Programming Languages vs The Lord of the Rings

I was asked by my manager to draft a post and create a fun graphic announcing Wiredelta's presence at another office in Copenhagen. The announcement included an invitation to a short presentation given by my manager about programming languages.

Now, everyone knows programming languages are SO.MUCH.FUN (not really) but how do you make them even more fun ?! Well, everyone loves The Lord of the Rings... so why so serious (this is actually from Batman, just so you know... I know my movies) ? This is the post I drafted:

"You cried when Lord of the Rings ended and when The Hobbit began. Now witness the epic tale of a modern battle between two forces.

Take Mark “Gandalf” Dencker’s hand (not literally, pls) as he takes you from the magical lands of Biggest Growth, where Mobile Development flourishes, to the dark swampy lands of Deskdor, a place which only old people use (Sauron is like... super old). This Feb. at your KPH Office, in Ultra-HD, super surround and 3D, witness “The Lord of the Stacks”."

With some help from my manager and his experience and knowledge with programming languages (and his ability to just override what I do :D) the post ended up looking like this:

"You cried when the Lord of the Rings ended. Now witness the epic tale of a modern battle between two forces: Web and Mobile Development.

Let Mark “Gandalf” Dencker take you through the magical lands of Growth & Prosperity, where online applications flourish, to the dark swampy lands of Deskdor, a place dominated by Microsoft’s C#, Flash and Java. This Feb. at T-LAB 3. floor, your new neighbouring resident Wiredelta will give a presentation on the do’s and dont’s when building crisp, scalable applications around your business, we call it “The Lord of the Stacks”."

And here's the graphic I created to accompany the post:

A little something about the posts:
As you can see my post differs in a couple of aspects to the final draft (created by my manager). That's the beautiful thing about working together with other people. I have little knowledge about programming languages and how to relate them to The Lord of the Rings, yet, I did a good job which eventually turned into a great job with some help from above.

The opening line "You cried ... " is, I believe, a good example of how to break the ice online because, well, in this case... it is very true. The Lord of the Rings -> Great trilogy, great story, great execution. The Hobbit -> it was kind of obvious from the beginning they were going to ruin it and, from this point of view, they haven't disappointed... it's ruined.

Another aspect worth mentioning is the voice I used. I aimed at making the post sound like a trailer but not a serious one. More of a silly one... I took a lot of inspiration from the series "Honest Trailer" (which you can watch on Youtube) which I find incredibly funny and added a little of my own spin to it.

Graphic
The graphic, however, is the definition of awesome (if you ask me). I went through quite a few ideas before I stopped at this, but I'm satisfied with the final product. I don't want to expose the magic behind it but I can say that I'm glad I know my way around Photoshop or else this idea (even though a good one) would have been executed in a poor manner.

Now all I have to do is wait and see how the post will be received. I love this.

The PowerPoint presentation

"How do I make a good, beautiful PowerPoint presentation?"
Making visually appealing PowerPoint presentation takes, I believe, creativity, instinct and most importantly common sense.Here's an example of my work. I was asked to update an old PowerPoint presentation for a CV and Cover Letter seminar. Normally I wouldn't explain how I create stuff because I believe the magic is in the mystery, and people tend to think that just because you can summarize what you did in a few lines it means the process that got you to the final product was also short. But this time I think I should showcase it.

Here's what I did (everything but the text came out of my head). See presentation below.

1st. Changed the aspect of the presentation to 16:9 (wide). I'm not a fan of square PowerPoints because they leave a lot of unused space and because the side margins are black. Plus, most laptop monitors are widescreen.

2nd. Picked a color scheme, in this case: purple. Why? I liked it.

3rd. Added a beatufiul, high resolution front picture. Added various graphical elements on different slides, (ex: hands, badges, images) some of which I had to edit by adding dialogue or other graphical elements, or change their color to purple.

4th. I formated all the text and removed all the initial images which were positioned wrong (over edges, over other elements etc.).

5th. Added my own brand of humor - the picture of the dog & lady talking on the phone. I edited these two pictures by adding a speech bubble and adding the dialogue. The dog says "Hello, is this company?" and the lady answers "Yes, this is company". First of all, the pictures fit the context (check the information on the slides) and second of all, the dialogue makes them hilarious. Why? Because... talking dog...

The CV experiment at Company Dating (AU Career, Aarhus)

While interning at AU Career International I had the opportunity to work with great people but also great tools. For the famous event called Company Dating which takes place twice a year I decided to put an initiative forward and carry it. Since there are so many company representatives coming at this event I thought it is a good opportunity to get some feedback on CV designs from professionals. So, with patience and Adobe InDesign I created four CV designs, some good and some... not so good. Here's the album

If you like the first design (the black one) most then congratulations, you have the same taste as most of the recruiters I interviewed. Out of the 21 representatives I talked to, 8 voted for the black design, 7 for the red, 4 for orange, 1 for pink and 1 for none of them. Here's some of the feedback they offered on why they prefer the black CV design over the others.

