Self-employed business people, freelancers and small businesses know and hate it equally: having to chase after their money. Lexware has now developed a new, free tool which finally makes that a thing of the past.

Visitors and fans of the next09 are invited to be the first to get to know this product at the most rigorous press conference of all time: On May 5 at 9 pm at "Zur Ritze", Reeperbahn 142, Hamburg.

In the unique ambiance of Hamburg's Number 1 red-light district pub, there'll be information, food and drinks, and spectacle galore. Our star guest is no other than Heinz Hoenig.

If you don't want to miss out, log in right away for free under www.h-p-a-z.de. Your registration password is KVZM251R.

Our media partner My-MIKI.com has launched the pre-conference MIKI for the next09. What's a MIKI? Think of a mashup between magazine and wiki. A MIKI combines the look & feel of a print magazine with the easy editing of a wiki.

You can embed it like a YouTube video or a SlideShare presentation. But it works best in full-screen mode. My-MIKI.com will have their own booth at the conference, thus making it easy for everyone to get in touch with Marc Frey and his team. When next09 kicks off next week, the MIKI will be updated and enhanced with lots of fresh content. Stay tuned!

Recently AdAge ran a piece that fits quite nicely with a panel I especially look forward to at next09. The question Katarina Skoberne from OpenAd and Ross Kimbarovsky of crowdSPRING will discuss next Wednesday on stage goes straight to the heart of agencies' creative departments.

We typically think of "creativity" as a singular effort with the Steve Jobs or Lee Clows of the world -- the solitary individual known as much for their personality as their work -- at the helm. But creativity has always been a social activity. Today's creative agencies are supposed to be hothouses of ideas with charismatic leaders and collaborative teams. Fostering a creative culture counts -- after all, Warhol's factory wasn't just a live/work loft. But what happens when the technology behind crowdsourcing makes creativity a social activity that knows no geographic bounds? Where does the creative produced by the collective take us? Do we visit wild new frontiers or does a herd mentality take hold?

These are tough questions for everyone involved in the agency business. But let's have a look at the short introductions AdAge wrote about both companies:

OpenAd.net: The most disruptive trend for the advertising industry is the crowdsourcing of creative ideas and design services. OpenAd.net is one of the most prominent examples. The service bills itself as a global online marketplace for great advertising, marketing and design ideas. OpenAd.net provides marketers the ability to generate advertising ideas from a distributed network of more than 11,500 creatives from more than 125 countries. Major brands such as MTV, Virgin Atlantic and DaimlerChrysler have all sourced ad work from the company.

Crowdspring: Crowdspring is the most controversial of the companies now offering crowdsourced creative services. The company, which was just nominated for a Webby Award, boasts a network of more than 20,000 creatives from 140-plus countries who vie to provide logo, website and collateral design to primarily small and medium-size business clients. The end results are impressive, as the literally hundreds of submissions made by the designers "on spec" are displayed for the world to see and rate. For example, a recent logo project for "Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk generated nearly 275 submissions. A logo for BBH Labs has garnered nearly 1,200 submissions.

From the very beginning of the next conference, we've videotaped every session. Over the years this has built up an enormous wealth of insights. For example, watch the video above with Stowe Boyd who will also speak this year.

But the video archive was spread thin over several video platforms, making it sometimes hard to find this renowned speaker or that impressing session you would like to watch again.

Enter sevenload, social media platform and event partner of this year's next conference. The nice guys from Cologne have launched the official video platform and will be in charge for this year's video coverage.

Soon after the event the sevenload team will publish the complete volume of talks and panels. There is also a special web tv channel for the next conference on sevenload. So go ahead and have a look on the videos of the last three years - and soon this year, too.

Just eight days left until the next conference 2009 gathers more than 1000 people from all over Europe and the US. Yes, we passed the 1000 mark today and are still counting as many people buy their tickets in the last few days before the event. If you decided to attend but haven't ordered your ticket yet, you might want to do it now as we will raise prices for latecomers on Wednesday.

And in case you are still undecided, have a look at the (more or less) final programme we just released. There will be some changes probably, as with more than 100 speakers it's very likely that one or two of them will cancel their speaking gig. With the fourth edition of the next conference all this isn't new territory for us. We'll see how it turns out this year.

With four parallel programme tracks on the Main Conference Day (May 6), you will face a lot of tough decisions. Which talk to listen to, which panel to follow or which start-up to watch? To facilitate your personal conference planning, you may want to check out sched.org, sign up and build your personal conference schedule.

