It is time for the 2. NordicMeetup on May 26, 2010 at our favourite spot – Ruby’s. We are co-locating the event together with TechCrunch Europe who is in Copenhagen for their third TCNordic event.

Since NordicMeetup got sold out in 1.5 hour – and before we had a chance to publish the tickets, we have arranged with TechCrunch Europe that if you buy a ticket to TCNordic, you will get a special offer by using the promotion code: nordicmeetup giving you access to the evening event as well.

This time BvHD has made NordicMeetup a reality, by sponsoring the ticket to a free drink at Ruby.

Petra & I are so thrilled to see the amazing support for NordicMeetup, people are offering their help, also with co-hosting in other Nordic cities – and most of all by showing up, having fun and supporting the Nordic startup environment, this is exactly what we hoped for.

Looking forward to see you at NordicMeetup!

A year ago I attended Geek’n´Rolla in London organised By TechCrunch Europe. The following day I was invited to attend a meetup called DrinkTank sponsored by the London startup Huddle. I was told that the purpose of the monthly event is to have an informal meeting point where startups, investors and other people related to tech and entrepreneurship can meet and kick tires. This event reminded me that we needed a meeting point not only to connect Copenhagen, but also to connect like-minded people in the  Nordic area.

What characterises thriving startup environments, is a well connected community, events, proximity to money, creativity and talent. The vision with NordicMeetup is to strengthen the local scenes and to concurrent connect the Nordic cities with each other, to benefit from more scale than a small scene can provide.

Together with Petra Johansson, I started to organise the event. And now NordicMeetup is finally a reality thanks to our sponsors Sunstone Capital and StartupBootcamp.

We will start out in Copenhagen, on April, 8. More info and registration at NordicMeetup.
Follow the Twitter stream hashtagged #NordicMeetup.

We launched Mentory almost a year ago. A lot of interesting profiles have joined as protégés, mentors and even as both. All sorts of skills are represented, but the majority of users are tech and entrepreneurial oriented.

While people have been supporting the idea and the need of an online mentorship, the ideal online transformation still needs to be developed. We must find the way to motivate for participation for all parties, so conversations will flow. Some has mentioned the mentor/protégé relation as a barrier – they do not see them selves as either. The need of access to global skills has been expressed, but not necessary only between two people. Some believe the mentors should be paid, or as in real life get something in return from the protégé i.e. time.

Our thoughts is to strengthen online conversations, and global connection between people. One way is to emphasis the “advisory board”, so one person is connected with a board of people representing different skills. The initiator/protégé can post questions to the board, and the best suited will answer and thereby also share their knowledge with the other members of the board. We are also inclined to turn the focus towards Tech Entrepreneurship, so Mentory will become more focused as a community within this area.

Our objective is to support our users needs, any ideas and feedback to our thoughts are more than welcome – so please throw a comment.

We continually spent more time online – now an average of 13 hours per week. Facebook connectivity increases within new demographics, and the voice of oppressed groups is strengthened online. The platform for social and real-time web is the communities that place the individual in the centre, with tools that helps us construct the story of our ideal self-image.

The range of social services we use including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. covers different needs, but the similarity is that they fulfil our need for curiosity, recognition and profiling. The success of the individual is measured quantitative in terms of the number of friends, followers or connections we gain. By focusing on the ego in a social context, makes our behaviour and perception rather predictable. By keeping us self-centered, has web 2 and social media thereby limited us rather than liberated us as individuals?

Participatory motivation
Linking community behaviour with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, shows a coverage of our need for social belonging and recognition. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can also reflect the evolvement of the Internet, from focus on basic infrastructure and security to the services we use today that support our need for social belonging and esteem. This thesis indicates, that the future of web will move towards supporting our need for self-actualization. According to Maslow our need for self-actualization will rise when the previous needs are met, and therefore not attract us all. So we will probably continue to use services that stimulates us socially, fortifies our ego and most of all – just entertains.

The end of web 2
But as with other trends, we might experience a backlash, where the measurement goes from quantitative in relation to the number of friends, towards qualitative in terms of individual impact and influence in a group with value, meaning and actual change as key indicators. First movers on the web will probably soon sort out friends, contacts and followers, that gave them status during the social web era, and instead move towards the era of “value web” where a friend is chosen on the basis of value. To be a part of these value groups, you will either provide impact, or be exclusively chosen, bringing status to the given social hierarchy.

What do we really achieve from our numerous online hours – do we in fact strengthen our relationships on Facebook, or is it rather entertainment and curiosity that leads us to spend time observing “what is on the mind” of the 10% of users that actually participate.

When Twitter emphasises the situation in Iran after the June 2009 election, whereafter to be surpassed by Michael Jackson’s death, how great impact has our participation actually had? As Queen Rania expressed at LeWeb:

“Can the real time web bring real world change?”

There are not many services available today that support self-actualization, altruism, and other elements that moves focus from the ego towards value in and to a group. And will motivational factors supported by the successful communities of today, still be necessary on the value orientated communities of tomorrow? Does the multitude truly want to act for a good purpose, if they are not rewarded with recognition and profiling? One thing is to show that you support a good cause on Facebook – which also supports our perfect online image, another thing is to actually spent the necessary time to act and change.

Social web – limits rather than liberates
Maslow´s hierarchy of needs is distinguished by its visual simplicity, but there are other interesting thoughts on what motivates us to act. Spinoza´s philosophy is that everything is determined by cause and effect, so even if we believe as individuals that we act based on our free will, we are in fact externally influenced including socially.

Maslow also considers a self-actualized person as free in relation to social influence, which enables us to make decisions based on our beliefs and values, rather than social norms and rules. Taoism and Zen Buddhism has a similar view – man is truly liberated when freed from worldly possessions, social pressure and power, thereby decisions are no longer made on the basis of external authority. Spinoza´s definition is a virtuous free person who pursues goals that benefits all, sharing knowledge and makes other virtuous, free and good, the focus is not on the ego but on the surrounding world.

