Hello Monique. Thankyou for coming by, much appreciated. I agree with all the areas you’re looking at. The areas you’ve highlighted are indeed important areas, that I’ve been looking at myself for the past few years. I am aware of the importance of the areas you’re looking at, but also how important cross-media strategies are. I think the problem has been that I presumed the week would address how to manage all the choices we have now. It is one thing to know about them — and as I said in my post your collection is the best I’ve seen. Thank God you have new media arts in there. But I’m talking about a specific way of dealing with all the choices we have out there for platforms and formats. With respect Monique, I don’t think your programme addresses how to combine these well enough. Indeed, I don’t see it as distribution, I see cross-media as another format, indeed many new formats in itself. And anyway, how do you decide what format and platform to use with what platform? How do you manage the rollout of it? What combinations work? What order is best? I think there are some very high-level speakers that you could of/could get that would add to this knowledge. Some examples:

• Xenophile Media and their multi-award winning extend-reality game that is in conjunction with a TV show: ReGenesis II;
• The film-director Peter Greenaway and his multi-platform project: The Tulse Luper Project;
• 42 Entertainment and their award-winning alternate reality games for Microsoft and Dreamworks;
• Dv8 Films and their multi-platform project SMSSugarman, the first project to be filmed entirely on mobile phone and has unique narrative content on every platform;
• The Blair Witch crew and their current work on the Audi-funded ARG The Art of the Heist and their webisodes: The Strand;
• And as for academics who also work in industry. How about MIT Professor Henry Jenkins? He heads a research lab that works with industry to address cross-media (convergence) issues in entertainment. He also has an upcoming book on the subject.

I could go on. I’m talking about practitioners who understand how to combine the platforms and formats to great effect. This is a wonderful, very exciting area with only a few experts emerging out of the noise. I don’t think I would of worried if the name of your week was different. But I guess that is the thing with terms eh? We all have our own associations. I encourage you to look at these and other practitioners in the area. I hope you take this message as it is intended: to fly the flag for an area I and many others are passionate about!

Thankyou for the invite too, if I can I will come over. I’m sure it will be very interesting. Especially with this beginning! Hope there’ll be podcasts or something?

But do by all means come to Amsterdam to discuss your point of view there! I am sure we will have many different views on cross media represented, which will be a guarantuee for a lively debate..

I’m glad to hear you were in Monique van Dusseldorp’s ear. Monique De Haas was too. I hope, for the sake of the people paying to attend, and their own reputation, that they learn quickly.

I already warned Monique van Dusseldorp a couple of times of a missing concept for the program. Sure the number of speakers and the quality of speakers speak for themselfs. But what does the program want to say? There is no central theme, which has anything to do with crossmedia. Again, I think using the word crossmedia just as a marketing engine for events like this, devaluates the meaning of the word, which is already difficult enough.

Peter Luit