Bunker, a friend of mine, was asked to photograph Mobile Mondays in Amsterdam. He was kind enough to put me on the guest list and even offered a taxi to Amsterdam and back. Why wouldn’t I go?!

• Raimo van der Klein, founder of Mobile Monday Amsterdam, opened with a presentation about the ‘smart context’ or how context could change depending on your state: happy, sad, at the airport, in the office, etc. The software could learn what is your normal state (commute for example) and share abnormal (leaving for holidays) events with friends.
• Johan Koolwaaij, scientific researcher at Telematica Institute, showed IYOUIT. A mobile app that gathers data around you and about you. Sounded like a huge ‘log everything about your life’ but not exactly production ready yet.
• Raymond Perrenet, EVP Strategy & Development at T-Mobile, about the rise of data plans on mobile phones with the introduction of the iPhone (and with Android around the corner). Are mobile data plans finally taking off?

Teemu Arina

Teemu Arina took another approach. He went for 3 PechaKucha presentations in a row: ‘Changeable in appearance, mood, or purpose’, ‘Undergoing a shift in status’ and ‘Moving or changing quickly from one state or condition to another’. All three visually stunning presentations in their own eccentric style. Loved it! This guy knows how to entertain his public. I’ll copy Dorien here and link to Teemu’s own post about his presentation.

Bruce Sterling

Closing speaker was Bruce Sterling, an American science fiction author, I had never heard of. His talk sounded deeply religious standing on the pulpit and speaking about the ‘Internet of Things’. He explained that people close to the volcano will experience the greatest impact: your grandmother’s life probably won’t be affected with the introduction of the iPhone when she still uses a landline but yours will. In 10 years, you can still use a hammer, but your iPhone will be useless. A nice point—made me think—after seeing the BlackBerry Storm vs. the G1 fight on stage earlier. In Sterling’s words:

“I want you to think really hard about the values you are going to save and stop worrying about the plastic.”

Conclusion

Overall, it was an interesting day on a beautiful location, almost feeling surreal driving back to Belgium in the thick fog. The best part, however, were the discussions with Dorien, Koen and Bunker! My photos are available on Flickr.