As long as the web of today supports egocentrism and restrains us in a social context, do we then loose the opportunity of self-actualization, self-development and ethics, thus other underlying values?

From social to value web
If only some of our countless online hours were spent on altruism, we might ultimately get more sustainable gratification than Facebook and similar services are able to give us today.

My personal hope is that services and users in the future stimulates value, meaning and altruism in a social and global context. Research indicates that altruism affects the same area of the brain as sex. If altruism is so closely related to this driving force, why aren´t more people doing it? Are we able to influence altruism by how we design our web services, in order to motivate people to do something for others with ultimate satisfaction as reward?

But is it not okay to spend our time on social trivialities and entertainment, without necessarily being self-developed or changing the world, but where the objective is just to relax. The answer must depend on the individuals needs, but hopefully the future communities will make it easier for individuals to make a difference.

What´s in it for me?
The views above are based on the believe that people desire more meaning and value, but in a busy daily life it can be difficult to see how we can actually contribute. If we look at community behaviour, we are more inclined to contribute if we are rewarded, whether we gain recognition or profiling. The interesting aspect is how to motivate individuals, in a direction that gives a more prolonged and/or enhanced satisfaction. So, from quantitatively measurement by the number of friends, the future services will rather measure the impact of the individual, whether it is in a group, in society, or globally. If this proves to be the trend for the future, we may get closer to – real time web bringing real world change.

Danish version

When a jazz band gather for a jam session it is all about improvising based on experience, skills and creativity. They are focused on the opportunities that arises from the chord chart (the frame that defines the rhythm and harmonic). They sense, they listen, they collaborate while creating unique unpredictable art.

Based on the same principles we create jam session startups, meaning that we set a course and we gather the perfect team of highly skilled people. We do not create an agenda or agreements, but we focus, do our best, sense and listen to our users. We collaborate on creating unique, unpredictable and user driven startups.

What happens when we skip the business plan, the agreements and the technical specifications? It is simple – we execute, learn and improve. Instead of a business plan, we set an overall strategy i.e. our course, set up milestones and deadlines, and we take these very seriously. Our deadlines makes us prioritize and fight the perfectionist part of us, that want´s to launch a perfect service, which will never happen.

I have tried both ways of running a startup, but somehow the more effort I put into planning, structure and great business plans, the less I achieve. The reason is that I miss out on spontaneity, which in many cases are the best source for innovation.

When we build Mentory, we knew that we should launch a basic version i.e. no Rolls Royce to start with, but instead sense the adaption while listening to our users. In the past three months since we launched, we have learned lessons and gotten ideas that couldn´t have been predicted up front. The journey is also much more exciting, we know our course but we do not know where it will take us a long the way, and in the end – it is all about Jazz.

When we share, we give others the opportunity to take advantage of our knowledge and experience, making it evolve in the minds of other individuals. This is basically what a mentorship and Mentory is all about. 

So why have a mentor relation when it can be done sporadic on Google.

As a protégé you set a goal with your mentorship. And while having the relation, you are able to ask specific questions, reflect on the answers and try it out. After trying, new questions rice, and here comes the benefit of asking a mentor that know your case and background. 

We all have mentors, formal, informal, unconsciously and in different areas in life. Some inspire us with our carrier and on our dreams while others strength us as individuals. 

And what is more giving than giving? Receiving a grateful, moved or happy email or expression on a persons face, when what we did made a difference – it makes our effort worth while. Most mentors reap the gift of supporting their protégé through the different phases from questioning, frustration, trying and finally achieving. Only made possible from the fact that we shared!

Creating Mentory made us question if the analogue process is the best way to run your mentorship. As a believer in sharing, participating and being open, I see the opportunity of evolving the mentorship towards this idealism. Which gave birth to the idea of Journster (spin-off to be revealed in details later).

When choosing your mentor or protégé, you judge based on chemistry, the goal and expectations. Some times you do choose wrong, finding it difficult to know what went wrong in the process. Was it the goal, the mentor or protégé response or your own ability to act upon the input. 

Making the mentorship and your goal open while broadcasting your questions, gives you instead multiple and varied answers to choose and act from. Remembering of course to pass on the experience you got based on the answers, to benefit others and continuing the sharing circle.

The challenge is barriers. Are we willing to reveal deeper goals, show our insecurity and lack of knowledge? In that case you can decide to close your mentorship, after validating the person(s) based on the broadcast response. 

The nature of an open mentorship may be based on skills, rather than chemistry and presence that defines the closed and analogue relation.

What type of mentorship would you choose? 

But launching also means full steam on bug fixing, improvements and further development based on all the user feedback.We decided to take a day out and work on the matchmaking process of a mentorship – the vital part of Mentory.

We experienced that we were drawn in two directions. 1 – developing a process that matches an offline mentorship. 2 – developing a process that supports online behavior i.e. redefining the mentorship. We want to support both, so we are enhancing the online process, integrating Mentory with other services, using API´s and then dada… we got a really neat idea since it is generic and supports the ideology of our other start-up concepts (the service former known as Journster.com – Jacobs brainchild).

Since we apparently are first movers I will only reveal a few details. We move towards semantic web, we observe synchronicity but yet we build and use services in a silo. This is basically what we want to change. In the futile search of a name, we discovered that one of our other start-ups, had the name we needed, so we took it – Journster.com.

For now we will improve Mentory in it´s first version, integrate video communication and then we will work on this new service to optimize the mentorship matchmaking.

We expect to launch it on Mentory within 2 months – so if you are up to become a beta tester please signup on journster.com