shapeshifter storytracker

Are you ready?

storytracker — wed, 09 jul 2008 19:45:39 +0000

Have a look at this 8 minute video and then ask yourself: Is my thinking, my business, my project ready for this shift? Be honest. It could be an eyeopener: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

World Seeding Tour completed

storytracker — wed, 14 may 2008 16:45:40 +0000

Two years after the Shapeshifters world seeding tour was started in January 2006 we have completed this amazing endeavor. Eric Poettschacher, the co-founder and mastermind of Shapeshifters met creatives on all five continents, discussed the challenges of effective global peer-to-peer communication in the creative community and shared the bigger picture behind Shapeshifters. The last part of the world tour ended Monday May 12 after coming back from India, Japan and China. A big thank you to everybody who has contributed to this magical-mystery tour. It made Shapeshifters the only network in the world that was hand-seeded by meeting and connecting the most amazing creatives. As a matter of fact some of those people were so outstanding that we have decided to do a film documentary on them. Watch out for more.

The Story of Stuff

storytracker — fri, 04 apr 2008 21:29:25 +0000

Just have a look at this: http://www.storyofstuff.com
It makes you think how we as creatives - consciously or not - contribute to this system by creating and inventing so much stuff. What´s the point of creating a more aesthetic consumerism by adding more cool designed stuff every day. What´s your thought on all that?

Shapeshifters in Austin, Texas on March 13

storytracker — sun, 24 feb 2008 20:13:02 +0000

Here is the very latest news. We got invited by the Los Angeles Independent Media Group to their SXSW day party at the Lucky Lounge in downtown Austin. The South by Southwest Conference and Festival http://www.sxsw.com is a gathering of more than 25.000 creatives from music, film and interactive media. Kemila Velan, our representative in the US, will be at the Lucky Lounge on March 13 from 1 to 6pm (for directions see http://www.theluckylounge.com) and introduce new creatives to shapeshifters.net. Plus this is the first chance to learn more about our eco-design branch http://www.re-shirt.net right on spot. Bring your old t-shirt with a great story and learn how each upgraded Re-Shirt makes a difference in this world.

Time Management for Creatives

storytracker — tue, 08 jan 2008 11:33:26 +0000

Mark Mc Guiness is a London-based business coach who specializes on the specific needs and challenges of professional creatives and artists. He has been an early supporter of Shapeshifters and runs the phantastic "Wishful thinking" blog http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog (highly recommended). Now he has published the e-book "Time Management for Creative People". It is 32 pages (or 1.5MB) and can be downloaded at http://wishful.fileburst.com/creativetime.pdf for free. The book is published under a Creative Commons licence which means you are welcome to copy and share it on a noncommercial basis. This is what Mark says about the book: "I wrote it to help creatve professionals maintain their creative focus amid all the interruptions and digital clutter in our working lifes." What a great idea.

Happy New Year

storytracker — sun, 30 dec 2007 09:29:57 +0000

Shapeshifters wishes all creatives, freethinkers, independents and likeminds out there a prosperous and exciting 2008. During the next months we will launch new features and products that we have been developing in the last months in order to serve the global creative community. Watch out for more.

Cultivating Quality: A book on Shapeshifters

storytracker — mon, 17 dec 2007 11:53:31 +0000

A recent survey carried out in Germany, UK, Sweden and Denmark has led to the conclusion that internet users spend up to 3 1/2 years of their life handling irrelevant e-mails. Any even worse: each irrelevant e-mail leads to 4-6 follow-up e-mails. Its a huge timestealing avalanche of meaninglessness.

Shapeshifters has been going from the very beginning for a quality-over-quantity approach. But how does one cultivate online interaction made to foster meaningful work relations across the planet? Vienna-based knowledge manager Claudia Deutsch has been researching Shapeshifters as global role model for a knowledge community putting the quality of interaction first. The outcome is a great book titled "Creative Industries & Shapeshifters" (ISBN: 978-3-8364-3267-2) that was published just a few days ago. Soon on Amazon. Only in German - so far.

Spam Defense

storytracker — sun, 25 nov 2007 21:06:00 +0000

For the first time in almost two years we have an anonymous user out there trying to annoy our community with comments consisting of meaningless text. We are taking all available measures at the moment to locate the originator and cut off the possibility to create spam like that. We will keep you posted about this and ask for your understanding in case one of your postings is affected. Stay tuned...

China and Japan Seedings will take place 2008

storytracker — fri, 23 nov 2007 15:56:47 +0000

As mentioned earlier we planned to go to China and Japan these days in order to introduce creatives in Hongkong, Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo to Shapeshifters. On short notice we had to postpone these presentations to early 2008. The good news though: Our vision to create a global movie documentary is taking on shape and the next weeks will be crucial for closing the production deal. This requires more presence in our Vienna office these days. We will keep you posted about new dates and all further developments.

