don't go dizzy

Discontinued

2010-04-21T17:39:00.000+02:00

From now on I will be focusing on my new blog: www.miculescu.com. Feel free to drop by!

Buzz Off?

2010-02-10T22:55:00.002+02:00

I got Google Buzz today, but I must confess I wasn't quite as excited about it as I was with Wave - mostly because the latter has only pretty much disappointed me so far (e.g. I don't think anyone has logged back in since toying around with it for the first time).

What I do like about it, though:

if anyone is ever going to be able to pull together all that mess we call the social web, it's going to be Google
it's built into Gmail (which has hundreds of millions of users already), so its adoption rate should be quite historic - that and the fact that there's none of that "invitation" nonsense, it's just rolling out to everyone
it's more convenient to follow shared items from Google Reader directly from within Gmail
I like the mobile-oriented approach

And what I really don't like:

that mobile-oriented approach has to suffer from the dreaded "everything should be browser-based" motto - I do not want a web app and I will not use it - now that Google has Android, it could seriously create one of those brilliant native apps (take Gmail or Maps for example) and would be even more decades ahead of the iPhone OS
(updated) I can't use the web app anyway, apparently it only works on Android 2.0+ phones
it's still in uber-beta mode - for example, for some reason it's posting photos from my Flickr from one year ago and marking them as very recent

Despite all of the negative feedback it's gotten, though (hence the post title), I'm going to give it a shot...

foursquare in Romania

2010-01-31T23:20:00.001+02:00

I didn't think much of foursquare until I picked it up while in New York and found out it can actually be useful to some extent - it just might be that perfect exponent of the location-based trend we all keep hearing about. I guess the tips are the best part about it (and the special offers from businesses, of course, if you're among the lucky ones who have actually managed to get them).

However, the truly interesting part is to see it being picked up in Romania. Over the past few years, I've seen Twitter grow to about 20.000 members (at least that's what they're saying) and Facebook to about 500.000 (idem) - so I'm looking forward to see how this smartphone-only service will play out.

Only a handful of people use it right now, so Bucharest is still in that annoying "not-another-venue-I-have-to-recreate-in-order-to-check-in-at" phase - but it may just have potential. I'm quite curious to see which local business will be the first to set up those special offers...

By the way, it's disappointing to already see cheaters (sad little people who just hit "Check in" on just about every venue in their area without actually being there).

So what's the web's next big thing?

2009-11-30T19:57:00.000+02:00

(pic via)

How To Outsource Romania's Maps

2009-09-08T22:54:00.008+02:00

At the beginning of this summer, I wrote a rant about Romania not being properly indexed on Google Maps. A friend noticed it on Facebook, and asked me if I could help start something about this using the Causes application.

A few months flew by, and the cause "Google! Put Romania On Your Maps!" has 10,208 members as of the time of this post. The cause has sparked others (including a petition on Twitter, to which Google responded), and has been mentioned in the Romanian press and even on the Google Lat Long Blog.

And from that very post on Google's blog comes the company's sheer brilliance: they have an application called Google Map Maker, which allows users to create and/or edit user-generated maps of any given area, based on their own local knowledge. And they just opened it up for Romania.

Now, I didn't exactly know how this works (and most importantly how this crowd-sourced content actually makes it to Google Maps itself), and it just so happened that Jen, a Maps Community Organizer at Google, left some helpful comments right on this blog (you can never, ever say that Google isn't on top of its game when it comes to communication).

Here's how the whole thing goes:

Visit Google Map Maker and search for, let's say, Bucharest
Add or edit (more about this and a walkthrough in their Help section). As you create or moderate, others will pitch in with feedback (which you'll be notified about via e-mail).
How does your stuff get to Google Maps (and its API)? There are processes called data transfers, which are done at a certain period of time - the last one was on May 24th - more here - Romania should be on the list next time.

Now comes the interesting part - seeing how many of those >10,000 people actually respond to this call-to-action. It's utterly needless to say that if everyone adds or edits at least 10 items, the first data transfer should cover quite a lot... So map away! [pic via]

Androids Are Heroes Too

2009-08-13T00:37:00.006+03:00

Ever since trashing my iPhone, I've had the privilege of getting my hands on a shiny HTC Hero. This has also been the first time I really got to know Android. All I can say is that I'm fascinated.

Is this one a worthy oh-so-sought-for iPhone killer? I think it is. And it's not just about the fact that the device is state-of-the-art (it has everything one needs minus a flash for the camera), it's also about what it more or less stands for: open-source. There's a theory going around nowadays about how the iPhone has already seen its peak, that companies who try to control their customers will end up in the bin, and how the concept of open-source (such as the Android OS) is getting stronger by the day because it gives its users freedom (and, erm, Google Voice).

All I can say is that, after tinkering with Android, I think that Google's evil plan to take over the mobile telecommunications world (as well) just might work.

"Not another social network?!"

2009-06-18T21:42:00.012+03:00

Online social networks have been literally booming over the past couple of years, thriving on the content that they don't even have to create - why should they, when hundreds of millions (if not billions) of users, myself included, are doing it for them?

That's all fine and dandy, but it seems to me that something went wrong along the way, and the bubble's beginning to burst. There are so many out there now, that many people are now hunting down the best app which can do the best job at updating all of them at once. To put it simply, it's just too much to handle, at least for the average (non-geek) user.

Which more or less conveniently brings me to my next point: because of this clutter, many good up-and-coming social networks don't stand a chance.

Take Dopplr, for example. It has a very simple, yet particularly useful purpose: as Jimmy Wales put it, "You put in your travel schedule and link to your friends. It allows you to see where everyone is. I love it." I'm personally an avid user of Dopplr, and I'm making serious efforts to get my friends to join, simply because it's easy to use, very handy and arguably the best there is on its niche. Unfortunately, their usual response is "Not another social network, dude, I can hardly handle the ones I'm on as it is!"

But then again, typical social networking users don't check out TechMeme or follow The Crunchies. Hell, I don't even think they've ever googled their way into finding the best solution. They're not seeing the good stuff. They just go with it on a first-come, first-serve basis.

So I'm wondering whether the problem is, in fact, this never-ending stream of crappy alternatives to the good networks, this clutter... Or is the discouraging and brutal truth that they don't really care? If so, take that for a target consumer. [pic via]

Not Cool, Google.

2009-06-09T20:01:00.007+03:00

Dear Google,

I'm a bit disappointed by your neglect of Romania on your Maps service. It's summer 2009, and you still aren't providing any street maps whatsoever (only a handful of major roads). Not that I'm bragging or something, but this is indeed an issue. Here are some facts to help you digest the ugly truth:

Romania has the 9th largest territory and the 7th largest population among the European Union member states
Bucharest is the 6th largest city in the EU by population within city limits
Bulgaria, who joined the EU at the same time, has Google street maps
Apple has been selling Google Maps-enabled iPhones in the country for over a year now
even an Android device will soon hit the local market

And the list goes on.

The worst part, though? All those questions/requests/rants on your Support page - which, as you may have imagined - still go unanswered. And you even have the nerve to list it as a first result on a search for Bucharest!

The Google Car's been spotted on numerous occasions around here during the past 6 months - great - but isn't an actual street mapping crucial before you start providing Street View? Do something, already!

Yours frankly,
An irritated customer.

Posting habits

2009-04-08T12:27:00.006+02:00

In the next instalment of my series of excuses for not blogging often, I say this: it's not really practical anymore, for me at least, because there are more convenient substitutes. Let's break it down a bit:

I find an interesting read. I either tweet it, post it on Delicious, friendfeed or on Facebook (and if I find it in the NY Times, I just use that wonderful app entitled TimesPeople).
I take an interesting photo and want to post it. It either goes to Flickr, Twitpic or Facebook.
I'm at an event and want to do some live 'reporting'. Tweetie it is, then.

So, once again, here I'll only be scribbling down random thoughts which I find inadequate (or, better said, just not short enough) for either of the services mentioned above. [pic via]

The Real-Time News Cycle

2009-02-25T13:10:00.009+02:00

Hasn't the news cycle changed yet again? There was the 24-hour news cycle, then the 90-second one, and now we're closer than ever to the real-time news cycle. I'm not going into the literature, but rather giving examples.

Today, a Turkish Airlines plane crashed near Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. I first heard about it from BNOnews, at least 15 minutes before Reuters picked up the title, then CNN and SKY, and then everyone else. The proof is right here. The first picture I saw was on Twitpic, from someone who was driving by on the highway, and then came the closer shots. By that time, I was already monitoring the #schiphol hashtag via Twitterfall, as new information became available. And my TwitScoop column in TweetDeck looked something like this:

Even as I'm writing this, I'm getting tweets about the press conference they just held.

Twitter (and its universe of tools) has managed to become a real-time news provider. Sort of. I agree with Stephen when saying that we just *found out* about the story on Twitter, while getting a closer look via the usual major news outlets. Then Paul Smith pointed out that this won't change journalism - it will enhance it, by merely changing the way we engage it. For now...

Shiny New Safari

2009-02-24T22:03:00.004+02:00

While Mac geeks everywhere are drooling over the release date of the cool Google Chrome (myself included), the folks over at Apple seem to have gotten the vibe and released a beta version of their acclaimed Safari browser, which, I must admit, is very tempting.

For someone like me, there weren't really many options: decent-constantly-updated-and-packed-with-features Firefox and kind-of-simple-and-not-really-attractive Safari.

But that changes with v4 of the latter, with the nice Chrome-ish tabs, impressive speed, a better design and all of that Apple goodness (like Chrome's Top Sites starting page, only neater; or Browsing History in Cover Flow mode). It sucks to be a PC right about now.

How To Get Bashed on Live Television

2009-02-10T12:48:00.006+02:00

Or how to stumble upon the best incentive to get a job on another continent.

I found this on Pete's PR Hall of Fame - it's about talkshow host Noel Edmonds basically crucifying a press officer (also disclosing his name and exact position) for declining an invitation to the show by actually stating something like "we don't talk to entertainment shows like yours".

There's a worthy cause in the middle of all of this - a disabled Royal Marine hero who didn't get approval for the construction of a bungalow properly suited for his needs. You can read more about that on the Facebook group (which already sports more than 190.000 members).

I guess that the PR guy did ask for it...

