Wow! I’m honoured to be named one of the “Vordenker 2022″ by the initiative “Vordenker 2022 – Deutschlands klügste Köpfe” (in English, that translates to something akin to “Masterminds 2022 – Germany’s Wisest Minds”) by Germany’s largest business magazine “DUP UNTERNEHMER-Magazin” (a Handelsblatt Group joint venture) and “DIND – Deutsches Innovationsinstitut für Nachhaltigkeit und Digitalisierung”.
+ANDERSEN & ASSOCIATES helps companies with digital transformation and helps establish innovative thinking as a part of the company DNA. The founder Vidar Andersen explains why he doesn’t rely on investors, why he and the associates are all paranoid tech people, and how to permanently stay innovative in the market.
DUP UNTERNEHMER-Magazin: +ANDERSEN & ASSOCIATES helps companies with digital transformation. That probably means you hit a nerve in the market during the pandemic?
Vidar Andersen: Not really – at least at the beginning of the corona pandemic. We ourselves were able to offer all of our services and products online within a few weeks. But there was hardly any demand from our customers. Many companies, especially in Germany, could not even imagine receiving the same services via virtual channels online. Still others were prevented from doing so by internal hurdles, such as a lack of software licenses, restrictive security settings, data protection considerations or pending works council decisions. But today, many of our customers no longer want to do without the virtual online solutions. So – luckily – a lot has happened here in the past two years.
How do you convince your customers of your service?
Andersen: When we realized at the beginning of the pandemic that very few customers were well positioned digitally, a lot of time and energy went into education and training. We showed them how to work well together digitally. This effort paid off. Whether it is our programs or services, many are still primarily preferred virtually. This is an enormous advantage, especially for companies that are running programs or projects that last several weeks and whose teams are spread across different locations. In principle, every new customer relationship is preceded by intensive research in order to understand the market conditions and requirements of the respective industry and company to be able to offer suitable programs or solutions – analogue and digital.
How do your customers react to these disruptive change proposals?
Andersen: First of all, our work can only be fruitful if we know exactly what our customers’ goals and needs are. In general, however, they appreciate the uncomplicated and team-oriented cooperation with us and that we give honest feedback. If I’m not convinced of something, I’ll say so, even if the customers might not want to hear it at first. In addition, it is very important to talk to each other and to question yourself and your performance again and again. We conduct feedback discussions with our customers before, during and after a program or project has been completed. We continuously evaluate whether our products, programs and services need to be updated, supplemented or replaced.
How do you ensure that +Andersen & Associates itself is not overtaken by the digital advances in the world?
Andersen: We are all “paranoid” tech enthusiasts. And we are concerned that one day we will no longer be up to date and that we will no longer be able to understand and master future technologies. This paranoia is also reflected in the work culture: For example, there is always a running concern that the competitors could offer something better or that the methodologies and tools that we are successfully using today could suddenly become obsolete in the future. Our recipe against this is that we remain paranoid (and we only work with entrepreneurs and founders who share our paranoia). Research on the topics of tech, tools, methodologies and competition is very much a part of our day-to-day business in order to remain competitive. This applies to +Andersen as well as to our customers.
What advantage do you have over your competitors?
Andersen: As a small private company with no external investors, we enjoy the privilege of defining our growth goals ourselves. We also have the patience to reach them. The most important thing for us has always been to have satisfied customers – that is our very simple recipe for success. Classic growth measures such as more staff or the takeover of other companies are of secondary importance. In addition, we are extremely flexible and scalable in terms of skills and human resources. Our associates model enables our customers to put together a perfect à la carte team from a wide variety of fields for a wide variety of digitization and innovation challenges.
In which business area do you still have weaknesses?
Andersen: Working more with external partners per program or project and less with permanent employees may be seen as a possible weakness, especially by potential investors or potential acquirers. But to me, the pandemic has proven that this business model is very anti-fragile.
Honored and excited to have been invited back for the third year in a row to help Business France Düsseldorf with their “Impact Germany” program for French startups expanding into the German market!
