This very moment I’m at Logan International Airport (Boston, USA), waiting for my flight to Amsterdam. I am invited as a keynote speaker at Picnic. I will be back “home” this Friday, just in time to see the first presidential debate. It will be weird to visit Amsterdam as a tourist and I already look forward to go back to Charlestown, to get my 2pm Latte at DnD, to watch The Daily Show live, to endanger my life in Boston traffic (by biking), and to watch Fox News again (“Governor Palin, why are you so awesome?”).

My Picnic 08 keynote is about virtual worlds (and games and social networks) and is part of the Picnic Young Special. The speakers (& projects) include Donkeypedia, Eric Klopfer, Josephine Dorado, Games Atelier, Yo! Opera, Wrts Mobiel, MobileMath, Mijn Naam is Haas, Art2Unite and more. I will be part of Immersive Virtual Learning Worlds at 2pm on Wednesday. See the rest of the program here.

Last week I did a very tiny review (“Vieze Japanse nasmaak“) on the new Zen series DS games for Dagblad de Pers, nuttin’ special. But for today’s paper I did a full page story on the official launch of Newzoo.com, an online broker/consultant project for games & advertising. Here’s the online version: “Reclamemakers ontdekken games” and the .pdf is here (see page 21). I interviewed Peter Warman who I knew from his days at Media Republic and the Eccky project. Whether you like it or not, games & advertising will be huge and Peter’s new project just might be on the forefront of the next wave of branded interactive entertainment.

Many of you already knew, but for those who did not, from September 4 until November 22 I will be a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a.k.a. MIT. I will be located at GAMBIT, so please drop by if you are near! I will live in Charlestown and very much look forward to getting my hand on a Krispy Kreme donut.

My newspaper, Dagblad De Pers, did a restyling after the summer holiday during which news was a bit slow and I was working on my PhD. But, from September onwards there will be a page of game galore every Monday (fyi, I won’t fill a page every Monday). After my visit to Leipzig (covering the Games Convention) I did a load of stories, many of them for GMR magazine, but some for De Pers as well. Both the Leipzig stories and what I wrote for today’s paper is listed here:

- “De ongemakkelijke waarheid van 11 september” – September 1, 2008.
- “Too Human valt tegen” – September 1, 2008.
- “Ook het grootste leger ter wereld vindt Leipzig belangrijk. Meet Hank Keirsey“. August 26, 2008.
- “Nerdfest in Leipzig voor hardcore gamers“. August 26, 2008.
- Review MadWorld. “Garantie voor rumoer“. August 26, 2008.

Some weeks ago, when the sun was still shining and I was hidden in my PhD villa, I contributed on an Al-Jazeera English production. My contribution is very small, just two quotes about the military entertainment complex in general. The overall report is very good, they did an outstanding job fleshing out the subject (media & the military) and have some very good material, both from movies & games, as well as quality insights from experts.

The “Military and Media” special, part of the Listening Post-series, aired last Sunday (August 10) and is to be seen on Youtube, see part 1 and part 2. Part 1 is mainly about propaganda & film, part 2 features military games such as America’s Army, Call of Duty 4, and Special Force. My, again very small contribution, is in part 1. Kudos for Al-Jazeera. Their report is both critical and insightful without being overly sensationalist. And, best of all, it is very well researched!

As you might have seen, June 19 I will give a talk at the CSN Conference 2008. At this one day conference I will talk together with speakers from Forrester Research, Intelligence Group, Favela Fabric and Inholland about social networks, marketing and recruiting. My talk will be on games & marketing. Check the full program here.

Hai! I’m here in Tokyo visiting the Tokyo Game Show, the 3rd DiGRA conference and boozing and smoozing at game publisher parties. I’m with a great group of people (Dutch developers, industry people, students, academics, artists and some who totally suck at playing Mario Kart DS ;). If you are in Tokyo as well and we did not meet-up yet, drop me an email! Hai.

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