[pic via]

Risky Business

2009-02-04T20:07:00.002+02:00

Weber Shandwick has just released Risky Business: Reputations Online™, which is "a worldwide online survey of 703 senior executives conducted by Weber Shandwick in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)".

Some of the findings which I find rather interesting:

global executives are 5 times more likely to trust traditional media appearing online as they are to trust strictly online media (72% vs 13%)
the greatest perceived online reputation risks are employee criticism and confidential information leaks (41% each)
a huge 87% admit to having accidentally sent at least one message to the wrong person (potentially inflicting serious damage to their rep)
very surprisingly, 38% track search engine results and use social media monitoring tools
only 10% believe that building relationships with A-list bloggers gets them anywhere

You can find it all here, plus some fine tips on how to properly handle your client's online reputation. Not bad at all!

Adieu Apple Mail

2009-02-02T20:57:00.001+02:00

Like just about everyone, I have to deal with two types of e-mail: personal and work-related. In terms of choosing clients, the latter doesn't really give me any options, because our company policy clearly states that we have to use Outlook on our workstations, and if not, we can access its webmail version (which unless you're sporting IE is practically as useful as SquirrelMail).

Now since I use a Mac for just about everything else, I've been conveniently attempting to go with Apple Mail. But that doesn't seem to work anymore (maybe Snow Leopard will look into it some more). The alternatives? Entourage or Thunderbird. Guess what - no, thank you!

The solution: plain old Gmail. The classic browser-based version. After reading last week about the proper implementation of Google Gears solving the 'offline access to e-mail' issue, I was convinced I could give it a shot. So I did. And it works. After spending an hour or so to put everything in order, assign the proper labels and set up my other mailboxes, I was set. And I finally get to (really) use the Ninja theme. BONUS: Google's neat little menu bar Notifier.

#googlemayharm

2009-01-31T17:16:00.006+02:00

It seems we're witnessing the day Google messed up?!

As of less than an hour ago, Google seems to have introduced some kind of extra browsing protection and is now flagging EVERYTHING as potentially harmful for your computer - even itself. The Twittersphere went crazy (just check the hashtag in the title or use Twitter Search). TechCrunch is covering it too - let's see what happens.

In the meantime, can you imagine a world without Google?

Update: By the time I checked again, everything had already gone back to normal, and the whole malware issue seems to have completely disappeared. Now let's find out why this happened.

Update 2: Google came out with an apology, along with a detailed explanation of what had happened, about an hour and a half after everything was back to normal (at 9AM on a Saturday morning, to be more precise). In other words, a textbook example of how a situation as such can be handled.

In-Your-Face-book

2009-01-28T16:10:00.005+02:00

Following Bogdana's description of Facebook as being "a face value book of private lives", I do kind of see that tabloid approach on its users, due to that controversy it generates over apparently innocent settings.

Example: today I noticed this story from one of Sergiu's tweets about how a man chopped up his ex-wife after she changed her relationship status on Facebook from "Married" to "Single". Now there's some self-esteem.

An example of my own (not as harsh though): when I got promoted this year, I thought it would be best to leave the old position listed and just add the new one with the very same company. After adding it, I checked my profile and noticed something like "Mihnea no longer works at McCann Erickson". Good one!

Experiment: my Facebook relationship status is "Single". I have just changed that setting to remove any status. The latest post on my profile is now as follows: "Mihnea is no longer listed as single" - and I have already been asked twice about why I changed it. A far worse alternative is if you feel like keeping your "Married" status off the record - your wife will have a blast. :)

Now, I do know that one of this social network's very first functions was this gossipy relationship status trinket, but let's not overdo it with the remarkably misleading notifications, people!

The History of the Internet

2009-01-27T18:25:00.002+02:00

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

I've just come across this video - and combined with the flashbacks from the Cisco Networking courses I used to take, it really does take me back. The video's a bit technical, but still interesting.

The first online community for Romanian PR practitioners

2008-12-10T21:48:00.004+02:00

After almost an entire year of development, we have finally launched PR Progress, which, as the title suggests, aims to be the first online community for Romanian PR practitioners. It's been up for about two weeks now, which just proves how crazy things have been for me at the end of the year (for my post to be that delayed).

We'll be covering all kinds of juicy industry-related stories, ranging from news, interviews, case studies, events and so on, and only focused on PR - which no one else does around here. You can also find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and on our blog. Unfortunately, for those of you who aren't fluent in Romanian (meaning the vast majority of the readers of this blog), it won't help much, but hey, you can always give Google Translate a shot.

The local PR community's reaction has been very good so far, so let's see where we'll be a year from now...

Gninja

2008-11-23T23:54:00.004+02:00

Yes, everyone knows that Gmail unleashed its "Themes" feature - and "Ninja" really is able to spice up my day-to-day e-mail (hoping to see more themes, just like in iGoogle). But did you know that some of those themes also apply for your shared items in Google Reader? Which, by the way, I'm getting back into, effective today. I haven't really used it until now because - and I'm not the only one to have reached this conclusion - there's just too much stuff to keep up with.

New client

2008-11-20T23:26:00.002+02:00

Tomorrow I'll be going through an intensive briefing session for a very cool player in the automotive industry. Which basically means a new client in a new market. Consumer, too. More about that as the story develops.

Why the iPhone will rule the world

2008-11-16T20:06:00.011+02:00

It's June 29, 2057. I suddenly hear a soft female voice telling me that it's 9AM, and that I must wake up. It's my state-of-the-art, state-subsidized iPhone, which then lights up the entire room (in that universal remote style, just like that Adam Sandler film, Click) to show me a hologram with video footage of the phone's history. Yes, it's now officially been around for 50 years.

Everyone's obliged by law to have an iPhone now. It acts as your ID, your passport, the keys to your house and car, your personalized remote for anything and, of course, the best government surveillance system ever invented. The global mainframe it's constantly logged onto is, of course, controlled by Google, but that's another story.

Why all of this? Because even though scores of tech geeks just like me don't really find the iPhone as being that great (and that there are a lot of much better-equipped handheld devices), its application platform is in fact becoming frighteningly useful in our everyday lives.

Besides the already downright ordinary yet, and let's not forget, fantastic features (like Maps), and even the ones most tech-friendly peeps have come to adopt (including Google Earth or various IM and social networking apps), here are some of my favorite iPhone apps (not web apps) so far, by category. And I'm not even going to start with all of those location-based goodies.

News
Apple was already doing well with its daily news podcasts (or you could just go with feed readers), but major news outlets from all over the world have already developed their very own stand-alone apps - the best ones so far are NYTimes and Le Monde.

Wikis
Which would, of course, refer strictly to Wikipedia-powered apps. The best ones, from my point of view, are Wikiamo and Wikipanion.

Dictionaries
Yes, these do come in useful quite a lot (or at least I rely on them a lot). Try WeDict or Dictionaire for those in English, although there are many in different languages as well. Those two are free, but for a reasonable amount, even the Consise Oxford Dictionary can fit into your home screen. And there are translation tools too. And as a big bonus, a lot of foreign language phrasebooks are also available (gotta brush up on my Italian for the winter holidays).

Twitter
I found this one worth mentioning. As I start sliding into the slightly cooler apps, I just have to mention Tweetsville - it's by far the best client (although I do have high hopes for TweetDeck).

There are many other very cool pieces of software though. For example: Shazam lets your iPhone dig up the name of that song you keep listening to but never know who is singing it (and it works). Remote lets you control your iTunes via WiFi. Pocket Aid gives you vital first aid information on the spot. Ocarina is a bloody music instrument designed for the iPhone. There are tons of voice memo apps, like QuickVoice. Last.fm and Deezer stream your favorite music, as long as you're hooked onto a WiFi network. Dog Whistle freaks out dogs by sending out sounds that only they can hear (haven't tested it yet). And BubbleWrap tries to cure everyone's compulsive popping disorder.

Need I say more?

[pic via]

Docendo discimus

2008-11-12T13:58:00.006+02:00

Yesterday, I was invited to hold a guest lecture at the University of Bucharest, for a course on "Methods in Public Relations". I tried to focus on the basics of media relations, with some local real-life examples of how things go (very) wrong when one doesn't abide by a simple set of rules. The presentation is on my Slidespace, but it's in Romanian.

Even though I went there to teach, I ended up actually learning something.

Something very interesting came up towards the end, during the Q&A round. It was about getting internships - in the last point of my presentation, I had urged them to go out there and get some experience before they actually finish college, when they'll be wanting to get full-fledged 9-to-5 jobs in the field.

Now, having tagged along to quite a few student presentations with my fellow agency colleagues throughout the years, it hadn't come as much of a surprise to me for students to pry some hiring tips out of the speaker (which is something I would have done at that point, as well). But they were quite frustrated about the fact that no one will take in interns without any prior experience, and thus they can't get any.

Above anything else, I think that this is one of the Romanian academic infrastructure's major issues. As opposed to the US (where universities explicitly help their students to get 10-week summer internships) or the UK (where the entire placement scheme is also very elaborate and implies a lot of internship time), the Romanian version of 'mandatory practice' obliges students to do 3-week internships (oh and here interns don't get paid at all, no matter how long they stay) at any organisation, as long as its activities involve at least something similar to what they're supposed to study. No one really cares, and thus students usually ask an acquaintance to sign off on the form which acknowledges their so-called practice, and in most cases they never even show up to 'work'.

Anyway - my reaction was that it's not true, and that I know about a lot of local agencies who are always looking for interns, and if you're any good, you'll get a job offer in no time. Then Bogdana (a colleague of mine, MD at MRM Partners Romania, who had a presentation afterwards), told them that due to the way the web has evolved, they can basically do anything to somehow get noticed.

It then hit me that maybe, just maybe, the notion - which usually applies to companies - that "your corporate website is actually Google" (I heard this from Stephen), can also apply to one's personal brand. I actually checked this afterwards by googling myself - it turned up my blogs, my Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger and Plaxo profiles, and two positive interviews, which isn't half bad! So then, an applicant may very well be judged by the reverse theory that if one can maintain a good personal image, he or she can do a good job for their clients, right?

I got a truckload of other insights as well, which I promise to work on solving within several upcoming projects.

Docendo discimus is latin for we learn by teaching - it's certainly true as far as I see it. It was indeed a great experience.

