amplus takes a step forward

About a week ago, amplus.tv finally started gaining weight, like babies do, and its family sighed with relief. Gone are the newborn wrinkles, here to stay are defining features. Rather than boring you, like parents do, with every little detail that miraculously improved or stabilized (and you have never even noticed), we give you the highlights of the highlights:

1. Login with twitter is smoother, and amplus.tv will remember you forever—as long as you add moving images to your channel at least once every 60 days (and you don't log out :)
2. The bookmarklet resides now in the website header, and has become much smoother itself (make sure to delete the old one and grab the new version)
3. Every user has an associated user number that is now published in his/ her channel page, to express our excitement with and gratitude for the early explorers of amplus.tv
4. Every bit of moving image, from any channel, was originally spotted by a first user, and now first spotters are visibly credited for their discovery anywhere the video is displayed
5. RSS feed items now include video descriptions, and link back to their amplus.tv channel, crediting the channel maker wherever the feed items travel

Lots of niceness and shininess, no? Hurry up, give it a go, and let us know how we may help you get more out of it. And check out the community channel in the sidebar of the MetaBroadcast blog :)

amplus.tv is the simplest, cutest tool for building a channel of moving images online. It now recognizes 7 major sources: blip.tv, Daily Motion, Flickr, Hulu, TED, Vimeo and YouTube. To make a channel, login with Twitter and use the shiny, tiny bookmarklet in Firefox. Then take the RSS feed of any channel into readers or miro (lovely FREE player of video feeds), embed any channel on a website (think blog), and send a twitter message about... any channel :)

Cross-posted on the blog of MetaBroadcast and my personal blog.

amplus refreshed, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

to social media or not to social media

Marta Kagan gives a very potent YES for an answer, well structured and documented, more so than her presentation last year, from what I recall. Incidentally, I also approve of the language. Strong words for strong points, and may we all take something valuable home.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

proudly announcing amplus.tv

amplus.tv is the simplest, cutest tool for building a channel of moving images online. It requires a Twitter account to sign-in (we only twitter on your behalf when you ask us to), and it recognises at this point 7 major video sources: blip.tv, Daily Motion, Flickr, Hulu, TED, Vimeo and YouTube. To grab any video from these services you use the tiny bookmarklet you receive after sign-in, working like magic in Firefox. Then you can take the feed of any channel into your reader or miro (lovely FREE player of video feeds), embed any channel on a website (think blog), and send a twitter message about... you guessed it, any channel :)

Fair and square, amplus.tv has seen the limelight nearly one month ago at the Open Video Conference, as a cool app based on URIplay, our open source metadata aggregator. Born on June 19th 2009 after 8 days of labour, and hardly pampered meanwhile (as all hands on deck cuddled the TTT baby), amplus.tv is the prototype of a grander design we've got baking. While a bit wobbly, needing a new onesie, and craving even more food than the current 7 video sources, the service is already able to entertain large crowds: there's you, with family and friends, the readers of you blog, with family and friends, then those who look at your channel page on amplus.tv, with family and friends, those who read a twitter message about your channel, with family and friends, and let's not forget all those who come about an item off your feed in the reader, shared by... their family and friends :)

Yesss, I've insisted on family and friends above for a reason: what can be more entertaining, informative, or inspirational than showing dear ones what moves you instead of just telling them? With amplus.tv it's easy peasy, so get playing and creating, and tell us what you think :)

amplus.tv, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

Cross-posted on the blog of MetaBroadcast and Mirona's personal blog.

google search shows wimbledon score in real time

google search real time wimbledon score, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

I've heard from @suw that running a Google search for Andy Murray may have something brilliant in store and whoa, there it is, at the top of the page: the Wimbledon score of his match that is now on, facing Andy Roddick. I obviously haven't gotten rid of the geek bug, but let me tell you why this is so terribly exciting (other than me being in the office with no time to follow the match on screen). It is a step forward from Google towards real-time results, crawling more interesting corners of the web and bringing us what is HOT NOW. If you can imagine that Google is fighting Facebook and Twitter for our attention, you can easily see how real-time results might just enable Google to get us back on board. As I blogged, and refreshed the search page, Andy Murray has just gone from 1-0 to 5-4 in the second set. Well played, Andy! Well played, Google! Also, have you seen scoopler? Real-time search engine backed up by solid investment. Not my discovery per se, but probably the best find at Twitter Dev Nest London.

