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Timeline

11/2023 Journeys to Andalusia and Thailand

Experiential storytelling, video scripting, travel writing, filming, personal and leadership development

The journey to Andalusia was a first – we’d done a similar route with our own team in 2021, but never this one with a client. A group of approximately 30 participants took the plunge. Some spectacular downhill mountain biking and a fabulous session with the Straits of Gibraltar and the mountains of northern Morocco as a backdrop.

In the same month we took an executive team to Thailand – despite (or because of) the torrential rain, voracious jungle leeches and half-flooded camp, it went fine.

10/2023 World Usability Congress

Copywriting, reporting

In October I once again attended the World Usability Congress in Graz. Wasn’t speaking this time, but I was asked by the organiser Hannes Robier to attend the panel session on Change by Design and then write a report on it for inclusion in his annual trend report. I also helped Mirjam Wouters with her presentation and dragged her up a mountain as well.

06/2023 UEFA Nations League finals

Football reporting, interviewing

These mini tournaments are brilliant. Interviewing players and coaches, reporting on the matches (Netherlands v Croatia and Netherlands v Italy), acting as a Rotterdam city guide for my visiting UEFA colleagues, going out more or less every night on the lash, zipping around on bikes… Top stuff.

05/2023 UEFA Nations League finals in Geneva

Football reporting, interviewing

With AZ reaching the last four of the UEFA Youth League, I went down to Geneva to cover the semi-final and final, plus interview a number of the AZ players before and after the matches.

I really enjoyed doing studio interviews with Ernest Poku and Mexx Meerdink (plus trophy) after the final. I’ve been at eight finals/tournaments covering Dutch clubs or the international team, but this was the first time my lot had won.

05/2023 Video and website for a truly innovative visualisation technique

Copywriting, website writing, video scripting

May saw the culmination of a lot of work on my part to develop a video script plus the text for a website to help explain a new – genuinely groundbreaking – Philips visualisation technology for use in operating theatres. This technology can revolutionise the way vascular surgeons carry out minimally-invasive procedures. The content should go live in the autumn.

04/2023 Back in the picture at Bex* and ASML

Copywriting, editing, simplifying complex stories

Bex* – who evidently still had my name on file after a gap of approximately 20 years – asked me to take over and complete a couple of articles related to intellectual property at ASML. Takes me back; ASML was one of the first clients I worked for after going freelance in 2001. And now I’m on board once again…

03/2023 Book publication!

Ghostwriting, authoring, 7LE

A project that was started more than 10 years ago finally came to fruition at the end of March when The 7 Life Elixirs by Erik-Jan de Rooij was printed. I spent a lot – seriously, a lot – of time over the last four years rewriting the content and getting the book ready for publication.

01/2023 Thailand journey

Experiential storytelling, video scripting, travel writing, filming, personal and leadership development

January saw us taking a group of over 100 top leaders from a global data, insights and consulting company to Thailand for a five-day journey. As usual, I was interviewing, observing, filming and generally gathering as much content as I could for a book and other follow-up material. Being there was as spectacular and fun as ever

11/2022 Journey bonanza

Experiential storytelling, travel writing, filming, book writing

Five books, each approximately 150 pages long, to write in the space of two months. They were based on journeys I accompanied in Morocco, Croatia and Catalunya. With Covid restrictions happily almost non-existent, it’s all gone a bit bonkers. So many companies want to bring their people closer together and get them re-energised. Happy days…

09/2022 Into the operating theatre we go

Experiential storytelling, innovation writing

I got to witness a live operation (for an abdominal aeortic aneurysm) in a hospital in Utrecht. Spent over two hours in the operating theatre so I could see what was going on first-hand. I’m writing the script for a video explaining how a Philips innovation can help make the procedure quicker while reducing exposure to X-rays.

08/2022 Women's EUROs 2022

Football reporter, football tournament, UEFA, WEURO 2022

As the Dutch team reporter for UEFA.com, I spent 20 days in Manchester, Sheffield, Rotherham and Leigh during the Women’s EUROs 2022.

06/2022 Keynote speaker at the Berlin Webinale

Keynote speaker, congress speaker, experiential storytelling, presenter

I gave my presentation on experiential storytelling to an audience at the Webinale in Berlin. For the first time in my (blossoming?) career as a congress speaker, I gave one of the keynote speeches, which meant I opened the whole programme on the second day. Quite an honour, even if I say so myself.

05/2022 Conference League final in Tirana

Live football reporting, English-language writing, working for UEFA.com

I reported on Feyenoord throughout the knockout stages of the UEFA Europa Conference League, which culminated in a visit to Tirana for the final against AS Roma. Shame about the result, but what a fantastic city. And great to get to know the likes of Sam Honeyman and Vieri Capretta, as well as to run into lots of familiar faces.

04/2022 Innovation articles

Writing for LinkedIn, design strategy articles

I’ve been working on a series of innovation stories together with Philips Design’s Paul Gardien for some time now, and they are just about to be published. First internally, and maybe on something like LinkedIn afterwards. A lot of work...but we think it's been worth it :)

03/2022 Bursting the bubble

Filming, interviewing, cameraman

Something out of the ordinary - I was the sole cameraman filming, interviewing and recording a production by NEOS called Burst Your Bubble in the Effenaar.

In it, five people told of how they overcame problems ranging from drug addiction and prostitution to domestic abuse. Heavy stuff, but also incredibly uplifting.

I used three different cameras to capture everything. Mooniq Priem, who I was deputising for, did the montage.

01/2022 Dutch Design Week articles

English-language writing, interviewing, Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, design articles

I wrote three stories for the Dutch Design Week magazine that were published in January.

The first was about involving silkworms in the design process (and in doing so, saving their lives). Number two was to do with re-purposing the humongous amount of textile waste produced every year (tens of millions of tons) into yarn and fabric. And the third focused on making biodiversity a key element in the design of motorway noise barriers.

For each one, I interviewed key people involved in each project (at the DDW itself or afterwards) and then wrote the articles

12/2021 Filming in Curaçao

Filming, interviewing, scriptwriting, helping generate content for an on-line course

In December I returned to Curaçao with Erik-Jan de Rooij to do the remaining scripting, filming and recording for the 7 Life Elixirs. This time with Vincent van den Hoogen, who did additional filming and photography.

