Friday 14 December 2007

New Manolismos in Spanish v_2007

Eres una uva floja esperando en el agua tibia

Sunday 2 December 2007

Is there really a "world of men"?

Reading a blog post from Susan Mernit, "Women and Tech: Earn vs. Have" where she comments over another post from Shana Albert entitled Social Media and Gender issues come back to haunt me in which this last one says "The issue is my past insecurities of being a young female professional in a man’s world. I earned my spot then and I will keep trying to earn my spot in the Social Media world now as well".v To which And Mernit replies in disappointment: "While I respect her point of view, the big bing that went off was this: Why do women continually feel they have to earn a place in the world? Why don't more women recognize that they have a place, and the challenge is just to keep it, or to expand what you have?". I can't avoid wondering how "a world of men" might feel like... I never felt I lived in a world of men, and definitely never felt that I had to "earn a place" in between a space "ruled ?!?" by men.

In any case, when I think about my working experience and life in general, trying to recall the problems that I have had when working on projects, at school and generally at work, those have mostly involved women. Women who (as I perceived it) have fallen in a strange trap in which they think they need to prove they have got the ruling scepter and need to bang it against the floor for others to acknowledge they have got "power", and then (maybe unconsciously) became some sort of powerful witches who travel around surveillant, in their power brooms. Women who think they live in a men's world, definitely do... they create it themselves and suffer from it, fighting until exhaustion against their own monster, and dragging other women to it, along the way.

I can only think that as women feed machismo, inculcating it themselves in their own male children, they also feed "the men's world" by (instead of living in a men & women's world) trying to fit into their perception of a world which is men's.

Tuesday 27 November 2007

My indifference to brands and branding

Sometimes I wonder, whether my indifference to brands makes me an alien in the advertising and marketing world. Yes I use a Mac, no, I didn’t choose for it. Yes I’ve seen that movie, no, I don’t know the name of the actors. Yes, I like that sweater, no, I don’t know where the brand comes from. Yes, I have one of the latest Nokia phones, no, I don’t know when it came out or if its better than the iPhone. Yes, I like good food, no, I don’t have a favorite restaurant. Yes, I like a lot of music; no I don’t know the name of the band, nor the label. Yes, I know a couple of good designers, a couple of good musicians, a couple of good writers, a couple of good people; no, I don’t really know about the ones in hype. Yes, I care more about what is happening around me and around the ones I love, no, I don’t like watching news, they have biased opinions, show mostly tragedies and pain, create fear and play the world according to the interests of a few (they should be called “The Bad News Channel” Tragedy to your Home). Yes, I believe there is too much advertising going on everywhere, no, I don’t support any anti-advertising campaign. Why? Because by supporting one cause you are supporting the other. It’s inevitable; by talking about anti-advertising, you are talking about advertising. Yes, I could know all what is hot, no, I don’t really want to know who all those glossy people are. Yes, I think some of they look very pretty, no, I don’t think l will look like them by using their creams, but yes, I could look like them if I want to… after all, I’m good with photoshop too.
Now I wonder… have I instinctively become the nightmare of all marketers as I used to be for all religious priests and preachers? I don’t believe in their Gods and therefore, I can’t really be controlled by them. Their sacred images are only representations of what I suspect they hope or fear (which is the same at the end). I guess I haven’t fell in the myth which says that knowing about popular people and brands is “general culture”. But I also guess I’m the only one who thinks of it that way. I am becoming used to see the astonished/disappointed faces of those colleagues of mine who can’t believe when I say: no, I don’t know who you are talking about… But yes, I’d like to hear about that theory.

How can I then be of any use to the advertising world? Well… Por que a mi me importa un pito si el mundo funciona a pilas, con kerex o a gasolina.

Thursday 22 November 2007

A lil something I found... and obviuolsy liked ;)

A discipline is something you follow.
A practice is something you do.
Neither defines what you are
And that’s the important distinction

From presentation: Architecture for Conversations:
What communities of practice can mean for IA

In the faces you see, you see just who you need.

