Moving Servers

Dear friends,

Due to the fact that I have reached the limit of MB on my webhosting account, I decided to switch to blogger's free hosting.
As such please redirect your rssreaders and browsers to the new coordinates.

http://brandlyyoursone.blogspot.com/

Thanks and see you soon on google's servers. :)

Still breathing

Happy Xmas!

I am so late in updating this blog that spider webs
have built around these corners :)

2009 is somehow... "atypical" as I had not only less time to write stuff for brandlyyours.ro
but also less time for reading just-for-fun books.

One of the articles I am most proud of, is the one where I'm applying Porter's generic strategies to a schnitzel.
It's written for Food&Bar and I will translated in a few hours into English.

300th Post

Dear all, this is post #300 for brandlyyours.ro.

I want to thank you each and every one of the 2552 absolute unique visitors this blog has tracked so far.

Thanks too all bloggers who send referrals to brandlyyours!

Besides these few figures from above, I would like to greet and thank SundanceKiddo, Alina Popescu, Kit and Mihai Dragan. 

During these, almost, 5 years I’ve managed to

• lose a father
  
• finish my studies at the university and get a master degree in strategic marketing
• get my dream job at Brandient.com (and this blog was a great help in this respect)
• return to marketing consulting with the same holding company I worked before Brandient (Daedalus / Visionwise)
• contribute to the success of at least one romanian brand: metropotam.ro had a good start
  
• grow a circle beard (Van Dyke, padlock beard or candado in Spanish)
  

Also, in the last years:

• Apple transitioned to Intel, lost the “Computer” tail of its name and launched telecom gadgets
• Connex.ro became Vodafone.ro
• Bill Gates officially retired
• Romania joined the European Union
• Sibiu, my home town was European Capital of Cultural

Where shall we go from here on?
Forward.

First step, I’m changing the profile picture ;)

Thanks for being with me so far, hope you’ll enjoy the next part of the ride.
500th post, here we come!

Adapting vs. Adopting

Sometimes free advice is... well... just free. :)

"Value-for-Money Strategies for Recessionary Times"( by Peter J. Williamson and Ming Zeng, HBR-March 09), otherwise a great read, made me think that not all marketing tactics are universally applicable. One must adapt general strategies and tactics for local impact. This is rule number one in Int'l Marketing)

For example, the text implies for multinational companies to use (promotional) tactics from emerging economies in their home markets. Acer "uses a novel channel": heavy-luggage trolleys in Asia's airports. Great idea, as business people and wealthy vacationers can be exposed to its logo while carrying their luggage. However, copy-paste-ing this initiative in Europe, for example, will most probably expose your message to more 'regular people' and 'low cost travelers' than you'd want to. When choosing a channel for one's brand message, one should put emphasis on efficiency.

'Optimizing promotional activities can be achieved by multinationals by adapting low-cost strategies from emerging markets. However, there's an important difference between adopting and adapting.'

I'm sure that the authors meant it this way as well, but the example with Acer is getting a different idea across.

The Goal

The Goal
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

This squirrel almost makes any self-help book useless. Keep an eye on the prize, assume some risks and you'll get many goodies.

Is this a good way of living? well, it might be one, if you are a naturally born runner.

Applying the same logic to branding and marketing tactics:
(1) Doesn't this squirrel remind you of guerrilla marketing? Quick, nimble competitors sweep away market share from large, slow - moving giants.
(2) Let's say blood flow is cash flow. The squirrel normally has 300 heart beats per minute. On the other hand, a domestic swine, similar to wild boars, has a heart beat of only 60 - 100 beats per minute. Do these figures resemble the real cash flow for small vs large successful companies?

Anyways, don't let a squirrel get you to far from doing marketing :)

The Formula for Logo Design

At first there were freelancers and now there's Mathematica.
Logo designers are in for a tough competition.

Here are $2bn. Can I have some respect please?

Yesterday I went shopping for food supplies and I have used my powers to send an important message to the Italian government.