[pic via]

Cannes now does PR

2008-11-03T16:02:00.004+02:00

I noticed a press release today about the introduction of a new competition at the oh-so-desirable Cannes Lions as of 2009, namely Public Relations.

From what I make of the (probably) inaccurate translation into Romanian (the release was sent out by Romania's local Cannes rep), the subcategories will be Crisis Communication, Public Affairs, Corporate Image and CSR.

Somehow, I think that PR is in need of that Riviera glam - and it can easily end up being the world's largest competition of the sort. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.

[pic via]

A Milestone for Online Comms in Romania

2008-10-19T21:43:00.004+02:00

Even though it may be a few years back, our local media landscape is also changing, as bloggers (along with the whole new media shift) are challeging traditional media around these parts as well.

On Friday, Cristi Manafu (Romanian A-list blogger, Managing Partner of a business events company, former Editor in Chief of several publications such as Campaign Romania, and so on), along with two other experienced industry pros, launched the first online communications agency focused on social media PR (although many aren't comfortable with this term, entitled Prodigy, a company which plans on offering services such as: Online Reputation Management & Monitoring, Online Communication, Social Media Coaching, and Content Optimization.

It's a first, and a remarkable one at that, so congrats! If our PR agencies don't stress on the development of their own such services, I sense a monopoly. :)

It's been a while

2008-10-19T21:41:00.000+02:00

For the past few months, I've been constantly on the move, heinously ignoring what was once a decently updated blog. And then that guilt slowly started cornering me, so here I am now, right back at it.

Might I add that since I started my other blog (the one in Romanian - which mainly focuses on particularities of the local marcomm industry and is intended to reach a slightly different audience), I've had quite a bit of trouble positioning this one: the key factor in writing on two blogs about more or less similar topics (even though they're from a different perspective) cannot actually end up being the same thing.

Now, as I was saying, it's been an intense couple of months or so, as I'm working on a pretty big project aimed at our local PR industry - something that some friends and I felt was missing in our quickly-emerging market, so we're taking a shot at it - I'll provide more details on this later.

Anyway, due to this project, I've had the privilege of getting the support of some amazing people - no, really, they're industry legends - such as Mr. Toni Muzi Falconi (whose opinions you can read on the collaborative blog PR Conversations), John Paluszek of Ketchum, or Arthur Yann (Vice President of Public Relations, PRSA). Even though this isn't exactly the most appropriate setting to do this, I would very much like to thank them for their help so far!

Also, due to the fact that I have just about gone through two years of Public Relations, I'm slowly reconsidering my career path and am more and more curious about how it's done in a truly developed industry - English-speaking, of course, as I find it somewhat difficult to communicate with people in a language I'm not completely familiar with - I wonder if London may just be the best start for that...

[pic via]

Hello, 3WPR!

2008-09-01T12:53:00.003+02:00

Stephen Davies has just finished setting up his brand new online communications consultancy, 3WPR, which you can read about in the news release or on his blog. Its purpose is to help business adapt to today's changing media landscape through services such as Online Public Relations, Social Media, SEO and - and these are even more interesting - mobile approaches and an Online Communication & Engagement training course.

Allow me to wish Stephen the best of luck!

Tasting the Big Apple

2008-07-29T05:01:00.003+03:00

This summer, after getting my university degree, I decided to spend all of that unused vacation time in another time zone. So - surprinsingly, I know - posts will be even more scarce, Twitter activity will be dramatically reduced, and I won't be doing my e-mail so often. The only exception is that my Flickr will be seeing a lot of updates.

On the other hand, you can spot me around town in tourist mode during weekdays, and in various techno clubs and groovy bars all over Manhattan.

And remember! You know you're from New York City when the subway makes sense.

Luxurealism

2008-06-30T18:30:00.004+03:00

I recently stumbled across SQUA.RE (I don't know how I missed the articles back at the beginning of the year, when it was launched), which is an invitation-only, community-generated Internet TV service targeted at young people interested in luxury.

The content is very attractive, and is split up into 4 categories: High Living, Nightlife, Style and Escape, through which you can find anything from footage of A-list parties from all over the world to the most tempting travel getaways.

The registration process implies contacting the SQUA.RE staff for an invitation, after which you're free to post your content (which can either consist of videos or photo slideshows, with a very funky 'custom soundbed' option). Your content is reviewed, and if it's good enough, it'll even be featured. If you check out the homepage, you can find one of my slideshows featured there.

I must also mention that I was impressed about the people behind the service being very open and hospitable (cheers, Olivier). You can read more about SQUA.RE in a review by Forbes, or browse through the social media news release (courtesy of webitpr).

Is UEFA too egocentric?

2008-06-26T01:42:00.000+03:00

I have been tracking the UEFA Euro 2008 website since the group phase, and they did a very good job in most areas. Apart from the usual sections, such as team descriptions and match schedules, I have noticed:

real-time scoreboards
almost instantaneous news updates and photo galleries
a mobile version
surprisingly, a clearspring widget launchpad with excellent social media distribution
a nice fanzone with all kinds of contests from the championship's official sponsors

But riddle me this: with the support of a very-well-put-together online presence, UEFA does not give away what may just be the essential part of an international football championship: videos of the goals.

They have a video magazine, you'll say. You can pay only 1.99 EUR to see the full replays, you'll say. You can choose pay-per-view or your national TV station for watching the games live. Whatever!

Why is it so hard to simply create an embeddable player on the championship's website and show the goal highlights of every match, right away? It's not like people won't record them and upload them somewhere else anyway! I just discovered something very amusing: while looking for a good example, I stumbled across this video, which starts by pointing out that "YouTube does not allow football video highlights". A potential problem? Nope. Just check out the link in the video's info box. And there are many more such examples.

Wake up, UEFA. And smell that coffee.

Graduation Ratification

2008-06-25T14:50:00.005+03:00

Due to obvious time constrains (the deadline is next week), I keep adding bits and pieces of content to my grad paper (previously ranted about it here and here), whenever I get the chance to (I have taken 9 exams since last Monday and have 2 more to go).

The entire process of this so-called document of academic accomplishment is very interesting in Romania. In my university, it's the most popular issue among seniors, who tend to forget about the real exams they have yet to take and focus on writing a 40-page piece of explanatory blabber about a certain topic related to the field of economic sciences. Probably because of the final evaluation method required for all students, if they ever want to see that university degree: an oral presentation of their grad paper. Wow. Talk about inflicting fear of that evil, blood-curdling PowerPoint.

The situation I'm in regarding this plethora of academic nonsense is pretty interesting too. I have chosen to write a very basic introduction to how PR is used in web 2.0. Cliché? You betcha. Constructive? Yes. Hard to deliver, considering that there are professors who just plain don't believe in the internet? Hell yes.

After constantly simplifying its contents, here's its updated structure:

Chapter 1: Web 2.0 - The Big Picture
You can already guess what this will be about. The only problem is cramming relevant events into 10 pages of Times New Roman 12. And 1.5 line spacing.

Chapter 2: Social Media's Evolving Role in Day-to-Day Public Relations Practice
As tricky as it may sound, fear not. It will ramble on and on about the eternal question of traditional media vs social media, provide a lot of stats (I'm including results from Universal McCann's Wave3 research that Brian Solis was talking about a month ago), and then unravel the tools used by PR people nowadays (such as SHIFT's Social Media News Release template, appropriate online newsrooms, blog monitoring services and so on).

Chapter 3: Case Studies
The mandatory component of any grad paper, I chose examples such as Dell Hell, JetBlue's Valentine's Day Hostage Crisis, The New York Times giving up paid online subscriptions, the Apple insiders' hoax via Engadget and so on. Good stuff.

Chapter 4: The Local Industry
This one shouldn't be very hard to write up, as it'll simply outline the social media happenings around here and how our PR people still aren't using these methods to their full potential.

And that's it. I wonder if anything interesting will come out of it, except, of course, a mere aggregation of the already-existing theories and stories.

Download Day Delirium

2008-06-13T19:54:00.003+03:00

Who would've thought, a few years ago, that the number of downloads of a certain piece of software could make it into the Guinness Book of World Records?

As a Firefox user, I've always known about SpreadFirefox, Mozilla's community marketing program for its beloved browser. And I have been noticing how Firefox is quietly becoming more and more popular as a browser (all of the sites/blogs I'm tracking via Google Analytics show that they've been opened with it much more often).

Anyway - version 3.0 is coming out, and they've been building up to the event for quite some time now, with all of the Beta versions they've been releasing.

And that's when Download Day came up. An absolutely exquisite 'call-to-arms' in order to set a new world record for "number of downloads within 24 hours" (which I don't think has existed until now, anyway). And talk about getting people involved, including reaching out to social media - I see MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Twitter...

So check out their randomly amusing examples of world records, and then, if you are indeed a Firefox user (and I'll know), pledge now...

The day the phone meant something else. Again.

2008-06-09T18:09:00.005+03:00

Quite the hysteria about the highly-anticipated 3G iPhone, due to be introduced during today's Steve Jobs keynote at WWDC in San Francisco. So when I noticed that Twitter's crashing again (check out Summize), I knew it was time to also write something about this. MacRumorsLive just sent me a TXT via Twitter telling me that there will be Live SMS updates, only to send another one a few minutes later, saying that "There is a chance that our SMS service (Twitter) will crash...".

Anyway, besides what the basic rumors point out, here's what I'll be expecting, as a current iPhone user:

increase that battery life! 1 day is not enough!
if the Enterprise program kicks in, please don't make companies buy separate licenses in order to run the stuff on iPhones
editing documents?
some power management features would be nice
Wi-Fi 802.11n?
better syncing via iTunes?

I can't think of anything else so far (I repeat, other than the features already rumored to come out). The App Store is going to be a huge improvement for the iPhone, and I can't wait to test it out.

But until then, let's sit and watch...

**UPDATE** It's here.

Hip hip hooray for Romanian PR

2008-05-28T21:30:00.004+03:00

I guess that the title pretty much sums up my enthusiasm quite well. Last week, in Venice, 4 Romanian PR agencies - McCann PR (affiliated with Weber Shandwick), The Practice (with Publicis Consultants), GMP PR (presumably affiliated with a large network, not yet announced) and Rogalski-Grigoriu (independent) - proved their skills to their European counterparts by taking home a lot of gold from the 2008 edition of The European Sabre Awards (here's the complete winners' list).