Pretty tough going – seriously – to do everything we wanted, considering every single location was a surprise (there was no scouting beforehand) in terms of light, background noise, number of people around etc. Worked out in the end – just!

10/2021 Speaking at the World Usability Congress

Congress speaker, experiential storytelling, presenter

Made my debut as a conference speaker at the World Usability Congress. What a brilliant week.

Gave a 45-minute presentation on the importance of location in creating memorable experiences. It seemed to go down very well, especially when I whipped out the bottle of whisky at the end and promised a wee dram to anyone who was interested (plenty were).

Ran into a lot of great people, learned a lot, and really enjoyed the atmosphere at what is an engaging and very human event.

06/2021 Reporter at the EURO 2020

Spent just over three weeks in Amsterdam as the UEFA.com reporter for the Dutch national team during UEFA Euro 2020.

Find out more about the matches I covered, players I interviewed and earth-shattering reportages I did here.

04/2021 Women's UCL anthem recording

Attended the recording of the new anthem for the Woman’s UEFA Champions League in Hilversum’s media park. A 36-piece choir, conducted by the wonderfully talented Martina Batič - what a sound!

Afterwards I interviewed Martina, plus Niels, Lodewijk and Erik-Jan from MassiveMusic, who were responsible for writing it. A truly uplifting experience.

03/2021 Filming in Curaçao

I’m heavily involved with Amaseu’s Erik-Jan de Rooij on yet another hugely enjoyable project: converting the content of the Seven Elixirs for a Great Life book (which I helped him write) into a format suitable for an online course.

We had been doing a lot of brainstorming, scripting and trial filming, and in March we recorded the content for real in Curaçao. Seriously hard work, with every day a real adventure to find a decent location, but we made it in the end.

02/2021 Interviewing Dutch coaches

In February 2021 I interviewed Dutch national coaches past and present in the space of three days.

First up was current bondscoach Frank de Boer at the Dutch FA headquarters in Ziest. Two days later it was the legend that is Guus Hiddink at the swanky Waldorf Astoria hotel in Amsterdam.

The De Boer shots were used for a TV programme previewing Euro 2020, while the Hiddink stuff is for a documentary being made by Noah Media about the 2002 World Cup.

12/2020 Philips Design video scripts

English-language writing, scriptwriting, design stories

Wrote a couple of video scripts for Eva Deckers from Philips Design on some new explorations she is involved with over there. Interesting, compact little stories. The animations look really good as well. Here’s one on adapting your lifestyle after undergoing bariatric care, and another one on an app to help you take better care of yourself at home.

10/2020 Dutch Design Week articles

Very happy to be working together with the Dutch Design Foundation again for the 2020 Dutch Design Week. This time round I’m writing five articles on the subject of privacy. Here’s the first. Worth a read!

10/2020 Three-day journey in Austria

Despite all the COVID-19 restrictions, we managed to safely organise and carry out a three-day journey in the Austrian Alps in late October.

All our crew, plus the participants, tested negative beforehand, and we then created a bubble in Tirol so we could do our thing without danger of infection. Spending the majority of the second day hiking around in the snow, at times on extremely narrow and slippery trails, was wonderful.

10/2020 Champions League in an empty stadium

Like many things these days, being a football reporter for UEFA.com is a strange experience. No supporters in the stadium or in the streets, just a handful of journalists, and post-match interviews conducted outside. This is me with Liverpool’s Fabinho after the English side’s 1-0 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam.

07/2020 Revamped Amaseu website

Spent a lot of time in blissfully empty trains going up and down to Amsterdam to work with Wieke in developing and writing content for the new Amaseu website.

05/2020 Virtual presentations for the ECR in Vienna

With international travel more or less grinding to a halt in Europe, tradeshows obviously took a huge hit. But before long, there was a mad scramble to convert stories and presentations to online equivalents. I was contacted by Blondefish to help with a mountain of scripts for two-minute videos for the (virtual) European Society for Radiologists Congress. Spent a considerable amount of time in May and June doing just that.

03/2020 EndoMed brand positioning

Through some product designers I knew from their time at Philips Design, I ended up working for a German medical company, EndoMed, to develop their vision & mission statements as well as the associated values.

02/2020 Interviews with Dutch internationals

I had the privilege of going to three of Europe’s greatest football cities – Barcelona, Liverpool and Turin – to interview Dutch internationals who play there.

First stop was Barcelona in February for Frenkie de Jong. We talked for well over half an hour, mainly about his time at Ajax, Barcelona and playing for the Dutch national team. A film crew from IMG in London came over to record it. The content was used on UEFA.com, in Champions League TV programmes distributed to broadcasters in various countries, as well as in ‘Road to Euro 2020’ video stories that will unfortunately shelved because of COVID-19.

After that it was the same story in Liverpool with Gini Wijnaldum, and then in Turin for Matthijs de Ligt. The De Ligt interview was also turned into the cover story for the Champions Journal, which I was particularly proud of.

 

01/2020 Journey to Morocco

2020 started much as 2019 ended: with a journey to Morocco. We started in a pitch-black, frosty and mist-shrouded park in Milan, and ended up beside a beach where the Atlantic breakers rolled in with fascinating regularity.

Superb time of year to be there. Cold nights (especially in the mountains), warm days and extraordinarily clear skies. As usual, was there to interview, film and gather material for a book.

12/2019 Philips workshops

I participated in a number of creative workshops for Philips, in Amsterdam and Eindhoven, aimed at determining how two separate businesses should position themselves. My main task in these sessions is to come up with and then refine the core values that the businesses will be built around.

I took a picture of one of the sessions in Amsterdam, but I realised some of the content may be a little sensitive, so instead you can enjoy a picture of my pal Rab posing at the Dutch Design Week.

11/2019 Journey to Morocco

Journeys in Morocco are always brilliant, but this time in particular it was really something special.

Maybe it was the clarity of light and lack of heat because it was November, or the enthusiastic group of participants, or meeting up with our local team again (one of whom showed me how to open a bottle of sparkling water with his eye)…

Whatever the reason, I’d say this was the best Morocco journey to date for me (number six I believe). This is the reason I am there by the way.

