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Profile: Jan Willem Sieburgh

The pride and joy of Jan Willem Sieburgh, Commercial Director of Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and a member of the Creative Board of Creative Amsterdam, is the RijksWidget. Since 2005, the widget has enabled the public to watch any of the masterpieces in the Amsterdam collection on their desktops at any time of the day. The Rijksmuseum was the first museum ever to offer a widget, which is a small computer program that shows a different work from the collection every day. A bull’s eye, according to the enthusiastic reactions on the website: ‘Thank you for opening your e-door to this little corner of our computers’ and ‘It’s a very good idea to punctuate each day of our lives with a new work of art.’

Company name:
Rijksmuseum

Company founding date:
More than 200 years ago.

Place of business:
Amsterdam

About the company:
Rational: The National Museum of Art and History. Emotional: An aesthetic filling station and mental carwash. You need to go there to charge your batteries and to rediscover yourself.

Current project:
Many, but mainly building projects.

Source of inspiration:
Endless curiosity

My big idea:
The RijksWidget, ‘The 250 Richest of the 17th Century’ in collaboration with Quote magazine, the cooperation with HEMA. All ideas that I am proud of; however, I think the biggest idea is still out there.

Dream assignment:
Doing something grand and engaging for Amsterdam; for example, making the section of Prinsengracht between Reguliersgracht and Amstel available to a hotel with ten or more houseboats as rooms - all designed by Dutch designers - and with Amstelveld as the service centre. For breakfast, you would go to the cafés and restaurants in Utrechtsestraat.

Biggest opportunity for the creative industry:
It’s impossible to know, these days, what is going to be successful and what isn’t. It’s impossible to predict something like a Prinsengracht Concert or a YouTube. We simply need to give the Amsterdam region the necessary opportunities to enable it to flourish.

Favourite tools:
A MacBook Air

Favourite website:
Difficult choice. I visit a lot of sites on a regular basis. I do like www.musicovery.com a lot.

Hobby:
Just give me a job that suits me and I will never need to work again. And then you don’t need a hobby either.

Best advice I ever received:
Dare to make a number of radical career changes in your life. The first time that was recommended to me was when I was 28 (from science to advertising and marketing).

Biggest blunder:
I still have to do that. That’s a promise.

Tips for professional colleagues:
Don’t only dream your big ideas; try to make them come true. Try to make a difference.

As ambassador of Amsterdam, I would…
travel a lot.

Company website:
www.rijksmuseum.nl

Company email address:

Web 2.0:
De RijksWidget

Back to the Creative Amsterdam Hall of Fame