Tuesday, May the 8th

Ok, while some of the guys have been in Århus, I have been in Oslo during the weekend because i had a meeting with Tommy Sharif second generation Pakistani, also known as the Baron of tires in Norway, and now also Europe !! He is innovative, creative, extremely full of energy and he has a huge passion for what he does. We had a good chat and I got some really good info to bring back to our incubator project in CPH, Denmark! And a success story to use when branding our project in Denmark.

Monday morning Jacob and Anders went out to interview Ibrahim, the previous owner of the shop in Stefansgade that won the price "most innovative shop" in Denmark 2004. He did sell the shop later on, but he kept his Pizzeria! He was a nice guy, and the boys got some views on his way of being innovative.


The next meeting that we had was with Torben in "Foreningen Ny Dansker". He was a little bit sceptic to our project (too big...), and he gave us some good information about what the need for the new Danes is these days. There are a lot of unsolved problems when it comes to the economical part of running a business, there is difficult papers to fill out and the help is not that help full... Torben also gave us the huge opportunity to help us get funding to the project, when it is done!

Today we have been to the meeting we have been looking forward to ...allot! With "Creative Ghetto" and they have certainly been both creative and have found a "ghetto" when choosing office. In the middle of the old harbour as far as you can walk, behind some bushes and in the middle of the building. We walked and walked in the rain, took a cab but still we weren't there.... but then the sun came, and we (with a little help from Pernille (from C.G.) who was so kind to pick us up on the wrong side of the building...) got to the office! We had a great meeting, partly by the fire and with hot coffee to dry us up and get us warm.

Creative Ghetto is focusing on how to get new Danes into the commercial and creative business in Denmark, to create some diversity and to get new input.
Pernille and Sebastian has sadly decided to close the Creative Ghetto project and education. This is a shame, because there is no creative education i Denmark anymore and because they have done a good job. Some of their "students" are trying to start up something on their own and we hope that we can be a part of this, at least help what we can.
Dough the Creative Ghetto is shut down Pernille and Sebastian is working to build up a Creative network for the "ghetto" instead. So there might be that it is possible to do something similar with their network later! We got some really good contacts and the opportunity to use the "research" and some tips on how to actually find the people we are looking for!

So.... now Anders, Jacob and Me are in the apartment making a S.W.O.T. on the interviews and talks that we have had during the last couple of days. The boys will back from Århus tomorrow at lunch time and then the HUGE decision making process will start. Figuring out where we are headed and how to narrow down out task into something that at least is a little bit smaller than what it is today, but we have 3 weeks left, a huge amount of energy!! We have an apartment, a office, a car and we are the FABULOUS 5 !

Tone =)