Cross-posted on Mirona's personal blog.

reboot

I would like to go to Reboot one day, and this presentation from Matt Webb is a powerful incentive. Without spoiling it, here are a few quotes he will use in the first minutes, as he collects definitions of design and wonders what the definition of culture is:

"Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impost meaningful order" (Victor Papanek).
"Some people (they are wrong) are about solving problems. Obviously designers do solve problems, but then so do dentists. Design is about cultural invention." (Jack Schulze, his business partner)
"But problem solving alone isn't sufficient to be called design. [...] Culture is another sneaky word. What is culture?" (Matt Webb)
"Culture is the things that make life interesting." (Bruno Munari)
"The designer of today reestablishes the long lost contact between art and the public." (Bruno Munari

I hope this little taste of will make you curious enough to find out what a one mile tomato is, or a macroscope, and why we should be aware of them.

reading: the elements of user experience

The book had me at hello. This is the first paragraph of the first chapter:

Technology has been a part of our everyday environment for generations. It empowers us and it frustrates us; it simplifies and complicates our lives; it separates us and brings us closer together. But even though we interact with technology every day, we easily forget that technology products are made by people, and that someone, somewhere should get the credit when technology works well for us—or get the blame when it doesn't.

The elements of user experience by Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path founder

falling in love with swan vestas' marketing

and a promotion, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

Remember the smart celebration of the Swan Vestas matches this summer? Well, it goes on. The new packs bring one of the few promotions I've ever appreciated: for 125 years of existence there are 125 golden matches, and each can win you GBP 1,000. There is, of course, a catch: you don't see the golden cap until you strike the match.

Why do I like it better than others? It's fun, it's witty (strike gold), it's shiny, it gets the imagination going, it has many equal prizes (thus offering many chances) AND it involves the product directly, the product IN USE. Someone brilliant is running the Swan Vestas marketing.

And that explains why the promotion and its potential win are not part of the packaging only, as is the case with margarine and beer in Romania and cereals and smoothies in the UK, to name just four types of products (betting there are plenty more).

Other notable promotions, top of mind? Coca-Cola in Romania—giving away branded pagers (any years ago, when pagers were still cool) to kids who put together a number of bottle lids, and Coca-Cola in the UK—giving away branded yo-yos to kids who also collected some bits of the packaging (different, I understand, depending on the year when it ran). But even these, however sparking the imagination, were about the packaging alone.

words of wisdom: openad's founder, katarina skoberne

From the interview she gave EasyJet's on-flight magazine—exceptionally good, unlike their services.

Five things Skoberne wished she had known (before starting OpenAd):

1. There are very few things that are too urgent to not do them well the first time.


2. People are the absolute, number one asset—but not everyone is able to work in a new and growing company.


3. As Lincoln said: "If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the axe." Do your research, make sure there is a market for your product and fine tune it however necessary.


4. When push comes to shove, if you are motivated, you'll find you have almost unlimited resources.


5. It is really important to get sufficient amounts of sleep.

Amen!

lines and lining

inspired give away, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.


surprise gifts from Adaptive Path, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

The pencil case seems terribly anachronic to me, but how enjoyable and, strangely, how functional! I wouldn't want my felt tip pens to escape in my bag and get too colourful on their neighbours. And while I don't see myself locking the pencil case to anything, as it suggests, it still is the best event giveaway I've seen in a while, well targeted at people who still work with pen and paper. On the downside, it was accompanied by a notebook that was too thick, too narrow, too unclean—some graphics adorned each page, which was also lined. The fact that many of the conference participants used it took me by surprise: since ethnographers, researchers in general, and designers still work with pen and paper, isn't it to be expected that they'd have strong preferences for this kind of notebook or the other?

