Mister Bart

(which means: 'Mister. You say you see us as your own children, but why don't you give us pocket money then?')


Mister Bart is a 30 year-old high school teacher in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In October he started to collect all sorts of quotes of his pupils on his own Tumblr blog.  The quotes varied from touching and moving quotes to the most hilarious ones.

To teach and educate

Mister Bart started his blog mainly for himself so he could not forget the great quotes of his pupils. But still, he gives all the credits for the blog to the children.'It is really all about them', he says. 

Mister Bart is often seen as a father figure for the children, but he is clear in setting his boundaries. He is an involved teacher that wants to teach and educate, but he will never become actual friends with his students. This is a wonderful balance that can be an example for many teachers. Mister Bart shows he can have an honest and equivalent connection with youth, which gives him a lot of gratitude and pride in return. 

A lesson in trends

What are trends?

Trends are changes and developments in society that arise from certain big events. Trends are not a prediction of the future, rather an extension of the developments that are happening right now. It's really just thinking about what are the logical consequences and effects.

Trend levels

You can divide trends in three categories: Microtrends, Maxitrends and Megatrends. Megatrends are noticable for everyone in society, Maxitrends are at a consumer level and Micro is at market level. 

Every single micro trend can be fed back to a maxitrend, consumer trend, and this one can, in its turn, be fed back to mega trends. Almost every product or service you see and use are therefore eventually based on megatrends. Whether the creators did it on purpose or not. Mega trends are trends that can last from 10 to 30 years. Megatrends are also known as societal trends. These trends are focused on social interests.

Trend factors

You can imagine that there are certain factors where trends emerge from or that can influence them. These are called trend factors. There are 6 trend factors. Factors that have a big influence on trends and therefore our lives? They are generic terms and you must have heard of them in your geography class in high school. Demography, politics, technology. Sociology/culture, economy, ecology.

Example trend pyramid

Here a filled in example of the pyramid with the mega trend: social awareness on environmental issues. 

Mega trend: Social awareness on environmental issues

Maxi trend: Behaviour and Needs: Sustainability

Micro trend: Brands that anticipate

Evernote, organizing your life

Since a few months I use Evernote to organize my to do lists, to buy lists, my ideas and the things that inspire me. As an ADHD person I most of the time have a lot on my mind and I can't really organize it. Evernote helps me to collect the things I need to do and remember. I can fill in the things on my laptop and I synchronize it with my phone who will give me a reminder when I have a deadline or when I need to do something that week. Here you can see how it works. It really helps me and you should try it as well.

Random act of kindness

Do you ever feel like life just passes by in a tearing rush. it’s like you’re standing between two railroads and trains keep passing and passing. Left…right…..left….right…right…left… 

The one question you can ask yourself at any time is: How are you right now? Right in this moment, how do you feel? Are you ok? A little stressed maybe? When you ask yourself this question you will notice that most of the time you feel ok. You are managing life, you are alive and running. If you live life in the moment it isn't that

Sounds easier than it really is, huh? The daily grind is making it hard for us to live in the moment and we do not really take the time to pause for a sec. to think things over. Tiny moments of happiness are the ones we value the most. We value them because they surprise us and make us value those special moments even more. We are able to create tiny happy moments for others by creating a random act of kindness. A random surprise on the streets, a compliment, a flashmob, a flirtation etc. Tiny acts that create happiness and that take us out of the daily grind. A random act of kindness is the best way to change a normal day into a special one. Enjoy random surprises, they’re rare. And surprise someone else once in a while to make people smile and good karma will come. It’s not that hard!

Tweet, tweet, I'm hungry

While feeding birds pork fat through the winter in Latvia, Valdemars Dudums decided to have a little fun. The fat was carefully arranged onto a keyboard which allowed the birds to construct tweets on Twitter. The account @hungry_birds has over 10,000 followers. Additionally, a live webcam was set up to prove it really was the birds constructing the tweets. On an average day the birds produce 150 tweets.

It might sound like a silly concept, but isn't their a lot of nonsense on twitter? Personally, I'd rather read a tweet that is made by some cute birds eating pig fat, than about what some random person is eating today.

Watch the tweeting birds here:

A love letter from a stranger

Sometimes you just feel in need for some positive attention. And sometimes it doesn't even matter if it is from a close friend or someone you barely even know. It could be a hug, a compliment, a pat or some kind words to hearten someone. Wouldn't it be great to receive warm hearted words at a moment and in a way when you least expect it. Hannah Brencher is such a person that believes in the power of pen and paper, and has started a global initiative that encourages strangers to exchange love letters.