11/2019 Footie galore

Lots of footie these days: reporting on Ajax in the Champions League, plus Feyenoord and AZ in the Europa League. The last qualifying matches for the Dutch national team for EURO 2020. And a media day in Amsterdam for Ajax.

Plus… It’s official. I’m going to be the Dutch team reporter for the EURO 2020 finals next summer. Canny wait.

 

09 & 10/2019 Workshops in Shanghai, Eindhoven and Boston

I helped give a series of three-day workshops, organised by Philips and known as the Creative Playground, which help mature ideas for research projects on the topic of sleep. 

My role was to help the participants create and structure their stories, and then to coach them in pitching (they had to present their ideas to a local jury on day three). 

I did this together with the multi-talented Mirjam Wouters

 

05/2019 Philips madness

A mental month. Had to finish off loads of projects of Philips before taking an enforced three-month sabbatical (Completely unnecessary, although those three months are June, July and August, so it could be worse).

I was therefore writing loads of video scripts, putting together case study stories on how modularity helps improve efficiency in manufacturing, finalising a booklet about Philips Design, working on presentations for the Experience Lab at the High-Tech Campus (pictured)…

05/2019 Champions League disaster

For UEFA.com I’ve been, as usual, following the progress of Dutch clubs – as well as the national team – in European competition. This season’s journey by Ajax to the semi-finals of the Champions League is the most epic I’ve encountered so far.

And, I have to say, the most heart-breaking. Being denied a place in the final by a goal in the dying seconds was horrendous. No Madrid for them, or me.

04/2019 A clear narrative

Spent a considerable amount of time this month working together with a former clinical doctor who is now at Philips. He wanted me to write a narrative (a foundation story) for a complex data language system Philips offers hospitals.

Our (my) challenge was to describe this thing without using any of the dense and unintelligible jargon you frequently encounter in similar publications (e.g. ‘a future-proof, open-standards-based interoperability software solution for informatics which enables data integration across the enterprise,’ or other such gibberish).

I think we succeeded. We came up with analogies ranging from plumbing systems in a house to toolboxes to help describe what was going on.

Don’t normally put comments on this website, but for these ones I’ll make an exception. “Have you read the story? Dude! It’s excellent." “Describes both the essence and scope.” “Love the analogies.” “I think we really have something here.” “It’s unlike any other Philips paper I have ever read.”

03/2019 Customer story in Dutch hospital

Did a customer story on a hospital in the Dutch town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch which has commissioned additional Philips Ambient Experience installations in its radiography rooms.

Interviewed a handful of people, including radiology technicians, nurses, a department head and cluster manager about what they thought the benefits were. From that input I’ll write new text for the web page as well as a longer customer story.

02/2019 Portuguese writing retreat

I’ve been working together with Erik-Jan of Amaseu for almost a year to help him finalise a book that has been 10 years in the making. With a working title of ‘The Seven Elixirs of a Great Life’, the book is full of personal anecdotes as well as advice about how you can get the best out of yourself.

Anyway, we decided that, to get the thing as close to the finishing line as possible, we should shut ourselves off somewhere for a week and do nothing else other than work on a book. Well, at least, that was my task; he spent more or less every day playing golf. (Not difficult to see who the smart one is here). Although, in fairness, we did spend loads of time in the mornings and evenings discussing content.

The destination was the Algarve, and although I passed the majority of every day rewriting and reshaping approximately 180 pages of text, I did manage to mountain bike to the coast most afternoons to have lunch in the bright Portuguese sunshine on virtually deserted beaches. The plan is to have the book published soon, and definitely this year.

01/2019 HealthSuite

I was the writer in an international and multi-disciplinary team developing a narrative around the Philips HealthSuite platforms. I have to confess that after taking part in the initial briefing telco I was thinking: WTF??? But the team was full of helpful and very enthusiastic people, who enabled me to understand the extremely complex subject matter. In the end I/we came up with a pretty easily-accessible story. It was presented at the HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) conference in Florida, and evidently went down a storm...

01/2019 Morocco journey

Journey to Morocco with 20-odd executives from Laird. Smallest group I’ve ever done on a journey; took a bit of getting used to that they would be ready to move from one location to the next in a matter of seconds. With much larger groups that’s – to put it politely – not always the case.

Morocco is such a magnificent setting for the personal and leadership transformation process, and especially at this time of the year. The nights were cold, especially when camping in the mountains, and the daytime air was wonderfully clear. The journey kicked off in Prague.

12/2018 positioning workshop in Barcelona

Helped give a two-day positioning workshop to Indiba at their headquarters just outside Barcelona. Did it together with brand strategist Natascha Seeger (I'm assuming she's too busy to get her website up and running) and designer Martin Bacon (who obviously isn't). The workshop outcomes should give the company a better idea of how to how to proceed in the market for high-frequency equipment that accelerates the healing of sport injuries and also helps with skin rejuvenation.

11/2018 Another Messi interview

Been covering some outstanding matches for UEFA: the Netherlands v Germany in AmsterdamPSV v Spursthe Dutch skelping the world champions in Rotterdam, and a truly mental 3-3 draw between Ajax and Bayern Munich. But the best moment of all has to be getting the opportunity to interview Leo Messi again after PSV v Barcelona. It’s five years since I was lucky enough to speak to him the first time, and it’s pretty clear that my Spanish hasn’t improved much in that time.

10/2018 Dutch Design Week

For the Dutch Design Week – the largest design event in northern Europe – I wrote and edited the text for the book that is published every year after the event. This involved, among other things, interviewing Martijn Paulen, director of the Dutch Design Foundation.

I also put together a number of route descriptions explaining to visitors what they could see at various locations throughout Eindhoven.

08/2018 MRI White Paper

Been writing a White Paper about how to reduce patient anxiety during MRI scans. Evidently many clinicians are not aware of relatively simple measures which can be taken to counter feelings of fear and claustrophobia that patients experience. Aye well, now they've no excuse. 

07/2018 Freelancer recruitment for Philips

Writing a mini-campaign to encourage freelancers to work at Philips has one massive similarity with the story I’m doing about Eindhoven’s suitability for expats; in both cases I am part of the target audience. So, in addition to the information supplied during the briefing, I get to put in a lot of my own input about what makes Philips attractive/unattractive for the self-employed. Is this the place to moan about the long-winded, bureaucratic procedures to register with the agencies who function as middlemen between the company and folk like me? Probably not!