The Sharpie markers are even more welcome, if that's possible. They were given to us by Adaptive Path during the workshop, to better grasp and represent our learnings. Having traveled all the way from California for us, they probably saw no reason to go back, so at the end of the session we were invited to take them home. There were also many types of paper, and colourful crayons, but Sharpies were my choice, and they fitted quite nicely in the pencil case above, next to my other toys. Yum!

namesake companies: artemis, research by design

I came across this other Artemis at EPIC, as they were a bronze sponsor. Taking a look at their website I see that all we have in common next to the name is using the tagline as an online domain. I could enlarge the comparison by saying we both care for stories, as well, counting their ethnographic practice, and by counting our interest in design. But since both our companies are yet to list clients and projects, I'll stop here.

becoming a psychic?

About two hours ago I thought about a client and wondered whether I should give her a call to hear her voice and see how she was doing. I decided to wait until her day is almost over, seeing that I hate interruptions. About an hour ago she called me. With a job. I wonder whether it ever happened before. Has it ever happened to you?

blogging epic 2008day 3 (though I skipped 1 entirely)

in between conference sessions, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

This is the main building of the conference, quiet as most of the city. A city of ghosts, no matter how pretty. There was no way I was going to carry my laptop after the late night last night. Macs are a bit too heavy and thick, in all their coolness. The newer models launched a few days ago seem less cool, though lighter, and have also lost a few important ports and functionalities. Back to EPIC, however.

Morning!
Artifacts & Breakfast sounded like a good promise until we got there. We cared about two in particular, From Logs to People by Jens Riegelsberger and Olga Khroustaleva, Google and Making "Media Landscape" Visible: Usage of Media in Japan and Korea via Home-visiting-method by Aya Kubosumi & Noriko Ohara, Konica Minolta Technology Center, Inc. Both poorly presented on their small and visually unattractive posters, the first one arrogant on top of it, while the second—accompanied by a poor paper, with which in university days, not to mention professional days... I wouldn't have gotten away. It makes a lot of sense that we quickly extracted ourselves and had a brisk walk in the blessed sun to the five-minutes away street filled with cafes that serve Illy. Instead of the conference undrinkable potion. Undrinkable to some Europeans, I'm sure, and sadder in the context of very good food across the conference.

Morning! Second try.
Session 3: Navigating People and Praxis Across Space and Time, curated by Donna K. Flynn, Ph.D. (Microsoft Corporation), who couldn't make it. Hmm. Not the first. This seems childish.

1. All that is seen and unseen: the physical environment as informant by Lisa Reichenbach (InSync Strategy) and Magda Wesolkowska (Anthropology in Design)

What's everyone writing down so feverishly and why do they do it as seriously as in class? The presentation might have been more exciting in a different form and/ or different presentations style.

Treat the physical environment as an informant. Physical environment = foundational part of lived experience—oh, how it makes my brain curl!

2. The space between Mine & Ours: Exploring the subtle spaces between the private and the shared in India by Ashwini Asokan (Intel Corporation)

In India they don't speak that language. There is no privacy in the black and white understanding existent in The U.S. (MY room, MY door, knocking at the door).

Private and shared states not mutually exclusive, implying subtle negotiations, while grey spaces help with social taboos. Getting away with doing things unnoticed (in the social space) that you couldn't get away with (alone in another room).

A second perception: privacy as privilege. Father to son, potentially: you'll get privacy, as a kid, as long as you know that it (what you're doing/ privacy) is wrong.

Seeking privacy in public, e.g. hanging out with friends in cafes, having escaped home.

Hiding content out there, e.g. on the Internet, in the physical social network.

Two of several outcomes that caught my eye more: security implications, and going beyond passwords, which are not subtle enough a way to gain/ maintain privacy.

