge… BE WELCOME!

HOW DESIGN HOTELS BECOME TALENT SCOUTS

Everything was perfect, and this was the imperfect. My boyfriend and me were strolling through rooms where every detail would be in shape but somehow

no form was created.

We were dead set on dumping down ourselves in a cosy corner, to let loose and just be. But we did not find the spot where we would get this sense of the badly desired calm. And if you now wonder what kind of strange place I am talking about, let me tell you that the scene takes place in a carefully selected design hotel in Austria.

Lake, mountains, air, namely everything a stressed out metropolis soul needs, was close enough to be inhaled, but unfortunately the hotel did not manage to integrate the great potential out there in its inner life.
What do I want to say? DESIGN IS JUST DESIGN if it is not part of a concept that aims to one essential thing:

touch.

source: Mike Rhode

Create a movement in eyes, stomachs and hearts. Make people feel at home, inspired, excited or just relaxed. If it is not happening, it is not worth staying. And so we quit. Grabbed a car and drove over the mountains to search for a place which would fulfil our belongings. We finally found it at my sister’s holiday house in the hills overlooking the Lago Maggiore.

source: Automobil Art Gallerie

But let’s give it a thought.

The future of travel might be manifold, but one thing seems crystal clear to me. The eternal seek for experience is outperformed by a new desire rising in the heart of the discerning modern urbanist. Being kind of “over-experienced” through easy, you name it “digital”, access to all those information which asks to be turned into experiences, sometimes just for the sake of our personal scale on the daily dose of impressions. Anyway, being a serious experience hunter has today a somewhat moly taste, it means to be a little bit too hedonistic.

So what is the appropriate replacement? In my eyes, it is about DISCOVERING. It is about meeting something new and taking it back home. Sometimes this tiny new piece of your inner self is just the opposite of your daily routine. Sometimes it is the missing link to your identity puzzle. Whether you find new inspiration, more concentration, confirmation or the energy to leave things behind.

At the end it is always about discovering.

And being discovered. Believe it or not some hotels have talent scouting skills. They manage to evoke your potential. Through design but first and foremost through PEOPLE. And I am not talking about the services you are used to expect. I admit, I never dared to ask for it, but being a curious girl, I love to get in touch with inspiring people, to discover their lifestyle, their visions and how they tick. Therefore, travelling does not mean to me to be “crippled””. No way! Being released from the daily hustle and buzzle, I am ready to change my position. To get in touch with new stories, new people, new aesthetic experiences. And until now I often felt the hotel setting more as a “please just be…invisible” rather than an inviting context to communicate.

That’s why I got excited when, within a week, I stumbled upon two exciting signs of being understood. The first one came in the form of of Design Hotels’™, new campaign. I grabbed their corporate magazine New Directions at my favourite coffee place and not only my brand building genes would start rumbling.

“Made by originals”, so the name of the campaign, hit my nerve by opening up the curtain, which used to separate the outer face of their hotels from the much wider inner life of their brand. How? They are ZOOMING the spotlight on the motors of their design treasures: the people who create them. And it looks like they can choose from a wide selection of pretty extraordinary personalities and, of course, spaces.

source: Design Hotels’™

There it was: the first step towards my favourite DISCOVER travel. Opening up a dialogue by revealing something that is usually hidden for the target group called “guests”.  Just because it has always been like that in the hotel market. Be kind, be mindful, be pampering but for any sake, DON’T INTERACT with your guests too much. A position, which I consider for people like me not really timely anymore.

For the results in moved pictures go here.

source: Design Hotels’™

Gosh, I would have loved to join them on their documentary trip through their empire.

source: Design Hotels’™

I swear here and now that I will turn it into my PERSONAL MISSION to follow up on this communication offer. My personal opening event will take place next week. Reading about a hideaway in the Alps, that is not (yet) a partner of Design Hotels’™, but which already lives the attitude of nourishing creative minds, namely was the second sign I mentioned earlier. I immediately booked a room in the two month old MIRAMONTE in Bad Gastein.

source: Miramonte

Having experienced a wonderful late summer weekend in its sister hotel HAUS HIRTH last summer, I now can’t wait to dig into the twenties design, dashing down the hills with my little snowboard without having to surrender the company of stimulation minds and design around me. I heard from friends who did spend some days here of evenings full of mind tagging conversation, whether it was with one of the hotel’s designer or the director of the local casino. The hosts aim to share their energy, their ideas and visions.

