get a life

asta mi-a spus mie doctorul. renunta la simbioza cu birou-computerul si da-ti o sansa sa traiesti...nu doar mental, nu doar in imaginatia ta, nu doar scriind copy-uri bune pe hartie virtuala. get a life as in lasa-i corpului timp si sanse sa existe.
faza asta cu biro-patia ne-a lovit pe prea multi. Moi de exemplu. Traiam cu senzatia ca am o viata. Lucram dar impleteam in fiecare zi (in masura posibilitatilor) asta cu o activitate din cele multe pe care iubessc (citit carti, reviste, web-browsing, vazut filme pe computer. "In masura posibilitatilor" stroke often facand din ce in ce mai imposibil sa am parte si de doze mici din activitatile alternative job-ului. Nu mai vorbesc despre cat de usor am renuntat la evadarile alea, reale, pe bune - in aer, in verde, in zapada. Argumente se gaseau mereu. Mereu au existat "ceva de lucru" lasat pentru week-end, ceva de citit pentru job, dupa care oricum nu mai conteaza pentru ca ziua s-a dus deja, nu pleci la munte doar pentru o zi, bla-bla.

Pentru ca nu intelegeam cat de important e de fapt pentru mine sa fac toate astea, in ciuda job-ului, am amanat si urcat pe munte si schi (cu adevarat, nu o data pe iarna)si fotografie si dans si teatru si prieteni si lectiile de spaniola si filmele la eforie. am amanat sa traiesc.

Si acum e rau. Pentru ca nu voi putea face multe din lucrurile pe care le doream, pentru ca a mea coloana vertebrala s-a mulat dupa chipul si asemanarea scanului din fata computerului. So no ski-ing this winter (si acum e zapada cat poftesti! spre deosebire de alte ierni) and no hiking. Corpul meu imi spune, the hard way, to stop. si de la capat, sa-mi regandesc felul in care muncesc si traiesc, sa-mi reevaluez atitudinea fata de mine, de corpul meu si calitatea vietii pe ca o s-o mai duc. Sa planific si sa reusesc sa fiu eu.

So far, am planificat doar pentru a doua zi la job ( si ce mai ramanea pe langa) sau cel mult in saptamani si etape din project management calendar.

Oare ce-o fi cu noi de ne permitem sa dam declaratii de genul:
"In rest, nu prea fac planuri pe termen lung decat pentru brandurile pe care lucrez.... si asta pentru ca pur si simplu cred ca e mai strategic asa."
declaratia ii apartine unui planner din industria locala de advertising si a fost data in iqads. Articolul complet aici

Unmarketable

A cover (featured in Best Book covers of 2007 boing boing mentioned)that made me more than curious and a book I deffinitely will read. It looks like a down-shifting-like story about the marcomm world. Still, the name and cover made by a great copy & art. And a truly marketable and marketed product. Looking forward to finding it or more about it.

Una cervesa por favor en Punta Leona, Costa Rica

Citizen Moissanite is off... or cast-away as he mumbles on the daily phonecall. Off in Costa Rica, somewhere in the middle of a rainforrest, on the coast of Central Pacific. Still jet-legged and amazed, Moissanite promisses to send pictures asap. And by asap he probably means whem he'll be back from the wild. Vodafone has no roaming agreements with Costa Rica so the blackberry can't do much but rest (it was about time, anyway) and the internet didn't penetrate as far as the wild exotic beaches. The optic fiber and wires might have scared the very rare species of birds happily dwelling there.
Well, until Moissanite is back with nice pieces of writing and shooting, here's some net-enabled findings about the place he's been cast-away.

Holiday's goodies for relatives in Spain

On my way through the city I am privileged to see the most surprising or impressive things, happenings and sceneries. I will post some stories and call the series .... "corner-eye shots".
Today, for instance, I came across a van, the colour dark navy blue, surrounded by pakages, big-size, small-size, almost all bearing at least one brand-logo on the carton box, and a lot of people.
They all flocked an area where a lot of electoral panels lay and my first thought was, oh! they're campaigning, in the streets, giving stuff to the people!!!
Coming closer I noticed that people were writing on the boxes, or taking them to their car, or securing them with scotch straps, weighing them and counting money.
And snap-shot! one box went to Nicolae T, Zaragosa, Spain.

And bingo! Every box was going to the Romanians working in Spain. Goodies for Christmas for the ones who miss the taste og winter holidays at home. I know a few stories about this phenomena and I would've loved to stop and do a quick inquiry and see what each box contains. But the branded boxes gave some suggestions: Bors Magic, 7days Croissants, Elita (cheap) Coffee, Rieni Palinca (in plastic bottles). I bet there was also some traditional smoked cheese, home-made fruit syrups and jam, some medicines, corn flower for mamaliga...