On a bottle of cooking oil I found a certain message which made me alter my entire shopping approach. The message read: "Imported from Italy".

Now, I am no fan of economic programs such as "buy American/Romanian etc", but because the media in Italy is currently balking at the entire Romanian people, I have decided that at least for the time being, I will spend my money on a cooking oil made in a different part of the world and not in Italy.

Today, I have checked some statistics and found out that Romania's trade deficit with Italy was just a hint above $2 billion. (2007 figures from the UN)

Now, my €3 for cooking oil might be less than peanuts to Italy's exports to Romania BUT someone talking to the Italian government should keep in mind, that if everything else fails, we could try to convert the trade deficit in image surplus.

Just repeat after me: "Here are $2bn. Can I have some respect please?" :)

The Sound of Marketing - The Crisis

Listen to "Yesterday". It's about love, sorrow and sweet regrets.
Doesn't it sound familiar? It's about the crisis.

"Yesterday,
All my troubles seemed so far away,"

Tick --> This one applies to our days

"Now it looks as though they're here to stay,
Oh, I believe in yesterday."

Tick --> This one applies to our days

"Suddenly,
I'm not half the man I used to be,"

Tick --> This one applies to our days, the marketing budgets etc

"There's a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday came suddenly."

Tick --> This one applies to our days

And, because I'm positive that you all know the song, here's a "rare" studio recording of it.

The Economic Crisis, MS approach

This is how the crisis would have looked on a Windows PC.

"In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset" (Steve Ballmer, Microsoft)

From blogged

PS: The figures are words written in hexadecimal.

Update: for lazy texters, the figures are

437265646974206372756e6368

4f766572666c6f77

536361726564

45636f6e6f6d79

5374726f6e67204272616e73

507269636520456c6173746963697479

536869656c6564

Coffee Will Save the World

The 7.2 million tons of coffee used yearly worldwide could yield around 1.3 billion liters of bio-fuel. This means that a car could drive with this gasoline for about 260 million kilometers, or 338 times the distance to the moon and back.

I always knew coffee can do magic.

via guardian

Thirsty

From BucharestMornings

Last night I was so thirsty that I could not get back to sleep. Weird but true :)
So, around 7:30AM I was in Piata Victoriei (governmental buildings and business centers) taking pictures.

View this Speech

Mr. Putin spoke at Davos. Key words: "global", "crisis", "must". "Energy" and "economics" also rank high.

Intersting idea for the paranoids among us:
"Third. Excessive dependence on a single reserve currency is dangerous for the global economy. Consequently, it would be sensible to encourage the objective process of creating several strong reserve currencies in the future. It is high time we launched a detailed discussion of methods to facilitate a smooth and irreversible switchover to the new model." (transcript via WSJ)

January Lights In Bucharest

From CentruVechiBucurestiIanuarie

Best Prediction So Far

The first 2009 prediction I am looking forward to seeing it become reality? It's Nancy Duarte's "PowerPoint will be used by the President".

After answering press and client questions regarding The Crisis I am really grateful for visionary + optimistic people.

Patent on Improved Price Discrimination

The guys at Microsoft recognized that "elasticity curves [for PC sales] are based on the pressure to maximize profits on a one-time-sale, one-shot-at-the-consumer mentality".

One of their ideas - now patent application - implies the introduction of the pay-per-use PC with an option of scaling computer performance. This idea would bring us closer to a situation of price discrimination of 1st degree.
Wow, Microsoft's got the patent on it :)

via Cnet news

Shocked

70 years of profits down the toilet...

NYTimes shows that the economic crisis is really global and deep - reaching: "Toyota Expects Its First Loss in 70 Years". Who could have forecast this 24 months ago? :)

Compare the Crisis

This year, American households will spend on average EUR301 on gifts (down from last year).

In Romania, this Christmas is going to cost local families around EUR585 (all things included).
64 out of 100 salaries in Romania will be spent entirely on presents. This means a total of EUR335 spent on gifts for all these 64 out of 100 employees.