The “Impact Germany 2022” organisers, support team & startup cohortModerating the panel discussion “How to become successful in a different market?”Holding a Keynote crash-course introduction to how to succeed in the German market as experienced as a non-German
The Lean Innovation Educators Summit is designed to model the methodologies we teach, as we conduct beneficiary discovery with our fellow Lean LaunchPad educators to improve our courses. A key aspect of teaching the Lean LaunchPad methodology is encouraging students to “get out of the classroom” and talk to others. That’s exactly what we as Lean educators strive to do ourselves at the Summit.
The LEan INNOVATION EDUCATORS SUMMIT
“At our fifth Lean Innovation Educators Summit, we discussed the role of the university and other important organizations in supporting the critical mission of preparing the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators. Attendees gleaned insights from keynote speaker Rich Lyons, the Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer of the University of California at Berkeley, about the opportunities and challenges faced by the Lean Innovation Educators community.”
Ho ho ho! It’s the season to be jolly – and mint NFTs apparently
TL;DR
An NFT Advent Calendar featuring collectible vintage icons
Every day a new drop until xmas morning
Web 1 classics seen and used by billions – yes that’s Billions with a B
Created by Vidar “blacktar” Andersen (aka me)
Some 20 plus years ago
I’m the only one who can legally sell these & give you authentic ownership
Auction running on OpenSea until Xmas morning – it’s the season!
Stay tuned for surprise giveaways in between
More information below
Pay peanuts, get monkeys they say. Well, these are not the apes you’re looking for. In fact, these are the iconic Web1 vintage pixels exactly nobody was looking for - until now.
NFTs at this stage of maturity are mostly the equivalent of factory prints on pre-signed blank Salvador Dali sheets; Sweat-shopped assets ground out by anonymous hired hands, mass-produced by - and artificially inflated to fill the coffers of - the industrial crypto overbros.
This, on the other hand, is the real-Susan-Kare-like deal; It is now possible to own a true artisanal vintage artefact - a literal icon of Web 1, a perfect preserve of the zeitgeist of an era set for all posterity in pixels, offered directly to you to own for yourself - from the artist himself, complete with the well-travelled essence, the patina, the pedigree - that no boilerplate apes, stonks memes, or 3D amateur fests will ever appreciate to.
Here is your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a unique piece of Internet history, crafted by hand, pixel by pixel, just as the sun was setting on the wild wild west, at the very moment the frontier period of the Internet was coming to an end and the heydays of Web 1 as it were to be know would be gone forever.
These classic icons serve as a unique vehicle, an instant connection, to a bygone era where success on the Internet was still measured in Super Bowl ad spend, and amount of Miller Aeron Chairs and Spark Stations amassed.
The limited Vintage Pixels collection features three vintage icons up for auction today, representing the most infamous three out of a set of over 40.
Originally created for a content management system named Plone, these pixels soon however ended up in all sorts of places around the world outside the world of Plone too. For a time, they were the most copied, or shall we say
Originally created by yours truly for a content management system named Plone, used by the likes of The FBI, The CIA, NASA JPL, Govt. of Brazil, Yale University, University College London, etc. These pixels soon however ended up in all sorts of places around the world outside the world of Plone too. For a time, they were the most copied, or shall we say ‘borrowed’, icons of Web 1.
If you used the Internet between 2001 and today, you already saw and used one or more of these icons already.
Further more, the NFTs on offer in this one-off auction are in a pristine uncompressed PNG condition and have been stored in a direct line of succession - from the first hard drive the files were originally saved on (a Seagate Barracuda 20.2GB, purchased 1999, receipt can probably be produced on demand) from a period in time where The Cloud was still an insider joke and AWS had yet to be invented, and your Facebook and Snap was called IM and ICQ - until today.
But wait, the screams of just about every crypto edgelord out there echo - these are not the instantly meme-able shitposts we were looking for! Hower, as the real NFT connoisseurs out there will know, this is indeed a feature and not a bug; As the relevance and value of stonk ape memes fade inverse-squarely over time, these pedigree iconic classics, much like a fine wine, will only appreciate with age.
