Category: This site

Above you'll find a recommendation by Maria Rita Fiasco of Gruppo Pragma after I've presented during their road show in Rome, Milan and Trieste for the the launch of their new conversational agent / virtual assistant platform Intoote.

Below you'll find the testimonial in Italian

It's Saturday Night, 2am. Just back from a wonderful night of dancing. For some kind of reason I ended up on my website and I realized that I did not write on this website for over a year. No trends, no observations, like nothing has happened.

But the world changed, many innovations have been introduced that exactly fit my 2015, 2020, and 2030 predictions. I've worked REALLY hard on Chatbots.org, my worldwide online community portal on artificial intelligent virtual humans, in line with the brand agent trend which I've written about many times over here. I believe those virtual humans will soon become vital in society of tomorrow. It's a matter where you're open to see them and acknowledge their presence. They are already everywhere, and they won't go.

Also, my personally has changed, getting deeper into my essence, finally discovering who I really am. This will eventually affect my personal branding strategy although I still love my colors and styling. But some reconsiderations become necessary.

I have decided to continue to write on my website, but I'll change the style a bit, better fitting with my personality today. It will definitely become more personal and I no longer will avoid emotion. They are there and I'm open to share them with you.

I won't have the English checked, it takes away all my spontaneous intentions, but I'll assume you understand it anyway. Over time my Engish will improve.

Also, I'll check how to integrate social media further, without having me to go to different websites all the time.

On Dec 10th, I'll fly from Amsterdam to Sydney, Australia and I'll stay there for 3 months. I'll probably fly back over India, although my schedule might change over time.

To be continued....

Chatbots.org, the worldwide business community of chatbot developers, and this website, ErwinVanLun.com, are looking
for a freelance English editor (4 hours per week).

As we have quite ambitious plans with Chatbots.org, we need an enthusiastic native English editor who can grow with us to facilitate the fast growing
community of chatbot developers, affiliate industry and users. We could also use some assistance with ErwinVanLun.com.

It's not a 'sit-back and relax' kind of job; we'll certainly value your input!

This would be our ideal partner in crime:

• Native English speaker with a strong personal interest in writing stylish English.


• background in AI, marketing or communications


• Smart: you're probably working on your Masters.


• Flexible yet precise: You'll need to find a quality balance between
  correcting news items, articles (with a due-by date of a few weeks), thorough research and static texts that will be
  read by thousands of readers.


• Fast: Normally we'll need your correction within a few days.


• Tech savvy: You'll be making your changes directly in the content management system, so you
  shouldn't be afraid of a few HTML hyperlinks.

Now available: six keynote programs, six topics you can book me for: Future Trends - Ready for Tomorrow, Innovate your client!, Hope, Crisis in Perspective, Living your Brand, Trend café, The Future of National Cultures. Furthermore you can watch a short video.

The products will soon also be available in Dutch.

Because I'm leaving for Sydney, the 'day-to-day' posts have been neglected for a while. In a few hours I'm leaving for Auckland where I'm giving a presentation on Saturday. After that I'll catch up on everything. Promised.

The Trend section has been completely renewed. I've finally described a few trends that have been around a long time, but weren't on the site yet: the network economy and product activation.

Furthermore, I've described three mega trends: media completion, roboworld, and (finally) pamper planet, that combined will determine the future until 2050. Other trends remain, because long term trends don't change just like that. So the future of 2009 is recorded in this too.

The connections between observations in the section 'day to day' and 'trends' have also been marked clearly now. Hope this adds value. At your service

Related trends

• Three Mega Trends

Although it may not be immediately visible, I'm changing a lot of things below the surface as preparation for the new site version (2.0). For example, there's a new category for leisure coaching brands this time. A brand that helps us entertain outside of our home, what's happening? That can be an event, a cinema or a fun restaurant.

Also there's a new section called 'related' on the full post pages. What have I written about a brand before? Those appear too now. And lots more to come...

Erwin van Lun's Mensmerk.nl and ErwinVanLun.com's category structure has been radically revised. The most important reason for this change was the continual confusion at the term 'personal brands'. I use this term to describe a new type of brand that burrows itself into a specific area, knows all about it, then study the individual consumer and guide them in their area. This was often confused with 'presenting yourself as a brand' under the term 'personal branding'. That's why I made a call to people in the TrendUpdate that led to an interesting discussion. As a result from now on I'll use the term 'coaching brand'. At the same time I've made more changes to make my work as a futurist and trend analyst clearer at a first glance.