Sources:
For USA
(u1) Conference Board via hbr.edu.
For Romania
(r1) Salaries and gifts - Aviva Romania via Curierul National
(r2) Cost of Christmas - Deloitte via realitatea.net
(r3) Official data regarding average income (net) in Romania

Random Thoughts

1.) Why is pistachio courageous?
2.) How can a hazelnut be pampered?
and
3.) Is there a way to block interlaced flash ads in Internet Explorer?

After the last bad PC crash, I gave my word to our IT guy not to install any other software for a few weeks. But www.zf.ro is really annoying. And I miss firefox + adblock.

Frustrated cactus

From croatia_trip_2007

Coffee Please

A must read & view for coffee junkies.
Also, an interesting fact for marketing mavens:

"[...]I was always envious of people who could walk into a coffee place and the guy behind the counter would know them so well he would just start fixing their order, without any exchange of words. It took me more than 10 years to get to that stage[...]" (Christoph Niemann, NYTimes)

Abstract City, NYTimes.com

First Pascal Code in about 5 Years

First Pascal Code in about 5 Years
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

My first lines of Pascal code in about 5 years. Huh... it's like learning to ride the bike again :)

I don't really know what got into me when I installed FreePascal - the open source compiler... I wrote a few lines of code in notepad++ and as I saved it with ".pas" the program recognized Pascal code.

You know, Pascal code is like a vintage brand for many wannabe programmers. Including me :).

Not that you would be very interested in compiling the code, but here is its text version:


program comeback; // name of program
uses
crt; // tells compiler to include basic functions for CRT monitors.
var
key: string; // defines variable for typed keys
t: integer; // defines variable for counting
begin // begins program
t:=1;
clrscr; // clears the screen
writeln('Hello world!'); // writeln - writes a new line
repeat

writeln('Try nr. ',t);
writeln('Type "a"');
readln(key); //readln - reads keys in a new line
if (key='a') OR (key='A') then writeln('Thank you! Bye!')
else
begin
writeln('Wrong key(s). But, hey, thank you. Try again!');
t:=t+1;
end;
until (key='a') or (key='A');
writeln ('Press any key to exit');
readln; //equivalent of "press any key to exit" :)
end. // ends program

Ace of Base or "I'm not getting any younger"

Photo with Jenny from Ace of Base
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

This Saturday I was delighted to see Ace of Base live in Bucharest. They are one of my earliest favourite bands and being able to see them performing live is a dream come true.
However, I got more than listening to their hits: I was able to get an autograph and a picture with Jenny.

PS: You know that you're getting old when your favourite stars start having children :)

See You in Cluj

For those of you interested in discussing the ten steps needed for a successful start-up, on 12-Nov-08 I'll be in Cluj at ZileleBiz.
Looking forward to seeing you.  

I support Wikipedia

1 buck? 5 bucks? How much is Wikipedia worth to you?

Science Fiction Elections

Now this year's election brought another "first time in history".
The first live hologram on TV.



PS: Congrats too President Obama!

Flash News for Brands

The news: 2009 will show you just how successful your brand is.

Strong brands have lower price elasticity levels. This means that the stronger the brand is, the less share it loses when the company increases prices.

This theory has been around for quite a while: The Business of Brands

However, now it's a good time to see just how true the theory is.
Strong brands should lose less market share in the coming year. However, cross price elasticity within category and within substitutable goods will be tested as well.

Update from the New York Times

"

The price cutting could begin before Black Friday, the day after
Thanksgiving when stores offer one-day bargains. According to
DisplaySearch, a market research firm, prices could go as low as $400
for a 32-inch LCD, and $600 for a 42-inch plasma set — about $200 off
current prices.

While Stan Glasgow, president of Sony
Electronics, said his company will not match those prices, he said,
“those numbers do not shock me.”