Having an interesting chat with a good cyber friend of mine, who (as we said that night) finally had a face; I had to recognize that the people you meet are the people you need at a specific moment (in another moment/circumstances, you wouldn’t let the same people into your life). Sometimes you are too good, and then you will meet evil in the sake of balance. And you meet people who are in your same level, if you’ve learned something then you will pass to a new level where again, you wouldn’t let those people into your life again. I started reviewing each one of the people I knew who actually caused my life to derive in another direction. I was trying to create a picture of them, of how I used to perceive them, to then draw from it what I was in need of or, what was my situation in those days. It seems that in times when I was stronger and more stable I met wacky people who shook my life unstable, so that I would have to repair it in a puzzle building mode (I can think it must have been a good thing at the end… but, mnnnn, only learned to keep away from those kinds), and in the times when I was kinda naïve I did meet many smarty pants who went around life thinking that they could get away with everything and stepping over anyone who would cross their road and was apparently less smart (or less careless I would say). I could think that the lesson would have been to find a balance between being socially naïve and socially smarty pants, but I only learned that I could be more me-first-minded, but that I like a lot more to be a we-all-minded, that I enjoy collectively creating something and to have the trust of people who can see through me (not so many dare), rather than being a wisecracker individual. And I also met very good and extremely dedicated individuals who dedicate their lives to social and ecological causes, and I learned that one is not here to save anyone, but rather to help in their own and particular way… some will safe whales, but that doesn’t mean that the ones who eat them don’t help in another way. Well… this post is becoming too long and I still keep on remembering more and more people, and I guess it’s true, in the faces you see, you see just who you need.

Saturday 17 November 2007

Between Balance and a Lost Passion

“Everything happens for a reason” say most of the people, and generally for good. Life usually seems to have played wrong (hard) on you, but at the end, it brings you to better places and brighter states. Usually, I agree. Not because of the analogy of it, but mostly because there is nothing else you could have done. You could have only done what you did, because the interaction between you and the particular circumstances of a specific moment, made things and events happen. And for some reason, I deeply believe that somehow, life brings you always towards what is best for you. Out of a conversation with a friend, I had added to my belief that everything happens also in the sake of balance. If you are too good, you will meet evil to internally find a better balance. Then I stopped for a minute and thought about those creative people who have had their creations lost or destroyed all in one event… were they too focus on creating? Were they creating too much that they needed to face destruction to learn that… nothing is eternal, although everything is? Then again, we browsed in our memories for friends who had passed through those kinds of situations and none (can’t remember the exception) had ever taken back his/her creative activities of pursued any further the talents that were victims of that lose. Some of them, being excellent at what they used to do, became couch potatoes and, as almost all of them, dedicated their times to completely different activities.

Thursday 15 November 2007

The Dutchy Dutchiest Mentality Proven Wrong

Ok, I have to admit that I use “Dutch Mentality” in the title in a friendly way, as in a way to make fun of cultures and countries (which I think we should all do in order to laugh about our differences rather than fight for them). And, generalizing is not really my kind of approach, neither my intention in this post. I can’t affirm that “Dutch people” are in a certain way, because there are only collective characteristics that apply to a group of people but still don’t apply to all members in the same way.

Anyways, reading some of Greek philosophy I couldn’t help but think of the Dutch. In Ecuador (and then again, I refer to my experiences there) what you usually do when you have been assigned to do something, you look for the person that is collectively known as “the master in the subject” and you request their help to resolve your issues. But also, when you know that someone has done something or knows something you would always ask and avoid the waste of time that would be to try to find it by yourself, or do the research all over again. What I mean is that you would always ask people to just “teach you”, tell you how, when and where, rather than try to do it by yourself. We say, we don’t want to “re-invent the warm water” and we never try to do complicated things in our own, we gather everyone who is needed (and sometimes some who are not needed but are good company)

Dutch people in the other side (and this again, is my personal experience in Holland) reply to most questions: Have you look for it in Internet? Have you try books? and the friendlier ones say: mmm, I’ve got some links that you can check up, or give you the titles for books.

In my first year in here I thought, but… but, It would take you 5 minutes to explain me, why do I have to go and do all the research and spend 2 or 3 hours in it, just for the sake to do it by myself?. Later I thought that maybe that approach is better for learning to do stuff by yourself, gather more knowledge and become more independent. Now, the independent part is never sounded totally convincing to me. Why would you want to be independent if we all work together better, by complementing each other when we all collaborate to put the puzzle together by doing the single chores we are talented at? But then again, someone told me once: “maybe that’s why we’ve become a first world country and you guys are a third” (although we are a second world country). Sounded reasonable, maybe we were not independent enough.

But recently, I was reading nice article that talked about the Greeks. They used to laugh at people who did complicated things all by themselves. The ones who tried to do it all by themselves were considered “idiots”, for the simple reason that it’s just easier to solve a difficult problem in a group than alone. They thought that doing stuff collectively did always led to better results; and, it was easier and more fun than doing it alone.

Hurray for collectivity!!