Was informative, fun, and one of the very few to slightly connect with future design.

3. Staging Ethnography: The Decisive Moment of Knowing by Michelle Chang (Red Associates) and Matthew Lipson (Orange FT). The latter couldn't make it, either...

Drawing negative spaces which a. can't transpire b. can(not) be captured and c. is in between.

This way we can change focus from the obvious, from what we already know, from what we think it's there, from what we believe ought to be there.

Dense presentation, really interesting, would like to give it more time if it's online.

Certainly at ReD we have a bias for innovation. Would sound good on their website, in other media.

4. Putting Mobility on the map: researching journeys and the research journey by Simon Roberts (Intel Corporation)

Irish saying: If you're lost, it's because you started in the wrong place.

The dubious pleasure of working in large corporations. The humor of surviving in them.

On a (research) journey, managers are like children: are we there yet?

Most entertaining moment of the day, though once again, unclear where the research led :( While I don't know whether he's half as good in writing, I'm excited to see he's got a blog, The Ideas Bazaar.

5. The QAME of Transdisciplinary Ethnography by Elizabeth Tunstall (University of Illinois)

Ethnography at the junction among Anthropology, Marketing, and Design. Thus, the job of an ethnographer can be described differently in each of the three fields by looking at his/ her Questions, Assumptions, Methods and Evidence (QAME).

Of anthropological ethnographers: As one of my professors says, the merchants of the exotic.

Of marketing ethnographers: they are selectors. They value human beings differently for different clients, so by valuing some higher, the ethnographers change the relationship.

Would also look deeper into this one, though QAME and the omission of other related fields mainly recommend it as a starting point, not a destination. Too dense, again.

Great concepts or weird buzzwords from the audience? A. empathic strategic planning and B. storytelling as a form of strategic business engagement. Established, it'd seem.

About this point we grabbed lunch earlier than yesterday, trying not to overhear the silly networking chatter, and went to the charity shop across the street for a drinkable (not great) espresso in china cups, a quiet moment on a nice sofa surrounded by large windows, and a look around. My personal blog will certainly detail my cool findings in the coming days.

Siesta...
Panel: Directors of the Future. Panelists Michael Winnick of gravitytank, Nina Wakeford of Goldsmiths, University of London, and Ken Anderson of Intel each wrote a scenario about the future of ethnography five years from now. They also directed the actors from Dacapo, a company focused on the forum theatre tradition.

The actors and the storyteller did a great job, the directing and envisioning ethnographers scored various points in my book, and the audience proved silly, as usual. Of course, that is partly because all smart asses like me were busy... sitting on their asses, with a single exception that was dutifully ignored. My biggest learning was seeing Ken Anderson at work briefly, and my only other thought was yeah, these people (in the panel, but more so in the audience) are really disconnected from the real world that feeds them, more often than not. Disconnected in behaviour, in perceptions, in expectations, in practice EXCEPT, seemingly, Ken Anderson.

Now, he's one of the two founders of EPIC (four years ago) and the Internets tell me that among his areas of interest there is a very juicy one: transnationals and cosmopolites in and between urban environments. Sadly, his page seems to have vanished from the (very badly designed) Intel website, and he appears to have no blog, so I'm guessing I'll have to dig deeper for his thinking.

Engage!
Of the two open house tours we chose, the first proved interesting enough that we never made it to the second company, also finding ourselves within five minutes distance to our hotel. Being in a group didn't help, either, though it's fair to say that the most unpleasant side of it was an individual—a terrifically rude woman that could've easily upset both our kind hosts.

Speaking of which, Snitker & Co. shared with us beautiful and knowledge-packed stories about user experience research, usability studies, testing all sorts of gadgets and applications and building personas. On a different day, having more energy about me, I would've stayed longer, as we were invited, to chat and get inspired. A great end to the conference day for us, sneaking away yet another time, but we believe one has to choose one's experiences and not follow the herd like a sheep.

