Listen to the minority voice

I attended the Presidents Summit in Copenhagen on Monday, and I have now had time to reflect on how fortunate I was to be invited to this wonderful event. I was grateful for both the auditory and visual inputs from Linda Hill (Professor and Faculty Leader at Harvard Business School), Itay Talgam (Conductor and Leadership expert), Henrik Andersen (CEO, Vestas), Robert Waldinger (Professor at Harvard Medical School), Ashley Whilans (Professor at Harvard Business School), Daniel Pink (Author and Human Behaviour expert), Neil Strauss (Author) and Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez (Project Management expert). It's our nature as human beings to only remember 20% of what we hear and only 30% of what we see, however we remember 50% of what we both see and hear.

Linda Hill left us with some exciting questions:
1.    How much time do you spend on ”coulds” and ”shoulds”?
2.    How do you encourage diversity of thought?
3.    How do you get people to view reasonable missteps and intelligent failures as learning opportunities?
4.    How do you ensure that people don’t compromise to quickly – as opposed to working through differences – when making decisions?
5.    Are you developing talent to be value creators and game changers
6.    Is your team collaborative ready?  

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I am at your service

What do I do?
I have built up a rather unique combination of skills, knowledge and experience. I have been an owner, director, senior leader and commercial executive, with experience of running teams and have a proven track record of exceeding results in highly demanding environments from start-ups to corporates.

Why do I do it?
I have been fortunate to have worked with some outstanding professionals which has enabled me to understand organisational dynamics through people, process and technology. These skills have been proven to be invaluable as I engage stakeholders, explore ideas and opportunities in line with your business priorities. If you want to experience significance and success, I am now in the position to share this valuable knowledge of how to become extraordinary in what you do.

How do I do it?
I currently help organisations, teams, leaders, and front-line employees identify and remove barriers to success. I specialise in addressing issues involving people, processes, and technology - especially where consumers are affected. As part of this focus I examine strategy, culture, interaction design, customer service, branding and leadership practices. I am passionate about spotting emerging best practices and guiding companies to master them. I also speak about these topics in keynotes and lecturing engagements.

We Are All Fragile

Today, all the FA Cup matches will start with a minute’s silence to bring awareness to mental health issues. I wonder what are the effects of stabbings, shootings and gang-related incidents on young males who have been conditioned not to speak their peers about emotional issues? Now as a Londoner who has been living in Copenhagen for 23 years where ethnic minorities, in general, are also not integrated within mainstream society, I have been observing disenfranchised men for decades.

How hurt we feel about our loss and if we do express it in any way then it is expected to be in a masculine way, for example, retaliation, revenge, speaking about retribution, etc., and that’s what we have been teaching each other for years. Perhaps this is why we have such a high rate of suicide amongst men because the dialogue is just not there. We are not speaking amongst ourselves about emotional issues, being open with one another about how we feel. Speaking up may not solve everything but it will definitely help!

Many of us have heard about soldiers who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria who returned ”home” with post-traumatic stress disorder. I think that there are similarities between war zones and the everyday battle young men are facing in our inner cities. The trauma of thinking that if they look at somebody in the ”wrong” way, they may be stabbed - this mindset are making people do some really crazy stuff. I can engage with these youngsters on their level, I can give them focus and aspiration because if we can change their mental game then we can change their external world.

We are all fragile, we all have traumas and it’s easy to judge people we see struggling with addictions, weight issues, self-esteem, etc. We have all been in a bad place in our heads, take a moment to think about that time in your life and just imagine how far you would have fallen you if didn’t have a support structure around you. There are many of us who think that we have got it together, we should all remember that we are only a few steps away from losing it all. 

Fear is a condition for those we help, contact me here to book a 1:1 session...

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Simon Nygaard Hoff, co-owner and creative soul at Wonderland Agency

You and I met each other around 2008 when you had the WAS Gallery in Vesterbro even though we have not seen much of each other over the past couple of years. Last year we bumped into each other at Helle Mardahl’s ’vernissage‘ in Boffi and we both remembered that healthy relationships are nurtured by good conversations. 

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet me. As adults we often let the serious things in life suck all the joy out of our lives. We need to engage the younger side of ourselves to remember what it means to have fun. It’s important to let yourself be a juvenile every now and then, not everything needs to be so critical all of the time. During this interview, I will go with the flow and it’s totally unscripted 😊.

Can you tell me a little about your background?