Vera Montero's show: echos

"un chagrin", "une impossibilité", "une tristesse", "une mauvaise volonté", "une chute", "une absence", "un mal de vivre", "un aveuglement", "un abime", "une mauvaise vision", "une honte", "un non-vivre", "une non-vision", "un non-vouloir", "un non-pouvoir", "une non-construction", "une non-possibilité", "une tête tanchée", "une vision", "un non-exister", "une absence de volonté"
ATROCE

This is Josephine Baker in a nutshell, as seen and interpreted by Vera Montero. Josephine Baker, a "mysterious thing, neither primitive nor civilized nor beyond time, at least not in the sense where emotion is beyond mathematics" said E. E. Cummings

Vera Montero's Josephine confrunts the audience naked and in the dark, hesitating on the brink of some existential abyss, somewhere beyond glitter, spark and savage erotism. She is tragically tied to this world, with the tragism of every moment of a human life.

This show has been a tyrany of words experienced both by the performer (a very expressive, versatile Vera Montero) and by the audience. In a dimming dark, discovering a sculptural body, balancing on some cow-shoes. Tyrany of words. some most serenity-killing words. Tyrany of phisical and pshicological balance. ATROCE.

Image from LeMonde Journal Photographique

Passe-ist advertising

Wispa Cadboury's. Another brand reminding us how it was when we were young. Suitable for Igu's passe-ist project

There are others made in RO. Simona Firtat (currently PR at The Group) wrote a nice analysis when she worked for (iqads)* Banii nostri.
Victoria Salami for Caroli by Saatchi&Saatchi
ROM chocolate (Excelent) had the Rom Tricolor campaign made by McCann Erikson
Bucegi was rooted in the past by Leo Burnett.
I'll be back soon with pics.

*Later edit: Simona Firtat was kind enough to drop me line and remind me that she, in fact, never worked at Iqads and that the article I was mentioning was written for Banii nostri and only featured by Iqads in their Media Digest (Revista presei) section. I have to take more care when writing my posts. All apologies.

Unde a disparut reclama L'Oreal

de pe IQads? stiti, aia cu Claudia Schiffer, al carei obraz cremuit si forever young se intindea peste tot articolul cand ti-era lumea mai draga. Culmea! fix peste articolul lui Alexandrescu de la Ogilvy One despre cum sa faci un site sa NU functioneze.

De cand l-am vazut (bannerul) am tot facut pariuri, ca e la misto, ca e un test facut de IQads sa vada cata lume da click pe banner, sau cat le scade traficul daca pun bannerul. Ma gandesc ca au poate cei de la IQads vreun teambuilding acum, mai putin chef de scris la "revista" si aveau nevoie de mai putin trafic.

Se cam verifica explicatia. Acum a disparut bannerul si parca au inceput sa apara si stiri noi pe IQads.

Explicatia ca ar fi fost pe bune o campanie L'Oreal nu tine. Ma gandesc ca IQads le-ar fi spus ca n-are L'Oreal public pe site-ul asta. Sau ca macar s-ar fi gandit la efectele negative pentru site, la dezamagirea comunitatii, la enervarea lor. Daca era pe bune ar fi refuzat bannerul L'Oreal. Nu?

Stie cineva mai multe? Speculeaza careva ceva?

PS: am vrut sa pun o poza cu bannerul enervant de la l'Oreal pentru ca meriti, dar n-am gasit pe niciunde. Nici pe ele.ro nu e nimic intrusiv cu logo 'Oreal. S-o fi intamplat ceva?

Today's obsession

Stripped. Depeche Mode. As felt in Bucharest when they toured the angel.


Let me hear you make decisions/ Without your television/Let me hear you speaking just for me! - what a deep cry for authenticity - in love or ailleurs.

One mysterious thing said ee cummings

I'm going to see Vera Mantero (Portuguese choreographer and dancer) dancing tonight at CNDB . Miki Braniste, biggest thanks for letting me know about this!

Vera will actually perform in two shows this evening: the Josephine Baker homage One mysterious thing, said ee cummings and also Perhaps she could dance first ...and think afterwards. I'm in the mood for dancing. The back-pain is only in the body...In the back...back!

Do come and meet me if you happen to be around the National Theatre in Bucharest at around 18.30. I will be there celebrating mutely the times when I used to dance. Picture courtesy of cndb.