I'm very surprised to see that one of the (if not the) most prestigious PR competitions in Europe doesn't have an actual website.

But anyway - The Practice won the Platinum SABRE (which is the equivalent of most festivals' Grand Prix) against campaigns such as Edelman Germany's "Dove Pro-Age" or McDonald's UK's "McJob Petition" programmes. Then, our very own McCann PR's Coke Zero launch won the Gold Sabre in the "Consumer Marketing - New Product" category, beating campaigns such as JCPR Edelman's "Xbox 360 Halo Launch" or Shine Communications' "PlayStation 3 UK Launch". And so on.

Is this enough proof that our PR industry is getting better and better, and catching up to the number of international awards won yearly by our advertising agencies (by the dozens)?

Perhaps the First True PR Social Network?

2008-05-18T18:35:00.005+03:00

PROpenMic is a Ning-powered niche social network for anyone who studies, teaches or works in Public Relations, and anyone else passionate, at that.

I just came across the website, and after overcoming a slight fear that economics students have nothing to do with a social network explicitly oriented towards PR initiates, I instantly noticed an interesting exclusive they've got going with Edelman Digital's Vice President Phil Gomes, who does regular video Q&A rounds with the network's members - this week's frenzy is over what the users would like to know from Blendtec's George Wright, the man behind the Will It Blend campaign, who got the company an incredible 500% sales increase with an initial budget of only $50.

I must say that, content-wise, it also does a very good job at aggregating things from job & internship opportunities to intriguing industry-related blog posts. And it's growing - it had about 600 users when I found out about it, and I'm now their 830th. I wish them the best of luck!

The Next Generation of Social Networking?

2008-05-17T19:59:00.006+03:00

At least that's what they claim Gates says on the index page of the service's website. But I wouldn't go that far.

Xobni (the reverse spelling of 'inbox') is a new Outlook app I had read about quite some time ago, and never really got to test it before I got a private beta invitation which turned out to be sent exactly one day prior to the official public launch (good play, though).

If you use Microsoft Outlook to process more than 50 e-mails a day (and I've got at least twice that number), you may find that you've had enough of it after one week - I'm not really a fan, and prefer Thunderbird (if we're talking about Windows), or Entourage (for Mac OS) - although Apple Mail turns out to do its job very well too. So you might imagine what a wreck my Outlook inbox is, after about 1 year and a half of e-mails.

What Xobni is excellent at, after it indexes your entire inbox (I just left it working overnight), to put it simply, is helping you find "that important e-mail that girl from the network whose name you don't remember sent you sometime last year". I consider it the app's primary advantage, and use the feature at its fullest.

But that's not all - what it also tries to do, hence the title of this post, is to pull a 'Google Analytics' move on your e-mails and provide you with individual stats of your conversation history with everyone you've ever exchanged messages with. Graphs with the average of the time of the day you found it easiest to communicate with that person, phone numbers extracted automatically from any e-mail (still a bit woozy), all of the attachments involved in any conversation, and so on. You can even add a picture to the person's profile, which may come in very handy at some point.

But I don't think that just by adding the word "profile" to the whole concoction, the service can actually be included into social networking. I do recommend it (my work colleagues have been installing it like crazy), and ask you this: "Do YOU find Xobni to be the e-mail version of social networking?"

A stroll through Stephansplatz

2008-05-13T23:30:00.004+03:00

After countless interactions with various local hotspots and an unexplainable absence from any international traveling activities, I visited Vienna over the weekend.

I had been to Vienna for quite a few times, but I had never really observed their lifestyle (which is said to rank as the 3rd best in the world), nightlife (which ISN'T boring, as many might think) and, of course, social media habits. :)

After miles of scouting the city streets, accidentally getting into a very fun private Russian karaoke bar and meeting more Romanians than any other place I've been to, the verdict is: relaxing, everything works like clockwork, classy, very good nightlife (hint: try Phoenix or Passage), and they spend more time on Facebook more than they do on IM apps (and now that there's FB chat...). A very good example would be that after we partied on Saturday night, the pics were up there before I even woke up the next day.

Assumptions: it's going to be a very busy (and, therefore, FUN) summer this year, because the city will be literally infested by football fans from all over Europe. Also, it's a wicked place for a summer school or an internship program (only if you speak German, for the latter).

Hint to all Romanians: Vienna is not uncool because it's fairly accessible by any common means of transportation. Do the whole "old-but-famous-buildings tour" and then try to blend into the very ethnically-diverse crowd and just go with the flow.

Also, I found suddenly leaving the country for the weekend a very good exit strategy for my birthday - getting away from it all is pretty fun on these occasions. :)

And now to test Dopplr's integration with Flickr...

The Twitter Revolution

2008-04-20T23:51:00.003+02:00

...Or yet another post about why The Twitter Effect is confusing the most active of participants to the Social Media rebellion. There's serious concern (and controversy) as to whether it will, in fact, be the social media event of the year (as opposed to blogging in 2006 and social networking in 2007 - Facebook, most notably). At first I thought it would be something more general, namely microblogging, but what seemed to be Twitter's toughest competition - Jaiku - turned out to lose too much ground by closing new user sign-ups right after the Google acquisition.

As many have realized, blog posts pop up in our feed readers rarer and rarer, 'new comment' e-mail alerts aren't as annoying as they used to be (because it isn't that often anymore that you subscribe to one and then regret doing so because it's literally spamming your inbox), and more and more people become your followers each and every day.

And if you're still not convinced, just look at all of the desktop clients (Twitterrific, twhirl - not that you specifically need one, as you can just do it all from your web browser or any IM app) or all of its related websites - which you can just find on Twitterholics. And then check out all of the web services out there which have developed ties to it (Facebook apps, reminder websites, and so on). Then the meetups. The concept was first witnessed with bloggers, and quickly expanded here as well. Just search Upcoming for them, or for related events. We even had one in Romania at the beginning of this month, and it turned out great.

I think that the effect is mainly due to its mobility features. Even though there's a sturdy, fully-functional SMS interface, mobile apps (and webapps) are coming out every day - which means that anyone can react instantly, which might even lead up to saving lives. When's the last time you blogged from your mobile?

Let's just sit and watch where it will all eventually go.

[pic via]

Eco-friendly In Traffic

2008-04-20T22:50:00.003+02:00

In the age in which everyone is morally against the pollution contributing to global warming (but no one really does anything about it), I'm actually about to explore taking one step further in being "eco-friendly". Not that I'm very fond of the term itself.

'One step further' because a few weeks ago, the bloke who sold me my car was trying to tell me something about it being 82% ecological (in terms of the materials it was built with) - even the brake pads. Take that, top polluters!

So out of my love for Mother Earth, my concern for the well-being of my future children, and, of course, for the fact that I won't be legally allowed to drive for the next 3 months, I've decided to adopt a method of urban transportation very similar to that of the citizens of Rome - namely, a scooter. And not just any scooter, but one from the brand which pretty much invented the notion, namely Vespa. Handy in traffic, classy, and it gets about 80 miles to the gallon.

Now all I have to do is to convince everyone else to try two-wheelers. (For me) to stay healthy, that is.

This week's most important city of the world?

2008-04-02T21:35:00.005+02:00

Yes, 24 presidents and 26 prime ministers (or something of the sort) - supposedly the most powerful men and women in the world - are cooking up a lot of stuff these days in Bucharest, at the unbelievably secure NATO summit.

Now, at a +30 million euro event, you'd expect everything to go perfectly smooth, wouldn't you? There's even a VIP lane, restricted to anything non-related-to-the-summit, which basically cuts the city in half.

And out of the ~3500 journalists accredited for the event, the summit staff picked a very bad bunch to disturb, namely Reuters. And here's what they had to say about their very first experience with the event:

Journalists arriving for a conference of the 26-nation defense alliance in this recently joined ex-communist nation got their first shock at Otopeni Airport on Tuesday when they found there were no cabs to take them into the centre of Bucharest.

Reporters were invited to take an official shuttle bus and told it would be allowed to use the cleared VIP lanes on the highway into the city. It was not.

After crawling through traffic jams for 90 minutes, some journalists were barred from entering the summit press centre because crashed computers could not print accreditation badges.

Others were told their applications were still being checked by security.

"Come back in two hours," a Reuters reporter was told. Some journalists were still without a badge on Wednesday, a day after their arrival, and were denied entry to the summit.

Once inside the cavernous 3,000-room Parliament Palace, built as the "House of the People" by late Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, journalists discovered a new snag.

U.S. President George W. Bush's lips moved silently as he delivered a keynote speech at a venue elsewhere in town. The audio link was not working and headphones had not arrived.

The rest of the article is here. As I don't exactly know how they didn't get to use the VIP lane - and how that was ultimately inconvenient (because there's hardly any traffic in Bucharest these days), I'll have to admit that the registration and the sound during Bush's speech are disasters.

Does it make NATO look bad? Or the summit's host country? I'll let the story's opening line answer that: No taxis, no badges, no sound -- welcome to Romania, host of the 2008 NATO summit.

Moral infringement

2008-03-28T00:22:00.004+02:00

Princeton's WordNet defines the act of plagiarism as a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work. Different types of this vile misdemeanour can be found here. Am I going gauchely portray the industry professional whose actions led me to this rant? The answer is no. But allow me to try to summarize the event.

Recently, I sent out a (usual, old school) press release with some news about a certain programme our company is running. Just about one week later, a competing agency puts out a press release about its own such program, which it had been preparing for quite some time now. Nothing unusual up to this point.

But - while reading the latter - when I come across a paragraph in which I read the exact same sentence that I wrote a few weeks back, am I supposed to be angry? Or maybe simply flattered by the ingenuity of my storytelling?

[pic via]

Losing ground

2008-03-28T00:07:00.002+02:00

Yes, I've said it, I'm really off track with my blogging. Why is that, you ask? Because I really have found the whole microblogging thing to be quite effective, and much more handy (I'm into mobile a lot).

A lot of very well-known and read bloggers have been pointing towards a sort of shift, former anti-tweeter Stephen wrote about the Twitter effect, and as that network has been gaining momentum, Loic Le Meur popped an interesting question today - namely:

If you had to choose between Twitter and your blog, what would you choose?