I am ready to give something back.

TheCrane.tv – feed the inspirational beast

This is a call for all creative minds.

Imagine: a world without your favorite international magazines. A world without travelling to new exciting places. A world without your beloved blogs. Imagine, a world without any inspirational source, whether it is print, online or experience. Does it hurt? It does.

The good news: there are millions of sources when it comes to stay ahead of contemporary culture.
The bad one: We are always hungry. Feeding the inspiration beast costs a lot of time (when crawling through the youtube jungle) and sometimes money (when spending our last penny for all those smilecreating magazines or an occasional weekend in the metropolis of choice).

source: hitchica

But then I saw Constantin Bjerke at this years DLD. The man behind TheCrane.tv, that might become one of your favorite creative playgrounds in the very near future. TheCrane.tv positions itself as the first online video-magazine on contemporary culture and aims to throw the big burger at the beast. Offering high caliber video content on worldwide happenings in art, design, lifestyle, architecture, fashion, ecology and culture, it is more TV- channel as another youtube by making its point on superior quality and lean back entertainment. And it bridges the gap between editorial driven and user generated content by inventing the buzzword  “Talent generated content”. Constantin is self-confident enough to define “talent” by “people who actually know what they’re doing, in terms of quality of the film and in terms of the content.”
It is somehow good to know that there is still some belief in the self-reflection ability of people… Get the moved picture version of Constantin in an interview of Ayelett Noff from the next web.

What it is in for you? TheCrane.tv devotes itself to foster creative talents by offering a platform for video and filmmakers to showcase their talent and drive their careers. Use the site and its distribution channels (via NBC and mobile broadcasting on China Mobile and China Telecom) to enlarge your audience, share ideas and collaborate with like-minded creatives. The lucky one will also be able to make money through revenue share.

Kick it off: TheCrane.tv currently hosts a video competition, deadline being the 20th of March, supported by a pretty well-known jury: Karl Lagerfeld, Ora-Ïto, Fernando Sulichin and Flavio Albanese among others will raise and sag the thumb. To become rich and famous, just send them a short video (1 to 5 minutes) on any of TheCrane.tv topics listed above. Go wild, think non-fiction, fiction, documentary, journalistic pieces, video art or animation, everything is accepted. The winning films will be announced at the international launch of TheCrane.tv in the end of March 2009. Rewards include cash, equipment and TV broadcast. Go here for every detail you need.

For all Berlin based creative video producers: Constantin is looking for continuous contributions coming out of Berlin’s creative heart. So if this makes your heart jump, just contact them. You can also sneak in the beta-version by registering your email adress on www.thecrane.tv.

Keep me updated how it feels to watch your video on China`s mobile phones….

Schnittmusterrevival inspiriert durch Vivienne Westwood

Yes, we cut.

Nein, nicht Haareschneiden, sondern Street Style selber bauen. Wenn man so möchte, haben die Macher des gerade gelaunchten „Cut – Leute machen Kleider“ Magazins die Bedienungsanleitung geschaffen, um zum beliebten Linsenobjekt für all die Streetstyle-Fotografen-Hasen in Deutschlands, sagen wir mal “größeren Städtchen”, zu mutieren.

Die Cut Redaktion surft dabei auf der aktuellen Welle der Style-Individualisten und macht aus Rezession eine Business Opportunity. Das Mantra „In these hard times – dress up. Do it yourself!“, gehört bei Vivienne Westwood, wird in ein schickes Print Outfit gepackt. Das Ergebnis ist mehr aufwändig gestaltes Buch als Zeitschrift und sowohl visuell als auch taktil ein durchaus angenehmes Erlebnis.

credit: Cut Magazine

Was dahinter steht, ist laut den Machern der independent Medien-Design das Herzblut eines Redaktions-Teams, das sich auf die Fahne geschrieben hat, Do-it-yourself-Fashion ganz groß zu machen. Für das “Wie” warten die beigelegten Schnittmuster auf die Schere, für die Inspiration gibt es Portraits über Stilmetropolen, Künstler und Designer. Das klingt verdammt nach dem hier in jünger und hipper:

credit: Burda Mode Mag

Und ist, zumindest auf den ersten Blick, die liebevolle, hand-made-Look Print-Version von Burda Style