* the article I read was from... mnnn InformationArchitects.jp?? not sure, i'll be back with the correct info. I should note the addresses and names of the articles I read, since my mind loves to remember concepts and usually fails to remember details :)

Wednesday 14 November 2007

The Daily Paradox: A Complicated Description of Simplicity

Browsing through internet and reading some blogs, I found a "simple description" about IA and UE. I read it many times trying to match it with my definitions, and couldn't avoid thinking: Isn’t IA and UE all about presenting meaningful information in a friendly and structured way which is easily findable, accessible and understandable for all users?; and if that is what the discipline is really about, shouldn't the "description of it" match the standards of its practice?

This is the "simple description" I read:
"Composition means gathering elements of meaning and emotion from the environment, the audience, and in one’s self, applying what one knows and feels about experience, and then expressing not so much a solution as a creation. the process of composing has rules by which it’s conducted, but the actual composition of a work – including an environment that provokes desired experiences – remains a personal feat and something of a mystery.

The natural next step will be for designers of experience to integrate and apply the methods of scoring and wayshowing concurrently, Thus creating places, not only in the physical world but also in the virtual worlds of knowledge and understanding, that reveal themselves in the same way that a musical composition is heard. This is composing for experience."

by Bob Jacobson

... It's beautifully expressed, but somehow I need to read it and re-read it again to grasp the real essence of it, so the experience of this description (to me) is: I thought I got it, but when I thought about it, I didn't... and I got lost somewhere in the middle of the story, although it had a pretty romantic end

Tuesday 13 November 2007

The Life Chasing Game

Why is that whenever you look for (try to get) something, it goes away? It happens in relationships (apparently very often) but also in every event of life. Having realized that, I had stated that I was just not looking for anything anymore, neither was I deciding what to do nor planning. My thinking behind it was that if you decide, you then chose one way or another, left or right, but if you don’t, you will always stay in the middle. It’s a matter of acceptance, confidence and trust. Once I had realized that there was nothing that could happen to me if I did not get a visa, if I did not qualify for a master, if I lost my job, if I had to leave a country and even if I lost whom I love, I came to a moment of brightness in front of my eyes in which I saw my worries and could only laugh. I was being afraid of something I didn’t know, something that could come and could be better than all.
Then I realized that while I was thinking (for months, after overcoming a painful incident) that this empty sensation I felt time to time was due to the lack of something (after all, emptiness means that something “is” missing), what it really was, was the incorporation of another feeling that I didn’t have record of previously in my life: “fear”.

In any case, talking to Thieu, in one of our multiple “mix-of-topics-and-subjects-that-return-to-the-same-starting-point-to-diverge-into-many-more” conversations, we talked about this life chasing game. The understanding came refreshing. People who look for something; who try so badly to get something and cling into things, are people who think they don’t deserve those things; and that’s why they try to get those things with despair, because (thinking) knowing they don’t deserve it, makes them so afraid they won’t get it or if they have it, so afraid they will lose it. And that is why chasing doesn’t work. People who chase things have sabotaged themselves. They have hijacked their brains unconsciously and think they don’t really deserve what they are trying to get.

Wednesday 7 November 2007

Tierra Lejana

Tierra lejana, tierra que floreces y mueres en mi alma
a la que abandoné hace 6 años y la que aún sigo abandonando
mientras este corazón te entierra bajo mi olvido
con todos esos otros muertos que se quedaron en tu suelo prolífico.

Llueve y llueve tras las ventanas del tren
como si esa lluvia viniera del cielo, para limpiarme la soledad que deja el destierro.

El amor tan intenso que te tuve patria mia,
se vuelca a un amor humano por mi cultura y la cultura de todos aquellos hermanos
que tan diferentes parecieron cuando aun en casa y que hoy son tan cercanos de raza;
Y en un amor por un paisaje mágico y maravilloso
(al que aprecio tanto por que ya no es mió,
pero por el que siento un orgullo casi viciado
de saber que aunque no es mío yo desciendo de él,
como desciendo de los indios y de los montes y los prados).


De tanto cantarle al aire solitario de mi casa me he vuelto un pájaro soprano
le canto con las entrañas las sonatas que mi memoria saca del subconsciente
le bailo con las caderas como si siempre las hubiera meneado,
burlando mi pasado en el que nunca bailé los ritmos hispanos
y sacando de la sangre, el calor de cualquier latinoamericano.

Recuerdo la fe que le tiene mi gente a un Dios en el que yo no creo,
y no se como contarles que esa fe inculcada solo nos ha traído desgracias.
América Latina necesita un camino nuevo,
las heridas son profundas y trascienden en el tiempo,
a esas no las curan ni los llantos, ni los silencios,
ni un Dios "bueno", que niega el pan a los indios y a los negros desde el cielo.