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure to meet Vivian Pein from Techfluff. She asked me a few questions about the next conference and uploaded the video to YouTube. (And it took me a full week to post it on this blog. Sigh.)

Some updates: Andrew Keen will give a keynote speech about Digital Vertigo - Inequality, Anxiety and Isolation in the Social Media Age. As of now, ten days before the conference kicks off, almost 1.000 participants have already registered. There is still plenty of space for more participants and prices will go up on Wednesday, so don't hesitate to register now.

We've selected 18 start-ups for the start-up track at this year's next conference. Some of them already twittered that they will join us in just 13 days, but in most cases it's news. So here is the list in no particular order:

• Qeep - a mobile social community connecting people all around the world
• Mendeley - a Last.fm for Research
• Styleranking
• My Name is E
• Mloovi - speak to your world!
• Bonartisan - Internet World of Mouth Revolution
• welike.com
• Younect
• sofatutor
• Tarpipe - share your life with tarpipe Mobypicture - Share your adventures with your friends realtime
• Skobbler - guidance, friends and orientation on the phone
• yiid
• Mobilinga
• Tagcrumbs - Social Placemarking
• sones
• MyMusic! Your no.1 online music community!
• Mentory
• Babbel - Enjoy Learning Languages

Please note that some start-ups didn't reconfirm their participation yet. There might be some changes.

Here is our special last minute offer: There would be some space left for another three (3) start-ups. But we've reserved it for sponsored talks. So if you

1. want to present your start-up at the next conference and
2. are able and willing to shell out €2.000 for a start-up package (including a booth and 2 tickets),

take your chance to contact Julia Ruf who will be happy to consult you with an individual package.

Be fast, as we close the printed programme tomorrow.

next09 and DMMK join forces. We now have a special ticket offer for you in store: Get one of 50 combined tickets for both next09 and DMMK for just 790 Euro (ex VAT)! These special tickets are valid each for the Main Conference Day of next09 (May 6) and DMMK (June 9).

• Programme of next09
• More information about DMMK
• Get you combined ticket here!

As we approach May 5, everybody starts to prepare for the event, even the speakers. And some of them are blogging their thoughts as they put together their speeches and slides.

Enter Henriette Weber, the marketing rebel extraordinaire who has founded Toothless Tiger. She will give a talk about Rockbandism or 'Why every Company should be a Rockband' on May 6. On her blog she writes:

I will be talking about shared branding and where it is that rockbandism is actually helping you a whole lot with your branding. I would maybe even go as far as saying that rockbandism is the precondition for good branding these days. I have been thinking a lot about how you share your brand, mainly I think it's interesting who you want to share it with?

- It could be your customers, potential customers and the market out there, but it could also be your suppliers and your stakeholders. I work with social branding everyday where you actually talk about what return you get from involving your customers in your company (and there's a whole lot of strategic work involved in this question, because why on earth would people involve themselves in your company? - ta da - rockbandism is why.

Toughts on shared branding

Umair Haque is Director of the Havas Media Lab and keynote speaker at this year's next conference. His talk on May 5 will be about Capitalism 2.0 or Constructive Capitalism as he dubs it.

On May 6, the Main Conference Day, Umair agreed to hold a Fireside Chat with Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? who will open the next09 with his keynote about The Great Restructuring.

I'm really looking forward to these guys and their insights. Lately, Umair published a short piece dubbed The Real Pirate Bay which, simply said, nails it.

Set up a torrent tracker, get fined, go to jail.

Join a bank, destroy the economy, profit.

Let's draw out the distinction.

The Pirate Bay guys were criminally prosecuted for....violating (largely obsolete) copyright. Almost no one in finance has been held even civilly liable for vastly more economically damaging actions.

On the one hand, we have damages worth maybe (maybe) a few million. On the other, a few trillion.

On the one hand, innovation and better music is stifled - benefits are foregone. On the other, reform of a broken banking system is stifled - losses are incurred.

That's everything that's wrong with the economy in two sentences: the ongoing inability of today's leaders to deal with 21st century economics.

The tiny picture on the left is my newfangled Twitter icon. You may notice the next conference logo in the upper right corner. Neat, isn't it? And what is best - it was pretty simple to tinker it. Me just went to the BarCamp-O-Mat, uploaded my picture (hint: it has to be in square format) and chose next09 - the rest was done automagically. The upload isn't mandatory, if you want to reuse your current Twitter icon, you can just enter your Twitter ID and you're done.

Download your new icon from BarCamp-O-Mat and upload it to Twitter to show everyone that you're attending next09! The only obstacle might be that the BarCamp-O-Mat is in German.

