Rob's Blog

This is Club Mate. Lemonade with coffin, no Alcohol. Usually ice cold.

It is a very popular drink in Berlin. Everybody from the CCC (Chaos Computer Club) is drinking this. And Many Artists and the intellectual folks.

There is a lot of Art in Berlin. Many artists are living here and selling there Art. And there are many Art Exhibition Halls. This here is an Art object from New York at “Halle am Wasser”.

There is a special sound in the room, too. It is very strange.

And this here is an example for Street Art.

I am asking myself how they did that. It is quiet huge.

And this here is Art from Garry Orriss. You can buy it as a poster on his Homepage. He is an international Artist. I met him on Saturday.

And this here is the Holocaust Memorial at Behrenstraße & Ebertstraße.

It is a big labyrinth with big gray Stone Cubes. The purpose is that you feel lost if you are staying in it. The same feeling you can have at Berliner Hauptbahnhof. The Central Railway Station is f***ing huge and the train lines are everywhere just not where you expect it. I guess installing a huge sign with an arrow to the Central Railway Station would be cheaper. But it wouldn’t be art.

I am just kidding. Don’t take me serious!

On Saturday there was a lot going on in Berlin. Usually there are always some demonstrations going on. To have several different demonstrations at the same time is nothing special for Berlin. One of the demonstrations on Saturday was from the Occupy Movement.

It was funny. I know the Occupy Movement from San Francisco and Oakland. And in SF and Oakland there are pretty serious. This here in Berlin was more a party. There was a big party Bus following the people and making Music. It was like a small Love Parade

I have been 1 week in Berlin. The German Capitol with 3.5 Million citizens.

It is a very international City. There are people from all around the world. I went to some conferences and events. All sessions/events have been holden in english. And many times in coffee shops and bars I could hear people speak english. And many people asked me to follow them on Twitter. The Berliner Folks is using Twitter & Foursquare as much as the SF Folks. If you want to play the game in Berlin, better you learn how to use Twitter right!

There is a lot to see in Berlin. For example the Siegessäule

And of course the Brandenburger Tor. The most famous Building in Berlin.

And this here is Checkpoint Charlie.

This was the border between the russian sector and the US sector during the cold war between 1961 and 1990.

And when you are in Berlin you have to try Curry36. This is the most famous place for Curry Wurst. A german speciality. The people are staying here in line.

The classic one is “Curry Wurst Ohne Darm!”

And there is much more to see in Berlin. I just didn’t had time to visit all interesting places. That’s why I still have a reason to go back

Berlin is poor but sexy. Everything was surprisingly cheap. I had all you can eat breakfast for 5 EUR, a big Burger for 3.5 EUR, really good Sushi in a japanese Restaurant for 8 EUR and good beer for 2.5 EUR. And that all at popular places in Berlin Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg.

This here is the Betahaus in Berlin.

It is quiet famous. In the ground floor there is an Internet Coffee Shop and the rest of the building is for CoWorking. This here is the coffee shop part.

I just walked in yesterday morning and invited me to stay for their networking event. There was a big breakfast with a lot of people.

There was small talk from the orga team of the Social Media Week.

And we had a short Skype Talk with the Betahaus in Barcelona. I met some cool people here. This is good place to hang out and meet new people and to collaborate. It reminds me on the Summit in the Mission in San Francisco.

Right now I am staying at IMA Lofts in Berlin. That is a pretty cool place. In the past it was an industrial building. But today there are some cool Lofts in it. This is how it looks from outside.

And this is the old industrial Elevator.

You need a key for it. And this is my Loft

I like it to have a lot of room. Downstairs there is the IMA Coffee, there you can have all you can eat breakfast for just 5 EUR.

I like this place

On Tuesday and Wednesday was the NEXT 2012 conference. European biggest conference for digital media.

It is a pretty huge and expensive event. I think a regular ticket costs more than 1000 EUR. I payed a little bit more than 200, because I am a Start-Up.

There have been different rooms for Sessions and a big exhibition hall.

There have been more than 150 Sessions. Not all of them good, but some of them awesome. Oberman, the CEO of Deutsche Telekom talked at the Keynote. That was an interesting speech. He mentioned that in the next years there will be an investment from over 300 Billion EUR into the european telecommunication network. To make the internet infrastructure even faster.

He talked about new network devices which seamless will switch between 3G, 4G and WiFi. The user don’t cares which network the device is using. The user just want to have the best available connection.

And he talked about Hub:Raum. Deutsche Telekom will start an Incubator, called Hub:Raum, in Berlin Mitte. They want to support Start-Ups with Money, Office Space and connections.

I enjoyed some awesome sessions. I saw some cool shit at NEXT. This guy here is presenting social activity on a map for Cologne.

It is a life view based on the activities at Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

The food was good, but sometimes a little bit to less

All in one it was a good conference, but a little bit snoopy.