06/2018 Eindhoven - place to be

For Eindhoven365 I’ll be doing a fairly in-depth piece about why top talent from all over the world is coming to Eindhoven. The place is booming! For this I have to interview students, career starters and folk who have settled with their families, from places as diverse as Mexico, Germany, Spain and Bangladesh. My adopted city is already getting a lot of attention in the international press, including this article which says that it’s the best destination for expats in all of Europe. Oh yeah...

05/2018 Dutch Design Week

We’d been eyeing each other up for some time, like coy singles at the Thursday evening disco. And now we’ve taken the plunge - I’m finally going to be working for the Dutch Design Week. First task was to review and critique the book they published after DDW2017. A lovely wee job that; picking holes in other people’s work making suggestions so this year’s book can be of an even higher quality.

04/2018 Three journeys in a row

One journey is usually pretty draining, two consecutive ones is a big ask. So three in a row? Piece of cake…

In the space of three weeks I accompanied two journeys in Morocco and then a third one in Catalunya. Each for a different company. Had two days in Las Palmas between the first and the second, and only one day in Barcelona between the second and third. Went remarkably well; energy levels were no problem and I didn’t run out of ink.

In total we took well over 200 people through the process of personal and leadership development. Three books to write now – so please leave me in peace in May.

03/2018 Solarge video

This new client, Solarge, does something that I wholeheartedly support; develop and manufacture roofing tiles that have integrated solar cells. It is initially targeting the agricultural market, but the housing market will follow. Imagine that; the entire roof of your house made from solar panels that don’t look like solar panels. I wrote the script for the video explaining the proposition to the farmers of the Netherlands. This is Solarge’s website, though I didn’t write the English text - just so you know.

02/2018 BVP workshop

'What’s a BVP?' I hear you ask. A brand value proposition. And what’s that? Basically the essence of what a brand has to offer. I attended a one-day workshop at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven as part of a process to determine the brand value proposition for Philips Healthcare Experience Solutions. My role was to absorb as much input as possible in the morning, and then come up with 15 or so possible directions for core values in the afternoon. There will be further refining of the messaging, and more workshops, in the coming months.

01/2018 Brainport video

Wrote the script for this short video aimed at raising the profile of Eindhoven's Brainport. Worked together with Twisted on the project. Have to say, the animation is really superb. View video here.

11/2017 Design vision & strategy

I’ve been working closely with the Philips Design team in Amsterdam as well as Philips’ Chief Design Officer, Sean Carney, to craft the messaging for the ‘dare to care’ initiative. And coincidentally, or maybe not, I’ve also been called in by Philips Design at the High-Tech campus in Eindhoven to provide writing support for a related strategy document.

 

10/2017 Journey to Sicily

The journey to Sicily was my 14th in total, but my (and indeed our) first-ever one on the island. I was doing what I almost always do; interviewing people, describing the process, filming and just generally gathering input for a book which I wrote and which is distributed to all the participants.

Some of the video I shot was also included in the slideshow which took place on the last night of the journey. Pretty wild island, especially in the remote parts of the interior where we were. Local team was brilliant.

 

09/2017 Anderlecht in the Champions League

Back on Champions League duty. This season my club was Anderlecht, so that meant three two-day visits to Brussels to cover their home matches. The first one was against Celtic. Apart from reporting from the press conferences the day before the game and covering the actual match itself, one of my tasks is to go into town to get an impression of the atmosphere ahead of the kick-off. This means taking photos, speaking to fans and making observations, all of which is posted onto the uefa.com website. While at the Place de la Bourse I met my old neighbour from East Kilbride. Good to see you again Stevie! Interviewed Kieran Tierney after the game.

08/2017 Design language system book

Kicked off the process of putting together a structure and contents for a booklet that will describe the Philips Lighting design language system. I really like this kind of stuff; coming up with ways of describing the framework that will be used to design all Philips Lighting propositions in the coming years. Joining me on this adventure were Hans van der Pluijm, Senior Consultant & Project Manager, Design Director Paul Bas and the esteemed Paul van Vorstenbosch of Skon.

07/2017 Brand guidelines

July was a month of many guidelines. (For those of you desperate to know, guidelines in this context are documents which help folk like designers communicate about products and the brand). I worked on the content of licensing guidelines (covering things like TVs and gaming accessories) for Philips. And I also spent a lot of time developing and then writing digital content guidelines for Philips Lighting, which included a number of all-day working sessions at their headquarters in Amsterdam.

06/2017 Cannondale European website

In cooperation with TripleDouble I worked on the Cannondale European website. The challenge was to take text already written for the American site - which appears to have been generated by one of the turtle dudes in Finding Nemo - and to rewrite it in a way that was suitable for us continentals. Away with the superlatives (‘best road bike on the planet’), out with the California speak (‘shred the trail like an electron-fuelled God’) and technical jargon no more (‘a custom Ai chainring moves the chainline outboard by 6mm, lining up perfectly with the extra-wide, extra-stiff 157mm rear hub’). I also improved the SEO.

05/2017 Europa League final in Stockholm

As the UEFA reporter for Ajax I got to cover two incredible home performances in the quarter- and semi-finals, against Schalke and Lyon respectively, as well as the final in Stockholm.

Spent three days there, feeding various social media channels with input before, during and after the game. Visited the fan zones on the day of the match, interviewed Ajax CEO Edwin van der Sar shortly before kick-off, and witnessed the injured Zlatan threaten to get all kung-fuey when the buggy he was being transported wasn’t allowed past a security checkpoint. And, of course, reported on the match itself.

I can tell my grandchildren - who quite rightly won’t be interested in the slightest - that I was there when Wayne Rooney made his last appearance for Manchester United (his main contribution was falling on his arse a couple of times).

03/2017 Triple Double & Under Armour

Got involved in a project for Triple Double, the big sports marketing agency here on Strijp S. I already did some incidental work for them last year but this was more substantial; co-developing guidelines and content for a social media campaign for Under Armour, the sportswear brand. While researching this I discovered that Under Armour’s CEO had openly supported Trump and so I thought; there’s no way I can help promote this company. However, I then found out that the folk who work at Under Armour published an open letter saying they disagreed with their boss. I’m with the workers! And so I’m still involved...