The poll currently shows that blogs are winning at an almost 2:1 ratio, but it still makes you wonder, doesn't it? Anyway, there's one thing I know for sure: even though the posts may be a tad shorter, I'll try to keep them flowing at a (relatively) constant rate. Until I really do delete the blog and turn to my ever-growing Twitter page.

[pic via]

Scandal or no scandal

2008-03-12T00:17:00.004+02:00

I recently witnessed (and was involved in) an interesting case of what seems to look like a blog scandal, although I wouldn't exactly call it that.

A few weeks ago, I used my company's blog to post something about McCann PR (our Weber Shandwick affiliated PR agency) looking for an account exec - nothing out of the ordinary just yet, seeing that it's become common practice, and it always pays off.

Somewhere along the way, within a day or two of posting the announcement, we got a trackback and a comment suggesting that before anyone looks into a job opportunity at our company, they should read something first. The blog, which had been started one week prior to this, related a series of events in which our HR department allegedly called in people for a Junior Copywriter position, but by the time they got to the meeting, told them that the position had already been occupied. Then the bloke started giving other examples, and ended up writing a 2-page piece on how crappy and preferential our agency's recruitment process is. Comments from anonymous people quickly followed (they did provide a link in our more visited blog).

Basically, the rant was that our advertising agency (along with the entire industry) is very difficult to get into, and usually, it only works if you know somebody who knows somebody who is told to hire you - an endless cat and mouse game of what (and just how good) connections someone has.

Our reaction came about pretty quickly, from our CEE Creative Director, whom, noticing the blogger's frustration that he hadn't managed to get into our creative department, assured him that only he and the Associate Creative Director are directly responsible for recruiting people in the aforementioned department, and proposed to send out a test - right there, as a comment - and expect an answer on that same blog, to keep everything transparent.

His comment was perceived as extremely arrogant by the blogger, and generated yet another post, in which he (weirdly) did an entire logical analysis of how his question hadn't been answered. And from then on, a series of (tens) of incoherent comments from an apparently large number of people (most of them anonymous, of course), which some of our colleagues eventually picked up and replied to, from time to time.

And last time I checked, they were still wondering why we hadn't provided them with an official response. I guess that regional management figures aren't considered official enough.

This is a case study I'll be properly building - as the aftermath is also interesting. Some said that we shouldn't have even bothered answering, others said that we should have provided a reply on our blog (which would've meant giving them a lot of extra traffic - uncalled for, I'd say), and others said that we were indeed too arrogant and should've been more swift and to the point. Most people, though, said that it was a perfectly normal reaction and that it's important that we pay attention to everyone interested (one way or another) in us.

Somehow, I don't see it as a blog scandal. It was more like a collective rant on a no-name blog (and one blog alone). Objections?

[pic via]

MacBook Mutiny

2008-03-01T15:33:00.003+02:00

For about a year and a half now, I've been solely using Apple's MacBook Pro (15" display, Intel Core Duo 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 Pro) - since I bought it, a couple of updates had been introduced, and I was waiting for the next one, so I could finally change it (after ~350 charge cycles, its battery only lasts ~10mins nowadays - sweet LAPTOP, right?).

And here's what they came out with, last Tuesday. Wow. Penryn and the multi-touch system introduced on last month's MacBook Air. As a confident MBP user, I can't exactly say I'm thrilled... And neither could (almost) everyone else - check out an excerpt from the Engadget coverage:

Aw snap. It finally, really happened... kind of. Apple has just dropped a nasty refresh on its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines [...]

And then they started to ask around what people would like to see in the next MacBook Pro. HDMI, perhaps? Blu-Ray? An SSD option? A better graphics card? Or something revolutionary, such as the premiere implementation of that WUSB technology?

Hallmark Holidays

2008-03-01T01:49:00.002+02:00

You do know what the term stands for, right? Funny thing is that rumor has it Valentine's Day was actually invented by this greeting card manufacturer.

I've been witnessing something very interesting with this (obviously) American holiday - Wikipedia says it very well:

In Romania, the traditional holiday for lovers is Dragobete, which is celebrated on February 24. It is named after a character from Romanian folklore who was supposed to be the son of Baba Dochia. Part of his name is the word drag ("dear"), which can also be found in the word dragoste ("love"). In recent years, Romania has also started celebrating Valentine's Day, despite already having Dragobete as a traditional holiday. This has drawn backlash from many groups, reputable persons and institutions^[36] but also nationalist organizations like Noua Dreaptǎ, who condemn Valentine's Day for being superficial, commercialist and imported Western kitsch.

It's true - although we Romanians have a completely authentic alternative for it, we just ignore it, don't we? On Valentine's Day, the city was literally jammed - couples at cafes, movies, restaurants, etc. Advertisers went for it, and have probably had great results this past month. On the 24th? Nothing. A lot of people didn't even know about it.

I don't agree with nationalist organizations (because they're so obsessed with it that they try to translate literally anything and put it into a hilarious context), but the 14th of February is superficial (because every girl out there says she doesn't care about it, yet she throws a fit if she doesn't get any presents), it is commercialist (and you just have to turn your TV on during that week to figure it out) - and it's definitely imported. I think the greater majority of this country's citizens are desperately trying to identify with their apparently better Western friends. Which is just sad.

In the meantime, it's Martisor today (1st of March) - a tradition (designed for women) which is pretty much still working around here - lucky for guys that it's on a Saturday this year. :) Let's observe...

Web trend schemes revisited

2008-02-19T01:38:00.004+02:00

Well this is elaborate - after mentioning this last summer, I came across Tokyo-based strategic design agency Information Architects' latest, much more complex and witty Web Trend Map (v2008 beta), via Raw Stylus.

I've been exploring the thing for a couple of days now, and I'm wondering whether I can still get the A0 poster - it would be, needless to say, a lovely item for office decorating. Until then, I'll be wallowing in the medley of rib-tickling sneers and Tokyo's elementary cartography.

"Global Affiliate" it is, then

2008-02-11T21:05:00.001+02:00

**An update is mandatory on this topic**

Within 48 hours of writing this post, I was contacted by Paul from the CIPR membership department, who let me know that they have just appointed a new Head of Web Services, who will be helping to give the current website a total facelift. He then shed some light on its upcoming features, and kindly asked me for feedback, and what content I would recommend for the website.

I appreciate the quick reaction, and promise to give my two (constructive) cents right here, soon.

-------------------------------------------------------

I recently joined the Chartered Institute of Public Relations' Global Affiliate program, which, for me, basically means that I have access to their website, which I had thought to be a giant resource pool in terms of state-of-the-art tools and extensive know-how of all of the deep corners of PR. Foolish me - although I must agree it's a great initiative, which is bound to offer much more in the near future (take a hint), it hasn't exactly got all of that stuff I was expecting (good call, Stephen).

What may be of more interest to me, though, is the community side of it all - but then again, a nice LinkedIn-like network wouldn't be half bad... What else is there to it?

Branding a country

2008-02-11T19:56:00.000+02:00

The background: last Thursday, an interesting press release from the Romanian Ministry of Tourism stated that they have allocated 9 million euros for two campaigns: one would be related to promoting tourism in the country and would cost 2 million, and the other would be an image campaign, to properly promote the country in Spain and Italy, where a vast amount of Romanians make a living one way or the other (they aren't really seen that well).

Problem: although the specifics weren't stated, it was most probably referring to a conventional TV campaign, the greater part of those budgets most likely being allocated for media buying.

Now, I must admit that there's quite a problem when you start looking up information about my beloved country. For example, try Google Image searching "Romania" and see what the 4th result is. According to what I'm seeing, it's a disturbing picture taken from an article on child abuse. Doesn't it roughly project the overall perception of this country? And since there hasn't been one significant campaign in order to convince a German citizen, let's say, to come see what the country's all about and that he won't get robbed during the cab ride from the airport - how is a TV ad aired on several international news channels from time to time going to change anything?

Country branding, in this case, basically has to breathe credibility. So how about hiring a PR agency network with all of that cold hard cash, in order to try to sort things out, and NOT doing the phased-out 'our-ad-on-Euronews-will definitely-make-us-look-better' gig? More to come on the evolution of this process.

That's constructive

2008-01-29T23:34:00.000+02:00

As I was trying to look up some stuff on Geopolitics, as the only study material our professor has provided us with is comprised of 6 slides and a few extra pages, a seemingly brilliant colleague of mine (cheers, Vladutza) pointed out a line from a CGI flick, which seems to utterly describe the academic attitude reigning over my generation: "Just smile and wave, boys, smile and wave!"

Unfortunately, I've come to figure out that this approach isn't only used in this area. Don't those few words form the optimum amalgamation of what a PR person's attitude shouldn't be like? I know I've seen it done.

8 things you (probably) didn't know about me

2008-01-21T21:55:00.000+02:00

I noticed this tag quite recently, as Stephen posted his version of this meme while I was still an outcast of the web, as I had barely returned from my winter vacation adventures. But seeing as I don't respond to many of these, allow me to proceed with revealing a random list of some of the aspects you probably weren't aware of, regarding myself. And they're not ordered.

