I thoroughly enjoy LinkedIn. It functions as my CRM, I can keep track on who’s following me and I can connect to interesting people with whom I can make more meaningful connections at a later stage. I also use LinkedIn to show my profile to the world of business. But, lately something about LinkedIn has been nagging me.
Tagged with: linkedin, social network sites
› Continue reading LinkedIn: rubbing shoulders and outbidding one another
The three-month field research in Southern Africa that my girlfriend and I executed has sadly passed. After a gruelling five-hour traffic jam (during which a three lane highway was temporarily transformed into six lanes) had caused us to miss our plane, we managed to catch our connecting flight to Europe in the nick of time.
Tagged with: airbus, mediaplayer, service, 3g, network, online, customer orientated, airline, mediaairbus, media
› Continue reading Facebook status: “33 thousand feet above the Atlantic”
After many a blog on media in Southern Africa, I reckoned it was time for a piece on that mother of entertainment: Hollywood. Hollywood is known for its three M’s: Movies, Moviestars and Money. But behind that glitter there is a much more powerful force: entrepreneurship. If it wasn’t for the unfailing entrepreneurship of Hollywood, I bet you: that Hollywood sign in those Hollywood Hills would have crumbled many a year ago.
Tagged with: dinosaur, dragon, film, hollywood
› Continue reading Hollywood is synonymous to movies, right? Think again.
Teaching Africans in rural communities with little experience in video how to work with this equipment in four days seems impossible: yet the organisation Self Help Africa is doing exactly that and in a promising way. We met Keelin and Tara, two Irish undergraduates working for Self Help Africa (SHA) in a concrete, congested and polluted city called Lusaka. In the rural communities surrounding this Zambian capital they are training locals how to work with a small digital video camera. But they are not just explaining what one can also find in a technical manual. Lighting, sound, framework, interview techniques, storyboards, editing and other techniques related to making short films are also important topics. The results are short films and interviews by the local community itself that can be used to report to funders. In four days.

Tagged with: africa
› Continue reading Self-Help Africa
As a special bread roll, as a dish, as chewing gum, on backpacks, flags and t-shirts: U.S. president Obama is well represented and endorsed in Malawi. But why is America’s foremost citizen so popular in a country that -apart from aid- has so little to do with the States?
Tagged with: africa
› Continue reading Obamania
Can you imagine having to bury your loved one, creating a program in which his or her life is remembered in a respectful manner and having an entrepreneur talk about life insurance to the gathered grievers? This would be unheard of in the Netherlands. Yet, in Malawi it is common practise. In Malawi commercial messages and eulogies are a match.
Tagged with: africa, advertising
› Continue reading This funeral is sponsored by...
In the Netherlands television commercials change every month or so, posters on bus stops are changed on a weekly basis and social media campaigns adapt their messages in real time to current headlines. Lifespan of commercials is short and, if anything, abundant. Not so in Malawi. One of the most striking forms of Malawian marketing is through stone and masonry billboards that have their messages painted on. Their lifespan is somewhat longer than most Dutch advertising forms: it will last until the paint fades.

Tagged with: africa, advertising
› Continue reading The lost art of painting advertisements
A bloody diaper of a baby. This gruesome photograph is well known throughout South Africa, as it is depicted in hospitals, police stations and other public buildings throughout its provinces. Originally targetting the belief that sex with an infant would cure HIV/Aids, the poster later was meant to open the general public’s eye concerning child abuse. This is not the only poster that will make your stomach make a 360. Here in Malawi posters that adress crime issues are graphic as well. On one poster we see a woman burning her child’s hand and on the other we see a man who has just defiled a small girl. Looking at these posters from my Dutch point of view, I cannot help but think that posters like that will never be hung up in the Netherlands. I have been trying to find out why I feel this way. I think there are a couple of reasons.
› Continue reading Expliced pictures - communication through posters in Malawi
- Bram Koopman
- Caroline Maessen
- Charlotte van Nus
- Claudia Meijer
- Dennis Ringersma
- Dennis Houtzager
- Dennis Piekema
- Dick Swart
- Dick van 't Hof
- Dirk Ploos van Amstel
- Eric Leltz
- Erik Hekman
- Esther Kool
- Frank Meeuwsen
- Guido Froijen
- Harry van Vliet
- Harry Smals
- Jelke de Boer
- Jeroen van Leeuwen
- Joshua Hazelaar
- Karen Bosch
- Karen Hilhorst
- Kees Winkel
- Lies Geven
- Lisanne Groenendaal
- Marieke Welle Donker-Kuijer
- Masoud Banbersta
- Matthijs Rotte
- Maud Bongers
- Maurits Denie
- Michiel Rovers
- Nathalie Out
- Niniane Veldhoen
- Olga Steen
- Peter de Groot
- Pim Schonk
- Richard Deuzeman
- Rogier Brussee
- Ronald van Essen
- Ruben Theunissen
- Sven Koppens
- Thijs Waardenburg
- Thomas Tijdink
- Thomas Vente
- Tom van Steensel
- Wendy van der Steen
- Yun Chen
- Yvonne Buma

