Week 47

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. Some thoughts on Google+ and some more information about our involvement with this years PICNIC festival.

Crazy Week

We rarely can go into much detail about our work, but last week is especially hard to describe. All of the projects are at a stage that just makes it impossible to discuss them in public. That said, there will be a point when we will be able to reveal more about thm.

Just for the scope of things: we are currently on three deadlines. Two of them are this week, one is next week. The clients roaster is quite diverse: a bank, a media company and a startup. For two of those clients, we are developing the underlining social strategy with all its repercussions. Meaning: we are going deep into the structure of both companies, talking not only about the choice of the right platforms and tools, but also about some re-organizational stuff, polishing processes, making suggestions what people to hire, etc.

Additionally, we’ve been commissioned to write a concept for a product. Based on our concept, the client will decide whether to take the next step and prototype an app. It was our suggestion to approach the project in a highly iterative manner. The client had a great idea for a potentially very interesting product. Our job is it to determine if it can become something more. This requires a solid evaluation of the problem that we are trying to solve and how large the potential market is for what we are trying to do. Our work also includes some preliminary evaluation of the technical requirements.


Google’s new wunderkind attracted quit a lot of attention in a very short period of time. With so many attempts to get social right, Google surprised even the biggest skeptics with a surprisingly polished product. After many failed attempts to create a social layer for its products, Google approached the creation of Google+ with a different team- and processes structure.

While the user count skyrocketed beyond the 25m mark in less then a month, we are still hesitant to suggest our clients pour a lot of resources into Google+. After Marcus Brown told me the truth about the internet, it is hard not think about those services and platforms as children (with all the repercussions). Jokes aside, Google+ is certainly interesting and it is probably here to stay. That said, it is still very raw and if a client inquires about our opinion how to handle it our answer for now is: watch and learn.


We already mentioned that we will be doing a workshop at this years PICNIC festival. A couple of days ago, we also launched a small tumblr where we will collect bits and pieces out of our preparation of it all. Expect some unfiltered, weird stuff from David, Johannes and myself.

Additionally, I’ve been asked to be an adviser to the festival and I accepted gladly. PICNIC is an internationally renown conference with a great track record and I’m humbled to be contributing to its success and to be part of this exceptional list of people.

Here’s more on the PICNIC Festival, including a code for 20% off the ticket price.

Author: Igor
