About
Simon (that's me!) is a storyteller and an explorer of inner and outer worlds.
In terms of work, I took on my dream job at Twitch as Head of Partnerships in 2014. I woke up from the dream in 2018 and chose to live differently. I expect to repeat this process many times in my life.
Right now I primarily want to write, and recount my many stories for others to experience. This is hard to do on my own, but I'm trying!
That's why I also want to write and speak for others (like YOU!) and help you tell your stories the best way.
⚡️ YOU might be a company looking to embolden your presence in the world with richer storytelling. I can find and write (or tell) those stories for you.
⚡️ YOU might be an individual, wanting to explore (and maybe rewrite!) your own story. I can guide you through this unknown territory.
⚡️ YOU might be a group, a class, a team, an event, looking for new, powerful stories to refill your tanks and rekindle your fires. I can sit with you and tell you the stories you need.
📪 I will probably take on three to five new clients in 2022. Feel free to reach me at simon AT nowmedia DOT org, and let's exchange some thoughts on how we might want to do Great Work together.
Projects
I've got some individual clients and friends that allow me to help them as some sort of coach. My method is my own, and it is constantly developing.
If I would have to describe what I'm doing I'd say: I listen closely and try to figure out the stories they are living in. If I get a handle on the story (with their express agreement) I suggest suggestions to rewrite the story.
My clients are leaders and friends: content creators (YouTube, Twitch, Gaming), founders, entrepreneurs, and artists.
games:net is a subnetwork of media:net berlinbrandenburg e.V., an association for the media industry in Berlin and its surroundings.
After Executive Stories (see below) concluded, media:net asked me to fulfill another podcast production duty for them.
The games:net Berlin Europe Podcast manifests games:net's ambition to connect the games industry landscape across Europe, by shining the spotlight on interesting personalities.
As an interviewer, I always aim to find the key story that my guest brings along with them. My greatest joy is in identifying a key story that surprises the guest, like a surprise item emerging from a large bag.
"I didn't even know I was carrying all that around with me!"
For the GNBE podcast, I lead all aspects of production, as well as copywriting and, of course, interviewing.
Sebastian Bracht (www.sol1dude.com) works his post-production magic. In episode 6 and onwards, Florian Masuth joins me as a co-host on air.
Purpose of Gaming is a psychological video game documentary.
What are video games for? Which meaning do they hold in people's lives? What do we learn from them? How do they integrate with the physical world?
Paul Schlesier and Simon Ohler have burning questions about a significant part of their childhood, and explore them together with well-known collaborators in this full-length documentary feature.
- host, moderator, consultant and mentor for a livestream driven campaign
- over 167,000 clicks on livestreams
- over 9000 peak concurrent viewers
- over 30,000 hours watched or 430,000 minutes watched
The legendary supermarket ALDI wanted to claim its stake in the video game world.
My friends at Strafejump (www.strafejump.com) won their pitch and were tasked to deliver a custom campaign to establish ALDI as a serious and culture-sensitive actor in the gaming and streaming space.
ALDI Gaming Heldenschmiede ("Hero Forge") was a campaign that ran on Twitch during Summer 2021, with the goal of letting a new generation of successful Twitch streamers emerge. From thousands of applicants, 100 streamers were selected to participate. Across the campaign, they connected and competed as a community for a spot in the Top 3. Each Top 3 finisher was granted a promotional slot on the Twitch front page.
ALDI and Strafejump asked me to come in as an advisor for the campaign background and storytelling, as an educator and inspirational speaker during three workshops for the Top 20 participants, and as a show host and moderator for the four live streams that demarcated the different phases of the campaign.
Together we managed to integrate a believable hero myth into the narrative undercurrent of the campaign (thank you, Mr. Campbell), and ten-thousands of viewers received it enthusiastically.
I'm especially grateful for the feedback I got from the participating streamers on my workshop. They were described as "inspiring", "game-changing", containing "brand new information" and "entertaining".
