There Are No Stupid Questions

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Published on Tuesday, 15 May 2012 12:30

Stop not making sense!

There are no stupid questions. Or was it Homer (Simpson), who put it more precisely? There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.

At least when it comes to web copy writing and social media marketing.

In sales, asking rhetorical questions is one of the oldest tricks in the book. As soon as you've got people engaged, they're likely to stay that way. So the door to door cleaning guy will go ”you like a clean house right”, and you'll go ”yeah”, and suddenly, it's a lot harder not to by his glorified water. It's a cognitive dissonance, self maintenance theory kind of thing (and why I never talk to facers on the street).

This has been passed on to web copywriters and their current incarnation, social media managers, who will charge you to tell your clients or fans things like ”ask your audience questions – then you'll get a higher response rate!”

Here's some better advice. For free. Ask your audience questions if they're relevant and make sense!

Spamming your audience with whatever you're trying to sell and finish off your post with some random question is just about as elegant as going on a date and remembering you should have payed for dinner right after you had sex. These things require a minimum of social skills.

This is a bit of a pet peeve, so I've collected a couple of examples of awkward questions in social media communication (some translated from danish). This isn't to say the people who wrote these status are stupid or terrible at social media. Just to say these exact examples aren't pretty.

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Secret Selector Selections #38: DJ Noize

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Published on Friday, 11 May 2012 12:25

Turn it up, bring the Noize

There are good DJs and there are great DJs. And then there are those who make you drop your jaw (literally) in awe struck amazement. Those few people, who do things with 1210s you need to see for yourself to believe actually happened.

I'm talking about turntablists. And DJ Noize has proven to be the best of the best on more than one occasion.

DJ Noize has won the Music Seminar DJ Battle the DMC World DJ Championship, Danish Championships and countless other battles.

In my opinion though, his biggest feat as a turntablist isn't winning pretty much every competition worth winning, but the fact that he introduced a new level of creativity to the art.

In the beginning of the 90's, people were basically battling on who had the fastest crab hand, who could juggle in abstract ways and some times, who could do stupid tricks like scratch with their feet or whatever.

Along comes a small town teenager from Denmark and serves everybody with a whole new style and impeccable technique. Dissing opponents by juggling words, playing melodies with his scratches all with such style it just looks too easy!

Like in this video: Every time I watch it, I feel sorry for 8-Ball in the first round, because he really oblivious what's gonna hit him. Knowing what's going to happen, it's tragic to see him actually think his "hehehehehe" scratch is the bomb. Then Noize comes up and puts it all into perspective.

And then he has to go through another round! Struggling with his juggling, you can just see he himself isn't even convinced when he finishes off with his "I'll kill anyone who dares to go against me".

I think he learned his lesson.

You can (and I often do) spend loads of time just watching old footage of DJ battles where Noize just punishes the competition.

Here he is again, scratching with a fish.

Let me try again. There was Noize scratching way better with a fish than most accomplished DJs do on a good day with their spank-hand.

With a fish.

But Kim Sæther, as his passport reads, isn't just a technical genius. He's a nice guy, a notorious crate digger and connoisseur of sound. When I asked him to do a secret selection, he replied "well, secret and YouTube don't quite go together in my world. Is it OK if I upload to soundcloud?"

Oh yeah. It's more than OK. Bring it OOOOOON!!!

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Sven Väth!

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Published on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 14:22

Dreaming is not over - the world is nice

Sven Väth is one of my biggest techno heroes and tonight he's playing in Copenhagen!

I remember just getting in to electronic music. I went to the local library and took out everything semi techno I could get my hands on. I texted my man Frantz Flottenheimer saying "that Paul Van Dyke is pretty cool!" He replied: "a bit too trance for me. Try Sven Väth or Timo Maas".

And so it was back to the library and check out Sven Väth's Contact CD. From the first track, I was sold:

Pathfinder by liquidodk

What is this? A strange 80's type minimal beat? I thought techno was only meant to be 4/4! And what's up with these vocals? They are funny, weird, corny, cool and strangely addictive. And when that trancy synth kicked in ... I can safely say my world changed forever.

Pathfinder completely blew my mind and showed me electronic music isn't just umph umph - it's anything you want it to be, as long as it rocks. It was probably that one track that got me into electronic music for good.

Later I was lucky enough to befriend Torsten aka Helmuth Kool - one of Denmark's biggest Sven fanatics (and incidentally, the guy who introduced Frantz Flottenheimer to Sven back in the day).

I don't know how many car rides, after parties and phone conversations I've had with Torsten where he's told me the same anecdotes about how he and his friends would make 48 hour runs all around the Ruhr district to follow Sven around at legendary clubs in the 90's and how much better everything was back then - almost Deadhead style.

Now, the thing about Sven Väth isn't his productions. He doesn't even produce music himself, he has Alter Ego and others to do that, while I guess he sits in the background getting cool/silly ideas and vriting strange gørman und english vørds.

Sven is all about being the best and most entertaining techno DJ in the world. He does that by having great taste and a Napoleon complex huge personality.

Here are a few recommendations from Torsten. Some of the best Sven tracks, where he displays his great taste and crazy personality. You just gotta love that guy!

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Secret Selector Selections #37: Christina Majcher

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Published on Friday, 04 May 2012 10:49

Wicked, Wicked!

Christina is Copenhagen's first lady of Jungle and without a doubt the baddest female raver in town.

Now, I really couldn't care less about gender in music. But after 30 weeks of secret selections, I couldn't help but notice this was turning into an exclusive club for the +30 men. I concluded that encyclopedic knowledge of obscure music is just more of a male trait.

Women usually don't really care where that one sample came from, who played drums in The Winstons or why anyone should ever care who The Winstons were. Females just aren't that passionate about music!

That's what you think until you meet Chriszka. Musical passion incarnate. She's the one you get lost from at Fusion Festival and then meet two days later with a hoarse voice all "Hey! I've raved out three crews - they got tired one by one. Gotta catch some sleep now, but wake me in three hours and we'll go to Der Dritte Raum, yeah?"

While we're standing in the corner, bobbing our heads, she's the one constantly looking like this:

And where most guys either obsess about music to feel superior in a social world they can't quite fit in to, or basically do it to get laid, Chriszka seems to be all about an insane love for great tunes and good times. Which I guess is why instead of DJ'ing or some other "look at me" type thing, she's spent the past 10 years writing about music, nightlife and culture (Danish link).

It's great to have a friend like Christina for parties and raves, because in a small and local city, where you can easily find yourself chatting to some dude you know at the bar while the maddest DJ is spinning, she always turns up with an ecstatic look that reminds you it's all about the dance floor.

So now it's time to hear from Chriszka,  Copenhagen's first lady of jungle and the first ever female Secret Selector!

The Out of Breath Selection

I like to be out of breath. It usually means that I have been doing something fully absorbing and really fun.

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