London's burning

London's burning!/London's burning!/Fetch water!/Fetch water!/Fire!Fire!/Fire!Fire!/And we have no water
it's a song (about the Great Fire in 1666 London) I've been singing this morning quite obsessively only to later find out that there has been a fire and a lot of smoke in London. It seems that fire burst out at some deserted warehouses in the Olympic Park area. The stock went down. People fear terrorist attacks again and I guess it's no wonder.
They were fearing too when I first (and eventually) visited my most fantasized and read-about city in the world. I remember being stuck for three hours in the Underground because of some strange events on the Piccadilly Line. Everyone thought about bombs or false alarms. Instead, a woman had killed herself by jumping on the line in front of the train. I found it hard to breath and got my first delusion with London.
Now I miss that city. Take the smoke out!

We planted trees

The save the trees campaign continues with people from Bucharest volunteering to plant trees in one of the city's neighbourhoods. Unfortunately the campaign blog in only in English. But you can get the whole idea by simply looking at the posters and images from the awareness campaign. They say that "Abusive deforrestation is criminal", "The trees in the city are mourning for their dissapeared brothers in the Romanian forrests" and that basically what we are losing is life.

The first planting trees event happened the last Sunday and there were quite a lot people there (including local vips) volunteering to plant a tree. Here are some pictures taken by the organisers (The Media Monitoring Agency in Bucharest).

And here are some pictures we made at the big event. We all felt great and planted quite a few trees. So we are looking for the next occasion to plant more trees in Bucharest.

Even Tori helped with the trees. Until she met her friend Frida (the golden labrador).

Customer Care - How I almost got to be treated at Euroclinic

I was talking earlier about how my back hurts. This is how I've tried to solve the problem and didn't manage so far.
Wednesday
Customer Care Lady: Hello! Euroclinic, how can I help you?!
Me (Patient): Good evening. I would like to make an appointment for a Neurological check up, sometimes this week if possible. It is somewhat urgent.
CCL: Unfortunately, I could only schedule you for Monday at 12.00.
Me: Well. Ok. Thank you. I will settle for Monday, then.
CCL: Is it your first time at Euroclinic? What is your name?
Me: Xxxx Xxxxxxxxxx, X-x-x ... x-x-x
(other details are being provided for the initialization of my Euroclinic hospital record)
CCL(summing up): The medical check-up costs 80 RON(around 24 EUR). I have made an appointment for you for Monday, at 12.00 AM with Dr. Petre Oanca

Friday
(another) CCL: Hello. I am calling from Euroclinic for the confirmation of your appointment for Monday at 12.00 with Dr. Petre Oanca
Me: Yes, of course! I confirm the appointment. Thank you for the reminder!
CCL: Thank you! We are looking forward to having you here!
Me: Thank you. I'll be there at 12.00 at noon.

Monday (D-Day) 10.00 AM
CCL: Hello!I am calling from Euroclinic for the confirmation of your appointment for today at 12.00 with Dr. Petre Oanca
Me (amused): Yes I will be there. Thank you for reminding me!
CCL: Thank you. Have a nice day! (and other farewell curtoasy phrases)

Monday (D-Day) 10.40 AM
CCL: Hello!I am calling from Euroclinic. You have an appointment for 12.00 today.
Me: Yes. I will be there. Thank you!
CCL: Actually. the 11.30 appointment has been canceled and we were wondering whether you could come a little earlier.
Me: Well. I would gladly try but I don't think I can make it. It is 10.40 already and it takes more than an hour for me to get to your address. Plus there are some things I have to do before arriving at the clinic for I had scheduled the appointment for 12.00 So the best I can do is to try to come 10 minutes earlier, at around 10 to 12.00 AM. It's the best I can do.
CCL: Well, thank you very much!


Getting ready, it's raining outside, traffic, one short stop at the self banking office to get the money for the check up, traffic, back hurts.

Monday (D-Day) 11.50 Euroclinic hospital reception
Me: Hello ! I have an appointment for 12.00 with Dr Petre Oanca. Could you please tell what floor should I go to?
CCL: We have no appointment for Dr Petre Oanca at 12.00
Me: It is impossible. You made me confirm this appointment twice so far. Please do check up again.
CCL (with disbelief): What is your name?
ME: Xxxxxx
CCL: Oh but you changed your appointment for 11.30. The Doctor is out since you didn't come in time.
Me (seriously pissed): Dear lady. I did not ask for changing of the appointment hour nor did I approve or authorize of any changes. Someone from Euroclinic called me twice today to get my confirmation for 12.00 AM. The hour remained settled. Then you called me again and asked if I could come earlier. my response was negative and I said I would try to get here at 10 to 12.00 not a minute earlier. It seems to me that there has been some miss communication or miss understanding.
CCL (plain and direct): I'm terribly sorry but there is nothing I can do. You should have come earlier. Dr Petre Oanca is not in the hospital anymore. He left at 11.30
Me (suddenly enlightened): Very well. It was my first experience with this hospital. I shall never come here again. Nor shall my friends. Thank you for your time! Good day.

