New Manolismos in Spanish v_2007

Eres una uva floja esperando en el agua tibia

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.

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.

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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.