Mein geheimer Verdacht, dass es sich bei Cut um einen Guerilla Aktion von Burda handelt, wurde dann aber von independent media design entkräftet. Umso mehr ist den Herzblut-Machern Glück zu wünschen, diesen fast Berlinesken Coup auch finanziell beflügelnd auf die Strassen Deutschlands zu bringen. Bei 7 Euro pro Ausgabe wird das sicherlich ein recht kreativer Weg werden.

Sneak Preview: Miss Creative Class presents creative urban heroes

Miss Creative Class is back in blogparadise.

I had to do a quick energy switch to get the thing called “get into business for myself” running.  Now I am a glowing brandbuilding consultant and more than ever a true Miss Creative Class. I will not stop until my mission turning Berlin’s creative industries into strong brands will be fulfilled…ah, feels good to spread some heroic attitude.

…and it feels even better to invest my first indepently gained money into two crucial insignia of a successfull Miss Creative Class career!

Heroic is also the new buzzword for this blog. I spend the last month on plotting an new exciting concept for Miss Creative Class. Something which allows me to dig even deeper into my favorite topic. So I combined creativity + entrepreneurship + urbanity, tossed it with a little brain powder and opened the bottle…

And this what you get:

An inspiring insight in the life and missions of selected urban creative heroes,
a new generation of entrepreneurs who share an attitude:

TRULY LIVE YOUR CREATIVITY AND TURN IT INTO GORGEOUS BUSINESS

They are the faces of creative cities such as Berlin, London and New York. They build the ground and future for the creative industries by bringing up new creative spaces, innovative services and products.
I take you behind the scenes to meet those amazing people and I can`t wait to kick the project off which will happen in the next few weeks. I am so curious about your reactions!

And as one new thing hits another: I will also have to change the name of this blog. Richard Florida, who wrote “The rise of the creative class” doesn`t seem to be too relaxed with creative class people using “his” term “creative class”. So I promised to change that (grrr) and will do so. Of course I make sure, you will still find me in the big virtual world.

Bread & Butter is coming home

Dunkle Nacht – BVG Busse – eine 15 Minuten-Fahrt ins Ungewisse – nein, so geht das nicht mit dem entspannten Partyauftakt. Aber dann waren alle ganz still: das Buslicht ging aus und vor uns lag die Landebahn…des alten Tempelhofer Flughafens und der kleine gelbe Bus schien abzuheben.

Das war nicht so schlecht, der Auftakt zur We are back Party der Bread and Butter gestern Abend. Was folgte war ne Ansage: Forget Barcelona, wir sind zurück in Berlinchen , übrigens dem neuen internationalen Fashion Hub und bleiben hier an Ort und Stelle für 10 Jahre. Das zu den Fakten, das Drumherum hier:

Ray Cokes als Lichtgestalt, die aus der Luft erschien

B&B-Chef Karl-Heinz Müller

Wowereit

The Editors

Mehr dazu hier

The rise of new realities: why DLD is a goose bumps experience

New realities is the title of this year’s Digital, Life, Design conference which is not about an unpredictable future it is more about our unpredictable realities. There is so much to do right now, in this single moment, there is so much changing in a felt second that even a conference which brings together some of the most visionary people of the world is concentrating on the here and now. Maybe that’s the new pragmatism maybe it is just smart as our times are exciting enough. Let’ s see what perspectives and impulses will be in our heads after the end of these three days. As Stephanie Czerny puts it: “DLD is always a surprise package”.

Hubert Burda and Yossi Vardi opening the DLD

The creators of the DLD understand how to get people enthusiastically getting into interacting, revealing the old-friend-since-ever-attitude. And I don’t consider this a bad one. This year it even  feels much more intimate than last year: less people, relaxed atmosphere, familiar faces everywhere. And: in my eyes the outstanding thing of DLD: a great crowd representing the arts, design, Internet business, media and science. There are so many interdisciplinary encounters going on, you don’t know who to address first as they all seem to be astonishing conversationalists.

