do all things with love

Its time to write a bit about what am I doing. Since I left the safe cage of being an employee a lot of very cool things happened. I was working tied to a company most time of my life. Right after school I started working as a technical draftswoman, than I was a bouncer (Munich – Wunderbar), started DJ’ing and suddenly I became a booker/promoter and my career in the music biz started. (1992) After my job as editorial Chief for  iTunes (2008) ended, my focus was on learning as much as possible about internet related things and went to a lot of conferences and barcamps.

Working as a freelancer also means that you have a lot of duties (tax, insurance, discipline, self motivation etc..) some downsides (talking to your hand, missing out a lot of in-between communication). But the best thing for me now,  I do not have to sit in a chair at my desk in an office and pretend to be busy. Or stay until late cause everybody else is also staying. I love working in the morning when the day has just started. Sometimes I start at 6, cause an idea just came up or I go for a morning swim where my thoughts get sorted. (love swimming!)  Or I just go for a walk in the afternoon and think about a strategy etc.. These would have never been possible while I was working as an employee: “Chef, I need to think, therefore I go for a walk… ”
–> I will not say that I will keep on doing this forever but for now it’s perfect.

What am I doing now:

music:
– editorial for google play + access all areas (DE AT CH Li)
–> this is my “main” job. Since feb 2013 I’m part of the music team. I’m digging every week for new releases in all genres, focussed on DE/AT/CH/Li. Chart-music but also up and coming artists and music. Besides the fact, that my  knowledge about music is constantly growing, it’s really great to work remote together with people all over the world.  It’s a bit like the job I did for iTunes but now its google play. And now its part-time freelance giving me space and freedom to do all these other things:
– digging and writing about music –> support your local ghetto
–>follow my tweets with the #earcandy on twitter or read my tumblr or just like the SYLG –> FB page
– dj’ing, making mixtapes and doing parties
–>sylg about
for the L.O.V.E. of music and sharing means caring… . After doing for 3 years my monthly SYLG at the lovely Panke I decided to stop it doing there. Doing parties AND DJing is not a very productive combination. I am a DJ not a promoter. Unfortunately the only time I can DJ is when I do the party. So, Cptn, we have an issue here.  Back to bedroom DJ-ing. But with L.O.V.E.

orga + curation: (Project-/Eventmanagement)
–> organisation-, structure- and people- skills. I did this all my life: Project- and Event Management (more info –> my profile on linked.in). Looking at existing structures and providing ideas for collaborative tools and organisation systems is also one of my special skills. Finding the perfect tools THAT fit the product, company and the people who have to work with it
What drives me most besides good music are all future related topics. This is why I really love my next projects:
– MLOVEConfestival –
Amazing upcoming conference where I’m taking care of the MakerLab where we build the YOUtopia Island (June 2014)
– Music Hack Day –
this will take place at the Berlin Music Week (Sept. 2014)
this event turned out to to be sponsored by a huge company and the fee they offered was way under everything, so I skipped it. Instead I am organizing the award show  for Gründer-Garage 2014. (More about this years things at the end of the year)

hands on:
– giving workshops (how to survive as an artist in the digital age)
– doing trainings (blogging, soundcloud, audio-tools, dj-tools (Private, Piratenpartei Berlin)
–> Growing up in a non internet time, I am a very good “translator”. My aim is to simplify things that look complicated. I’m very curious and always have an eye on new services and apps, check them out and think about how can they be useful integrated into work flows. And I hate ugly and not user-friendly websites, apps.
– strategic planning + realisation (blogs, social media stuff, online/offline)
–> all the above things lead to the consulting part of my jobs. My goal is not just to talk about things, I also do them. With a lot of experience and empathy I work together with my client to find the right strategies, the perfect tools which fits to the product, the company but also the people who have to work with it.
– moderating and talking on panels “future music strategies”  (profile –> speakerinnen.org)
–> obvious topic for me with my 20+ experience in the music biz. I keep on thinking, talking and reading about strategies but also ranting about the old media in Germany. One of my fave topics is to talk about recommendation services – machine vs. human. And now it looks like I was right, that even the best algorithm never can replace human curation. (Apple has bought Beats and this was one of the reasons)
– blogging (here)
–> this is my playground. A place where I can try out things, widgets, plugins, the amazon affiliate program or just write a bit of code. But it’s also a place for ideas and thoughts. I will never understand why people put so much effort in a status update on Facebook when its gone within a few minutes.