And to all those naysayers claiming NFTs have no real utility, the NFTs in the Vintage Pixels collection of course come with indisputable proof of utility, having served the world online as pictorial descriptors with no needed additional text for nearly twenty years. That will certainly show them.
Reserve a Web 1 classic for yourself today and help rescue it from the accelerating threat of extinction; Now is the time for you to act and secure these rare vintage icons for yourself before some other bro does - because let’s face it, who would not want to hang the complete trifecta of pure dot com nostalgia above the virtual metaverse fireplace this holiday season?
And speaking of the holiday season, this is by definition the perfect gift for that special person who has literally everything: This, by its very nature, is comes with a guarantee that they don’t already own it — and to boot, it comes with proof of ownership to guarantee that nobody else will have this either. Nobody. Ever.
Introducing The Vintage Pixel Collection: Collect Them All
Dec 1: Lot 1 User Icon
Lot 1 is arguably the most famous in the collection. It’s the user icon that e.g. sat at the top right of your browser, staring down at you on every page when you were visiting Wikipedia, for years on end; The sights it has seen, the stories it could tell. It’s seen you, fo sho. And to some, this might be the ultimate PFP to destroy them all.
Dec 2: Lot 2 Print Icon
Lot 2, or infamous #2, is the legendary print icon that for turned up in random places like the “slsk“, pronounced “soulseek” by the cool kids of the day, app - at one time the unofficial heir to Napster (ask your parents what that thing was). What it could tell is probably still covered by statute of limitations in most jurisdictions - so it won’t. You’ve seen or used this one too.
Dec 3: Lot 3 Link Icon
Lot 3 is not scoring any points for originality, but for familiarity. It’s the legendary world globe used and abused on millions if not billions of web pages and apps signifying a link to another web page.
For the following days of the Advent Calendar, view the evolving Vintage Pixels collection on Open Sea for the next reveals and drops.
About the artist
I’m Vidar “blacktar” Andersen (Why “blacktar”? “Who the hell in their right mind would use their real name online?” - snarky 90s me), and I created these icons out of necessity in and around 2001 (my memory thereof is a bit sketch), just as the dot com Web 1 bubble was bursting. Their provenance come guaranteed - by me; There are many icons out there, but these are mine.
Now, this isn’t quite my first rodeo; I have a history of building stuff in public - many things of which flopped - to help better understand new tech and its possibilities.
I co-created a web-based game in the 90s that had millions of daily users and was featured on BBC Click! to learn about the capabilities of dynamic web apps and databases - (before there were any viable way to monetise such apps).
I helped make several content manage systems, Plone (one that didn’t flop much) I already mentioned, to better understand how to serve and manage web content properly and securely.
I did probably the first social discovery app for the iPhone to learn about SoLoMo [cringe] and mobile apps, which flopped, but served me well by fulfilling the app’s original intent of finding my people and expanding my network. It was called Gauss, and it was a people magnet for your pocket.
I did OneSec - an Instagram for one second videos - with a fren, 6 months before Vine launched (#facepalm) to learn about crowdfunding and social video formats.
I even co-founded an ICO (actually an ITO) about attribution for the creator economy - that hinged on a lot of significant Chinese backers already signed on, flopping when just two weeks before the planned launch the Chinese government decided to crack down on crypto, all to learn about ICOs and decentralised / token economies the hard way.
Weirdly, I’ve also accidentally created world famous logos - some that I’m not allowed to talk about. Still.
You can read more about me than even my mother wants to know about me if you google me. But that would be a waste of time compared to heading over to the Vintage Pixels auction and bidding for these gems to be yours at this point.
Today, I’m dropping, these NFTs as a part of my journey to learn more about crypto, blockchain, ownership - the whole Web 3 yards and to help preserve a classic part of Web 1 for posterity that would be otherwise lost.
Or in not so many words, the intentions behind this auction are:
Learning about crypto, blockchain, NTFs, and the whole Web 3 thing by doing
Help preserve landmarks of the Web1 era for posterity
Meeting new interesting people & having some lulz while at it
And this whole NFT auction business wouldn’t be much fun without throwing some stupid extras into the mix, though…
Enter STRETCH GOALS:
STRETCH GOAL #1 0.01 ETH
I’ll throw in an additional NFT of an icon from the original set - that may or may not have been ever published before. Wow, many promises, such suspense, so mystery!
