A story in 3 acts | On eScooters, agesplaining and the power of music

Guys, hang in there. This one is going to be a bit different. I want to tell you three stories from my week. Or one story in three acts. I don’t know. Just bare with me.

At the beginning of the week, I thought I would write this week’s newsletter about those annoying e-scooters. Because they pollute the city, pollute the environment, are a danger to pedestrians as well as cyclist, and they seem to be everywhere overnight. 

Heck, I even prepared some jokes and memes, like this one. 

or this one

But then I felt like another meme: 

After all, I’m a tech-optimist. I believe technology can and should enhance our lives and benefit us all. And maybe e-scooters will actually solve the last-mile problem. Only time will tell. 

e-Scooters weren’t the only thing that I got all worked up about this week: I got rejected for a freelance gig, which is totally fine if it wasn’t for this reason:

It was not because I lack the necessary skills but because the client thought I’d lack experience. They looked at my CV, my age, and decided I wasn’t the right fit. 

This rant isn’t about my hurt ego. It’s about agesplaining and the fact that so many people in our industry still don’t care about diversity. (Yes, diverse can also be applied to age. Yes, I’m a white male and thereby privileged as hell, I know. But still).

Because really, how much does a CV on XING tell you about a person? How much does his age? 

When I was 25, I got the chance to present a digital marketing campaign for a major German premium car brand not only to the Head of International Marketing but to its Chief Marketing Officer. That’s Chief with a capital C. 

At age 26, I designed the self-service platform for one of Germany’s biggest telecommunications providers that is used by over 1 million users. 

At 27, I was responsible for winning new accounts worth over half a million Euro at an agency of only 15 people. I also helped grow the design team to triple the size, making Design as important as Development at an agency that was dev-only since its beginning. 

So when I turned 28 and decided to freelance, I felt I had some experience in the field of UX. 

But of course, a quick look at my CV on XING doesn’t tell this story. And it would be the worst kind of bragging if this would be the first thing I tell you when we meet. 

Again, this isn’t about bragging or me in specific. This is old people thinking you need at least X years of experience to qualify for a job. 

On July 1st, Vincent Hartig started working at thjnk as Head of Digital. Vincent is 25 years young and I wish him all the best. I genuinely believe he has more potential to change this agency to the better than someone who’s 35. He will be even more successful compared to someone who is 45. And I don’t even want to think about a Head of Digital aged 55 (by the way: is this agesplaining, but the other way around?).

Just kidding, I don’t dance. But hey, always look on the bright side of life. To me, that means music. 

So when a friend of mine sent me this awesome website, all my anger was blown away (thanks Nadine):

From my understanding, Ableton is a German software developer for the music industry and its products are used by musicians and DJs all around the world. On this fun edutainment website, you can learn all there is about synthesizers. It’s great. And although I struggle to understand it, I absolutely enjoyed it. 

It reminded me of the great Google Chrome Music Experiments. Man, I love those.

Everything, from instrument-playing animals to drawing music - it’s such a great way to experience and experiment with music.

It also reminded me of this great Johann Sebastian Bach Doodle from a while ago. You could create a piece of classical music just by writing some notes and let AI do the rest. Machine Learning allowed Google to understand how Bach wrote music and apply his style to my stupidly written notes. 

And because you, my dear newsletter readers, made it all the way to the end, I want to share with you my current heavy-rotation, my Gute Laune Mix, my ‘Das Beste der 80er, 90er und den besten Hits von heute’. Make sure to set your crossfade settings to 5 seconds and hit play.

(Disclaimer: I lied. I think the oldest song is only a few years old.)

P.S. Hey you music nerds: here are two interesting articles to check out about how Metadata is becoming a major problem in the age of music streaming and algorithms:

IKEA has a new online tool that allows people to customize their sofas. Obviously, people quickly went crazy with it.