And there I was, in the rain at 12.00 wondering what exactly is wrong with customer care in Romania. Coming to work (late, because I had had an appointment with the "back doctor" and thus had taken some hour off) I stopped to talk about the Euroclinic experience to a colleague. She told me immediately that she wasn't surprised and that one of her friends had to repeat various tests because Euroclinic had mixed the test results of a group of patients and consequently got the wrong diagnosis to every one of them.

I'm puzzled. This is a private hospital. And an expensive clinic that charges one 80 RON only to be looked at by a doctor. With quite an active Customer/Patient relations department. Where did my good old Doc go?

I rescheduled. I'm trying another private clinic this week. My back still hurts. Why do I have to pray for luck and good treatment when I'm open to pay as much as 80 RON per visit at the doctor?

today's rain goes well with music

squarepusher

Telepopmusik - Breathe

Nina Simone - sinnerman

Radiohead - Street spirit

Bjork - all is full of love (plaid remix)/u can ignore the images but they work just fine on the track

Joe Hisaishi - spirited away (one summer day) I have to thank Felipov for introducing me to this and many other tunes

and a little loop of Sebastien Tellier's La ritournelle

and once more ... more groovy, for the feet

PRtea

Been to a PRime workshop, one in the PRtea series organised regularly at Carturesti (a very nice book&tea shop in Bucharest). I went to see what everything was about because ...well, because I like the idea of having a nice talk over my most favourite drink (and they have the best Sencha Elfentau at Carturesti!!!). And then I was so curious of what Marie-Rose Mociornita (one of the hosts at the last evening tea) would say about ethics in PR).

Although, to my shame as a professional, I had no idea that such gatherings were taking place, PRime had three PRtea meetings so far and with good themes as well. The first PRtea was about trends and practices in the Romanian PR, a discussion hosted by Crenguta Rosu (DC Communication) and Sorana Savu (Premium Communication) Thhe second meeting was about creativity in PR, a PRtea made by Gabriela Lungu (The Practice) and Andrei Bortun (Millenium Communications)

So I went last evening to listen to practitioners and students talking about Ethics in Romanian PR. A few conclusions/ideas/dilemmas/wishes, if I may:
1. youngsters are more and more interested in acceding in the PR business. especially girls :)
2. they are also extremely naive
3. Everybody agrees that it is not very important how you look in PR ... as long as you look good. At least that's the impression "PRists" give me lately
4. it was an 99.9% female audience. Scary. Especially if you consider the "have a life" rule, humourously communicated by Mociornita. Where are the boys? Are they not interested to learn. Don't they like tea? :)
5. PR professionals/practitioners don't open up and don't give examples. It was too a warm and comfortable discussion about real and uncomfortable issues in Romanian PR, especially when talking about ethics. Very little truth spoken. Very few points made, even fewer taken :)
6. 90% of the hosts conclusions started with "in my view, in my world, I'm not speaking for my PR agency but for myself" In my opinion, you can not prepare for objetive rules and act responsibly on the market within the industry if all you can decide upon is what you deeply believe. I wouldhave liked to see a PR agency leader openly taking some of the responsibility of fighting unethical PR - a reality that was acknowledged by everyone present, including the speakers. How can you tell some students to be fair and firm and reject any unethical practices at work when no head of agency has the courage to break the chain and speak up.
7. Ethics in Romanian PR is more about common sense and less about real rules, and rule enforcement. And not surprisingly so. nobody (or very few) within the industry take the responsibility of reporting the ethic infringements and of educating the stakeholders. Very little time remains for seeing to a sound industry where lie, fraud, paid news, false PR, false CSR and fowl practices are being fought and punished.
8. The press has a pile of examples of bad PR. Liliana Seban sais she hopes that at least some of them would appear on a blog, for education's sake. And then again? Why do papers keep silent about these big DON'Ts? Why don't PR professionals fight the bad practices that are affecting the whole industry's reputation and sound development by exposing them? I guess we are all waiting for the natural selection to do its job. And for the rotten apples to eventually die.
9. Meanwhile PR people in good respectable agencies work hard, stay anonymous and get low wages while the bad PR guys get all the fun, sparkle, fame and money just by playing by the "laws of the land". They will be disqualified in time and with more and more powerfull and serious competition. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing that happen. But my fear is that there will also be innocent casualties. Youngsters with no experience and no maturity to decide whom to follow. The industry itself, suffering from negative perception, wrong understanding of its areas of action, of what it can and cannot do etc. This is why I'm also hoping for more responsibility from Good PR agencies. A discussion like the one last evening would shure have been a good place to start. Maybe next-time.
10. Professionals tend to leave regulation to time and nature laws...hoping that the long time effects of bad PR will eventually turn against the currently rapidly ascending bad PR embracers. Because good PR believes in good PR's self sustainability and longevity, in the benefits of a good reputation instead of the charms of fast great image.
11. Reputation is not the same as image. The first is long term, slowly built and carefully consolidated. Reputation takes consistency, persistence, no mistakes, fairness, seriousness and patience. That's why PR is not about short term results.
More conclusions to come...

