Pitchstops

On the road to social finances

Arne Hulstein — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:00:32 +0000

I love the road. Whether it is the open road for driving or the roads to the future. Last year, Ford and I teamed up for the pitchstops on the road to the Web 2.0 Expo. Today, I am happy to announce that Ford and I will be getting on the road again. This time I will travel to the Somesso conference in Zürich on the 2nd and 3rd of November.

Somesso focuses on corporate social media and this time has a very clear focus on the combination of social media and finances. And as Somesso is held in Zürich, it is a perfect conference to visit if you are into finances. So far, many of the main financial institutions will be attending to learn about the combination of social media and finances.

I know that many have their own thoughts on how social media should change the way in which we approach money. This is why I have chosen to use this trip as a platform to share these thoughts. This time you can climb in the back of Ford’s luxurious Galaxy to share your views on how social media could change the financial sector. Anyone and everyone with a clear vision on social media and finances is welcome. Naturally, we would love it if you have taken action on your vision and have a business that leads the way. If not? We would love to hear your vision anyway.

All the interviews we will record during the trip will be posted on www.pitchstops.com. I say “we” record as I will be joined on the road by Steven Kruyswijk who will be on camera duty during the trip. And besides posting the videos on the site, we will also be officially presenting them to the audience at Somesso, on stage. So, your thoughts will be heard by a very influential group of financial professionals. Another reason to take part.

For our last trip you needed to be present to take part. This time however, I have decided to broaden the scope. After all, the financial sector has had a huge impact on our lives over the past year. This has gotten a lot of people thinking about alternative ways to organize finances. If you have your own view, but cannot make it to the car, you can still participate. Make a short video of yourself of three minutes maximum, upload it to youtube and send me the link to the video. Yes, I will be screening the videos first, but all worthwile contributions will be added to www.pitchstops.com.

So, lets get shooting! The Pitchstops car will make its first stop in Amsterdam on Friday the 30th of October. After that we will stop in Antwerp, and possibly in Brussels, Luxemburg, Strasbourg and Zürich. None of these stops have officially been planned yet, so give us your ideas for a great location that does not take long to get to (from the highway) and get people to come join us in the Ford Galaxy.

If you want to get involved, please let me know on info@pitchstops.com or through www.twitter.com/arnehulstein.

On the road with Max

Arne Hulstein — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:53:02 +0000

If you read this blog, it will not have escaped your attention that I was in Berlin last week at the Web 2.0 Expo. It was a fantastic week, not in the least due to the sponsoring I got to do the pitchstops. Through doing those I met lots of new people and exchanged ideas with many of them. A literal vehicle to make this happen was the Ford S-Max. Ford Netherlands jumped in to sponsor our trip to Berlin with a loaded Ford S-Max, which we could use for the interviews we did in Berlin. And I have to say, it was a great car.

It all started off with my question on how to get to Berlin in style for the Web 2.0 Expo. Unfortunately a number of brands rejected the whole idea. Both BMW and Citroën even stated that they were not interested in social media exposure at all. But Ford is working hard on finding the value communities can offer its brand and Scott Monty reacted positively to the idea. As he connected me with Dennis Homburg at Ford Netherlands, the search for a suitable car started and the end result was the S-Max. A spacious car with a sporty outside due to the sports package and the huge 20″ alloy wheels.

To be honest, I was a bit sceptical about the Ford. I have driven Ford’s before and I never really liked the seats. And on a trip to Berlin, you really spend a lot of time in those. However, the S-Max exceeded my expectations. Of course the car dazzled you at first with it good looks and even two-tone leather on the seats. During the pitches in Berlin the car even changed names from the Pitchmobile to the Pimpmobile. But driving it for so many ours revealed that the car was much more than just good looks.

I enjoyed the S-Max thoroughly. So much so, that I never actually let go of the wheel, except when I got Erno Hannink to drive it to the Berlin Conference Center once. But the only reason for that was that I still had to change after running. Sorry about that guys. It was just a good wheel to be holding. Speedwise the 2.5 turbo leaves nothing to be desired, as long as you keep track of the gear you are in. Accelerating from 120 in sixth will not be heartstopping, but go down two gears and you are flying. As long as you make sure the turbo is spinning, performance is great. And one of the nice additions for the autobahn was the adaptive cruise control. It keeps you at a safe distance of the car you are following, regardless of what speed you are doing. Well, I have to correct that. It only works until 180 kilometers an hour as it does not allow you to use cruise control above that speed. And that is not a bad idea. Because you need all your concentration at speeds that exceed that. Nevertheless, even when it topped out at 220, we still had someone asleep in the car. A testimony to the relative ease with which the S-Max seems to be performing. And that was something we all agreed upon. Travelling with five to Berlin and four coming back, we did notice that four adults fitted the car much more comfortably. But five worked great if a bit cosier in the back seat. We never pulled up the two rear seats, because we did not have to, but anyone bigger than a child would have been challenged to sit in there for the whole trip by the looks of it.