"
Click for entire article

Happy Birthday iPod

My 3rd iPod
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

23 October 2001.
Boy, was that day a good one for design, technology and music!

Reminder RoBloggers2008

For all you Romanian bloggers - please take the annual RoBloggers survey.

A Good One. Finally!

Microsoft minds finally hit the nail with their new ad.

Yes, it's a late response, but it's a classic one: the attacked market leader claims - laut und deutlich* - that he rules and that the majority of clients use his products.

The only thing remaining on Msft checklist:
* Get (almost) everyone in the world use Windows
* Respond to Steve Jobs
* Write a decent OS



laut und deutlich - German for loud and clear :)

Update: Kit does not agree :)

What I’ve Learned in Barcelona

When on vacation, people relax, visit stuff and take sunbaths. So they tell me 

This September, I took a few days off and flew to Barcelona. It was one of the nicest adventures I’ve ever had in my life.

The bad sides: my photo camera was stolen, we lost the plane and came flew back with a Lufthansa plane. Key learning points: (1) don’t sit under palm trees in Barcelona and (2) don’t fly with clickair.

The best parts:
(1) Picasso Museum. Visiting a well-thought-through art museum helps you in discovering the artist behind the canvas. Who would have thought that Picasso had a problem with paintings eyes? It’s so obvious once you see his early works and sketches!
(2) Gaudi.
a. Passion for details is great but can lead to unsatisfied career goals. BUT, you can at least start a few larger than life projects. I think they need at least 80 additional years to finish Sagrada Familia
b. What-if. This brilliant man, Gaudi, thought about new ways of using nature-based structures in construction woks and architecture. They still wonder about how the hell he managed to use so many patterns from nature.
c. Usability and Design. Designers and design lovers: visit Barcelona and get inspired by Gaudi’s obsession with nature and usability.

From Barcelona 2008

(3) Science Museum. Ever wanted to play with numbers, magnets, lights, forces and fluids? Well than, 4 years worth of high-school experiments await you at “Europe’s finest science museum”.

Other nice things in Barcelona: parrots in the parks, IMAX theater, nice restaurants, great way-finding tools

FMCG Spending In Romania

From ACNielsen via adevarul.ro

See this Speech?

What did Mrs. Clinton talk about last night?
Well, let's see: America, Barack, Obama, going, keep, years, care, people and children.


And if you have the time, read it or watch it.

One Common Language

This should be one more proof that besides math we also have a second global language.
Here's Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" final scene (theme song) in 9 languages. Same message different spoken languages. i particularly like the Korean version. :)

Breaking News: Men Cook!

Emancipation finally shows some true results: men cook!

When there's a new segmentation study identifying some "keen and accomplished male cooks" as gastrosexuals, it's time i also put the info on the table:

Yes, I'm cooking for pleasure, praise and seduction ;)

Move over all you metro - and uebersexuals, gastrosexuals rule the kitchen... ahm... world. We know how to boil an egg and we're not afraid of baking cookies.

However, don't make us wash the dishes or other blue collar stuff - we are true creative people and not washing machines. Hint: Think of Ratatouille.


Gastrosexuals cook for:
(1) pleasure
(2) praise
and
(3) potential seduction

A few words on this study: Commissioned by PurAsia (trademark owned by Mars), the study has been done by Future Foundation and can be requested on their website or at gastrosexual.com

Inspired by Mountains?

Code names at Microsoft

Microsoft seems to be gradually parting from it's usual code names inspired by the same mountain region: Whistler Blackcomb.

Midori, their new code name, raises at least one big question: "Did Microsoft change their travel agent?"

bbc has this story with witty comments

Can Microsoft Excel Do Good Science Fiction?

I have discovered Spin, the Excel based SF writer :)

Here's a sample story:
"Mars falls toward the Sun and is visited by evil aliens who rewind time to before the disaster but then Mars falls toward a black hole and is visited by good mutant brewers yeast cells who copy the lot into a giant Sextium 3000 and edit out the nasty bits but the system crashes"

This Blog Now has a Picture

It seems like I'm... ahm... obsessed? :)

Why I Blog

Kit's musings prompted me to also question myself why I keep blogging.