A slow walk to and by the waterfront in the rarely seen sun, and a discussion about what we'd do better (one of our biggest obsessions) sealed the day. There will be no live blogging tomorrow either, due to the complex logistics of luggage, check out, walking a lot, having only half a day at EPIC, walking even more, and heading to the airport, eventually. But there could be a wrap-up kind of post, if anything of interest intervenes or sediments.

Isn't it funny how we start arrogant, as children, get humbled in a profession or other, sooner or later, only to go back to arrogance? I'm talking about myself, of course.


Follow EPIC 2008 on Twitter and Flickr, as well.

blogging epic 2008workshop 11: see, sort, sketch: pen & paper techniques for getting from research to design

prediction, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

Good point. Connected to the badges, a fun research not going so well. Anyway.

Having enjoyed Leah Buley's presentation, How to become a UX team of one, I decided it was just the thing to register for the workshop she was leading with colleague Kate Rutter from Adaptive Path. Here's what I was able to jot down along the three hours, not even attempting to open the laptop on a table covered in pen and paper.

1. Diamond shapes focus the brain faster, so try arranging notes like that when looking for a solution.

2. Use big pieces of paper for big ideas, and small pieces for small ideas.

3. Ideas/ Statements taken out of qualitative research and moved onto paper as insights should stay attributed to real people. I'm sure that also makes them traceable in the raw data.

4. True is more subjective than false.

5. When people are working through the design process as a team, it involves a certain level of subjectivity, a certain level of distance, and you need to negotiate around them.

Side note: Amazing to be in between academia and commercial practitioners. There are clashes and not obligatorily constructive ones. There are also clashes, too subtle for me perhaps, among different schools of design, different schools of research, and different attitudes about work (if only U.S. vs. Europe) and, ultimately, life. I.e.: European—have you looked at every angle? vs. American—but surely any improvement is welcome!

6. Recommending Wordle as a tool is met with blank stares.

7. Stronger and weaker patterns will come across (in grouping and sorting insights), and at some point you want to decide what matters.

On presenting research results via workshops with clients, someone in the audience explain effectiveness with this argument: People come away with stories to tell, to convince others.

8. Most twisted and twisting line yet today, spotted by Chris: Ambasadorship to socialising findings.

9. The need for a physical space to display and organise your questions, findings, and insights. God knows I've been needing such and, as they spoke, instantly envisioned exactly where it could be in our study.

10. There is no recipe for concept sketches. It's always a challenge to tell the story best. Concept sketch: whatever diagram or framework is comfortable for you in telling the story.

11. To get to the concept sketch, think things, relationships among them, the story to bring all those forward and ONLY THEN pick the framework.

In the audience, one guy to another, using the right vocabulary: would you like some... utensils?


Further reference. In a few days, their presentation, too. Leah's blog: ugleah. Kate's blog: intelleto.


Follow EPIC 2008 on Twitter and Flickr, as well.

live blogging epic 2008session 1: working and playing with visibility

badges at epic 2008, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

Decent coffee finally provided by a charity shop around the corner where hardly anyone knew how to make a cappuccino, so the machine wasn't even on, and the fumbling took ages. First session's started under curator John Sherry (Intel Corporation). Here's a selection of almost-research badges, hoping that I will have something more to learn and something more to report further.

1. The Rise of the Techno-Service Sector: A Study of the Growing Inter-Dependency of Social and Technical Skills in the Work of ERP by Asaf Darr (University of Haifa)

Blurring boundaries among design, product/ development/ implementation, and sales. The need for social skills next to technical ones. There's a book on the matter out there, so go find it.

2. Now You See It And Now You Don't: Consequences of Veiling Relational Work by Lisa Kreeger (IBM Almaden Services Research) and Elizabeth Halloway (Antioch University, Leadership and Change)

Veiling seen as negative in organisations, lack of clarity and accountability, lack of old school work relationships and diminished ability to judge a situation, colleague, project. Veiling seen as positive on some occasions, when it can smooth things up. Definitely a matter of further interest to me.