I got into PR by randomly answering a graduate recruitment ad. What you probably don't know is that before doing this, I used to play around with (and actually manage to pull of quite nicely) some music events (courtesy of various friends, whom I also did the logo design for), did some web design projects (out of which certain ones were never quit completed). So my actual job application looked a little something like this (a sort of online CV), as at that time I was pretty much unaware of the cheesy way I was pathetically trying to sell myself in). But it worked.
I'm a Star Wars geek. Say what you will, but never get tired I will of watching Obi Wan Kenobi battle Darth Vader, and Master Yoda always wrongly order his words. And YES, I am a bigger fan of episodes 4, 5 and 6.
I did grades 2nd through 5th at Anthony Hyde Elementary School in Washington DC, which would explain why I still speak English more than I do Romanian. Then I came back to Romania. I was also preparing for college admissions in the US back in 2005, but I decided to stay here for college, and then leave for some MA in Europe (my SAT I scores were pretty good too - I took the old version, in which I scored something like 1450, which they said was quite above the US average). And after I'm properly schooled, I'm coming back. There's a lot to do around here.
As hard as it may be to believe, I'm an amateur photographer as well. Even before I purchased a fantastic entry-level DSLR camera, I was always trying to get the right angles and the perfect composure. Call it a genetic avocation. You can see more of my flimsy attempts to become a world-renowned photographer on my flickr.
If you check out my grades over the past 9 to 10 years, you will find that I'm probably the worst student in my family. I never thought much of this country's educational system, so I just ignored it, and always tried to focus on other things. Apparently, it's working. And if I manage to get my university degree this year, I'm writing a book.
As much of a cliché this may be, I'm really into exploring places. And I've been around a bit, too. Some of the most interesting places I've seen include Egypt, The Bahamas, Turkey and Jordan. And I usually go off the beaten track - tourist attractions don't seem that exciting, so I'm planning things like surf camps on various small islands in the Pacific or obscure mountain trails in Tibet.
I'm quite a mess in trying to keep little things organized. Like my room, my desks, the stuff in my car or the cards in my wallet. I'm actually wondering how much it affects my modus operandi.
The number of years I've been smoking away. I'm honestly trying to quit (I'm down to one pack a day now, and I can't way for the 'no smoking in public places' law to be applied in Romania). Which reminds me...

Airing on a screen near you

2008-01-15T19:52:00.000+02:00

I always did love the media frenzy over the MacWorld Stevenotes which have pretty much changed our view on presentation skills - but seeing as this whole web peisage has been constantly widening, I had become inclined to witness the so-called "consequences" this year. Thanks to Engadget, we can find it hidden right here.

I'm currently trying to follow the shindig via three separate websites - namely Twitter (which crashed minutes before the presentation began), Engadget (for which I keep hitting the "refresh" combination in order to see the speech mot-a-mot - and which isn't doing that well speed-wise, as they have stated that they're at 10x the traffic level from last year's keynote) and MacRumorsLive, which are using an AJAX script so we don't have to hit that certain combination of keys every 5 seconds. Twitter's barely recovering, with a significantly lower level of responsiveness (compared to the usually chatty evenings). The Engadget ongoing blogpost went from under 1000 to just about 2500 diggs over the last hour or so (when I was writing this).

I found this whole hype even better than what was actually presented. There's a WiFi switch / hard drive for backups masterfully entitled Time Capsule (which is cool, nevertheless), an iPhone software update which I won't be able to install, iTunes movie rentals (but they don't accept Romanian credit cards) and a new ultra-thin notebook entitled MacBook Air, which is spectacular, but not really useful for me (I'm waiting for the new MacBook Pros).

And just wait to see the concept of volume in the press for the following weeks.

Back to basics

2008-01-15T15:13:00.000+02:00

As opposed to the obvious truth of things, I hadn't been exactly done with my winter vacation (some pics on my flickr) until this morning - when the panic kicked in, that is, as the real world seems to have started spinning again (yes, that's a rather homonymous statement).

Here's a brief list of what I've discovered:

mobile internet isn't as horrible as some may think - in fact, surprisingly, I got along with it quite well over 2 weeks of WiFi-free venues (and I love the iPhone apps from Google, Facebook, etc - see a full list here)
Munich clubs have a rather strange attitude towards foreigners - "keine ausslaender" is how they greet any non-German speaking individual (look it up)
the Google Maps app for the iPhone is incredibly efficient and exceeded any expectations I might have had from it
independent stores in the Austrian Alps (selling Burton) have an exponentially-better customer service strategy than the Burton store itself
people search engine Spock really is doing a good job at following up with (or explaining it to certain people in a proper way) the users who write some feedback on their blogs
the dopplr FB app has a somewhat-disturbing, yet interesting method of telling all of your digital acquaintances that you're leaving town (and there's also a flickr plugin, which i have yet to figure out how it works)

In the meantime, I've managed to gather some more material for that degree paper I'm oh-so-desperately trying to have ready by the end of the week, which should turn out to be a fun read for those who are to assess my work. I might even publish it here...

People searching?

2007-12-22T22:52:00.000+02:00

spock (while refraining from allusions to Star Trek) is a people searching network started this spring, which seems to be growing quite nicely. I picked it up a while back, but hadn't really paid attention until today. Its indexing methods are a bit scary - it's kind of weird to log in to a web service you've just started using and see your profile already on there. The best analogy I could come up with is "a Technorati for people". You've got everything spock's spiders picked up, and then just add onto that, look for people you know, get them to claim their profile and so on.

Then I noticed, on someone's automatically-created-by-spock page something called pipl (which is just about the same thing, apart from the fact that it's too simple and it doesn't let you claim... yourself). But what they're doing is making use of the stats they've come across - namely something they're bragging about on the homepage: 5 Facts About Social Networking Sites. There are some interesting facts around there, such as the fact that in Eastern Europe, most of the members of prostituted social networking website hi5 are 20 year-old males. Go figure.

Where's it all heading to?

2007-12-22T17:51:00.000+02:00

After two excruciatingly painful weeks of hard work on doing yearly wrap-ups and pinpointing next year's strategies, combined, of course, with Christmas Party Season (during which 90% of the companies I interact with are throwing all kinds of soirees), I'm kind of starting to question the purpose of blogging.

As far as I've noticed, at least, I'm much more keen on taking a quick glance at my FB profile to see what's new, or just keeping up with my Twitter notifications - and then remembering that I have a ton of things left on the task list and bury myself into the work. And if I have more than a few minutes to spare, I just browse and read my feeds, news, do a bit of del.icio.us tagging, and go back to e-mails and such.

Then I do a bit of web exploring here and there (checking out newer web services in beta, such as Yumondo or Stixy), and call it a day and indulge into the idle gossip and mingling of a night out on the town. I guess that what I'll be trying to figure out over my 2-week vacation is whether or not (seriously) contributing to a blog is something I can adequately keep up with.

Talk about going digital

2007-12-17T20:51:00.000+02:00

Her e's some solid proof that digital is the only way to go. Quite hilarious, actually. And do please observe the client - I wonder how many companies in that segment would go for that...

Academic pressure

2007-12-17T18:19:00.000+02:00

I've been neglecting my academic duties for quite a while now, although I should be focusing on my degree paper (seeing as I'm hopefully graduating next summer). And I think my guidance counselor will be throwing a fit when she finds out I haven't gotten past defining the paper's structure.

Its subject is "PR in a Web 2.0 World" (who would have thought), but mainly mirrored through its slow-but-steady implementation into the local industry scene - even though most references still come from 'abroad'. All of this, of course, explained the way you would tell an eight year-old how mommy and daddy magically brought him to this world - because online is something a lot of people in the university don't really get yet (or, better said, they're not digital immigrants, but rather digital outcasts).

Now, the first thing would be the bibliography. I could do a book search (to find something that could come in handy at some point), but then again - I haven't exactly noticed a lot of interesting titles. All my resources would probably be online - can I get them to buy that? Anyway...

I have to come up with a structure. How do you do that? I'm thinking of simply putting it like this:

Web 2.0: The Big Picture
Its evolving role in the definition of Public Relations
Standards and methods of implementation (such as the Social Media Press Release Template, or worthy online press rooms)
The Local Industry's take on it

And to think I haven't been able to produce anything better so far... I'll also be asking several people for their thoughts on some specific topics - it could give the paper a little authenticity and further understanding of its importance. Time will tell, I guess. Only 4 chapters spread across 40 pages (without annexes) to go.

Subtly picking on Microsoft

2007-12-14T16:17:00.000+02:00

I was using my laptop at work earlier, and I had to connect it to our network. And while browsing the servers, I couldn't help but notice this new feature in Mac OS X Leopard. In the all-new Cover Flow feature of Finder, here's the icon for computers in the network running Windows (observe the raggedy 90s monitor and the all-too-popular blue screen). Take that, Microsoft.

Not that I'm complaining

2007-12-13T18:58:00.000+02:00

But at some point, someone must come up with application-organizing software. Mac OS X Leopard does it pretty well with its Spaces and QuickLook features, though, and I never get my desktop clogged up like that. I guess that this just goes to prove a few things:

Microsoft will never get it right anyway
if you want to see all of those 67 running applications in the taskbar, you'll have to say goodbye to about 1/8 of your display.
you can tell a person who has lots of... Word Documents, Firefox and IE windows, a lot of IM boxes, and then a selected collection of e-mails being written ...works in PR. Sad but true. :)

RSS Fed

2007-12-11T22:47:00.000+02:00

RSS feed readers (or more correctly put, aggregators) aren't something quite new anymore. I personally prefer Google Reader to Bloglines, but then again - it's Google and it feels better. But what are their pros and cons? A definite advantage would be that you don't have to surf hundreds of bookmarked web pages - but readers don't always display a post's full content, and Google Reader, at least, still has difficulties reading certain media formats, as far as I've noticed.

There's something that caught my attention the other day, though. So here's a question: you rely on your reader, right? I mean, you don't expect it to go haywire and miss something. The example I'm about to give involves me posting something on a blog a couple of days ago, and then finding out that I have to take it back instantly (out of various reasons). Now, correct me if I'm wrong when saying that once a post is published, the feed is sent out to all of its followers. And no matter what you do, you won't be able to delete it from the feed. Well, the post was up for a few minutes, then deleted - and the post never got to my reader. Nor did it get to several others'. Which is, by far, a so-called lucky break, but isn't it a bit creepy?

Is Pownce worth it?

2007-12-07T21:21:00.000+02:00

While trying to give wannabe social network Pownce another shot (after all, Mashable did provide a pretty positive review last summer) - I noticed they have some new themes. Since I am going for customizing my profiles on various networks, I obviously wanted to see whether I could - you know - do something a bit more original on that one as well. Apparently I can't. You have to go pro and pay $20/year to do your own theme and upload (only) 100MB files. I do understand Flickr, which for about $25 will let you upload unlimited photos - but when Pownce is pretty unpopular, what made them think they could already ask for money?!

And anyway - I've been observing it for quite some time now, and haven't really noted any relevant progress. And whomever I've been asking feels the same way. What do you think? I currently have 26 invitations, so don't mind asking for one. :)

Need a PR person?

2007-12-03T03:24:00.000+02:00

Well this isn't a very nice portrayal of what PR is all about - but it is amusing. :)

Annoying?

