Crossmedialab is hiring two student assistants

By Kees Winkel on 19 February 2011

Crossmedialab is currently hiring two student assistants for 8 to 10 hours per week. Starting as soon as possible. We are looking for assistants who:
• Have a passion for crossmedia
• Want to design and develop the ‘Museumkompas’ website
• Will design and develop the ‘crossmedialab’ level in Little Big Planet
• Want to support the development, building and testing of (prototypes of mobile) applications
• Support and take care of our website www.crossmedialab.nl
• Work in the crossmedialab (FCJ 0s142)
• Fit in our team (open, critical, humor, team player, professional attitude)

tagged with: assistent, studentassistent, werk, job, crossmedialab

The Archives in the age of cool

By Jelke de Boer on 16 February 2011

The city of Utrecht has, as many Dutch cities and regions, a rich and well-documented history. There is a huge mountain of data of all sorts of events taking place in or around the city. And by mountain of data you can take that quite literal. If you would make a stack of all the documents it would form a pile higher then the Mont Blanc, with its 4811 meters the highest mountain of Europe. The preservation of these huge collections is a complex task, and making it easily accessible is even harder. Making it all something that a non-professional audience can experience in a fun way seems like an almost impossible task.

tagged with: vrede van utrecht, experience, mobile, cultural heritage

A tale of two Mediabattles

By Rogier Brussee on 10 February 2011

This week the Media battle between students from the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and Saxion in Enschede is taking place. It’s the third time we use this format, and this time the theme is inner city entrepreneurship. Students will work out a crossmedial strategy to attract more people to shops in the inner cities of Utrecht and Enschede, balancing physical with an on-line presence. Meanwhile a completely different media battle is going on: the struggle for freedom of the Egyptian people and people in other Arab states. While our media battles are in an atmosphere of friendly competition, in Cairo the media battle is rather more grim and,  no offence to our commissioners, students, and colleagues, has higher stakes.  What, if any, is their relationship ? In both cases there is a highly visible and important role for social media, mobile communication and internet usage.

tagged with: security, egypt, social media, privacy, mediabattle

Why advertising can’t change consumer behavior (at least according to Dick Swaab).

By Kees Winkel on 1 February 2011

I don’t usually hang out in casinos, let alone, on Thursday evenings but the twentieth of January I was invited to come listen to a talk about the brain by Dr. Dick Swaab, accordingly one of the most prominent neurobiologists in the world. The call was by the Esprix  organization; the exemplary advertising prize in the Netherlands, presided by Peter Paul Blommers, Ogilvy Amsterdam’s vivid CEO. Professor Swaab wrote a cash hitting page-turner called ‘We are our brain, from womb to Alzheimer’. The chosen venue was, as I mentioned the Holland Casino near Leidseplein in Amsterdam. And what a venue it was. But before entering the catacombs of one of man’s most devastating addictions, let me write a bit on Professor Swaab’s explicit believe that advertising cannot change consumer behavior.

tagged with: swaab, advertising, neuro, behavior, casino, esprix

Blended Learning starts with a Paperless Office

By Harry Smals on 25 January 2011

Good old PR guru Anne van der Meijden already said it over twenty years ago: good external communication starts with good internal communication. Meaning that building and maintaining a fruitful relationship with a target audience starts with building a coherent group of employees first. We can apply this on the relationship between lecturers and students.

tagged with: paperless office, blended learning

What's on?

By Niniane Veldhoen on 23 January 2011

A typical Monday evening at our house:  matthijs and I both tired of our first workday of the week, and still not totally recovered from usually a full programmed weekend, our bellies round from a lovely meal either one of us could have prepared, sitting on the couch, fighting over the remote.

tagged with: boer zoekt vrouw, de wereld draait door, succesfactors, tv, research

Help I’m in the Cloud!

By Erik Hekman on 20 January 2011

If someone told me five years ago that my data, my precious data, would be in the hands of a third party such as Dropbox I would have never believed him. The same matter for not owning a MP3 collection anymore, but streaming it for 10 euros each month using Spotify. In an information-centered society the data one owns becomes crucial for survival. Work, photo’s, bank account information, contact details, email correspondence, and other relevant information are neatly stored in folders on hard drives and (if someone is smart enough to back up) external hard disks. The thought of my data leaving the room would have frightened me five years ago.

tagged with: cloud, gaming, internet

NOS and the public library: the new school of journalism?

By Michiel Rovers on 16 January 2011

A few months ago I talked about the new developments in libraries. The age of just lending books is over. Libraries are looking for new forms of service in addition to the existing services. Possible new services are an art library, a place to meet for several target groups or a central information center. The library is getting some help from an unexpected corner. The NOS (Dutch broadcast association) has announced to cooperate with the public libraries. The newsarchive of the NOS will be merged with background information from the libraries.

tagged with: social media, library, nos, young people

Life's a Pitch

By Matthijs Rotte on 13 January 2011

Yesterday the new batch of graduate students pitched for a place in the CrossmediaLab graduate program. There was some sweat, some anxiety and some stuttering, but all in all the students did good presentations. But now! Now the work starts, sculpting the students into researchers is a painstaking process. I know, I once was a graduate student at the crossmedialab. Frustration, tons of literature and blank sheets of paper (that always seem to be winning the staring contest) are just a couple of the things waiting for them. But as I recall from my own time as a graduate student at the Lab, I learned a lot and I had a lot of fun.

tagged with: usability, pitch, graduation, social, mobile, Marketing

2011. Mumbling away (just for once)

By Kees Winkel on 6 January 2011

I’ve got a couple of things I would like to share with you. First of all: happy New Year! Since it is the 6th, this is still allowed in our culture and as our website enjoys an increasing number of viewers, I consider this my last best whishes for 2011 to all.

tagged with: symbian, os, 2011, mobile