It all began with the Wonderland Magazine in 2005 which kickstarted the Wonderland journey. In the first magazine we had a big article with Tal R and Jonathan Meese. We based the concept around dressing them up as Freud and his mum, as they were both in love with Freud. Tal R and Jonathan Meese said they would like to use the costumes, but we had to come over to Berlin. As we were still students travelling to Berlin was expensive but we managed. Subsequently, Tal R and Meese had a huge exhibition at Statens Museum for Kunst called ”Mor”, SMK had already made promotional material which they scrapped in favour of our images for the official press release, advertising and posters. Crown Prince Frederik and the Minister of Culture, Brian Mikkelsen, opened the exhibition. We were buzzing, this was an ideal start for us and the success was a big deal for us students, over the next couple of years we made 11 issues of the magazine, which were distributed in Denmark and Germany.

What are you up to nowadays?

Product design, furniture design and interior design.

Copyright: Please Wait To Be Seated

What made you choose to design the salt and pepper pots?

It was because I made the concept and interior design of a restaurant on the top floor of Illum. I was hired by Carlsberg to design the Bar Jacobsen restaurant/bar - I did the concept and interior design, and then I bought a lot of chairs from a company called, Please Wait To Be Seated (PWTBS). The owner (Thomas) came to the opening and asked if there was something I would improve. Now, as there is always one thing that you are annoyed about and it was the salt and pepper pots. Thomas said that is was really funny as he, wanted to add a salt and pepper design to the PWTBS collection and then I was hired as the designer. I told him that if he gave me 14 days I would come back with some great ideas and the rest is history.

They are made in wood and are being sold in cool shops like Illums Bolighus and Stilleben, but we think they still need a more commercial retailer as it's a royalty agreement.

How did you get into the art world? 

My education is a pretty boring project management degree and I am an autodidactic graphic designer. I slowly moved into the art world when we opened Wonderland Art Space in 2008. Working with the room experience, collaborating with different artists to build and design art bars for festivals. In 2010, I was working on the visual identity for Roskilde Festival, making an art bar for Absolut vodka (Pernod-Ricard) with Helle Mardahl and Andreas Emeniusalso I was making a campaign for Diesel. I was subsequently hired by Roskilde Festival in 2011 to make another art bar, again it was sponsored by Absolut vodka but this time I worked with the artist, Anne Sophie Sandal on the project.

What were you interested in whilst at school?

I grew up in Svogerslev (small town outside Roskilde), I went to high school in Roskilde, but immediately afterwards I moved to Copenhagen as I was so tired of small city life. Even though I really like Roskilde and will probably move back one day...

I was interested in creativity and art whilst I was at school, I wasn’t interested in learning languages or mathematics, I just wanted to play football and learn about creativity. The only thing that I knew was that I had to move to Copenhagen as soon as possible. I attended a 6-month foundation graphics course at Copenhagen Technical School which was extended to one year and I attended film, drawing and graphic courses.

Afterwards, I started a small T-shirt brand called SLRP with Rasmus Blæsbjerg who was one of the first web design teachers at the Design School and was also best friends with Oliver Bjerrehus. I moved to New York for a few months with Rasmus and tried to build up SLRP over there with an American partner, but it did not work out.

Courtesy of W Magazine archives

Did you read comics or magazines? Who was your hero?

No, I read magazines and I was really inspired by the American W-Magazine that featured fashion, art, film and culture. I remember receiving some money from my aunt and immediately buying a retrospective book featuring W-Magazine issues from 1990. The book was huge and cost DKK 2.500. Then I knew that I really wanted to make a magazine one day.

I have never been a big fan of comics, Rasmus Blæsbjerg was the man I looked up to for many years, he was a character and very funny. The Wood Wood guys were also quite an inspiration, especially in the beginning when they had the shop on Krystalgade.

What was your first big career decision? 

In the beginning of the 2000s, I started to learn a lot more about visual art and then I became a fan of a lot of artists because for me art is pure creativity where there are no rules. There are just your own rules, there is no client, you don't have to think of a brand, there is no brief. As an artist you can do what you like. The downside of all of this freedom is also the difficult part! I have been advising a lot of young artists about their career, they should know what they want to do, which direction they want to pursue, for example, sound, video, installations, etc. You cannot do it all, if you want to be an art superstar you have to think about your own brand - Tal R is a good example as you never doubt that it is him when you see one of his paintings. The way he combines the colours and figures, he has a childish way of painting with an edge. Tal R is also really good at speaking about his art, his work has a high level of quality, his motives are appealing - it's painting, it's childish, it's funny. He uses beautiful colours and he's really charming and good at networking. Tal’s also made a lot of right choices, e.g. he’s represented by Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin and I've met the owner, Bruno many times, he's also a lot of fun. There are so many characters within the art industry 😊

Everyone wants a deeper connection with their clients, how do you create an emotional connection with your customers?