As an overall result, I was very pleased with the S-Max. It looked great, had good performance and got us there reasonably rested. A good travelling companion. Thanks Ford. It was a good experience.

Web 2.0 Expo Berlin – the pitchstops

Arne Hulstein — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:00:31 +0000

Over the last week I have been pretty busy at the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin. It all started with an invitation to the bloggers program, but it grew to become something all on its own. This post is a quick overview of all the people that got into the Ford S-Max to do a short interview on their startup or their view of the future.

We started on Monday morning at Upstream in Arnhem. On the way there and in Arnhem we used our qik livestream. You can still find it at http://qik.com/mobilecowboys. However, the quality was not what we had hoped for so we moved everything to youtube. There you can see the video’s of:

Theo Janssen of Camee-sportswear.nl (in Dutch)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TbXHUHR7hlU

Geert Veneklaas of Muziek voor Media (in Dutch)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PUuNpbBYFbg

Gerjanne Tiemens of Arnhem-direct.nl (in Dutch)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ufn_Zh5jWxs

Lucien Burm of Kimengi.com (in Dutch)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6IrD5gVbwfg

Dion Slijp and Bart Verheijen of Guruscan.nl (in Dutch)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9VIXmw3mhgM

Lori Bonsma of Sugarmama.eu (in Dutch)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EObcs-m1_34

Oscar Klein and Rogier Sterk of Kleinensterk.com (in Dutch)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=POW2AWv8Elc

Monique and Henk Jan Winkeldermaat of Punkmedia.nl (in Dutch)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1GGsuIzRFt0

Most of Tuesday was spent talking to new startups and uploading videos. No new recordings were made that day.

Wednesday was a busy day. We had a great time talking to:

Nicola Robinsonova on Learnitlists.com
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dm7JlQV8kZs

Sunny Paris on Yoolinkpro.com
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9qgpBZ27aPk

Alexander Ljung of Soundcloud.com
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p2d8t-46m3o

Brady Forrest of O’Reilly Radar on the future for startups
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=or55faEy7js

Dania Gerhardt of Amazee
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OT1DEU9uHBI

Dominik Grolimond of Wuala
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6vO5gmiFd8

Thursday was the last day of the Web 2.0 Expo. We talked to:

Christian Duncan of Playcharts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5mDSplcOqM

Jennifer Pahlka on Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin and San Francisco (http://www.oreilly.com)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlW4×6xi16I

Mike Robinson of Mloovi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZyuJLTGD6E

Mike Butcher of TechCrunch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HVuIBg4K1M

Janetti Chon of O’Reilly Media on community management
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7KXqycDb6Y

Mathijs van Abben of Mobypicture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMtlMu5cYcc

Dr. Michael Alger of Otello
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-AunM0R6k

David Lockie of LowCarbonEconomy.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHDWaqFH6zU

This is a complete list of all the interviews that I have done over the Web 2.0 Expo. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed watching them as well as showing you some great new insights and initiatives.

I also want to say thanks. Thanks to Ford for supplying the S-Max 2.5 turbo, which was an absolutely great car. Thanks to Nokia for supplying the N82 for live streaming and the N96 for the recordings we have put on youtube. And of course to Vodafone for supplying us with the roaming to work with live streaming.

A very personal thanks goes out to Erno Hannink for selflessly promoting the pitch stops at every single opportunity he could. And another very big thanks has to go to Janetti Chon. Thanks for arranging all we needed to pull this off. You have made this an awesome Web 2.0 Expo.

Behind the scenes at the Pitchstops with Marlooz

Arne Hulstein — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:04:20 +0000

We had a great time at the Web 2.0 Expo filming our Pitchstops. And unexpectedly our good friend Marlooz turned up. Marlooz runs Marloozvertizing where you can hire her to do the video coverage at your event. Enthusiastic as ever, she flipped out her camera and did a great behind the scenes of our Pitchstops. Thanks a million Marlooz!

Marlooz is flipping Pitch Stops from Marlooz on Vimeo.

And don’t forget to hire Marlooz for your next event!

Thursday at web 2.0 Expo

Arne Hulstein — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:35:17 +0000

Unfortunately these movies have been slightly delayed. They were shot last thursday at the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin, but time for uploading, and a long trip home got in between filming and publishing. However, here they are. The last set of video’s of Web 2.0 Expo.

Mike Robinson of Mloovi

Mike Butcher of TechCrunch on startups

Christian Duncan of Playcharts

Janetti Chon of O’Reilly Media on community management

Mathijs van Abbe of Mobypicture

Dr. Michael Alger of Otello

David Lockie of LowCarbonEconomy.com

Jennifer Pahlka on Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin and San Francisco

Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Expo

Arne Hulstein — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:17:26 +0000

Yesterday we had another couple of people in the Ford S-Max. And we have decided to mix startups with something else. Other people that have a relevant story. Like Brady Forrest talking about the future of startups.