News notification on Shapeshifters

storytracker — thu, 08 nov 2007 13:38:07 +0000

Getting the latest news reports from shapeshifters will be more comfortable for registered users in future. We have installed a new service, which offers an automatic delivery of news reports via email. All you need to do is change your settings online (it takes one minute): Please log in, go to my workdesk, click the button settings and scroll to notifications. Click the box and the save button at the end of the page. That's all it takes to be up to date with all relevant developments in and around the world of shapeshifters.

Mojave meets Berlin

storytracker — fri, 12 oct 2007 11:31:00 +0000

Dear Manu, come over for coffee here, the sun shines, it is beautiful. Have some chocolate This is an official go ahead! (Cecile Bouchier, Mojave/CA) http://www.cecilebouchier.com

With these words the cooperation between two members of Shapeshifters was decided. It all started with a posting on Shapeshifters http://www.shapeshifters.net/manu/stories/1158/
by Manu Kumar. The initiator and founder of The Business Class. Net (BCN) - a network of Plug-&-Play working spaces for rent and a digital internet platform for freelancers and creative people as well as new nomads - was searching worldwide for new locations besides the headquarter in Berlin, Germany. When establishing new BCN-ports Manu Kumar always looks for special and unusual personalities as partners and prefers loctions in international cities or off the beaten track. The Mojave Desert has exited Manu Kumar: "This is exactly the place where BCN members can retreat, find new ideas and prepare projects. No 'civilization' to worry about! After personally meeting with Cecile in Berlin we have built up a friendship - the perfect foundation for success." The new BCN-port in the Mojave Desert opens on Halloween, October 31. http://www.TheBusinessClass.Net

Shapeshifters in China and Japan

storytracker — wed, 05 sep 2007 09:53:45 +0000

Here is the lastest news on upcoming Shapeshifters presentations that are scheduled for later this year in China and Japan. We will keep you up to date concerning actual dates and venues and look forward to your recommondations and hints. Here is the prelimary itinerary for the upcoming tour: Hong Kong (Nov 19 - 23), Beijing (Nov 25 - 27), Shanghai (Nov 29 - Dec 4) and Tokyo (Dec 5 -10).

What matters if you put a posting online?

storytracker — tue, 24 jul 2007 07:14:16 +0000

The first study on Shapeshifters was finished in spring this year. Claudia Deutsch, a student of knowledge management in Vienna researched quality indicators in a global knowledge society. Her work is about understanding what the users of Shapeshifters perceive as communication quality and how it is created and maintained. Here is an abstract in Claudias own words:

Fundamentally, quality is seen as an event which has a real impact in the real world. It can be shown, that there are qualities such as certain common values, mutual appreciation and conscious interactions. Users interact through certain types of postings and generate knowledge that is relevant for microenterprise activity in the Creative Sector. Shapeshifters has a certain attitude towards quality which is communicated by the means of hands-on success stories and a Code of Honour that is available on the website. Consequently an environment for knowledge sharing and group identity is created.

If you are interested in her research paper (so far only available in German) please email Claudia Deutsch directly: cd.claudia.deutsch@gmail.com

Shapeshifters and Weathermakers

storytracker — thu, 28 jun 2007 07:40:17 +0000

ScribeMedia.Org travels the US to capture and deliver speeches, lectures, roundtables and interviews of thoughtleaders across a broad range of subject areas that includes current events, technology, media, business and the arts. ScribeMedia provides a neutral forum for intelligent dialog and debate, uncluttered by soundbytes, instant punditry and shoutfests. The latest headline story is about Shapeshifters - and how social media goes niche.

The interview was recorded in Manhattan early April 2007 while the Shapeshifters World Seeding Tour had a stoppover in New York City. The video gives you a comprehensive 10 minute insight into previous world tour destinations and provides the big picture on what is going on behind the scenes of the website. For the first time ever.

Thank you Damon Berry in Johannesburg for providing and editing the video footage. Thank you Sasha and Michael from ScribeMedia for putting so much efforts into this feature and telling the story in such an amazing way: http://www.scribemedia.org/2007/06/21/weather-report-01/

More from Utrecht

storytracker — wed, 20 jun 2007 10:40:11 +0000

A short video from the Utrecht Impulse Night with Eric presenting Shapeshifters has just arrived:
Have a look at http://www.callingtheshots.nl/index.html?url=/Impulse%20film...
Many thanks to Annefloor, Danielle and all the others who have worked on this. We love it.