You're looking forward to the next conference on May 5 & 6 but still are still looking for a reliable childcare in Hamburg? We're offering to take care of your kids (4 years and older) while you are participating at next09!

Our two supervising tutors are there for your children on both days, on May 5 we're even offering a night watch at the Hotel am Stadtpark. Next to outside activities, depending on the wheather, food and drinks will of course be provided.

Interested? Go ahead booking childcare for 50 Euro (plus VAT) on May 5 & 6 and for 30 Euro (plus VAT) on the main conference day only. You'll receive a brief questionnaire in order for us to be able to fulfil all your kids' wishes - as far as possible and desirable!

Alexander Ljung who happens to be the founder of SoundCloud presented the Swedish startup from Berlin-Mitte last year at next08. By then, SoundCloud was still in private beta.

TechCrunch now breaks the news that SoundCloud has closed a €2.5 million funding round led by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. This is great news not only for Alexander and SoundCloud but also for us, as we had him on stage last year in the beautiful Prototyp museum.

We are currently working on this year's start-up presentations and elevator pitch. And certainly we hope all the best for those who will present this year and need funding. Stay tuned for the next update to the programme!

And meanwhile, you might want to listen to a song or two on SoundCloud. As an example, I've embedded one below.

Tomorrow the wonderful Next Web Conference will kick off. This year's edition is quite promising, and I am sorry that I can't make it to Amsterdam.

But what is sad for me may be great for you - take your chance to snap up my conference ticket and visit Amsterdam together with Mark Pohlmann who is heading the advisory board for the next conference.

So what do you need to do? Just leave a comment (don't forget your mail address) and name one good reason why you should get my ticket. The deadline is 4 pm today. Maybe earlier in case I find someone really convincing.

Easter is coming up and it's time for a special Easter surprise. Check out our ticket shop to find the Late Bird category open! This is your chance to register for 490 Euro (plus VAT) and save 300 Euro compared to the regular ticket price.

The offer is valid from today 12 pm until Tuesday 12 pm. 43 tickets are left, so register now!

Picture by digitalblasphemy.com.

You're a start-up and don't have a ticket for next09 yet? Our sponsor Sun Start-up Essentials is giving away three tickets for free.

All you need to be is a member of Sun Start-up Essentials. All you need to do is to be creative! Why is it you who should not be missing at next09? Apply now via any medium you can think of. E-mail, Twitter, photos, videos, podcasts or showing up in person: Feel free to convince the Sun jury!

Applications can be submitted until April 20. Within two days you will know if you're one of the lucky winners like Hotpotch or CaptchaAd.

As it turns out, we are going to have a lot of different colours at next09. Our own blue - or cyan, if you take a closer look - will contrast nicely with the yellow of Scholz & Friends in the Blogger Area. Our friends from the orchestra of ideas are exclusive sponsors of this special lounge area just for all of you bloggers.

So what can you expect from the Blogger Area? It will be a lounge equipped with some desks for working and sofas for chilling. You will find more than a few power plugs to charge all your electronic devices. We will also provide network cables and, if all things go well, a fridge with some drinks. In case that's not enough there is a bar not far away from the Blogger Area.

Where will you find the Blogger Area? It will be located between Track III and Track IV where some of our sponsors have their booths and provide networking space.

What do I need to join the Blogger Area? Nothing more than a valid next09 ticket. There is no special access control which would undermine the open space character of next09.

Many thanks to Scholz & Friends for taking an active part in making the next09 happen!

As we've announced the Neptun Cross Media Award will be taking place within the framework of next09 at May 5. The most striking and efficient cross media campaigns of the past year will be awarded by Hamburg@work.

This year the jury is represented by top-class advertisors and marketing professionals. Amongst others Markus Goetze, CEO at Heye & Partner, Detmar Karpinski, CEO at KNSK, Norbert Lindhof, CEO at Avantaxx, Michael Trautmann, CEO Consulting at kempertrautmann and Martin Wider, JWT Germany will be part of the ten members of the jury. Check out the current press release (in German) for further information. Proposals for the award can still be submitted until April 6.

You are on a budget or have sparse time, but don't want to miss out on the networking at next09?

Take your chance to see the keynote speech by Matthias Schrader, listen to the Twitter reading and be part of the Neptun Award Party for 55 Euro (plus VAT). Be our guest on May 5 starting at 5:30 pm. Meet over 1000 participants while enjoying finger food, drinks and the great next conference networking atmosphere!

Register now and get your 3-in-1 package for 55 Euro (plus VAT) only!