02/2017 4x Scotland

New role for me; working on the logistics side of a journey. This meant visiting Scotland four times in four weeks; first of all to scope the route, then to prepare the client, after that we had our own team preparation, and finally the journey itself. In between a couple of visits to London and a few nights on the overnight train from there to Fort William.

An incredible experience all in all, and an extremely intense one. Moving car convoys, transporting luggage, buying supplies, arranging all kinds of transport, setting up supply stops in the wilderness, a midnight evacuation of a remote campsite, trying to find 15 ice cream cones in Mallaig in early March… The whole thing was a hoot from start to finish. Had a blast with (and was extremely well supported by) the dudes from Skye Adventure.

01/2017 Thailand journey

January saw me & the team back in Thailand for a journey with the top 60+ leaders of Worldpay. This was the first time I took my new Canon XF200 video camera to film during a journey, and it didn’t disappoint. Some really brilliant shots in low light, a funky timelapse of sunrise in Bangkok… Also did the usual interviewing/writing thing for a book.

12/2016 Coffee workshop

I was the writer for a four-day workshop in Amsterdam about Philips’ Coffee business. It was a really diverse team, populated by people from marketing, brand, trend analysts, graphic designers, product managers, regional representatives (Eastern Europe, China), business leaders, product designers… you name it. At the end of it all we had agreed upon a direction for the messaging. And I’d learned loads that I can put to good use when writing the brand experience playbook (a kind of handbook explaining exactly how to visually & verbally communicate anything to do with Philips Coffee) in early 2017.

10/2016 PSV Bayern Munich

Champions League duty; Bayern Munich were visiting Eindhoven. This season things have changed again, so now I go to press conferences the day before the match, watch the away team's training session, report on the match and interview players afterwards (this time Robert Lewandowski). For the Bayern game I also went to the youth league match in the afternoon. In addition to all this, I produce a constant stream of tweets, comments, postings on Tumblr and photos that appears as a feed on the UEFA.com website...

09/2016 Catalonia journey

Another journey - my 11th I believe - this time to Catalonia with the Worldpay 'class of 2016'. A really good and energetic bunch of people, not frightened to get stuck in and take whatever was coming their way.

As usual I was working together with the mightiest of photographers, Vincent van den Hoogen. My role during the journey was to document the process, interview participants and, in general, collect enough input so I can write a book that will be distributed to all 40+ participants.

07/2016 Saeco/Philips website

During July I spent a lot of time on a massive redesign & update of the Philips/Saeco coffee website. I had to generate a lot of new text, optimise existing content for search purposes, make sure all the stuff was aligned and consistent… Basically everything you should do if you want your website to be good.

06/2016 Verisure Securitas Direct

Another new client; Verisure Securitas Direct. Based in Malmö but with operations in 14 countries throughout Europe and Latin America, they offer home security solutions. Did a lot of work on the content for their corporate website this month; looks like there’s plenty of other stuff in the pipeline.

05/2016 Philips Healthcare

Started working together with Bovil on a large, ongoing project for Philips Healthcare customer services. So far I’ve been attending seminars, interviewing folk, writing blogs, researching & writing a White Paper on big data and generating other content used in presentations and online.

04/2016 A mixed bag

A pretty varied month. Worked on lots of relatively small projects, including the Philips brand guidelines (writing), interviewing the Belgian national football coach, writing videos scripts for emerging lighting concepts, taking part in a strategic workshop for an agency pitch, developing point-of-sale materials, refining claims for a leading coffee brand and helping someone structure a keynote presentation for an event in Singapore.

03/2016 Interviewing in Amsterdam

Together with Vincent (who was filming) carried out approximately 25 interviews over the course of two days for a client of amaseu in Amsterdam. The interviews - with a very broad cross-section of managers and leaders - took place out on the street in the evening, in the Olympic Stadium and many places in between. The intention is to make a movie out of the material we shot.

02/2016 PSV Atletico Madrid

Champions League nights are as hectic as ever - although in the knockout stages I don't actually have to write the match report; that's done from the newsdesk in London. Instead I write contributions for the live blog, tweet, take photos and also interview players afterwards and put together a follow-up. This time I spoke to PSV keeper Jeroen Zoet, who was voted player of the week ahead of Messi et al.

02/2016 Global product design workshop

Product designers from all over the world were invited to this three-day workshop at the High-Tech Campus in Eindhoven to explore how to bring greater harmony and recognition to all Philips products. I was there as well to help folk express ideas, formulate proposals and act on the feedback generated.

10/2015 Croatia journey

Third journey of 2015 was in Croatia, and even though this was my fourth trip there - wow. The autumn colours were stunning, and the air was so clear. Woolly hats and gloves, no swimming in the sea unfortunately, but to compensate the most amazing sunset I think I've ever seen, seconds after dolphins leapt out of the water in front of the yacht I was steering. Narnia moment.

Did more filming than ever this time, some of it with a GoPro, and also the usual interviewing & describing. The subsequent journey book was produced in record time; five weeks including printing and delivery to Helsinki.

09/2015 Presenting at the IFA

For the fifth successive year I presented on camera for Philips and Gibson at the IFA in Berlin. Did this stand tour (follow the link) plus individual movies on approximately a dozen new introductions, ranging from wireless noise cancellation headphones to home health measurement devices. Even got to give myself an ultrasound scan.

View here.

08/2015 Journey follow-up

Co-developed a really funky multi-media follow-up programme for journey participants. I then generated the content for the 80-odd folk who were on the June journey in Croatia. In other words; text, quotes, interview fragments, plus writing the script and providing the video footage for short movie clips.

The icons you see on the left are the thumbnails for a specific moment, each of which has its own topic and style (e.g. audio, video, photo mosaic, text). I appreciate this all may sound a bit garbled, but believe me the product really is cool.