3. The Invisible Work of Being a Patient and Implications for Health Care by Kenton T. Unruh (Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics, University of Washington) and Wanda Pratt (Information School & Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics, University of Washington)

When something goes wrong medical staff makes the patient feel as if it's the patient's fault. IT systems incorrectly deployed or not communicating among each other. Medical staff taking advantage of (natural!) lack of in-depth knowledge on the patient side. Part of the research: patients given means to document their experiences while going through breast cancer trials.

Patients' work patterns: bursty and reactive, influencing the outcomes of the organisational work, thus requiring a new design of the process.

Side note: this far, much, much better. I'm all ears. Yay!

4. The Secret Life of Medical Records: A Study of Medical Records and the People Who Manage Them by Nathaniel Martin and Patricia Wall (Xerox Innovation Group, Xerox Corporation)

Side note: speaker points out some event organisation difficulties that affected his presentation today, and as a former speaker AND organiser I am on his side. Now to work.

A lot of people invisible in the medical records area. For every medical member of staff there is at least one support member doing something important, though unclear, in the background. Paper cannot be removed from the process just by existence of good EMR (Electronic Medical Records) but rather the transition to EMR will require substantial transformation of paper documents to digital form. The study wins, at least, by reformulating the problem in technical terms.

5. The Translucence of Twitter by Ingrid Erickson (Center for Work, Technology & Organization, Stanford University)

We made some bets early this morning about what will be said about Twitter, so I'm very curious to see whether our expectations, positive and not, are met. Microblogging was one, that weird and incorrect buzz word, and it's just been used in perhaps the first minute. Ouch!

Meanwhile, this paper was referenced at the very beginning of the presentation, Social Translucence: An Approach to Designing Systems that Support Social Processes*.

Visibility + awareness = accountability. Awareness: indirect OR by incident. Accountability for potential interaction...

It's not going where I'd like it to and, guess what, the balloon is ssshaking! Applause!

6. Contact Lists, Social Drift, and relationships by Matthew Yapchaian and Ken Anderson (Intel Corporation)

Using contact lists to negotiate social visibility. A study on very busy teens (around 14 y.o.) that gravitate among home, school, activities, and home again (no car yet). Email seen as for homework and old people. No surprise to me at high usage of IM, mobile SMS, and Social Apps. I'd love an example.

And here it is: a kid said he had 120 people on his contact list! Sometimes chats are just hey! and cool! but they're about meeting online people from their existing physical spaces (rather than new strangers from anywhere), negotiating face-to-face relationships, and making yourself visible.

7. (In)visible partners: people, algorithms, and business models in online dating by Elizabeth F. Churchill (Yahoo! Research) and Elizabeth S. Goodman (University of California at Berkeley, School of Information)

1 billion dollars industry in the U.S. Most engaging presentation so far with some interesting insights like people wanting to make themselves more visible and make others less visible.


Follow EPIC 2008 on Twitter and Flickr, as well.

live blogging epic 2008the corporate gaze: transparency and other organizational visions

the 'traditional' balloon, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

While the administrative talks make room for the keynote at EPIC 2008 I'm amused by the tradition of this balloon. Can we discuss tradition when the event is four years old? Can we discuss tradition, perhaps, because it is an American event first time ever outside U.S.? Its purpose is to shake and shiver as speakers approach the end of their allocated slot, and while the idea is potentially effective, it certainly makes me feel cheezy. That sorted, time comes to move on with Christina Garsten's The Corporate Gaze: Transparency and Other Organizational Visions.

The boundaries of transparency are the boundaries of the corporation.

Obvious: transparency vs. opacity. Less obvious: transparency vs. secrecy.

Transparency in architecture: easy to see from inside out, not from outside in. If you ask me, people protecting their updates on Twitter are no different, so let's no restrain this to architecture.

Transparency appears to be a remedy for all kinds of corporate crises.

Transparency as a technology for trust or mistrust? Huh?!