2007-12-02T17:13:00.000+02:00

As I was doing some research, I thought I'd provide a tad of a preview of what I have to scroll through in order to get to my real notifications in the Facebook toolbar. But hey, no one's spamming, right? Everyone just forgets to uncheck that "send to all of your friends" feature when they install a new app. Groovy.

Ranking's catching up

2007-11-27T21:31:00.000+02:00

Last month, I was praising my next-door colleague Diana for her blog's mention in Daniel Mejia's resourceful ranking entitled Advertising's Young Minds: The Top 27 Blogs of People Under 27 - something I've kept passing out since then, to anyone new or willing to join the marcomm industry. And, nevertheless, I started reading all of those blogs right away.

So he has recently come out with an update now, and surprise - this blog is being considered for the ranking (with only two places to go). Needless to say, it's an honor - and it's just one more reason to take my writing (on dontgodizzy) a bit more seriously.

Daniel - what would you say if, at some point (when you have the resources), we split the ranking into more specific domains, in order to target it even better? There's a time and place for everything, right? :) Keep up the good work, mate!

Busy weekend

2007-11-26T13:38:00.000+02:00

So the BizDays are over - and I'm glad I got to see Stephen's presentation. I was expecting a lot more people to join in, but apparently Social Media is a subject a lot of people in the industry are neglecting. The reasons (for which companies should make good use of the PR 2.0 phenomenon) he gave should be enough material for anyone around here struggling to convince their clients to adequately open up to the web.

With his permission, of course, here's what he talked about:

| View | Upload your own

Afterwards, me and Veronica took Stephen out for a few beers, to show him around a bit. We ended up visiting 4 clubs on Friday night. :) He managed to sum it up quite nicely on his blog. I'll be expecting him to pay Bucharest another visit in the near future (and not fly with KLM this time) - right, mate? :))

Ah, the memories

2007-11-24T22:33:00.000+02:00

We all know that novels aren't the only stories adapted for the big screens - there are comics, cartoons... And also video games. Problem is, the only ones which come to mind when I say this are quite unfortunate examples (see Final Fantasy or Resident Evil).

Hitman brings back quite a lot of memories (from the time I was really into PC gaming). It's like that feeling someone gets after seeing movies which identify with their childhood reminiscences (like it happened with the cartoon-turned-box-office-smash "Transformers". The game series (there were three installments) is among the most clever and well-designed shooters I know up to date (with chapters also taking place in Romania - which is downright hilarious). I'm curious how Timothy Olyphant will fit the part. "Good morning, 47..."

And just my luck, guess which country is a sucker when it comes to release dates.

Land ahoy!

2007-11-23T00:37:00.000+02:00

This has been an obnoxiously engaging week for our local marketing communications industry, as two major events were (or are) on most people's schedules.

I went to some of the Inspire 2008 conferences on Wednesday (namely the first and second session), and listened to some great people, such as Mark Earls (whose book - "Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature" - is now on my shopping list) talk about some rather new concepts in communication (which yes, did also cover social media).

But as I've been involved in mediating talks for my colleagues to participate as speakers at one particular event (The Biz Days), some workshops which I was initially under the impression that I had absolutely no time for suddenly got me changing my schedule a bit.

The first one that flashed me is entitled "Consumer Generated Media" (which is hosted by some people who know what they're talking about, including IAA colleague Dan Petre). Here's what they say they're covering (and try to overlook the obvious "we're striving to pitch you this" tone):

Blogs, online forums, message boards, consumer feedback sites – listen to your consumers and gain unfiltered insights!

You got your feedback – how will you use it now?

How to create a social media strategy

Power to the consumer … To what extent?

I don't think I'll make it to this one, but I'll surely be begging for some presentations (and hoping to get some valuable feedback on certain blogs).

And then (drumroll please): there's one straightforwardly entitled "Web 2.0 & PR", hosted by Stephen Davies of webitpr. I've been following his blog for quite some time now, and I'm pretty excited to finally see someone who's actually practicing digital media relations (and knows what social media is all about - or, well, at least make the best guess, considering that the methods are still quite new) - and I'm glad it's him. This one I will not miss, no matter how long my previous very-important meeting lasts.

Subtle, isn't it?

2007-11-20T23:22:00.001+02:00

This is what happens when targeted ads become annoying (and perhaps even offensive to some). In this example, kids, while we were innocently messaging other interesting people on FB, some evil masterminds have traced our IP addresses all the way over to some Eastern European country, and are gracefully reminding us that we are absolutely suited for a Green Card to the Land of Possibilities. Hooray!

Well this is odd.

2007-11-20T01:22:00.000+02:00

No, make that disturbing. According to TechCrunch, iPhones are secretly sending out information about a user's activity, through some hidden features of two very basic and apparently innocent applications (namely Stocks and Weather). Now, as an owner of this seemingly magnificent device (which was not-so-legally procured), I'm downright appalled. You mean they get to track everything a simple Romanian does/sends/visits/shoots with his "trusty device"? Gawsh.

Embracing social traveling

2007-11-18T18:46:00.000+02:00

If, during your traveling, you fancy knowing a bit more about the city/town/country/etc you're visiting (you know, other than the official tourist spots), now there are some fantastic alternatives to asking your friends who live or have been in the area (all thanks to the UGM phenomenon). And, needless to say, there are websites (like Dopplr) which let your traveling buddies know about your globetrotting plans.

Anyway - we all know lonely planet, with its extensive database of tips and tricks about a cornucopia of hotspots all around the world (brought to us by over 300 authors), and its outstanding user-generated Bluelist feature. And let's not forget the ever-growing Wikipedia.

But yesterday, I stumbled over an even more interesting site, entitled yumondo. They're calling it an "urban stylesharing community" (which already sounds cool enough), and the features go on and on. From adding new places, to reviewing them, to searching for users in that area - this social network truly will come in handy once it comes out of beta and starts covering a basic number of must-see spots all over the world. Let the wandering begin.

Product placement on Facebook

2007-11-17T20:05:00.000+02:00

It's been more than a week since Facebook launched Product Pages, and they seem to be working pretty well. Companies like Coca-Cola, The New York Times, or even causes such as (RED) are up there, gathering a pretty good fan base. I have yet to see those their Social Ad (relevant ads) placements, but I'm sure they're on their way. So whose fan are you on Facebook?

The Web is taking over the world...

2007-11-14T10:19:00.000+02:00

...or at least a professional football club. MyFootballClub, an online community for fans of the sport, has acquired 51% of Ebsfleet United Football Club (each fan paid 35 quid), causing quite a tsunami in the press. This would be one of the first steps of the plan entitled "The Machine is Us/ing Us)"...

Some extra reading

2007-11-13T02:05:00.001+02:00

While I'm planning to completely redo my blogroll (seeing as it's immensely inadequate now), here's a great list of new PR blogs to start reading, courtesy of Drew B (and here's a good opportunity to say "thanks for the mention"). And by the time you go through all of that enjoyable Tech PR reading, I'll be done with updating the (related) things I'm currently following...

Different direction

2007-11-13T01:11:00.000+02:00

I've come to realize that I won't be needing to discuss any local topics on this blog, so I'll be changing it a bit - a good hint would be the new tagline in the header... For any other broadsides or whatnots, I'll be creating another blog, a tad more (local advertising) industry-focused - and in Romanian. So stay tuned...

Here I'll be focusing on Tech PR - a not-as-new-as-you-might-think interest of mine, as I'll be trying to deliver some insights and examples of what's going on here and in the surrounding areas... It could turn out to be fun.

*by the way - I just had to use one of these flickr sign generators like "all them planners out there". :)

Writers' strike goes on and on

2007-11-13T01:02:00.000+02:00

Now honestly - when, oh when will this end? Okay - so they really are getting ripped off, but come on, aren't the studios doing anything to fix this? This would be the 2nd dark week for a lot of good shows which a lot of people were looking forward to viewing!

If I gather the details, it could make one hell of a case study... But let's just see how it's solved first.

The Daily Show Online!

2007-11-04T06:10:00.001+02:00

Lately, thanks to iTunes, I've been watching every episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And I found out that the show now has a new website, with videos as the one here... Gotta love it. :)

The degree

2007-11-03T21:53:00.000+02:00

Yes, I obviously couldn't help finally managing to combine my day-to-day activities with my academic progress, so the subject of my degree paper will be somewhere along the lines of 'how PR integrates into today's technology' - and I'm starting to build up a list of resources in order to carefully begin to knit up a good thesis. You wouldn't happen to have any relevant case studies, would you?

Here's to juniors

2007-11-03T21:14:00.000+02:00

The suspense...

2007-10-30T23:57:00.000+02:00

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is finally shipping. And it's already out of stock at Apple Romania. Until next week - imagine the torment. So I wonder how I'll get it until then... Does anyone know somebody who knows somebody who robbed somebody? :) (That's Starsky&Hutch stuff)

Webvertisers unite

2007-10-30T23:42:00.000+02:00

Yes, Internetics (as in Romania's only website competition) is opening its doors tomorrow for some very interesting seminars with some pretty cool people from all over Europe. And then, of course, we'll party on Thursday, when they announce this year's winners. :D

IQads is blogging again

2007-10-30T23:38:00.000+02:00

Or so they tell us. :)

Academic stress

2007-10-30T01:21:00.000+02:00

I've been running around so much lately, I've been neglecting my degree paper - anyone know if marketing (as a domain) is an accepted subject (of which aspect I might be able to carefully approach) in my faculty? Because I wouldn't want to get stuck with 'Advanced Economic Statistics' or anything of the sort.

And something tells me that this university won't be quite keen on bending the rules towards a student's advantage. Talk about an institution's rep crashing and burning...

Went missing

2007-10-23T23:06:00.001+02:00

I went missing for about a week - I took a drive down to Portoroz with the agency crew - and it really was a tremendously enticing experience. There are more agency shots here, and some of my own to be posted on my Flickr soon (...enough).

Masterplanned

2007-10-12T00:21:00.000+02:00

On Wednesday night, I found out I'd be going to one of Thursday's seminars from Masterplan 2007. And the one I got to go to was Jeffre Jackson's presentation on interestingness.

Needless to say, I was probably the only PR person in the building, but hey - the concept he so aptly described doesn't only go with planning - there are tons of ways you can apply this to your day-to-day public relations activities as well. A simple tagline would sound something like "so don't you agree that you have to find something interesting in whatever you're communicating?"