07/2015 City farming

Philips is right at the forefront of a movement often referred to as urban farming. By growing crops far closer to where they will be consumed, in carefully-controlled environments, it's possible to produce fresh vegetables in a way that consumes far less energy, without pesticides, all year round and in places which were previously considered unsuitable. I was heavily involved with the messaging and the communication around the launch of this initiative.

06/2015 Journeys in Catalonia and Croatia

Back-to-back journeys for the first time. The first was in Catalonia, a wonderful mix of Barcelona culture, walks in deserted forests, mountain biking and rafting. After a short break in Madrid it was on to Croatia for another fantastic five days.

I'll be writing a book for each journey, plus in Croatia I did a lot of filming which will be used to make a short movie and also as part of a follow-up program.

05/2015 Philips Design 90 years

Worked up in Amsterdam for a number of days at the Philips Design studio with Ally Cane & Adam Murphy of the brand design team as well as Sean Carney, CDO of Philips, to develop a manifesto and script celebrating 90 years of design at Philips.

It was great to be involved, especially because 10 years ago I spent a huge amount of time - months in total - contributing to the epic 800-page book commemorating 80 years of design. Very reassuring to still be involved at the highest level with such an interesting client.

04/2015 Facilitating strategy workshop in Germany

More workshops this month, but with a twist. For the first one, a strategic session in Dortmund to determine the messaging for the partnership between B.Braun and Philips, I put together the workshop contents and facilitated all the sessions together with Bruce Willis-lookalike Ian Cross from Philips Design.

For me there was also loads of other work involved in generating the actual messaging itself - quite a big deal when you consider both companies are world leaders in their field. Later in April I took part in another multi-day workshop for Philips Healthcare, this time as a participant to help determine the messaging for a dose reduction programme.

Frankly, the photos of the workshops were a bit dull, so I thought you would prefer to see some migrating geese we passed on the way there.

03/2015 Lighting workshop in London

Took part in a workshop called Working People Light in the Desso building in central London, right opposite this pub. The workshop was attended by various designers, architects and the like, with the idea being to discuss various topics and generates insights about the future of lighting in the workplace. I'm busy writing a book about the outcomes of this and similar workshops which took place in Paris and Berlin.

01/2015 Aquaver movie

Here's a movie (click on the link on the home page) I created together with Twisted for Aquaver, a company who makes nifty little systems for generating clean drinking water from impure sources like seawater or even industrial effluent. Not only that, these systems use waste heat (e.g. from diesel generators) to power the process.

12/2014 Connected Bathroom

Finished helping write a very interesting positioning paper on the Connected Bathroom for Philips Design. Analytical toilets, toothbrushes that gather DNA samples, showers that recognise you and remember your favourite settings, electrical devices that charge without cables, mirrors you can converse with... oh yes, and did you know that we spend, on average, more than 18 months of our lives in the bathroom? (I'm sure my daughters have passed that milestone already)

11/2014 Messi!

An exclusive interview with the best player in the world and maybe the best player of all time. How sweet is that! I spoke to him after the Ajax Barcelona match in the beginning of November. He'd just scored twice to equal the all-time Champions League scoring record, so all the assembled media were desperate to speak to him. He gave just one interview - to me. (Not because I'm anything special, simply because I work for UEFA and that's the deal). Did it in Spanish too... You can find it here.

10/2014 Writing a novel

October was when I really had the feeling that my first-ever commissioned novel was coming together and nearing completion. I was asked to write the book by Erik-Jan de Rooij. It's basically a business book, in the form of a novel, which explains what goes on during journeys - and the benefits. I intend to deliver the first draft, approximately 160 pages, before Christmas.

09/2014 Filming at the IFA in Berlin

For the fourth year in succession I presented the tour of the Philips stand at the IFA; the world's largest consumer electronics show. And, as usual, I did it together with the dudes from the Mute Zone. I like this short movie, especially the bits when I'm juggling loudspeakers and when there are two of me on-screen. We made 13 short product films as well.

View here

08/2014 BBC contract

And then, out of nowhere, I open my mail and find a contract from the BBC. I suspect it's because I was recently asked to contribute to a live radio show looking back on the World Cup, but it was still a major surprise - and a very welcome one at that.

08/2014 journey movie

Here's a great little movie promoting our new individual journeys. It also gives a good first impression of what takes place on the group journeys I have accompanied in the past. For this movie I helped write the script and also did all the filming in Thailand.

View here

06/2013 On camera at the IFA in Berlin

For some reason I never got round to posting a link to the stand tour I presented for Philips at the IFA in Berlin last September. So here it is. We had a real laugh trying to cram everything into a clip lasting less than four minutes.

04/2014 Thailand journey book

The book of the Thailand journey was printed this month. Approximately 160 pages of predictably superb photos by this dude, plus interviews, quotes, observations, explanations and other relevant information written by yours truly. If I may say so myself, it looks brilliant. That's the sixth journey book I've done so far…

02/2014 Johan Cruyff interview

Now here's something I'm incredibly proud of; interviewed the one and only Johan Cruyff because he was receiving an UEFA President's award from Michel Platini in Amsterdam. Talked to him for about 20 minutes, and everything was filmed by a TV crew over from London. The interview itself will be somewhere on UEFA.com, although I have to admit the last time I looked I couldn't find it…

01/2014 Philips brand guidelines (continued)

After having written a significant part of the new Philips brand guidelines towards the end of last year, I worked on the second phase in January; guidelines for mobile apps and for websites. In total more than 200 pages of information, examples and instruction.

 

12/2013 amaseu website

Was heavily involved in writing the content for the new amaseu website. Had several meetings with Close&Counter in Amsterdam to discuss the structure and then many working sessions and long phone calls with Paul Konijnendijk to really nail down the messaging and phrasing. I also interviewed most of the CEOs who stories appear on the site.

11/2013 Sustainability Day

I chaired a panel discussion as part of the Philips Sustainability Day. It was a fascinating session, involving representatives from the UK National Health Service, the Ellen MacArthur foundation, a food expert from Wageningen University and Philips’ head of sustainability. One hour was unfortunately too short to discuss all the ins and outs of the circular economy and the future of healthcare, but nonetheless there was tons of very inspirational input.

11/2013 Journey to Thailand

Accompanied another journey to Thailand. As usual I was there to gather and generate input for a book that will be given out to the approximately 90 people who took part.