Angeles, Julio 2007


Which one came first, the “meet the deadline approach” or, the “quality delivery”?

Is it really an academic thing to have to take some extra time and deliver something that shows quality rather than something that meets the client’s deadline? I heard [the wise words] of the head of my department “clients forget late deliveries, but they never forget bad deliveries”, and I felt it was right, because it fit into my view of what seems appropriate within the corporative world. But for a project manager, that is just an “academic approach”, which is not acceptable behavior in the business world [I undertand their point of view, their job is after all, to manage resources to deliver stuff on time]. Nevertheless, I felt a military approach to things, and I couldn’t avoid asking myself: Are we trying to create an environment similar to the not-so-long-gone industrial age in which our work is to produce like machines, rather than in a more hybrid, informal and conversational environment that nurtures ideas and drives innovation?

I’m totally conscious that both approaches need to meet in a middle point where deadlines are as important as good and innovative deliveries, but non should be –in my opinion- more important than the other. And there is where I stand.

P.s: I had to deliver stuff on time, and I've got to admit, it was not a bad solution, but not nearly close to what I know we could have delivered within 2 more days. At the end, it was just a "worked out concept" delivery.

Web Ethics for the Sane and the Naughty-Wanna-Be

Some people seem to find an easier way to say certain things in a chat room or by e-mail. And until a certain point, especially for people who would rather write than talk, it becomes a perfect helpful medium. But some others seem to use the web as a kind of mask where they can cowardly shield behind and misbehave. They feel [envalentonados] to say and do things they would never dare in person. I had met once someone who in person was a very kind and gentle person, but that unfortunately turned into a scary online stalker. He would write so many seriously terrible and harsh things on many of my public profiles and file sharing applications.

One day I finally decided to write him an email and ask him for a personal meeting, so that he could say everything he wanted to tell me, offline. He never showed up. His first reaction was panicky; an email with a kindly written excuse and apology. I noticed that for him, getting new accounts and posting terrible comments in my profiles to provoke me, had become his new game, a kind of naughty killing-time (part time) hobby. Part time because every 3 weeks the stalking would peek and then disappear for another 3-4 weeks.

We kept up a conversation for a couple of days in which he was very keen on knowing what I had to tell him, and I was just reaffirming him that he would be the one doing the talking, that the meeting would be just a way for him to get off everything he has in his chest on my face. After a prolonged dialogue, it became clear that there was no real need to meet in person; but once he felt safe again, it didn’t take more than a couple of days for him to pick up his old habit very quickly again.

I think this kind of behavior is not only childish and unfair, but also very unethical. I would say that offline and online, the same rules of communication should apply, and before you write something to someone, you should be honest and ask yourself if you would really say those same things to their face.

Monday 5 November 2007

Favorite Internet Quotes

If you have a website that is not user friendly, you have an unfriendly website which basically means that you lack manners. The specialists use that word (”user friendly”) so often that they forget that “friendly” actually is an ethical term.

"The Electronic Gentleman"
Information Architectures Japan

Saturday 3 November 2007

Do we write to remember or to construct?

When we write down personal stories and our everyday lives in offline diaries, do we write to later on remember or to construct an image of ourselves for ourselves to identify with now? or, do we ultimately do it as a way to leave a trace/proof of our existence in the world.

Online diaries and web presence is different I guess. In those, the main objective is to create a public image of ourselves, and to leave instant trace.

Diaries and personal blogs interest me because in many occasions by reading them I understood more of who I was, by the words of another.


P.d.: I got thinking on this theme from reading a blog entry from Ana (overpills)
http://halfbakedmedia.com/ana/?p=19

Tuesday 9 October 2007

My Favorite Sets of Words


And all of the angels have sold their souls for a set of new wings in anything gold

Thursday 30 August 2007

Auctions of the day... Aproveche!!

I'm moving to Amsterdam soon and I have got a couple of things that I thought I could put up for auctions so that I can get some extra money to cover the moving expenses.

FOR SALE:

1. My consciousness (almost new, used it once or twice - was worth a lot back in the day) - for sale or for rent
2. Amnesties (in multiple sizes)
3. A couple of differences which are not averages (in the original boxes and with 8 months warranty)

Place your bids here

oh! and be quick!

Sunday 1 April 2007

Summer Times


summer times, originally uploaded by silvana and one angel.

Summer will be here soon again!!
Nice memories and music festivals... the latin sunday was fantastic last year.. tango was in the air and oh yes, way too much parting and wine that at the end was never enough.

We're getting ready to start in this picture... Bartje is listening carefully to the instructions and off we were... to dance!

Photo by: Marcel Bosch
http://www.mtabosch.nl/