And I also found something else very interesting. Contrary to some people's opinions, I saw a pretty big chunk of the planning community there - which means they're interested in what extremely competent people have to say, and take the time from their busy schedules to go and listen to them. I hope that'll be happening to my industry colleagues next week as well...

Personalize anything...

2007-10-11T11:26:00.001+02:00

Yes, apparently even iPhones. As I found out from Tudor, Colorware specializes in personalizing a lot of gadgets (including iPods, X-boxes, MacBooks and so on) - so take a look.

Creatives gone mad

2007-10-09T19:00:00.000+02:00

Here's a video promoting the newest edition of our graduate recruitment program (i.e. Next Generation).

I haven't seen any other agencies' stuff yet (for this season, I mean), so I'm still curious as to what they'll be coming up with.

The copy says "Our Creative Dept has gone mad. We're desperately looking for Client Service juniors. If you're interested, present yourself in the best way you can."

What do you think of it?

Fun one

2007-10-09T09:18:00.000+02:00

Have you heard about that very (VERY) unfortunate woman from Duluth, Minnesota, who was fined $222.000 for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa? Well, go figure, she's appealing! And since we have similar operations in Romania, I'd strongly advise you to lay off peer-to-peer programs such as Kazaa or DC++...

Here kitty kitty

2007-10-09T00:15:00.001+02:00

Talk about social network segmentation! Something disturbingly interesting I have just stumbled upon is Catster - an online community of... Cat lovers! I think one of their banners' headlines pretty much summarizes everything, and I quote: "Are you a cat whisperer? Share it in a Kitty Diary". I rest my case...

Scratch that

2007-10-07T23:51:00.001+02:00

Now here's something I've kept ignoring - only to find out how good it actually looks. "Toolbox | Online Communication" plans to discuss the latest trends in online communication, with a huge variety of speakers (from company PR reps to agencies to journalists, and the list goes on). And guess what. It's on the week during which I'll be in Portoroz. :|

Great initiative - I'll be looking for feedback.

A blogging celebrity...

2007-10-07T23:38:00.000+02:00

...is seated a couple of meters away from my desk. And I also owe it to her for finding out. You see, Diana pointed out an outstanding post (by Daniel Mejia), which gathers Advertising Young Minds - the top 27 blogs of people under 27.

But what she failed to point out is that she ranked 9th on that list. So let's hear a big shout-out for someone who has actually managed to also make herself heard outside of our completely messed up blogosphere - and really stand out as an adland youngster. :)

School's in

2007-10-07T23:14:00.001+02:00

I'm finally beginning my (hopefully) last year of college, and I'm quite enthusiastic (well, you know, apart from the fact that classes are starting one week late). I'm sure that'll wear off after a couple of classes or so, but hey, at least I still have some of that school spirit.

So as I was browsing the (quite popular, as I've come to find) university's website, I just have to ask who on earth does such an atrocious job taking and editing the pictures on the homepage (hint: see what's wrong with this one)...

Legal downloads

2007-10-07T23:00:00.000+02:00

Some may respect my initiative, others may call me a sap. But I can't get enough of iTunes lately. Besides being forced to buy songs and then pay an extra 99cents just so I can convert them into ringtones (which is absolutely decent, by the way), at least I finally get to see the latest episodes of Family Guy or The Daily Show with John Stewart 24hrs after they go on the air. Now all you need is $15/month and an Apple Store accepted credit card.

I like it.

2007-10-07T22:54:00.000+02:00

A mash-up of good music and adland-ready posts and news. Gotta love the idea. More about the project on the founder's blog, or on the designer's massive news source. Or you can just see it for yourself.

Horrendous timing

2007-10-07T22:39:00.000+02:00

It is my strong belief that, while planning this year's edition of the Golden Drum festival, someone down in Ljubljana said something along the lines of: "Romanians have gotten the Agency of the Year award for two years in a row now... I know! We'll set the festival's date to the utmost fantastic weekend they'll be having, in terms of entertainment! Maybe that'll teach 'em not to mess with us AGAIN!"

The reasons are quite simple (and, surprisingly, also in chronological order):

Depeche Mode's very own Andy Fletcher in Kristal Glam Club.
The Pet Shop Boys at Sala Palatului.
The Chemical Brothers (!!!) at Sala Polivalenta.
And as if that wasn't enough: the 10th edition of TM07BASE.

Well it's not enough (*sobbing*). We're still going to be there (*screaming in agony*). Bastards.

Introducing my iPhone

2007-10-03T21:25:00.000+02:00

So yes, I finally have my very own iPhone. And I thought I'd hand out some helpful tips, seeing as it's apparently (very) available around the country nowadays. There's a slightly ironic article in today's EVZ as well...

Also, there's been a lot of buzz over these unlocked phones lately, as Apple released a statement saying that all unlocked iPhones will suffer permanent damage once they're updated with its new firmware (and the story here was a blast to read). Hint: don't install the bloody update until it's been hacked, which shouldn't take very long anyway.

Next up: what I think about it. You can just see some very good reviews on Engadget or GSM Arena... Or you can even see how the sadistic blokes down at PC World tested its shock resistance.

Let's just get to a simple classification of its perks and no-no's, according to what I've experienced:

PROS:

it's absolutely fabulous - and stands out among any other phone in the room
it has the, by far, best (full) internet browser a phone could ever offer (fully packed with the features below)
the multi-touch display thing is the most convenient UI I've seen so far (with scrolling, zooming, tapping, etc)
the accelerometer and proximity sensor are very handy
the display is extremely resistant, as tested by some

CONS:

its battery life lasts for one day of intense usage - an explanation to this might be the fact that Vodafone and Orange (in Romania) are both GSM 900 type networks, while AT&T (which it has been originally designed for) is GSM 1900. Signal strength is lower, and that apparently consumes more. I'll have to check it out, though.
it's definitely not a phone built for e-mail - the display doesn't flip in its Mail application, and if you're writing an e-mail in a language other than English (which btw is usually fast enough), you're not gonna have fun)
also about its writing features - I haven't found out how to turn off the predictive text input feature - it becomes annoying at some point
it literally attracts greasy tracks

This is it so far. I'm still testing it. As I found out earlier today, its display really is quite resistant. Its metallic frame, however, couldn't take the shock, and it's very visible after a touch of solid concrete. More to come after extensive toying with it.

Industry tips

2007-10-02T21:16:00.000+02:00

In the latest issue of this month's Campaign, you can find a quite informative article about what it takes to get into advertising, signed by our very own Daniela Knecht (Client Service Director) - I wish I could link it, but I'm still working on that. So you can just find the magazine at most of the premium locations.

And then there's an article written by Elena Olteanu of 4 ACE-pr&publicity on IQads, telling us just what it takes to work in PR. Allow me to comment upon the specifics - maybe I can't see the overall image anymore, but isn't it simply something similar to motivational career chatter, from a general perspective? How do you think it is? Nevertheless, I find that even if these aspects are more than obvious, they may be obscenely unknown to those who, as she very correctly put it, start working in PR because of the trend factor. So see for yourself.

I'm dying to see what the industry will be bringing to us in terms of entry-level recruitment this fall...

(some) interesting things

2007-10-02T20:59:00.000+02:00

A lot of interesting things have happened over the past weeks - during which blogging just didn't seem like a valuable way of spending my free time. In fact, as I'm writing this, I'm at the agency catching up with some of last week's items.

But let's get to the part in which I cover the interesting things. Randomly ordered.

The IAA European Summit took place last week. It was a very interesting experience - I met a lot of great people, and witnessed the IAA's first European conference ever... It seems to have gone quite well, because people are extending their initial plans. So congratulations to the IAA crew... Us Young Professionals were more than glad to lend them a helping hand.

Then came our agency's team building field trip in Poiana Brasov (which you can read a bit about here, for now). Quite an experience, I'd say, but you'll find out more soon enough.

And come to think about it, I'll just start writing separate posts. Starting right now.

Grad Recruitment 101

2007-09-21T22:37:00.000+02:00

Now this should be a lesson to local agencies who are starting the fall round-up of fresh new blood to feed the industry. Gordon MacMillan's BrandRepublic blog pointed out this very cool recruitment video from BBH, announcing their newest Graduate Recruitment scheme. I couldn't get that specific website section to load, but I doubt it's boring. Take a look:

Deceiving

2007-09-21T19:00:00.001+02:00

Well this is weird. Apparently, the commonly-known velociraptors (which we've all seen in Spielberg's Jurassic Park series) have been portrayed incorrectly. Because someone just found conclusive evidence of the fact that they were actually feathered buggers. If three successful installments of a Hollywood blockbuster make this fact seem extremely strange, it kind of makes you wonder what else historians have gotten wrong over the ages. And how awkwardly shocking it will be when (or if) we ever find out.

Woo hoo!

2007-09-20T14:48:00.000+02:00

Yes, it's coming. The Simpsons Game, coming on November 1st.

Social media and its (lack of) use

2007-09-17T22:55:00.001+02:00

This is somehow related to my previous post. You see, I could have easily provided an embedded YouTube video, to save anyone the hassle of surfing over to another website in order to see it. And now I'm wondering...

It's advertising. In 2007. The numbers are saying that - what - about 60% of our country's citizens are surfing the internet nowadays? And what do they (start to) look for? Easily-spreadable content, by any chance? Blogs, social networking, that kind of - ehem - "rubbish"?

So let's get back to the point. I find that ad agencies (whom, to say the least, are usually very active when it comes to video content) should definitely be on YouTube. Are they doing it? Hardly. I mean, besides us and the guys over at Headvertising, who else is doing it? I'm actually going to run a poll about this concept.

Talk about harsh

2007-09-17T22:50:00.001+02:00

Seems that road safety is a pretty big issue in social advertising these days. And to prove it, here come new guys on the block badcat_ with a TVC for motorcycle safety. Now, I'm not exactly sure how this ad will be running on the telly, but I do see the campaign's point.

You see, I was planning to buy a two-wheeler - a Vespa to be more precise. Until I figured out that driving such a thing is absolutely hazardous in our beloved city.

But anyway - hopefully, at least the speed maniacs will somehow get this twisted message...