I also carried out filmed interviews with many of the participants, including this one on the deck of a beautiful old wooden sloop gently gliding through the warm waters of the Andaman Sea. Once again, it was a privilege to be involved and an absolute blast from start to finish.

11/2013 Philips shield redesign movie

As part of its brand relaunch last year, Philips revamped its logo - the shield - for the first time in over half a century. And I got to write the script for the movie explaining the design story. Worked together with Thomas Marzano and Twisted on what was a very prestigious project. 

10/2013 Website revamp

I'm busy updating my website at the moment. I haven't got all the content ready yet, so please bear with me. But almost all of the information that was on the old site is also on this new one, so hopefully you'll find what you're looking for.

03/2013 Philips Innovation Drive

Teamed up for the umpteenth time with Jos & Remko from the Mute Zone to cover the first-ever Philips Innovation Drive, which took place in Eindhoven's iconic Evoluon. I carried out 20+ filmed interviews with various participants, and also did a load of pieces to camera on the various innovations being showcased there. The material will be used throughout the Philips global organisation. If it manages to escape into the wider world, I'll put a link here. 

11/2012 Filming at the Donbass Arena

Back to the Ukraine for the second time this year. Visited Donetsk on behalf of Philips Lighting to do some filming in and around the impressive Donbass Arena. Interviewed the 35-year-old CEO of the stadium; a really sound and cooperative guy. Also had a pitchside viewpoint during the game (between the press photographers) - superb! Will add a link to the movies once they are finished.

11/2012 Journey to Jordan

Accompanied a magnificent journey to Jordan (although the first day was in Rome). Camped in Bedouin tents in the Wadi Rum and the Jordan Valley, and finished up with a visit to Petra after a 12-km hike through the wilderness. The most enjoyable journey far; the scenery in the desert was out of this world, there was a really good group of participants, and the nosh was wonderful. Also did some filming for the first time.

10/2012 Ajax - Real Madrid in Champions League

Another Champions League season, another Ajax - Real Madrid encounter, another thrashing for the home side. At least they managed to score this time. Here's the match report I wrote and here's a link to the post-match interviews. As you'll see, got to stare into Kaká’s dark, dreamy eyes from close by; shame I couldn't understand a word he was saying at the time.

09/2012 Presenting at LabelExpo in Chicago

Presenting for Stork Prints again, this time at the LabelExpo in Chicago. Did an average of six shows a day for three days, explaining the virtues of the new DSI label printer to the assembled masses. The stand was really busy during the shows, and I managed to sufficiently moderate my accent so the Americans had a chance of understanding what I was saying (so 'modularity' goes from moj-lari-i to mod-you-lah-ri-tee...).

09/2012 Filming at the IFA in Berlin (again)

For the third year running did several days filming at the IFA in Berlin at the request of Philips. Made lots of videos, for example about the new home cooker Philips developed together with Jamie Oliver (who was also at the press conference), the funky original radio, the new wake up light and the latest-generation Sonicare toothbrush. We also, as usual, did a general stand tour. Brilliant fun. 

06/2012 TV reporter at Euro 2012

I was in Kharkiv for the EURO 2012 as UEFA TV reporter for the Dutch team. This meant interviewing (or being on standby to interview) players, the coach and visiting VIPs, before/after training and matches. Our footage was used worldwide. What a blast - both in terms of the work and the R&R we had in this great city in eastern Ukraine. Click here for more details, photos and links. 

05/2012 Presenting 62 shows at the Drupa

Just back from a marathon job at the Drupa, the world's largest printing exhibition. It takes place at the Düsseldorf Messe once every four years and lasts for 14 days. On every single one of them I was on the Stork Prints stand, presenting the DSI digital label printer for anyone - potential customers, professional printers, casual visitors, people from neighbouring stands - who cared to stop and listen. (It was the same machine I did the James Bond thing for in Brussels last October). In total we did our show 62 times...

05/2012 Euro 2012 preview

Wrote the Euro 2012 preview on the Dutch national team for When Saturday Comes. Will the team do any specially-rehearsed goal celebrations? Which players appear in a TV advert as superheroes? Will Edwin van der Sar in his new role as pundit talk about raindrops dripping from the crossbar again? Get yourself a copy of the latest WSC and all may be revealed...

04/2012 Writing a book for Gerard Kleisterlee

The secret is finally out. Between November and January I worked intensively on a fascinating project; writing a book to commemorate the 10 years Gerard Kleisterlee spent as CEO of Philips. The thing is, he didn't know anything about it, so I couldn't mention it here until after the book was officially presented to him when he retired at the end of March.

03/2012 Journey to Morocco

Went on another journey, this time accompanying a group of 54 managers from a company headquartered in London. That's where we started, but we ended up in Morocco and spent six days there in remote mountain camps, out on sand dunes, in Jeep convoys and in a traditional fort-style hotel situated within a camel's spit of the Atlantic. I'm currently writing the book of the journey.

03/2012 Filming for Philips in Barcelona

Spent two days in Barcelona presenting a total of 10 short movies about various new product releases from Philips Consumer Lifestyle. Here's the general overview film, and you can see all the individual product clips here.

02/2012 Women's Euro 2013 qualifier

My first-ever women's football match and it was great. A total of 815 spectators turned up on a horribly wet Wednesday night in the village of Dessel to see Belgium draw 2-2 with Northern Ireland. No playacting or feigning of injury, just two teams going at it hammer and tongs (especially Northern Ireland). And after the game the players I interviewed were polite, willing, enthusiastic and without any pretension whatsoever. A refreshing change...

01/2012 Tackling malnutrition

Received a copy of the 'Tackling Malnutrition' booklet I recently wrote for Philips Design. Tackling Malnutrition is the latest Philanthropy by Design project, and examined how to develop extremely low-cost and easy-to-use 'toolkits' that will allow healthcare workers and families to better understand and recognise the symptoms of malnutrition. One of those projects that you really feel privileged to work on. Get a hold of the PDF here.

12/2011 Croatia leadership journey book

The 180-page book about the leadership journey to Croatia I accompanied in June was completed and printed just before Christmas. It was a combination of my text and superb photography by Vincent van den Hoogen. Unfortunately the book is intended for the company whose leaders went on the journey, so I can't go into detail about the content here. However, if you want to know more about this amazing project then please get in touch.

