Chez Natasha

All the way due North in Groningen, the very first Lifehacking Academy got underway in a nice film theatre complete with Macs and Fat Boys (huge modern beanbags) all over the place. There were presentations of all kinds related to hacking your life with tips and tricks, how to work smarter and how to promote yourself. I myself gave a workshop on how to podcast your story, and I was lucky enough to get to tell my story twice. Read the full programme in Dutch of the day here.

I heard some interesting things, one of them was from Erno Hannink who I listened talk about personal branding, a story I had already heard from friend and fellow woman on the web, Marieke Hensel. As expected, they know each other.

I also noticed that it’s not just the huge foobar surrounding paying for the right to podcast music in the Netherlands that deters people from podcasting, but also the lack of technical knowledge and equipment. I enjoyed talking to Lykle de Vries, who I heard give a workshop on Web 2.0, about music rights in the Netherlands and discussing how the music authorities are so incredibly stupid that they dare ask for money from podcasters who use non-copyrighted music because they don’t understand the concept. In fact, major radio stations, which were logically the firsts to podcast here have axed their podcasts because they couldn’t take dealing with the stupidity anymore. I told Lykle that podcasters could pull an ‘RTL’, my personal expression referring to four TV stations (RTL, 4, 5, 7 and 8), which although Dutch in content, broadcast out of Luxembourg to avoid stupid advertising laws.

It was a creative and positive day, and that’s what counts.