The term 'personal brands' is nowadays used in different ways. I personally use it as a term for a new type of brand that will be created from the writing of my book, but round about the same time the term also came to be used differently: for presenting a person as brand. The fact that I, furthermore, focus on that last using the term 'personal branding ' doesn't exactly reduce the confusion. When I was interviewed by Emerce about this the chaos was complete. Time for a new terminology!

This new term will be used in my lectures and workshops (that's my core business), here on the blog (in both Dutch and English) and in my new book (working title 'Pamper Planet'). I'm thinking of 'coach brand' or 'coaching brand'. What do you think? Or is another name better?

update: in November 2008 I switched to 'coaching brand'.

In the printed version of Emerce, magazine for e-innovation, is an article containing my personal branding strategy, my way of presenting myself as a brand. The article ' Ik ben mijn bedrijf' (I am my company, Dutch) is available as PDF. The term 'personal branding ' can cause confusion with the term 'persoanl brands' which I use myself. In that case it's about brands that present themselves humanoidly and let themselves be represented by artificial humanoids. That's why I'll soon introduce a new term in light of my new website (2.0). Suggestions are welcome! Anyone who wants to know more about my strategy can (re)read the posting with the introduction of ErwinVanLun.com.

update Nov 2008: nowadayws, I use the term 'coaching brand'.

Erwin van Lun's Mensmerk.nl is now ranked number 6 in the top 100 of Dutch Marketing and Communications Blogs, the Marcom Top 100. It's not a goal in itself, but it's nice to know the site is appreciated so much. You're always welcome to vote. And in the meantime I'm working on the successor of version 1.5 (Dutch) of this site, namely 2.0, with far more links between trends and predictions which are to be expected from a futurist.

Until the 5th of August I'll be at a Vipassa retreat in Denekamp and after that I'll be in New York for five days for a convention of the IFPPS, the International Federation For Professional Speakers. My vacation will thus start with ten days of complete silence, reviewing everything anew, the experience within myself, my view on other life and my vision of the world of today and the future. After a lecture that follows immediately on this, I'll leave for New York to exchange thoughts on the craft with the top-professionals in the world. After some silence on this blog, I'll return begin August full of energy and fresh knowledge. And then onwards to version 2.0 of this website!

Since recently there's a permanent notification of the last five items of the Dutch blog FuturEyes marketing agency VODW on Mensmerk.nl (the original Dutch version of this site) in the right hand colon 'partnerfeeds'. This is because I think it's an exceptionally good blog: the items are highly relevant, they make a clear link with trends and the writing style is short yet complete. On FuturEyes Mensmerk.nl is mentioned showing the last five items from the categories media evolution, brand evolution and coaching brands. (All links here lead to the English site.) With these links Mensmerk is also very relevant to the visitor of FuturEyes. This marks the start of a promising cooperation that has yet to assume its exact shape.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Recently, Carl Rohde and Vincent Albers and I have been working extremely hard on a successor to Carl's website. Last weekend the website went live under the new business/network name Science of the Time. This website distinguishes itself by its many ways to reaction, all the crosslinks between (mentality) trends and (cool) observations, books and bloggers, and smart SEO optimization. Anyone who looks at it for a while will notice the similarities with Mensmerk/ErwinvanLun, but there are also differences. ()

This year in the Netherlands the growth in the number of chatbots, automated chat friends on websites or in Live Messenger, has tripled. Chatbots.org, an ErwinVanLun.com and Mensmerk.nl initiative, has announced this morning via a press release. These statistics have been gathered by analysis and questioning of all Dutch chatbot suppliers. In the future we will more often have contact with, for example, companies, via chatbots. Here follows the full press release.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

A little celibration for myself: ErwinVanLun.com. has since today a Google page ranking of 4, Chatbots.org has, since the press release last week, a Google page ranking of 3. Not yet spectacular, Mensmerk (the Dutch version of ErwinVanLun.com) scores a lot better, but this means that the pages are becoming easier to find and that terms such as 'futurist', 'trend analyst' or 'speaker' also have more of a chance internationally. Both sites are part of my international stratergy. I hope to base myself in Sydney in the near future. In my vision ErwinVanLun.com will then become the leading site and will eventually have 10 times as many visitors as Mensmerk (whilst Mensmerk must also attract 10 times as many visitors as it does now). Finished, just wanted to share the good news!