12/2011 The Schalke experience

My first visit to the very impressive Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen for the Europa League match between Schalke 04 and FC Steaua Bucureşti. The crowd of 53,000 banged out a fantastic atmosphere, and I managed to interview Klaas-Jan Huntelaar after the game. You'll find pictures, stories and video here and here.

11/2011 Filming at PSV

Carried out two filmed interviews, with Dutch international Kevin Strootman and Swedish international/PSV captain Ola Toivonen, at the PSV training ground just north of Eindhoven. The footage was then used in a couple of features that appeared on UEFA.com.

11/2011 Messaging workshop in Amsterdam

Took part in a two-day workshop on the 18th floor of the Ij tower in Amsterdam for Philips Design. We had been asked to help develop strategic messaging for a Belgium-based healthcare company who are pioneering a new form of cancer treatment.

10/2011 Champions League & Euro 2012 qualifiers

In October I covered three matches; Ajax and FC Twente in the Champions League, as well as the wonderful Holland v Sweden qualifier for Euro 2012 (4-1!). Quite pleased with myself; in one week I carried out post-match player interviews in four languages; English, Dutch, French and German.

09/2011 Brookman as Bond in Brussels

Spent four days at an exhibition in Brussels dressed up as James Bond - together with four Bond girls and ‘Q’ - presenting Stork Prints’ new digital label printer. I reckon close to 1000 visitors must have come to see our show in total. Click here for more details and photos. Here's the video link.

09/2011 Filming at the IFA in Berlin

Did three days of filming at the IFA in Berlin for Philips. During that time we (me and the video production company The Mute Zone) interviewed Philips personnel, visiting journalists, consumers and even jazz saxophone virtuoso Benjamin Herman. We also recorded short clips on the star products, and made a 10-minute long stand tour which is intended for use both inside Philips and on Internet. Loved it! 

08/2011 Genk squeak through

Just like last time round, my first assignment of the new football season was a Champions League qualifier in Belgium, this time between Genk and Maccabi Haifa. Genk were lucky to still be in the tie after 90 minutes and especially after extra time, but they breezed the penalty shootout. You can read the match report here and the post-match analysis and player interviews here.

06/2011 Journey to Croatia

Another new client; one that takes employees of other companies on ‘journeys’ during which the participants achieve ‘personal development through self discovery’. I accompanied a journey for five days in Croatia, and experienced everything from sleeping in a tepee in heavily wooded (and bear-inhabited) highlands to sailing and swimming in the Adriatic. A book will follow...

05/2011 Corporate story for NXP

A new client - NXP - and straight in at the top level! I interviewed the CEO plus seven members of the management team to get input for a story I wrote about the (cultural) changes taking place at the company. The intention is to distribute the story to all 28,000+ employees.

12/2010 Philanthropy by Design book

Recently finished writing the text for a 60-page book on Philanthropy by Design; a Philips Design initiative which offers expertise - free of charge - to help the more fragile categories of the global population. The book explains how this works and looks at three examples from countries like India, Kenya and Malawi: a low-cost, low-tech stove for healthier and more efficient cooking; an inexpensive microscope kit for improving malaria detection; and a breath counter for rapid and inexpensive diagnosis of pneumonia. I'll post a link to the PDF here once the book has been published.

11/2010 Strategic communications for Healthcare

Over the past few months I spent quite a lot of time - together with Philips Design - working on a project to help communicate the way forward for a business unit within Philips Healthcare. Unfortunately, as this was an internal project with high strategic value, I can't go into any more detail! What I can say is that the client was delighted with the result, saying it was 'fantastic' and inspirational for the 400 people it was presented to.

09/2010 Ajax AC Milan

On Champions League duty again, this time in Amsterdam for Ajax vs AC Milan. Good atmosphere and a pretty absorbing contest, especially in the first half. Afterwards I managed to interview the man of the match, the evergreen Clarence Seedorf, who received a standing ovation from the home supporters when he was substituted with five minutes to go.

09/2010 Filming for Philips in Berlin

I was privileged to present a tour of the huge Philips stand, on camera, at the IFA (the world's largest consumer electronics and home appliances exhibition) in Berlin during the first week of September. The film was posted on YouTube and also used on the Philips intranet.

08/2010 Over and out

My first assignment of the new football season was the Champions League qualifier between Anderlecht and Partisan Belgrade in Brussels. A fascinating encounter with four goals, loads of chances for both sides and a penalty shootout. The home side blew it as three (!) players ballooned their spot kicks high over the bar. You can read the match report here and the post-match analysis and player interviews here.

08/2010 Key market stories

In May, June and July I wrote a series of articles about key global markets in which Philips Consumer Lifestyle is active. This involved interviewing (unfortunately only by phone) people in Brazil, Turkey and China and then writing up the stories, which were published both on the Philips intranet and Internet.

07/2010 WSC

Wrote an article for the August issue of When Saturday Comes reflecting on the pretty brutal behaviour of many Dutch players during the World Cup final. Also did a number of previews for the games involving Holland in the group phases and knockout stages for the WSC website.

04/2010 Chewing the fat about Dutch football violence

Appeared live on the BBC Radio Scotland programme 'Chick's World of Football' in mid-April. Was giving the low-down on the shenanigans surrounding the preparations for the Dutch cup final between Ajax and Feyenoord, and also reflecting on Dick Advocaat's sudden resignation as Belgian national coach. Click on the arrow to listen.

04/2010 Getting into the flow for lighting

Recently finished working on an 'experience flow' for Philips Lighting. This flow, depicted in a 6 m long poster, visualises and explains the issues people face when buying lighting for the home. I was part of a multi-disciplinary team at Philips Design which created it. I did all the writing plus a bit of user research as well.

03/2010 Last minute drama in Wolfsburg

Went to Wolfsburg in mid-March to cover the Europa League clash with Rubin Kazan. The home side scored in the final seconds of extra time to progress to the quarter-finals. You can read and see the post-match interviews and match review here. The hotel had an outdoor swimming pool situated in the nearby (partly-frozen) harbour, with the gargantuan Volkswagen factories resplendent in the background. Superb.