I will post some of my interview treasures a little bit later here for you.

About the grown up digitals: Good morning DLD Day 2

Stephanie Czerny, the host of the DLD and Maria Furtwängler-Burda, Hubert Burda’s wife who is hosting the upcoming panel “Woman Power”

This morning was an intense one: starting with a glorious chat with René Seifert,  a true global citizen who provides the ground with his company Level 360 in India on two major areas: Globalization and Web 2.0, also being an angel investor in companies in the media/tech-space, he seems to be at the same time everywhere else in the world (get a glimpse of his world tours here).

Just shortly afterwards directly digging into the humorous words of  Don Tapscott. This one is a famous one: being called one of the most influential media authorities, he is the author of 13 pretty well known books: just to name it: WIKINOMICS is one of them.

He gave us an insight in his refelctions about the different brain generation who we former (that means 2 months ago) used to call “Digital Natives”. Now as they are grown up, they are the authorities in digital revolution.  They outperform their parents and CEOs in managing information. Tapscott defines it as the “generation lap”: kids are lapping their parents when it comes to info tracking.

For any deeper insights, go here.

But don’t be seduced to let pop the picture of Internet nerdy kids. This generation is a good one. Or how would you call young adults who are totally into collaboration and sharing knowledge, who have a strong desire for freedom and choice? Sounds good for me and turn it the other way: without the strong belonging for things to speed up, to mix entertaining, fun and working as it would be the most natural thing in the world how could they survive in a world which is turning in a crazy speed?

Morning glory at DLD day one

Outside of Pinakothek der Moderne

First day of DLD always means to feel like being back in childhood when Sundays still felt like Sundays: blue sky, an incredible beautiful and empty Hofgarten where I walk through on my way to Pinakothek der Moderne where we have a date with its major design curator of “Die Neue Sammlung“, Dr. Corinna Rösner, will give us a private tour around one of the world’s leading museums of 20th century applied art, and indeed the largest of industrial design.

It is such a pleasure to start this conference with a little art infusion, getting in touch with the first participants before digging into the humbling atmosphere of DLD which always feels like full-blast living.

Here is what we got for breakfast:

We totally get the idea of design when it comes to the thing which I call the “streamlining effect”: look at real design and it will draw you into it, you feel like you can`t do anything else than follow the form with every sense you got.

Luigi Colani, the industrial designer, who was one of the first designer who actually established himself as a real brand, did an excellent job in sucking us in, with his black arrow up there at the ceiling.

The most beloved department of the whole museum, according our curator, was next: Computer culture. Why? Maybe because of the discrepancy between those totally ancient looking computers and the very, very short time ago they got built. But I guess the main reason is that really everybody has a personal connection to those crappy computers, and that`s why they are the perfect dialogue tool between the museum and its visitors. no day without people calling who wants to see this or that computer piece in this exhibition. And if you consider the amount of babies crawling around, there is no question that the Pinakothek der Moderne does not have to fight for a more younger audience.

But as contemporary as the museum is, the more obvious is the fact that they kind of missed out the software design topic -yet. There is a little starting point:  Nele Ströbel’s work:

Definitively a new generation of artists for whom becoming part of a famous museum doesn’t necessarily mean to totally out freak. Her questions, when she was asked to donate her work to the design department : ” What would I get out of i?” I am not sure if the answer of the director: “We give eternity” was exactly what she was aiming for…

So. Great bacon and eggs I would say.

Die Wahrheit über die Warhol Economy in Berlin

credit: Scott MacLeod Liddle

Das Berlin anders funktioniert als NYC ist spätestens seit dem Zeitpunkt klar, als wir feststellten, dass wir unsere abendliche Dinnergespräche ohne groß nachzudenken auf Englisch führten. Will heißen: die New Yorker, die da mit am Tisch Platz genommen hatten, waren gekommen, um ihr kreatives Talent hier ohne den monetären Überlebenskampf in ihrer Heimatstadt entfalten zu können. Dass aber Berlin ruhig ein wenig, und immer noch, auf NYC schielen darf, wenn es darum geht, die Maxime “We make money not art” zum persönlichen Vorteil umzusetzen, darüber sollten wir doch ein wenig nachdenken.

Hier ist die Antwort auf das “warum”.