(MSc) Sebinomics

Next week’s Geekinomix show will include an interview with Stephen Carroll–guitarist for The Weakerthans. I met Stephen before The Weakerthan’s show at Abart in Zurich, Switzerland, and he was very funny and honest. We talked about their “amazing” new album called “Reunion Tour”, what kind of instruments are “cheesy”, and about many other things.
One of the things that really struck me was that he told me, after I said that I like Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, that he actually likes Bela Fleck but does not like the Flecktones. Wow! Other musicians I have interviewed, especially in Europe or Japan, they never said that they do not like a specific artist. They always tried to be diplomatic or rather lie about it. This interesting musician from Winnipeg, Canada, was honest and actually told me his true feelings about other artists. I really admire that and it made me feel more comfortable, even though I am a fan of the Flecktones.
It is nice interviewing people who are not scared about saying how they are feeling about something and rather say the truth instead of lying just for the sake of diplomacy. The purpose of Geekinomix is to tell little stories about what is happening in the world of music and give a platform to different artists from everywhere in the world.
This said, I hope you guy will tune in this coming Monday to watch the interview with Stephen Carroll. Be geeky but freaky!

I had some problem with this week’s Geekinomix show, my internet-TV music show, which fortunately taught me a lot about new technologies: First, I got sick and had to tape the show at home where I do not have any professional equipment to create a show. So, I tried to tape it on iMovie with my little Mac and found out that it is really easy and fast to do so. After taping it at home (within only 30 minutes) I had an idea how to actually make it looking good. The next day I went to work in Zurich, where I gave presentations in front of a huge monitor and was taping myself (again) with my little MacBook and thought that it was looking gooooood! Then, I decided to scratch the whole thing up until now and to record Geekinomix Episode6 again in front of that nice, big screen–and it looked great! If you want to know how cool it looks, tune in tonight, 8 p.m. CET on www.restorm.tv and enjoy a N-Gage Special with bands such as Henchman, Treekillaz, Disgroove, and Slam & Howie and the Reserve Men, who we met for an interview.

As some of you know, I graduated one months ago as an International Manager from the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and started working at Apple Switzerland right after that. Furthermore, Geekinomix, my internet-TV show, premiered on Restorm.tv on November 5, and we hit the top of the channel’s ranking list right away. These three changes put me in the spotlight quite a bit, and therefore, local and national newspapers, as well as some online-media, wrote about me or my show. Because of that, I got many, many replies from friends and people who I do not know at all. Especially my job as an Apple Solution Consultant in the second most successful Media Markt Europe-wide, in Dietlikon, Zurich/Switzerland, exposed me a lot. I checked my website’s traffic for the past three days and I was amazed that it hit an all time high. I guess people read my name in a national newspaper and googled me. One good example: Last Friday, 20 Minuten (www.20min.ch), a free Swiss newspaper read mainly by commuters, wrote a short article about the opening of the new Apple Shop in the Media Markt Dietlikon including a picture of me and a short description of me and my role in the shop, and we had people phoning us and asking when exactly I would give presentations. I guess the guys from the newspaper used the right words for catching their readers interest in what I do there. I am more than happy that people have such a huge interest in what I do, and it is always a great experience to present for people who really want to know what one has to say.

My mailbox also filled up very fast Friday morning. Those people who have my cell phone number and read the 20 Minuten newspaper, messaged me because they did not expect me to be pictured in there with an Apple shirt on and saying that I give four presentations a day. Hm. Thinking about that, why were they actually surprised? I mean, I have been giving presentations for the past three years and have been playing concerts in Switzerland and Japan and was mentioned in newspapers quite a few times. Why were my friends surprised to see me in there? Maybe they just wanted to congratulate me to my new Apple shirt, which many people would like to have. A guy from Nintendo came to the shop yesterday and he asked me where he could get such a cool Apple shirt. Well, if I knew I would start an Apple shirt business–which would be illegal and that is why I will not do it anyway.

I was very happy about the fact that even though the article about our Apple shop was right above the one talking about Steve Jobs, CEO and mastermind of Apple (basically my bosses-bosses-boss) he did not get pictured in the newspaper, but I did. Heyhaw! I say, power to the people!