We at Wonderland are a commercial agency but we combine our own projects e.g. salt & pepper, with more commercial projects. We have just reopened the gallery, we are making a podcast about the advertising business. We don't ask permission, we just do it! 

It's really important to get your own experiences, for example, trying to make an event because it is really difficult. Getting people to come, creating the marketing and promotion, so if you have that experience then you know how hard it is when you have to do it for a client. Their client’s budgets also have to reflect that if they want to be successful.

It's difficult to get big budget projects, you really have to fight for them and then to have permission to be creative within your own field of expertise and that takes a lot of back and forth, briefs, meetings, etc. Now we are staffing up on the management side, as we know that we have a good reputation and the best creative freelancers want to work with us, where we have struggled in the past to get the big budget jobs.

Courtesy of Wonderland Agency

It appears as though you made a seamless transition from the art world into communication & design. What were the key drivers for you to make the move into the communications world?

The transition has evolved by taking small steps, going more towards a commercial agency and away from the art business. We had a tipping point at the end of 2011, where we had to make the decision whether we wanted to run a creative agency or to run a gallery. At that time the gallery was representing 5 artists and they wanted to be represented at international trade fairs. However, we were not prepared to spend our weekends trying to sell art when we knew that we made all our money from the creative agency. The gallery was more the face; it was definitely not the body.

We started to make small campaigns for Tuborg, we became the Danish advertising agency for Absolut vodka and Diesel, and they both liked the edge that we could bring by gathering the cool creatives. We could not give the artists the representation they deserved, so we decided to close the gallery and move in the city and run our commercial agency there.

In 2103, we landed our biggest job to date for Somersby. We created a sub-brand, ”Somersby Unlimited” specifically targeting young party goers in Denmark. Here we had our commercial breakthrough and a huge budget. We created everything for the concept (strategy, brand name, visual identity, packaging design, etc.). 

Carlsberg sold out of Somersby everywhere during the first two years and this is really something phenomenal when a Carlsberg brand sells out, as they really produce a lot of units. There was so much hype created around the product, simply by adding animal print on the bottles - it was a really simple idea, but the timing was perfect. Fashion is really mainstream and it can move a lot of people, we needed a creative basis for the idea for Somersby to become fashionable. The following year we knew it would be floral prints and we knew that if we integrated that on the bottles it would be a hit and again it sold out. The third-year was really difficult to follow up on the iconic bottles, so, unfortunately, Carlsberg closed down the brand.

Courtesy of www.markedsforing.dk

What role has digital taken in your business model?

Yes, it does! We have two sides of the Agency, I am head of design & art and there is not much digital on that side. The other side is SoMe and digital marketing. Here there is a lot of digital, looking at online trends, Facebook algorithms are constantly changing but as we are doing all the SoMe for Fitness World we have to stay on top of the game. And my business partner, Sophie Hardinger is running that side of the Agency, she has become a SoMe nerd. We have 4 people in her department and hire freelancers if we need to work with Adwords etc.

What makes your brand stand out from the crowd? 

I hope that this artistic creative edge we have is the reason why clients want to work with us. Pernod-Ricard recently contacted us again as they want us to integrate their brands in a creative and cool environment. 

I realised that when you develop strong ideas and you invest in the creative process, for example, thinking about the materials, the look, etc. delete. then I am really good at taking a brand and taking it into a physical dimension with a lot of funny creative solutions. I prefer to work on interior designs rather than creating advertising campaigns! The work will last a lot longer than just a quick fix, but of course it's difficult to convince companies to invest money into a long-term solution than a quicker, cheaper one. I have managed, so far, to explain and sell to a supertanker like Carlsberg where the Hall of Carlsberg has been up for 5 years and the Carlsberg VIP Lounge at Parken has been there for 7 years

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A Taste of Paris in Dowtown Copenhagen

Today, I had the opportunity to interview David Piffre about his journey from the outskirts of Champagne to Bisto de Paris in Copenhagen. David is remembered fondly for his legendary Patisserie on Oehlenschlægersgade in Vesterbro.

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule, David. You recently told me that you will be celebrating 31 years as a qualified chef on 1st July. Can you tell me a little about your education and where you have worked?
I was educated in a private cooking school in Champagne, where I learned classic technique, cutting, preparation, identification of the raw ingredients, the organisation of the French kitchen and discipline, all under the critical eye of professional French chefs and cooks. Usually, this education is 4 years but as I was already working in restaurants on weekends and during the holidays, I skipped the basic classes and managed to graduate in 2.5 years.

