OK. It’ll most likely be Monday by the time you get this but what the heck; a leadership team ran over. Sue me.:-)

The mails have been a bit serious of late, so it’s back to weirdness and fun. We’ve had a few client requests about enriching the recruitment experience, so I’ve been looking across Europe for some inspiration. And what better place to start than Sweden?

Swedish Army Recruitment Site (http://forsvar.fileflat.com/english/)
We’ve seen psychometric testing done before. And we’ve seen campaign sites. And, as I mentioned in last week’s mail, the American Army has got very serious about using games to help prospects understand about the sort of skills they need to perform their job in a modern army. Well, this is the Swedish Army’s version. Like a Swedish Krypton Test. If you can put up with the long pauses, and the various bugs, it’s quite engaging.

The singing beertap (http://www.guldsits.se/en/?s=1)
The aim of this application is to create your own football chants; the premise being to extend the association between Sweden’s “best selling beer” and Swedish football. And before I start getting lectured by DrinkAware, the whole contraption is so odd, that any potential association between beer and hooliganism just goes out of the window. If you can actually get the thing to load (took me about five attempts), it’s quite addictive. In the Blue Peter school of demonstrations, here’s one I made earlier… http://www.guldsits.nu/en/#1651088848

Build your own paper airplane (http://www.redbull.com/flightlab/)
The RedBull Flugtag has become an institution. For those of you who have missed it (where have you been all these years?) the idea is to build your own flying machine and see how far you can get it to fly by jumping off a bridge in Hyde Park. Or somewhere else in the World. Crazy, crazy people with even more fantastic designs practising self-harm. Sounds just like a normal Saturday to me.

Anyhow, this whole madcap event has been brought into our sitting room courtesy of a lovely web application. The designers have taken elements of things that have been done previously on the web (anyone remember penguin throwing?) and enhanced them. Once you get the hang of things, it’s absolutely addictive. I’m thinking of setting up an all-agency challenge…

Position Art (http://www.theworldismycanvas.com/)
For the Greater Manchester Police pitch, the creative team had a great idea about outlining a creative message through a map. I’ve come across some examples to help them in this spoof site for the latest Nokia N-Series phone. Well. I did promise you weird, didn’t I?

Enjoy