Oliver Reichenstein writes:

“In the cellphone of an 11-year-old, the browser is not, as you might think, “the Internet”. He doesn’t know exactly what a browser is and how to use it. Apps bring him there sometimes. To a chatting teen, the address bar is a cousin of the terminal.”

Self-publishing was once a revolutionary concept. Then Facebook, Medium and YouTube came along. Your thoughts became a commodity. Many of these ecosystems want us to think they are open, but quite the opposite is true. Suddenly, me typing this article in my FTP client and uploading it to my own web server doesn't feel so old-fashioned. Maybe it was the right thing to do all along.

“Blogging is so out of fashion that it is almost fashionable again. (...) And it’s writing as opposed to liking, thinking as opposed to reacting, owning your traffic as opposed to building up your Facebook followers that one day a Zuckerberg will take away from you when it suits his needs.”

Read “Take the power back” on ia.net →

Join the New York Times on a behind-the-scenes tour of the place where Broadway shows are rehearsed. Here, only an elevator ride separates the founding fathers in Hamilton from the icy world of Frozen.

Watch the video on nytimes.com →

In case you were ever wondering what that would look like.

Watching music happen live (even if it's just on video) makes any song instantly better.

“When you share something, you risk losing it.”

Part human, part bird.
Also, First Aid Kit is a great music choice for this. You'd expect massive beats like in every second GoPro video, but I'm glad he went down a different route. Well, flew down.

The New York Times did an impressing Op-Doc regarding a genre of documentary filmmaking I didn't even know existed. In the US, lawyers are allowed to make films to lure judges into making their sentence a little less severe (or in some cases, a lot less severe). Documentary filmmaking entails a lot of ethical greyareas – how close to reality can a film even be?

“Dip to black, baby.”

It's the first Advent, which means we can officially switch from Pre-Christmas Music to Christmas Music. I made two playlists this year. The Alternative one is my favourite and includes some christmas songs you probably haven't heard before. The classics are, well, the classics.

Christmas Alternative

Christmas Classics

Together with some fellow students, I'm shooting a documentary. At the heart, this is something that I enjoy. I enjoy working with the medium of film; I enjoy the technicalities, I enjoy the storytelling. But that's not enough to make a documentary.
To make a good documentary, you need to tell a story. And telling a story involves making a plan – a storyboard, a script, or just a concept that everyone on the team can identify with. This whole process has reminded me of what someone once told me about making a plan.
Waiting for inspiration to strike is not a plan. As is discovering your talent by accident. Or waiting until someone tells you what to do. That's just hope.
Making a plan involves steps that you have control over, things you can do in order to reach a certain goal. It's the act of holding yourself accountable for what you do or don't do. Which is why it's so hard and painful to make a plan and following through with it.
Currently, we don't have a plan. We just hope that we'll be able to make a film from the things we've shot so far. I'm not sure whether that's going to happen.

It's December, which means it's time for consumption. And what would the season of consumption be without any advertisment? A peaceful, quiet christmas, probably. But that's not the point. Here are some advertisments to make you feel all festive and stuff.

Lufthansa:

Heathrow Airport:

H&M:

Apple:

And Apple, again:

And the John Lewis classic.

The subtitle for my blog is currently “Reminders for myself, mostly”. This is one of those reminders.

It's very easy to wait for an oppertunity to magically appear. To wait for the new year so you can finally start over and become a better human being. To wait until someone talks to you before speaking yourself. Or to wait until you're done with university, degree in hand, which will definitely mean you'll get hired right away and live a happy life full of money, right?

Well, I don't think that's going to happen. First of all, degrees – especially in the creative industries – are worth less and less as graduations pass. You'll also never be done with learning. You will always be a student, at some point you will just stop being eligable for all the discounts.

But most importantly, there is a fundamental misunderstanding about what university is for. Some people think you have to spend time and money so that in the end, someone will pick you. Quit waiting to get picked. As Seth Godin writes, pick yourself.

“The opportunity of a lifetime is to pick yourself. Quit waiting to get picked; quit waiting for someone to give you permission; quit waiting for someone to say you are officially qualified and pick yourself. It doesn’t mean you have to be an entrepreneur or a freelancer, but it does mean you stand up and say, “I have something to say. I know how to do something. I’m doing it. If you want me to do it with you, raise your hand.””

The great thing about university is that it (if it does its job well) gives you freedom to experiment. Freedom to fail. Freedom to do things that you wouldn't normally do because you won't make any money with them.

Allow yourself that freedom. But don't allow yourself the freedom of being lazy and waiting on being picked. Pick yourself. And get going.

“Therapy is expensive, so I made this instead”

When I play tennis, I play doubles. The hardest part about doubles is figuring out who hits the ball when the opposing team returns it in between the two of us. At least once per match, I'll think my partner is going to take it while he thinks I will, at least once per game, we smash into each other because we both run towards the ball. The real art when playing doubles is to decide within milliseconds who is going to play next and then following through on that responsibility.

Project management is similiar. The worst projects are the ones without clear responsibilities. One of my first questions for new clients is “Who is involved in this? Who will get to make the decisions, who needs to be informed on the state of the project?”. Make sure to clearly define responsibilities, communicate them to everybody and then holding every party accountable. That might involve shouting “Me!” and “You!”.

Although I believe responsibility is best taken, not given. If you can hit the ball, do it. Just make sure not to smash into anyone else.

At the museum is a fascinating series I discovered through a post on kottke.org. The video series is produced by MoMA and gives you a glimpse at what it takes to run a museum.

“As the Museum of Modern Art prepares to ship 200 masterworks by artists like Picasso, C’ezanne, Rothko and de Kooning for a special exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, other MoMA staff begin to install a new line-up of exhibitions in New York.”

Who thought printers and paper could make a backdrop for a music video? OK Go did.

On November 23rd, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. Sadly, we Europeans mostly know this tradition because of the following Black Friday, when we can finally get all these things we think we need at a lower price but higher cost. Recently, I stumbled over this wonderful speech by Fred Rogers. He spends ten seconds of his acceptance speech inviting the room to think about the people who have brought them here, together. It's something we should do more often. Not only thinking, but thanking.

“I'll watch the time.”

It's a little too early for christmas music (people tell me when I blast “Wonderful Christmastime” on full volume in my apartment), so I made a little playlist of pre-christmas music.

Some things are difficult to put into words. Like that feeling you get when you pull out your Christmas playlist in early November, knowing you'll regret it, but still craving it like a candy bar. Actually, you can put that into words. What I really can't put into words is this dance piece I discovered a few days ago. Just watch it. It's mesmerizing.