Poly says her back hurts

27. back hurts. not from the snowboard, not from paragliding, from the chair in front of my desk.
This is where I dream of writing my texts swinging in a hammock, or at least, in style, in a vintage rocking chair. Having my prohibited coffees, my full-of-callories creamy-cinnamon milky&foamy or cointreau-spiced cofee, the almond cake, the chocolate sponge, virginia wolfe and comics, rahmaninov and the cure, thick, fulltexture, coloured napkins, a light sunny breeze or a warm cashmere blanket and a window open to the freezing cold dawn. Images found here and here as they say, the rocking chair to give as present to a retiring friend.

Discriminarea se invata acasa

Un mic raspuns la o problema complexa, cu care autoritatile lupta pe mai multe fronturi. Si daca tot trebuie sa incepem undeva, sa incepem prin a fi noi in ordine.

Stay hungry, stay foolish

a great speech from Steve Jobs (a total opposite to the Microsoft chief motivational speech

when freedom makes people less equal

It's something I saw on the street just a few days ago. A woman, coming from the grocery market passing calmly by the many strangers on the street. At some point she noticed a family coming her way. A young man, a young woman (probably his wife) and two kids, one on foot and the other in his mum's arms. The woman immediately pulled her purse closer to her body and gave the group a suspicious, aggressive look. They were a little bit darker than her and knew exactly that this was why the woman reacted like that. They passed her by - the lady seemed relieved - but at some point the young man changed his mind. He stopped and asked her: "do you really have to react like that just because we're gypsies? " The lady blushed. Do we discriminate without knowing, without even questioning our opinions? But of course! Even Mr. President does it. On TV!!!

IAA Summit, Bucharest, 2007 The learnings

1. Romania is not there yet. We are some good years behind the Western capitalist advertising world despite our hectic tour de force where local advertising has grown in 15 years as much as other in three decades (it's the Prislea way - Prislea = local version of Prince Charming)
1.1. their speakers are better than ours. Even when it's formal, academic and long, their presentations are full of content, relevant examples and conclusions. They were raised to make presentations and public speaking is a must for any high profile representative of the communication industry. This doesn't really apply to our local Heads of comms/agencies/professional bodies.
1.2 they have great study material. Great work. Real unconventional media. Breakthrough solutions.
1.3 our market is not yet that ready to embrace out of TV communication. But it will be so we'd better prepare
2. some speakers did not know where they were. But they didn't have to salute either so no "Good afternoon Budapest!" this time.
3. CSR is really being taken seriously abroad whilst, in my opinion, in Romania it's just something fashionable to talk about. the branding guru did say "giving is the new buying" and it makes sense in their world. In ours it's not that vital to support a cause to make your products sell. U still get through with a TV ad and an aggressive media strategy. That explains why the local cause branding initiatives I know didn't care as much about getting results as about owning a theme/stealing it from the competitors. This translates pretty much in themes that have been confiscated and that are never-to-be embraced by any other company. Well, CSR practitioners at IAA summit talked about how everyone (every company) is responsible to add up to a CSR theme until it becomes a general trend, making more and more people react and starting to generate effects. Out there there are campaign ridiculing SUVs found on the city streets. In Romania you are being laughed up if it occurs to you to support a theme. There are, of course, exceptions. Vodafone bought helicopters for SMURD, Whirlpool employees spent one week building houses for those in need, other companies are recycling paper. ..

emotional spillover

It's one of those days when you feel that too much has been adding up, that life is made up of too many wires, that so many feelings and hunches, and thoughts and conclusions are left un-structured and un-tamed. that holding on is just another problem and that you just want to burst into emotions and express the not-to-be-expressed. Today I'm Virginia Wolf, Edward Norton in Fight club, Great Expectations (the whole movie!!!), Tori Amos in all of her writings and singing, Tarantino's Bride, my worst self.