2009, and maybe beyond, will be a very though year for the entire economy. Most probably the worst is yet to come. A lot of budgets are being cut, projects being put on hold. On top of that, most professionals, often fearing their own job, are reluctant to innovate or explore new ideas during crisis with the budgets that are left. A missed opportunity, because these are the times where entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation can take your brand a step ahead.
The current climate is the ideal opportunity to question your business and organizational model, to explore new routes, to invest in more talented people that can make a difference, to challenge your clients,...but also understand better the business needs of the latter.
Pieter Goiris, director of the communication agency Boondoggle, will unveil his secrets to tackle the hurdles by taking his own agency as an example: Mixing creativity, data, content, social networking, point of sales and experience into ROI driven services, campaigns, solutions or projects, will become the DNA of the agency of the future.
It will be a very interesting talk, from which we as HCI professionals most certainly can learn a lot: about entrepreneurship, humor, zen, creativity, flexibility, music, dna, involvement, engagement and dreams. And maybe about the brand called ‘Obama' ;-)
After Pieter's talk and a short break, it's demo time again! This time, we are looking for demos on advanced non-traditional user interfaces and next generation user interfaces (touch interfaces, gestural interfaces,...). We will have interesting demos by EDM, Alcatel Lucent and Namahn, but we're still looking for additional demos. So, if you're interested to show us something of your cutting-edge stuff, please send an e-mail to david.geerts@soc.kuleuven.be. Note that your demo doesn't have to be a fully working system: prototypes, online demos, mockups or the like are perfect alternatives!
So, join us at our next SIGCHI.be event, on Tuesday, March 17 at Louvain-la-Neuve!
Schedule
- 17:00 - 17:15 Introduction
- 17:15 - 18:00 "Brands, agency life, crisis & Obama" - Pieter Goiris
- 18:00 - 18:30 Break
- 18:30 - 19:15 Demo time
- 19:15 - 20:00 Food and drinks, HCI networking
Bio Pieter Goiris
Pieter Goiris is co-founder & Chief Executive Officer of Boondoggle and member of the Board of Directors of Boondoggle. He holds a Master Degree in Organizational Psychology from the KU Leuven and a Bachelor Degree in Agriculture Engineering from the University Gent. In his current position, Pieter is responsible for the General Management, Business & Strategy in Belgium and for the Development of Internationalization Strategy of Boondoggle. He grew Boondoggle towards a leading advertising & communication agency with offices in 3 countries, Belgium, Ireland & Holland. He currently manages a team of about 65 people, with a revenue exceeding 8 Mio Euro.
Pieter is very active and board member in several organizations that support the development of the marketing communications industry, such as Medianet Vlaanderen, Association of Communication Companies (ACC) & Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Next to the professional communication industry, Pieter is also president of the board of two leading organizations in the Belgian Music Industry, being Poppunt in Brussels (advice, content, projects & services) & the concert venue Het Depot in Leuven.
Together with some friends, Pieter is also developing a creative real estate project in the oldest brewery of Stella Artois. This ‘creative minds' project must become the hart of creativity in Leuven within 3 years.
Sign up!
This is where you can sign up: http://www.sigchi.be/events
- SIGCHI.be members: 15 euro
- non SIGCHI.be members: 30 euro
- ACM members that are not SIGCHI.be members: 20 euro
- students that are not SIGCHI.be members: 20 euro
The venue
Salle Urbain Vaes, Université catholique de Louvain,
Louvain School of Management, Place des Doyens, 1
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
We hope to meet you there!
The SIGCHI.be Board
Next SIGCHI.be event, Tuesday, March 17 2009 written on 19-02-09