Two main reasons:
(1) So that I can look back to the stupid / brilliant things I might have said x years ago
(2) Because of the few 'returning users' from all over the world


Other Nopes and Yeaps
(Nope) not for the money --> This blog never generated a dime in cash, despite the fact that I'm keeping 2 google ads (ever noticed them? :D ).

(Nope) not for boosting visibility --> Just type my name in Google :)

(Yeap) This blog helped me in fulfilling a professional goal. It was through brandlyyours.ro's contact form that the guys at Brandient called me for a job interview. While I'm now with another company, the time spent in Brandient remains both a dream-come-true and a personal proof that I can accomplish my goals.

Stress and the Immune-System

Stress& Immune-System
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

Stay stress-free. It has been scientifically proven that stress generates aging and a shaky immune system

"When the body is under stress, it boosts production of cortisol to support a 'fight or flight' response"

via science daily

View This Data (ep. 3)

Cinemas in Romania
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

(1) Romanians don't go to the cinema. This is often said and written when talking about spare time activities in Romania.
However,
(2) there are less and less cinemas in Romania.

I can't say for sure which of these two facts is the resultant and which is the cause. Cinemas either went bankrupt because people did not go to the movies or... they became banks, fast-foods and / discos because of their location and dubious privatizations.

I guess reality beats the crap out of movie fiction.

iTunes Store Romania?

iTunes Store Romania?
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

Is it coming soon?
I managed to complete all registration steps until "payment" when I keep getting an error. The error text reads something like: " Error, please try again later"

Does anyone know more about the iTunes Store coming to Romania?


Update: Legal terms on apple.com are available for Romania. It appears that only AppStore will be available in Romania. Click for legal terms in Romanian

Update2: Apple appears to be operating the iTunes Store Romania through
iTunes s.à.r.l., in Luxembourg - as it does with other EU countries as well.

EU and My Mustard

Could a guy like me just have breakfast without reading labels? :-)

This Vama Veche mustard is Bulgarian.

I now wonder where the accompanying delicious sausage comes from...

EU messed with my food.

View This Data (ep. 2)

For those of you buying a widescreen HDTV, you might be soon looking for a bigger home :)
It appears that you can calculate an optimal couch to TV distance by multiplying the TV's width in inches with 1.8664.
For visually inclined mathematicians, the picture below should help.

Help or Company Needed

After some 100 questions, I now know for sure that I'm a total geek.

Should I seek help or company?

The reference table from innergeek.us

+ Geekish Tendencies................................≥09%

++ Geek.............................................≥15%

+++ Total Geek......................................≥25%

++++ Major Geek.....................................≥35%

+++++ Super Geek....................................≥45%

++++++ Extreme Geek.................................≥55%

+++++++ Geek God....................................≥65%

+++++++! Dysfunctional Geek.........................≥75%

The Dragon

The Dragon
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

This dragon guards a house in Bucharest (Bvd. Aviatorilor) It's neither from harry potter nor Dracula. But it actually used to be useful by carrying a light torch or a flag.

Web-Ads: Enough is enough

I'm from Transylvania, Romania. People from this region of the country are known for being patient and calm. However, enough is enough.

Whenever I open newspaper sites in Romania, my browser freezes for 10 seconds because some advertisers just need to show me some razor-blade, apartment or mobile internet app. (The razor blade even shaves the letters off the screen!)

This morning I installed Adblock on my Firefox browser. Guess what? I am happy again :)

Where's the content?

Apple announced the 3G iPhone for July 2008.
My question now: What will be the source of content loaded on iPhones all over the world?
The iTunes store is currently present in 22 countries but, coming this year, the iPhone will be present in 71.
Hardware is great. But where's the content?


Data sources used: Apple's site and Wikipedia

Later edit: This article from Time, takes a look at Apple's business model for the iPhone 3G: Steve Jobs Bets the Apple Farm

What's next?

