Pushing the HOT100 Button @ PICNIC
In 2007 the Virtueel Platform started the HOT100. The HOT100 is a group of the most promising and successful new media talents in the Netherlands. It gives Dutch talent the opportunity to get together and present themselves to potential clients. This year’s venue for HOT100 was PICNIC.
Several (ex) UvA-students were on this year HOT100-list – like Esther Weltevrede, Laura van der Vlies, Tjerk Timan, Rosa Menkman, Anne Helmond, Edial Dekker, Erik Borra, Marijn de Vries Hoogerwerff en Inge Ploum – giving the University of Amsterdam and ‘New Media and Digital Culture’ a good rep. As HOT100 representative, you were invited to a special Picnic day. This day included a varied programme of meetings, keynotes and an ‘intensive’ workshop.
The day started with a business breakfast meeting at PICNIC’s Buzz Hall intended for businesses to get acquainted with the HOT100. Unfortunately no business representatives were at this meeting, that I was aware of, so that was a downfall. After breakfast the HOT100 got together and did the ‘e-Art’ tour at Westerliefde, where several cross media art were exposed. Then, after lunch, we prepared ourselves for a debate on collaborate creativity. We were divided into three groups; commercial, art and research/education. These group had to come up with new ideas on the subject matter and had to choose a spokes(wo)man to defend their statement at the end of the day.
Following the debate preparations, four presentations were given by Stefan Agamanolis (Chief Executive and Research Director of Distance Lab in Scotland), Werner Vogels (Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Amazon.com), Martin de Ronde (game developer of OneBigGame) and Loïc Le Meur (CEO Seesmic). Stefan Agamanolis talked about creating slow communication and exposed his vision on the future of human relationships as mediated by technology. Werner Vogels discussed co-operative, flexible and innovate tools that could be implemented in an enterprise based on his experience with Amazon. As game developer, Martin de Ronde explained his view on the tension between commerce and creativity, and how this issue could be resolved. And last but definitely not least, Loïc le Meur whose inspiring presentation depicted the issues one would have to resolve in creating and implementing a web 2.0 application.
After this amount of information and inspiration, some of the HOT100 had their chance to pitch their ideas/products/company. The pitchers only had 3 minutes to convince the audience that their idea was the best. After some of these hilarious pitches, the debate started. In my opinion it was more an open discussion than a debate, since the spokespersons and the speakers weren’t well prepared. It was more about sharing ideas/opinions, than about coming to solutions or solving problems. Finally after a relatively long day of sitting/waiting/contemplating, we kicked back at the Buzz Hall for some drinks.
Even though it certainly is a good idea to get all these young talents together, I think this HOT100 day could be improved with regard to peer-to-peer and peer-to-professional communication. At the end of the day I haven’t truly networked with corporate representatives or my fellow HOT-100’ers. Maybe it’s only me, but I feel that these two points should be changed. If corporations would recognize the significance of events like the HOT100, than the HOT100 event could become an even more important steppingstone for new media talent.