Transparency as a matter of position and angle.

Transparency and CSR become a business opportunity for a company like Nike.

Ikea is keen to engage with customers, and partners. Hell, no! Assembling my cheap flatpack furniture does not equal taking the reaching hand of the cute company wanting to play with me.

Organisational conscience = do we behave in a moral way? Morality testing of employees.

I stopped writing down because it seemed very silly to me, very unprepared, if not at least badly presented: no case study, but plenty definitions and little palpable findings. The few questions that were allowed pointed out a lot of poignant concepts and angles (race, social process vs. corporate one, etc.) that weren't even touched, and made Garsten look even more unprepared: another very good question, I could talk about that a lot, of course, but I won't. We learned, for example, that, in relation to transparency (see above), technology rather means mechanism or proxy...

Shortly, I wrote in a new document window: this is no revolution. Chris added on the next line: this is nothing. So far it looks like any other conference, sadly, BUT we hope we'll change our minds sooner than later, and we're out to find a proper coffee now.


Follow EPIC 2008 on Twitter and Flickr, as well.

arriving in Copenhagen

the cabbage show, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

By the time I saw the staircase one needs to climb from the metro station Kongens Nytorv to the surface, I could hardly carry my bad anymore. Traveling with just one piece on easyJet doesn't make a woman's life easy, not even for a few days. Next to laptop, papers, and tools (got work to do) there are clothes, cosmetics, accessories, medicines and other comfort paraphernalia. So we opted to get out of the station by visiting some connected shopping mall, and ended up in the street right next to a flower shop that exposes its colourful cabbages all over this little square, by a cafe. Past this initial warm welcome, not much worked well: the weather is mean, the city—grim, and the Google Maps—useless. We wasted a lot of time and energy in walking round too many streets until we made it to Front, our hotel, and we stayed there quite happily with a Tuborg from the free minibar, seeing there was no way to catch the conference's first day proceedings on time. I bet that won't be repeated as such in the coming days. I also bet we'll learn our way around Copenhagen, without maps, right before we're off.

The funniest and, incidentally, most outrageous bit yet? The metro ticket machines are all in Danish only, and the system is unlike anywhere in the world, so we bought what tickets we could figure to be right, and got on the automated train. Next thing we know, a woman with very good English shows up to check our tickets and to explain that we need to get off, and tick off more of the tickets' odd bits or else she'll fine us terribly. As we did what she said (me wanting to kill her and then ask her questions) still not understanding exactly why, and how it works, we could admire a flock of helpful women like her get off our train to get back in the opposite direction train, one stop to the airport, and supposedly welcome more tourists to what must be the Danish way: we know you're cheating, and don't even try blame it on our complex rules, OK?

Update, October 18th 2008: No train runs without a ticket controller, from what we've seen, which is a terrific irony when compared to the state-of-the-art metro network. It seems Denmark will soon implement a system similar to the British Oyster Card. That may just convince me to go back one day.

how direct is your direct marketing?

stevie awards invite, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

I received this invitation with my post in Romania and my father got excited enough to scan it and e-mail it. Needless to say, I neither have nor want awareness of these Stevie Awards. If I were to pick a single reason, how about not promoting special awards for women? How is that equal in any way? But beyond the silliness of the award itself (God bless it, I'm sure some women love this stuff, it's the business Oscars), you have to wonder: how direct is their direct marketing? Am I targeted because I'm a woman entrepreneur? Because my company is registered in Romania, an exotic country? Because they bought a relevant database? Because I could buy a fat ticket? Or maybe because I help the numbers?

I love numbers. When I was 16 y.o. or so I ordered a tape from the catalogue of a German company miles and miles away. I couldn't find it elsewhere, which is rather ironic on a market full of fakes/ copyright infringements. That German company sends me direct marketing letters to the day, in Romania, a few times a year, printed in full colour, though I've never bought a second item from them and I've even taken the trouble one day to write to them and unsubscribe. But no, it'd ruin the numbers.