Keynote coming soon

Get this widget!

Later edit: widgets and web2.0 seem to cause problems today...

Uncluttering OS X Naming Architecture

The Apple Blog wonders:

So is dropping the “Mac” from OS X a sign of things to come? Or is it just to unify the marketing between the Mac OS and iPhone OS? Stay tuned.

I'll stay tuned. But is Apple ready to become a mainly-software shop? No, I'll put it this way:

Are the software developers ready to port Windows software?
Are the enterprise customers ready to switch massively?
Are the Apple customers ready to give up some of Apple's can't-touch-this glamor?
Are you sure, Steve Jobs is ready for this? :D

On the same topic. I'm still waiting for that biiig 'Ipohone' ("Imagine this..." from last year)

Mephisto luring under the bed

Saturday evening was a dream-come true. After reading the German original for high-school, I finally saw a live adaptation of Goethe's Faust.

My 3 tags are:

• spooky
• a_must_see
• great_director_great_text_great_mephisto_great_set_design.

Foto: Scott Eastman, source:liternet.ro

PS: Should you not find the time to see it in June, the show has already been sold to this year's Goethe festival in Germany (at the beginning of September)

Vorfreude

Vorfreude is Word of the day. It's German and means "anticipation" (the happy version)

I am looking forward to:
* Traveling by train to Sibiu (mhm... mountains, books, ipod etc)
* Seeing Goethe's "Faust" (theater tickets for Saturday evening)
* Sleeping
* Mom's cuisine
* Casting my vote (1- JUN Romanians vote for their new/incumbent mayors)
* Seeing Sibiu

And, as Vorfreude grows, Endorphins grow stronger :)
The following chain of bla bla letter groups is betaEndorphin: Tyr-Gly-Gly-Phe-Met-Thr-Ser-Glu-Lys-Ser-Gln-Thr-Pro-Leu-Val-Thr-Leu-Phe-Lys-Asn-Ala-Ile-Ile-Lys-Asn-Ala-Tyr-Lys-Lys-Gly-GluOH

You're right, I can't read this letters either. But some chemistry guys took a picture of one of betaEndorphin's relative:

Pic. : www.chemistryexplained.com

Math, Roads and Retail

On Wikipedia, a Dacia Logan is about 4 meters long.

First math problem:
How many Dacia Logans does it take to fill a 1.5 km road with 3 lanes / direction?

Second math problem:
This one is tricky.
We have a retail complex near city B (let us assume: 1.5 km from the nearest traffic light within city limits).
Ok, I'll give you 3 lanes / direction.
Being big, the retail complex has 9500 parking spaces.
All people living in city B drive Dacia Logans.
The parking lot is 50% full until all shops close.
Question: How many minutes does it take for the last car leaving the parking space to reach the traffic light within city limits?

The following chart offers you a cheat sheet as I transformed parking spaces and all 3 lanes (for one direction) in kilometers.

40% Rain

60%

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

The Golden Stag at 40

At 40, "The Golden Stag" international music festival in Brasov, can be considered one of the oldest "deers" in the world.
Initiated in 1968, this festival had some rough years in between, but the Romanian National Television (TVR) decided to organize it again this year.
I found the first few minutes from the 1968 edition on youtube and wonder if organizers will remember to invite Mr. Draghici to this year's edition. Draghici was the first performer to take stage at "The Golden Stag" and still lives in Romania.

PS: In case you're wondering. Deers usually live about 8 years but can also reach 17 years. Wikipedia (Romanian)

"The Golden Stag" - website

Luke I'm Your Father

I just found out that this page is related to "An Astronomical Alphabet"

Also want to check your web-site-relationships? Type "related:www.mywebsite.com" in google.

Here are my relatives :)

3 Pictures from Tirana

Should you have the money and business experience, now is the time to invest in Albania. Here are some pictures taken in February 2008.