Sunny Paris on Yoolinkpro.com (http://www.Yoolinkpro.com)

Nicola Robinsonova on Learnitlists.com (http://www.Learnitlists.com)

Brady Forrest van O’Reilly Radar over de toekomst voor startups (http://radar.oreilly.com/)

Alexander Ljung van Soundcloud.com (http://www.soundcloud.com)

Dania Gerhardt van Amazee (http://www.amazee.com)

Dominik Grolimond van Wuala (http://wua.la/)

Streaming and reality

Arne Hulstein — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:18:40 +0000

I have to admit to something. I have to admit to believing that mobile media was better than it is. I have to admit I believed in live streaming great quality video from anywhere. I have to admit to thinking we could pull it off by using applications that are readily available.

And then reality kicked in.

Mobile technology is great and we are able to do much more than we would have a year ago. The phones I am carrying, the Nokia N82, the N95 8Gb and the new N96 are all able to do great quality video. However, the network is not up to it yet. The capacity to process data is probably there, but realtime streaming still is a very different story. Let alone streaming live from a car doing incredible speeds on the German autobahn.

But we are not stopped by this. We are now using the N96 for in-car videos and uploading them through youtube. You can find them all here and on Dutchcowboys.nl

Get startups, get a brownie to share

Arne Hulstein — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:32:50 +0000

Yes, I am going to give away the brownie we received from Sugarmama on monday. You would have to look at the movie to see how gorgeous it is… Anyway, here is your challenge:
I want to have as many startups in the Ford as I possibly can during the Web 2.0 Expo. The first one who will dm me the names of five startups that they have convinced to pitch in the Ford, will win the brownie! (Oh, did I say it is big? It is not a piece, it is the whole thing.)

Looking forward to your dm’s!

Get 5 minutes of international broadcast time

Arne Hulstein — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:33:55 +0000

If you look out of the front doors of the Berliner Congress Center, you will see a black Ford S-Max parked right there. And it is there for a reason. Arne Hulstein has brought the car to the Web 2.0 Expo to give startups, new companies and people with great ideas a platform to promote their ideas on some great international blogs with a great audience in the Netherlands and Germany.

So, how do you get your pitch online? Head over to twitter and follow either @arnehulstein or @ernohannink. And then send them a message explaining who you are, what you do and what you want to pitch. That can get you into our car and onto the blogs. We will be there tuesday to thursday, so you do not have to miss out on any of your speakers. Just let us know what you want to do and we will get you sorted out.

Pitch to a broader audience, make a pitchstop.

Berlijn, onderweg en dan…

Arne Hulstein — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:07:56 +0000

Het was vroeg dag vanochtend. De opmaat voor een lange dag. Het eerste deel van de rit bracht me naar Arnhem waar negen startende bedrijven hun verhaal hielden voor de live camera op de achterbank van de Ford S-Max. Hier voegden ook Erno Hannink, Mathijs van Abben, Wilbert Kramer en Marc van Maanen zich bij mij om de reis naar Berlijn te beginnen.
De reis zelf verliep zonder problemen. Wel wat wegwerkzaamheden die de zaken wat ophielden, maar op de open stukken kreeg de Ford de vrije loop. En die loopt nogal hard. Tot 220 kilometers per uur zijn we gekomen. En dat zonder dat er aan de stabiliteit en het comfort van de S-Max veel te merken was. Hij maakte gewoon zijn kilometers. De adaptive cruise control was daarbij dan een genot om mee te werken. Op het moment dat een andere weggebruiker een lagere snelheid had, paste hij zonder problemen de snelheid aan. Ook al betekende dat soms behoorlijk de ankers uitgooien. Wat mij betreft een hele fijne optie als je dit soort ritten vaker maakt. Het maakt het reizen nogal wat veiliger voor iedereen.
Uiteraard hebben we ook uitgebreid gebruik gemaakt van zowel de telefoons die Nokia ons ter beschikking heeft gesteld, de N96 en N82 en de kaart van Vodafone voor het live streamen. De hele live stream is hier dan ook te zien. Of bezoek de site van qik. Morgen gaan we aan de gang om meer mensen in en om de auto te krijgen, want er zijn genoeg geïnteresseerden.

Hier een overzicht van de pitches in omgekeerde volgorde:

Monique en Henk Jan Winkeldermaat van Punkmedia.nl

Oscar Klein en Rogier Sterk van Kleinensterk.com

Lori Bonsma van Sugarmama.eu

Dion Slijp en Bart Verheijen van Guruscan.nl

Lucien Burm van Kimengi.com

Gerjanne Tiemens van Arnhem-direct.nl

Geert Veneklaas van Muziek voor Media

Theo Janssen van Camee-sportswear.nl

En er is ook een uitgebreide reeks foto’s van gemaakt.

Na de pitches was het echt tijd om te gaan. Op naar Berlijn.