After graduation, I immediately left to work as a young cook in Luxembourg and then I moved to Amsterdam where I worked as a chef. Afterwards, I had to return to France for my Military Service and I was sent to Germany for 12 months, and I had nothing to do with the kitchen for this period. As I was a good soldier, I was rewarded by getting a job in the Ministry of Defense in Paris, which was a little boring so I only stayed for 6 months before moving to Lausanne. After Switzerland, I moved to Florida and then Barbados, where I met the wonderful creative author, Rosemary Parkinson, whom I helped with her book, "Culinaria - The Caribbean". In Barbados, the ingredients that I was vaguely familiar with were used in a completely different way from what I had been used to and here I learnt about variety and the magic of the Caribbean cuisine.

Author: Rosemary Parkinson

I know that you are from Champagne, but can you tell me about what it was like to grow up there?
Champagne is best known for the production of the sparkling white wine that bears the region’s name. EU law and the laws of most countries reserve the term "Champagne" exclusively for wines that come from this region located about 100 miles (160 km) east of Paris. I was used to having agricultural farmers all around me, and as my father was a builder he was offered the best meat and vegetables in exchange for helping the farmer with their building reparations, as bartering was the currency of choice. You have to remember this was before there were supermarkets in the suburbs or main cities!   

I know that you are the "main man" at the Bistro, so I know that you are here quite often, but what do you do for fun?
It all depends on the season, the time of the year. In the winter time, I do not do anything, it's my hibernation time, I just stay home and relax. Sometimes it's possible for me to travel to a sunny destination, and when I have this opportunity, I usually choose Asia as I have a lot of very good friends in Bangkok. During the spring/summer, I love to bicycle, a trip of 40 or 50km on my city bike, taking it easy, observing, is a wonderful way to spend my day off in the Copenhagen sunshine.

Who was your childhood hero?
Zorro was my idol. He was my idol, the black clothes, the horse, the mask - he was the man. I am still a big fan, today if I can see the series or the movie it still makes me happy and calms me down.

What is the most exciting thing right now, it could b in your personal or professional life?
My new pizza truck project. My good friend died two and a half years ago and his widow is alone with 7-year-old twins, she cannot manage his food truck business, so she asked me if I would like to help her and of course, I said yes!

What are you most looking forward to in 2018?
I would be really pleased if I can get the empty room next to my apartment, I have been trying to get this additional room for 10 years now. And I hope that this is the year where I get the extra room from the building as I would like to build a new bathroom.

What was the best thing to happen to you in 2017?
There were many good things that happened last year, but I think that my best friend got married. I never ever expected her to get married, so it was a big surprise and am so extremely happy for her. The wedding reception was here at the Bistro de Paris and they had a great party, it was so much fun. The Bistro can be hired for private events, weddings, confirmations, christenings, birthday parties, etc., so please contact us if you are interested.

In your opinion, how can you create and deliver a deeper connection with your customers?
I am not sure we can make a better experience for our clients, when they arrive here they are greeted with eye contact and made to feel genuinely welcome. I am confident that the food we serve to eat and drink is the best value for money experience you can get in Copenhagen. It's fresh, it's home-made, there are no hidden agendas, so it pleases me when the clients say it was a nice evening and they can leave satisfied. Sometimes I even get a hug and I feel really good and this is what breeds confidence. We have recently started a Newsletter to keep our customers updated on the events and offers at the Bistro.

With regards to Bistro de Paris, how can you continually evolve and grow?
Maybe opening at lunchtime?
When people are not used to going to restaurants on a regular basis, the Bistro is good value for the price and quality. It's simple food, but using the same raw ingredients as in the really expensive restaurants, the presentation may not be as fancy, but it is exactly the same products. 97% of our clients are very happy with the prices, DKK 300 for a 3-course meal and 2 glasses of wine is outstanding value for money.

Many people confuse a "Bistro" with "Gastro" restaurant, a Bisto is a place where you eat quickly, as they say in Danish a "spisested". It's simple, the menu is on a blackboard and we cross it off the menu when it is sold out, just like it is when you travel in France. The walls are painted yellow like a Bistro from the 1950's, 60's, the lamps, the pictures/posters on the wall gives an authentic feel to the place. Quality wines at reasonable prices

What's the most important thing I should know about you?
I am a really honest person that tries to treat people fairly, I do not play tricks or try to deceive. When I like someone I smile and on the other side, when I am in doubt about their intentions I try to leave the situation without creating a fuss.

Bistro de Paris · Vesterbrogade 19 · 1620 Copenhagen V · T: (+45) 33 33 82 22

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