Biography

Simon Staffans is the CEO of ReThink – New Media Solutions, a production and innovation company based in Finland. Simon is an Emmy-nominated and award-winning content producer, who over a distinguished career has created everything from TV shows to social media strategies to corporate storytelling campaigns, location based storytelling apps, innovative virtual museums and much more. His knowledge of the interplay between content and business, between audiences and creators, of generative AI, multiplatform storytelling and transmedia development has taken him around the world for speaking engagements, workshop facilitation and international consultancy. His insightful articles have been published in numerous journals and academic papers and he is an avid blogger on his website Evolving Media as well as the host of the podcast by the same name. He holds a Bachelors degree in Political Sciences and Communication, looking into how storytelling can affect people’s willingness to participate in scientific surveys. Currently he is doing his fifth year as a mentor for the pan-European Documentary Campus Masterschool. He is also an appointed expert for Creative Europe.

Previously he worked for MediaCity Finland as a media strategist, content developer and producer and at the Finnish public service broadcaster YLE as a show host, editor, producer and manager. Despite a busy schedule Simon is always open to interesting collaborations and development and production work, media strategy consultation, speaker engagements, workshop facilitation and writing assignments. Contacts can be found below.

Some professional facts on Simon:

Work Experience

• 7 years as the CEO and Co-founder of ReThink – New Media Solutions
• 11 years as a content developer for interactive, cross media and transmedia formats, producer, writer, researcher and speaker, at MediaCity
• 11 years as a radio professional; editor, show host, producer, at the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, Radio X and Ålands Radio
• 1 year as a newspaper editor, at Vasabladet
• 8 years as expert, Creative Europe
• 5 years as Mentor and Digital Mentor, Documentary Campus Masterschool

Professional achievements 

• Developed The Space Trainees, a cross media language training game show for kids, which was nominated for an iEmmy in the category Children and Young People in 2010, and won an International E-Learning Award the same year. The show ran for two seasons on YLE/FST5.
• Developed the format and held the position of Transmedia Director for “The Mill Sessions“, a multiplatform music project in 2011
• Developed, wrote and created the corporate storytelling strategy and social media strategy for the “Energialähettiläs 2013” campaign, driving
• Worked on a number of corporate storytelling ventures in 2014-22, for Vacon, Wapice, the city of Vaasa, VEO, the University of Vaasa, Wasaline, Neoen, Philips, Schneider Electric etc – see videos here, here, here and here, for instance.
• Five publications spanning five years – a curation of this blog and interviews with brilliant people from around the world – are available for free download on Slideshare
• Avid blogger on all things transmedia, also keeping a Scoopit up at http://www.scoop.it/t/transmediascoop
• Numerous talks and workshops at conferences and seminars, including MIPCOM, MIPTV, Cross Video Days, London Transmedia Fest 2012, Future Media 2.0, Entertainment Master Class , Filmteractive Festival, X Media Lab 2013, Transmedia Living Lab, Korcula Cross Media Lab, Documentary Campus…
• Alumni of the ForwardSlashStory 2015 camp, Costa Rica and the ForwardSlashStory 2017 camp in Indonesia
• Appointed expert at EU:s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency and Horizon 2020 programme (2014 -)
• Social media expert panelist at YLE (Finnish Broadcasting Company)
• Consultant for the Transmedia Fund at BoostHBG, Sweden
• MIPFormats Pitch Competition finalist 2012
• Juror for Solothurner Filmtage (Call for Transmedia Projects), EuroITV, Florida Film Market and Banff Media Festival
• Mentor at the Documentary Campus Masterschool

Publication List:

Book Chapters:

• Staffans, S., & Wiklund-Engblom, A. (2010). Developing Cross Media and Interactivity for Edutainment. Conclusions Drawn from “The Space Trainees” Project. In K. Drotner & K. C. Schrøder (Eds.). Digital Content Creation: Creativity, Competence, Critique. NY: Peter Lang Publishing.
• Wiklund-Engblom, A., Staffans, S., Markko, S., Smirnoff, M., Olander, R. (2016). Transmedia Storytelling for Industry Promotion. The Case of the Energy Ambassador of EnergyVaasa, Finland. In C.M. Schmidt (Ed.). Crossmedia-Komunikation in kulturbedingten Handlungsräumen. Mediengerechte Anwendung under zielgruppenspezifische Ausrichtung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Peer Reviewed Publications & Book Chapters:

• Wiklund-Engblom, A., Leminen, S., Westerlund, M., Staffans, S., Esch, M., & Rajala, R. (2012). Towards Transmedia Innovation: An Empirical Analysis of a Multiplatform Format. In I. Ibrus & C. A. Scolari (Eds.) Crossmedia Innovations: Texts, Markets, Institutions, Education. Peter Lang Publishing.
• Esch, M., Wiklund-Engblom, A., & Staffans, S. (2011). Experience as a Starting Point of Designing Transmedia Content. Proceedings of the EuroITV 2011 conference. Available online at the ACM Digital Library.
• Staffans, S., & Wiklund-Engblom, A. (2010). Developing Cross Media and Interactivity for Edutainment. Conclusions Drawn from “The Space Trainees” Project. In K. Drotner & K. C. Schrøder (Eds.). Digital Content Creation: Creativity, Competence, Critique. NY: Peter Lang Publishing.
• Staffans, S., Wiklund-Engblom, A., Hassenzahl, M., & Sperring, S. (2009). Doing It Right: Combining Edutainment Format Development And Research. Transactions on Edutainment, Vol. 2 (2). Available online at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/0565644618305g91/fulltext.pdf
• Staffans, S. (2008). Developing cross media and interactivity for edutainment purposes. Conclusions drawn from the development work on the project The Space Trainees. Proceedings of the DREAM Conference, Odense, September.
• Staffans, S. (2014). Energialähettiläs 2013: Using transmedia storytelling methods to unify a global campaign. Presented at the 14^th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on the Research Cooperation European Cultures in Business and Corporate Communication (EUCO); Cross Media Challenges in Corporate Communication, 23-25 October, Turku, Finland.
• Esch, M., Staffans, S., &Wiklund-Engblom, A. (2012). Influencing Design and Content: A descriptive study on how to integrate users in creating a transmedia format. Paper presented at “You, Me, User” Conference on User-Generated Culture, 25-26^th May, Helsinki.
• Staffans, S., Wiklund-Engblom, A., Hassenzahl, M., & Sperring, S. (2009). Doing it right: combining edutainment format development and research. The 4th International Conference on E-Learning and Games (Edutainment 2009), August 9-11th, Banff, Canada. Available online at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/0565644618305g91/fulltext.pdf
• Sperring, S., Staffans, S., Wiklund-Engblom, A., & Bengs, A. (2009). Educational yet entertaining: oxymoronic experiences in a cross media show for kids. Paper presented at the congress Entertainment = Emotion, 15th – 21st November, Benasque, Spain.
• Wiklund-Engblom, A., Bengs, A., Staffans, S., & Eriksson, H. (2009). User Experience on a Cross Media Format Combining CALL and TV. Paper presented at Online Educa Berlin, the 15^th International Conference on Technology Supported Learning & Training, 2-4th December, Berlin.
• Staffans, S. (2008). Teaching without teachers? Conclusions drawn from the development work on the edutainment cross media concept The Space Trainees. Presented at the Nordic Conference on Experience, November 24-25th, Vasa, Finland.

Workshop Presentations:

• Ghellal, S., Wiklund-Engblom, A., & Staffans, S. (2012). Seams in Transmedia Experiences. Workshop at the 7^th Nordic Conf. on Human-Computer Interaction, October 14th 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Staffans, S., & Wik, A. (2009). The Space Trainees. Presentation at the workshop ”Edutainment: Learning while Having Fun” at Åbo Akademi University, May 19th.
• Staffans, S., & Wik, A. (2009). The Space Trainees. Presentation at the workshop “Think positive – designing and understanding enjoyable interactive media experiences” at EuroITV 2009, June 3rd, Leuven, Belgium.

Reports:

• Staffans, S., Backholm-Nyberg, Y., Esch, M., & Wiklund-Engblom, A. (2012). Developing and Producing Multiplatform Content in Finland – what, why and how? Report. Available online at: http://issuu.com/mediacityfinland/docs/content360
• Vasek, Staffans, S. … (2013). Energialähettiläs …