The exact quote was "I usually can't watch a 5 minute YouTube video, I can't believe I sat through your 3 hour workshop without ever getting bored."
In 2020, media:net berlinbrandenburg e.V., an association for the media industry in Berlin and its surroundings, wanted to expand their online offering for their members, as the in-person meet-ups, the association is known for, became hard to realize.
For Executive Stories, we portrayed 10 leaders, founders and CEO, who are active in Berlin's media industry.
As an interviewer, I always aim to find the key story that my guest brings along with them. My greatest joy is in identifying a key story that surprises the guest, like a surprise item emerging from a large bag.
"I didn't even know I was carrying all that around with me!"
I can happily report that the Executive Stories turned out far away from generic PR ramble. Instead, they portray leaders as true people, multi-faceted with colorful tastes and experiences, vulnerable and excited and wonderfully human. This is not necessarily normal amongst the usual blue-and-grey of the German business world. Therefore, I allow myself the liberty to consider these portraits a great success.
For Executive Stories, I led copywriting and interviewing.
The initial episodes were recorded and edited with Stephan Brinkert (www.sbvideo.de). Later on I've started working with Sebastian Bracht (www.sol1dude.com).
Speaking
For some reason I haven't documented my talks.
I think I've given around 10 or 15 public talks on stage. Many more privately, and digitally.
Events include Tincon, SPOBIS Summit, gamescom, re:publica, New TV Summit, INREACH, eSports Summit Austria.
I've spoken to seasoned professionals and young people alike. My talks are engaging, deep, pointed and funny.
My topics include Community Building, Livestreaming and Twitch.
I'm working on new talks. Topics I'm planning cover various philosophical matters.
Here is my last public talk I gave with Twitch. In German!
Writing
Purpose is a fancy term many people talk about. In general, what does it seem to mean? As always, balance comes into play.
The duality of the throes of excessive comfort and discomfort. As always, looking for balance.
An excerpt from the book I'm working on. The book contains stories and lessons. This bit is a mix -- a story I've enjoyed telling many times enriched with some lessons I've learned recently and over the years.
In this story oriented piece, I retell an episode from a beautiful night in a cozy establishment, where I explored the Feminine and the Masculine as archetypal principles with my friends behind the bar. Guess what ... I was looking for balance again.
This is me trying to put together a formula on how to live well. As you can read in the article, it comes from a difficult place, where I'm trying to come to terms with Doing Nothing (something I became quite good at). And, as so often, I seem to be looking for balance.
From my quiet time, where I explored different modes of living and was looking for linguistic interfaces to describe my experience. I barely read anything about the Inner Child. The words in this article came from deep within.
Work Experience
nowMedia is my personal vehicle for sustainable self-expression, self-employment and my Life's Work.
It is not a company per se. Right now, it's just me and through me the growing group of my extremely capable friends and collaborators.
I tried turning nowMedia into a company once and it failed gloriously. Everything I thought was right, was wrong.
So now I'm trying to think less and feel more and let this little baby tree, which is unfolding from the seed of my Life's Work, grow by itself.
Please refer to "projects" to see what I've worked on in the past years.
Twitch was my first big job, career, occupational dream. I had the time of my life jetsetting between London, San Francisco and Berlin, and helping the so many young and amazing creators build a real economy around themselves.
With my stewardship, creator revenue in DACH grew 10x. Many creators became full-time, earning very decent livings, while I worked with them.
Read the Tweet I linked for creators' and peers' testimonials when I announced my departure.
More importantly, I fostered a positive and dare-I-say loving culture and community in the space. I can say for certain that while I served the German Twitch community, the behavioral bias was towards love and commonality, rather than towards toxicity and hate.
After four years an inner voice called me to quit, gather my saved up money and explore different ways of living. So I left Twitch by hiring a few excellent people who I had no doubt could uphold the most important parts of my work.
After four years of a stormy cruise, the ship was finally in the harbor and I could go on other adventures.