I interrupt my regular blogging for a commercial message. Next week (September 9 in Amsterdam), I’ll do an Emerce Expert Session, or what some would call a workshop, on social media (in general) and the Obama 08 campaign’s use of social media (in particular). In an interactive setting we’ll talk about the latest trends in social media, participatory culture, a bit about games, hybrid campaigns, social politics, Facebook, Twitter, and much, much more.

If you’re interested, there are a couple of seats left. Head over to the Emerce page if you want more information. Or drop me an email (david @ gamespace . nl), or contact Tessa Sterkenburg on: (+31) 020-820 21 31 / tessa @ thenextspeaker . com. The session will be in Dutch and can be summarized as:

De lessen van Obama – De winnende combinatie van online & offline

De verkiezingscampagne van Obama was de eerste echte geïntegreerde digitale campagne, en een zeer succesvolle. Als geen ander wist hij online enthousiasme om te zetten in offline actie. De spontane fysieke en virtuele acties van fans, aanhangers en vrijwilligers werden slim geïntegreerd in een strak geleide campagne. Tegelijkertijd werden de sterke punten van oude media (TV, radio en kranten) gecombineerd met de kracht van social media. Obama was maandenlang altijd, overal te vinden.

Niet voor niets beginnen multinationals als Domino’s Pizza, Ikea, Pepsi en Ben & Jerry’s, verzekeraars, uitgevers, non-profits, overheden, en politieke partijen langzaam maar zeker de lessen van Obama te integreren in hun eigen campagnes. Ze bewijzen zo zowel de universele kracht van Obama’s campagne, gebaseerd op openheid, interactie en communicatie, als de inzetbaarheid buiten het politieke domein.

In deze Emerce Expert Sessie wordt gekeken hoe een geïntegreerde campagne op te zetten op een manier zodat oude en nieuwe media elkaar versterken. De killer app van de Obama campagne was de “ouderwetse” nieuwsbrief. De Expert Sessie stelt hierbij niet de techniek maar de gebruiker centraal. Oftewel, wat doen gebruikers, consumenten, fans, of kiezers precies met social media, nu, vandaag? En, hoe verhoudt dat zich tot het gebruik van oude media?

As with every academic publication, I am excited, honored and very happy! I contributed a book chapter to an edited volume called “Professional playground: Alles over werken in de game-industrie”. In the chapter I talk about working as a game journalist (in the Netherlands) and critically reflect on being positioned between (the expectations of both) readers and the game industry. As far as I know, this might be the first academic publication in Dutch on the subject (just saying, for many gamers on message boards being “First!!11oneoen” is a major achievement).

Talking about firsts, the book is one of the few books (in Dutch) on games, but also one of the few books on working in the game industry. There is some work done on working in the game industry (e.g. by Mark Deuze in his book on Media Work & his edited volume Managing Media Work), but none of that is in Dutch or from a Dutch perspective.

The book has three parts (developer, publisher and support/related industries), and has a wide range of authors (working in the industry, in academia, and lawyers). There is a .pdf of the chapter outline here, and chapter 9 on serious game is the sample chapter (in .pdf as well).

If you’re interested in buying the book, you can do so on Bol.com. If you are interested in my chapter, drop me an email (david @ gamespace . nl) and I’ll send you my latest draft.

During the weekend a story ran on e-sports for the NRC newspaper. I was interviewed and contributed the story’s title “Chess in 3D” (meaning to say, that playing fast paced first person shooters in an e-sports setting is much like playing chess on three boards at the same time in terms of complexity). The story can be read on Bashers.nl.

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Yesterday I did a live interview for Radio 1′s NCRV afternoon show Lunch. I have been a guest before last March to talk about Second Life. This time we had a vivid conversation about the recent hoaxes on Twitter (particularly the “free money” incident which turned out to be a mere technological glitch, the rumor that Queen Beatrix would step down, and the fake Carglass Twitter account). Given that it is “cucumber time” (i.e. slow news in the summertime), these hoaxes get extra attention on TV & on the radio. Some go as far as to ask if this would make Twitter a useless tool. Although I did not mention it on air, I’ve been confirmed in my conviction that Twitter can be very useful after Clay Shirky’s wonderful “Here comes everybody”, so for those interested in the topic, I would recommend reading that.

Or, you can listen to the interview, download it here (.mp3, 8 minutes, 7.4Mb).