- The use of a picture inside a circle was regarded positively as a fresh change from the traditional picture inside a square or a rectangle
- It’s visually simple and easy to read. Some found it satisfying that the design is not overwhelming
- The dark color was regarded as strong and serious
- Others believed the color is elegant and professional (there was a general tendency among company recruiters against bright colors)
- The layout is structured neatly. Although some opposed the placing of headlines on the right side, it wasn’t generally seen as a bad thing to do.
- The contact details were creatively placed and easy to read
- Paragraphs are clearly defined and separated by the spacing between them
- The size and placement of the name attracted attention and was seen positively as it is easy to read

After receiving this feedback I posted the results on social media for our followers to see. I was quite satisfied with the reach of the campaign which was quite high but the engagement could have been better. However, a good first try :). Here are the Facebook posts:

Black CV - Orange CV - Red CV - Pink CV

How I sold my stuff in two days (Part 2.)

*This second part to my short story of how I sold my stuff includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Donald Trump and a few used books.*

What's better than selling a few things and earning some money ? Selling more things and earning more money. That's a scientific fact. My next step in my moving process was to get rid of even more stuff. So after a second filtering of my things I decided to sell my old textbooks. Hopefully they could help someone else the same way they helped me. So, as the old saying goes - if something isn't broke don't fix it - I did the exact same thing as before and sold them on Facebook with my unique flavour of marketing infused in them. If you ask me I think you're about to witness something on the same level of greatness as the pyramids and hamburgers. Here's the album:

"It's rumored the script for the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street" is pretty much inspired from this book. This is a signed copy by Leonardo Di Caprio. I'm lying, it's actually not signed."

""I wrote this book in one night while in a heavenly trance when god took my hand and wrote it for me"- the author (probably). I'm not saying this book is a big deal, I'm saying it's a great deal !"

"So many tears have been avoided because of this book. Also, lawsuits. This book is perfect if you're going through a break-up, a lawsuit for corporate espionage, a scandal because you fired the wrong person or if you forgot to pay your taxes to SKAT. This is the 3rd Ed. but let's be honest, why would you want the 4th one?"

"Now, I know what you're thinking: social media is just to make your friends jealous. Well it's not if you're richer than god. You need a good strategy when you get back out there !"

"I actually should charge you more for this book because I made awesome highlights throughout it, so I basically did all your semester's work for you (you're welcome!)."

"It's not everyday you need to build a strong grandparent-selling multinational corporation. So don't be an ass, DO IT RIGHT ! "

"Very good book and, even better, it's NOT written by Donald Trump. Any book NOT written by Donald Trump is a good... scratch that, GREAT book, but this one takes the cake. I almost accidentally became the CEO of Microsoft while reading it."

"This book is not for everybody, I'll tell you that. It's a goddamn good book but it was probably written with the blood of the fallen."

And obviously the best comes last. I felt like I couldn't stress enough how important this next book is to students. So I thought, who sells more books than anyone else? The church (that's probably not right but that's what came to mind). You know Jesus is cashing some serious checkes from selling all those Bibles. So I let them inspire me and this is what I came up with:

"THIS ! I cannot stress this enough because there is not enough stress in this damn world ! THIS IS YOUR BIBLE FROM NOW ON ! Stop praying to gods or anything, PRAY TO ALAN BRYMAN !"

SOLD !

The result?

Not as many likes as for the previous sale, however still a few. What's the lesson to be learned from all of this? If you can make fun of Donald Trump, do it.

How I sold my stuff in two days (Part 1.)

I thought moving is going to easy - you just box stuff and... move. However, I realized I have a lot of things that I don't usually use or won't be needing where I'm moving. So I did what every other concerned person would do with their waste: I gave it to other people... at a price... on Facebook... no transport included.

So, first I edited the photos to include price and then I posted the album on Aarhus Internationals:

Next step? Easy. Write a catchy ad that will make people read it, laugh, wait a minute... remember it, laugh again and then give you money. Examples:

"4 drawers (meat not included...or is it?... it's not). It is rumored this freezer is related to Optimus Prime, that is, if you believe that kind of stuff."

"Fruit, spoons, bottles etc...What can't this table hold?"

"It is rumored these chairs are handmade out of Gandalf's wizard stick. Magic not included."

"This table and chairs are perfect for drinking coffee outside. It is rumored the Treaty of Versailles was signed on this table."

"If you buy these I'll throw in a lot of cables too. These were a gift from God."

"As you can see two corners are bent, but that's not a problem. I think one of the channels sounds less than perfect but except for that the mixer is fully functional. It does not include the awesome skills necessary to use it."

"This pot comes free with any purchase you make. It can hold flowers, dirt, a baby, a fat raccoon or a raccoon's fat baby."

The result ?

Things were flying left and right. Even the flower pot found a new home as a glorified ashtray, albeit I gave it away. I'm not gonna lie to myself, I know I sold them quite cheap. But the object of the sale was to get rid of all the things as fast as possible and make some money on the side. That goal was achieved gloriously and the skies opened that night and Jesus AND Superman high-fived me.

In all fairness I have to say I had one more thing for sale which I eventually threw away. I changed my mind about selling it since it wasn't in such a good condition as the picture made it look and I don't feel comfortable bending the truth (without a humorous tone) in order to sell something. I'm all about those ethics, son !