SECRET STRETCH GOAL #2 Thresholds only announced after Stretch Goal #1 is unlocked
If the threshold is met, the respective iconic icon [sic] will also be delivered as framed A0 hand painted oil on canvas painting painted by me, signed by me, and also signed with the respective string for the digital NFT asset, if applicable. Nothing more subtly signals impeccable taste and peerless means like oil on canvas originals hung on your reading room wall.
Additionally, I’m also working with a German tech startup that will also issue a digital hash, a certificate, for each oil painting based on their unique physical makeup, insuring the authenticity and making sure they will never be able to be faked. Ever. This means you’ll own a hash for both the digital AND the physical asset. For reals.
SECRET STRETCH GOAL #3
An additional discrete object of envy will be unlocked; an actual physical 3D printed pixels version, preserved forever in a block of sexy epoxy resin, complete with a signed golden proof of authenticity and ownership. Perfect for also tastefully claiming your bragging rights, be it on your mantelpiece or your office desk. And of course the German startup will also issue a digital hash, an actual certificate of authenticity, for each of the physical 3D icons. There can be only one.
Close your eyes and imagine the gorgeous physical 3D printed object encased in resin here. Think those wooden furniture with filled resin TikToks meets brightly colored 3D printed custom LEGO(-like) icons and a golden plate with the proof of ownership on it? Mmmm hmmm?! (Although well versed in the ancient witchcraft of photorealistic rendering through LightWave3D, an almost obsolete artefact in itself, I’m too lazy to mock it up for you). Just think it - be it!
SECRET STRETCH GOAL #4
If met, the winning bid will of course also get all of the above, AND I’ll delete ALL my original instances and backups of the respective asset, effectively annihilating the source - and I’ll make sure that the process is officially witnessed and signed by a notary as well as live-streaming the deletionceremony in public, complete with a live marching band doing their best worst impression of Chopin’s Funeral March as all original bits and bytes are being permanently removed from this physical realm. Forever-ever.
SECRET STRETCH GOAL #5
All of the above, and in addition I’ll wear a pink tutu and an Elon Mask and the band will obviously instead be playing “Astronomia” during the deletion ceremony - and you’re cordially invited to participate; I’ll fly you in. Additionally, I will use that crystal ETH to buy much Dogecoin. AND I’ll do my worst to get some dancing meme pall bearers as well as inviting the local chapters of Shiba Inu owners.
SECRET STRETCH GOAL #6
All of the above except NOT wearing a pink tutu and an Elon mask, NOT buying Dogecoin, and instead HODL ALL TEH ETH!
Buterin’
SECRET STRETCH GOAL #7
All of the above except not wearing a pink tutu and an Elon mask, NOT buying Dogecoin, and instead ALLIN BITCOIN HODL!
Fren, it’s dangerous to launder alone. Take this; A crate of Clorox has been added to your inventory.
Most of the proceeds from this stretch goal will probably go to a charity named IRS, also known to operate under the name “Finanzamt” in other locals. Probably.
And I’ll finally add laser eyes to my twitter profile and start spamming maximalist tropes and giving away Bitcoin alternately. Scout’s honor.
Yes, there is a discord serverfor this auction and I have no idea how to use that thing. I’ll be available for questions and I’ll show up live sort of regularly there. I think.
Caveat Emptor:
This is not financial advice. It’s fair to say that this is not an advice of any kind. In fact, if you’re still reading this, you’re probably crazy. The auction is real, tough – As are the stretch goals.
This might very well be the only drop I’ll ever do. Who knows.
And for full disclosure, I don’t HODL enough ETH to bid on my own auctions in any significant way, so there’s that. Not ratting on the Doge, though.
And obviously you’re bidding on an NFT of the original file, not the original IP attribution which remain with me, nor the usage rights - which are already covered by GPL3.0.