More love Letters

Hannah Brechner has always loved that her family communicates via handwritten letters. In October of 2010, she began writing love letters intended for strangers and tucking them away in libraries and cafes across New York City, for people to randomly discover. Soon, she offered on her blog HannahBrencher.com to write a letter to anyone who needed one. Over the next year, she mailed out more than 400 hand-penned letters. Today she runs The World Needs More Love Letters, a letter exchange dedicated to connecting strangers across the globe through the art of letter writing.

Old-fashioned loveIn addition, Brencher works as a copywriter and creative consultant, helping brands inject human touches into their communications plans. This way she responds to the trend 'Random act of kindness' that describes our need for qualitative attention for eachother and giving and receiving pure old-fashioned love being more important than ever, since we live in a world where we don't often relax and where we focus on likes & status instead of quality of life.

Watch Hannah Brechner perform a TEDtalk about her initiative here:

4 steps & 8 tips to make a qualitative app for children

How do you make a good childrens app? That's the question with which I went to Amsterdam with Thursday, October the 25th. Cinekid and Mijn Kind Online were organizing an expert session about apps for children in the 'KunstENhuis' in Amsterdam. There is a steady increase of children who use mobile applications. How can we encourage the potential and the opportunities of mobile apps for kids in a positive way?

Step 1 The Objective

Eline Kwantes from Dromenkroon speaks of the different steps you need to take to develop an app. Eline showed us  an example of an app she's developing right now, with the KidsVitaal foundation. 'An app always starts with a goal', says Eline Kwantes, 'the goal of the app we are working on is: awareness and behavioral change among children in terms of a healthy lifestyle. 

Stap 2 The idea

A logical way to achieve a healthier lifestyle among children would be banning advertisements of fast food restaurants like MacDonalds or candy manufacturers like Haribo. The commercials of such brands are always very well conceived. But wouldn't it be nice if, instead of prohibiting the fast food commercials, we could make an even better commercial to acclaim healthy food? Wouldn't it be nice to bring vegetables to the attention in a very positive way!

'Groentenmans'

The app 'Groentemans', which basically means greengrocer, that Eline Kwantes is developing with the KidsVitaal Foundation, is based on the children's book ˜De Buitengewone Opmerkelijke Dagboeken van Gregor Groentestein", which means; The extraordinary remarkable journals of Gregor Groentestein". A book about a boy inventor and that transforms his vegetables into living friends.

Stap 3 The budget

Holland is a small country with a grant culture which allows us to realize great initiatives. However, with a small amount of money we can also achieve great things if we use our creative minds. With a limited budget we look for creative solutions that help us to realize great ideas.The app 'Groentenmans' has been lucky enough to have found a great sponsor: The 'Fiep Westendorp Foundation'.

Stap 4 The Strategy

When developing the app Eline Kwantes has worked together with several parties. But the main party is of course the children themselves. The foundation Kids Vitaal visited a group of children and asked them the question: How can we make vegetables exciting? Without telling the children that they already had designed some of the concepts for the app, including a variety of funny characters around the different vegetables, the children started drawing their first ideas.

Miss & Mr. Carrot

The ideas of the children confirmed the suspicions of KidsVitaal and the designs they were working on. Almost all the children had come up with characters like Miss and Mr. Wortel, baby sprouts and so on. Eline says that, by involving the children, she got the right insights to know how to make vegetables as exciting as possible for children. Also she learned that she has to take into account that it is important to ask the same amount of boys as girls about how to make vegetables exciting, because they have very different ideas. 'If you want to reach both girls and boys you do have to take them both into account', says Eline Kwantes. 

Creation, experience, implementation

It is clear that the app must focus on humour, because a serious story about eating vegetables is something no child would want to read. The app should be fun to play with and it should remain challenging. This way children are more concerned with vegetables in their heads and they will think of vegetables in a more positive way. The app 'Groentenmans' starts with the creation: the children can customize a vegetable of their choice. After that a bit experience is added: you can bring your vegetable to life and check out what it does. What it does depends on the accessories you put on your vegetable character. The third aspect of the app is the implementation: here you can read recipies you can cook with the different vegetables. This way KidsVitaal hopes that children will also use the app in the kitchen to cook healthy meals.

Tips in a row

1. Always start with the formulation of an objective.

2. When you focus on humour a usually boring topics (like vegetables) a lot more fun
3. Always involve your target group in developing your app
4. Be creative with the budget you have at your disposal

5. Use the knowledge and expertise of your partners
6. Don't immediately show your own ideas to the target group. First ask them how they would approach the target. 

7. Think of the target group beyond just children and a certain age. There is a huge difference in interests between boys and girls.
Always inform the parents so they what the app is about and what their children can do with it. This way you create awareness and parents can stimulate their kids to use the app. 

Originally I wrote this blog for Jong & Je Wil Wat, I translated it especially for this blog.