Romania: iPhone is Orange

France Telecom spokesman Bertrand Deronchaine said Orange will be the exclusive iPhone provider in Belgium and Romania, with co-exclusive or non-exclusive deals in other countries. He declined to offer more details about the arrangement

The first good reason for me to switch back to Orange :)

Link to AP News

Restaurants in Romania: €1.22bn

A little bit of self-promo.

Visionwise Consulting, the company I am currently with, has just presented an overview on the Romanian restaurant market. (occasion: Food Service Industry Forum 2008)

The 3 bullet summary on Romanian restaurants

• Market estimated at €1.22bn in 2007 and set to reach €2bn by 2010
  
• In 2006 only 55% of the 5267 active companies were profitable
  
• Most common consumption occasion is "meeting with friends" (67.1%) and top 2 things appreciated by clients are food - and service quality

Happy eating!

Later Edit: Tim Harford's "Dear Economist..." column tackles the issue of "service" being added to restaurant bills. Well, in Romania restaurants don't add service to bills and the average tip is around 2 Euros.

Sinatra: Ten Years since He Left for Good

The US Postal Services today launched a commemorative stamp.

I remember reading on the cover of my first Sinatra MC that he's called "the voice". And you know what? I could never mistake him for someone else. I'm a fan.


One of the best profiles written about Frank Sinatra is Esquire's 1966 "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" By Gay Talese.


PS: The Wall Street Journal is running a review of other initiatives to commemorate his death. (The author doesn't like the way the marketing machine is running)

Thoughts on... Trust

It seems logical to me: trust is proportional to credibility, reliability and intimacy (how close people let you get to them). Also, trust is indirect proportional to self-orientation.

So, with my meager 8.4 score, I'm asking you: What's your Trust Quotient?

Trusted Advisor Associates > Trust Quotient Self-Diagnostic

PS: Self-orientation should affect all other scores in this order: intimacy +++, reliability ++ and credibility +

Consumer Insights (Germany)

Stern Magazine asked readers: "Why do women magazines have girl names?" (German only)

Besides the obvious answers concerning female bonding and search for a best friend, here are some of the real [funny] insights:

1. "This is only due to the lack of courage of the parents, to name their children Schmidt Playboy, Hustler Mueller or Autobild Meier"
2. "Because men can't remember names and they would not be able to find 'their' magazine again"
3. "So that men shouldn't have to say such things as: 'I spent yesterday one our on the toilet with Horst [German male name]' "

You Know You're in a Cash Based Economy...

...when you stand in line to use the ATM.
(It happened last night.)

You Are Not Seeing Double

Please bear with me as I am getting better at working with ScribeFire.

I have recently switched to this Firefox add-in and
since I'm learning-by-clicking :)
I often find myself publishing an update to a blogpost as a new post.

So, you're your eyes are ok, my clicking is double :)

Promo

For those readers understanding Romanian and willing to endure my words and way of speaking about the business of food-service in Romania, Food and Bar published an article (Romanian) of mine.

Bad news for those who will not like the first text: there are more articles to come :)

On Romanian Brands - TV recommendation

Update.
I'll watch the rerun. It has just started at 12:00 (today, 2nd December)

Original.
Money Channel TV, airs today at 16:00 a special edition on Romanian brands. Participants are: Aneta Bogdan, Radu Graţian Gheţea, Dragos Dinu, Constantin Stroe and Catalin Dima.

Thanks Kit.




via Kitblog

Star Trek vs. Larry Ellison

This weekend i was watching a live debate about the top X business men/women in Romania. Just before I managed to zap to SciFi for a Star Trek rerun (yes, the deabate was that interesting :) ) the tv host from Realitatea (Romanian only) began to read a Larry Ellison speech the goes like this:

"As I look out before me today, I don't see a thousand hopes for a bright tomorrow. I don't see a thousand future leaders in a thousand industries. I see a thousand losers.

What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser cum laude."

Needless to say that I wanted to send a text message or an email to let them know that the speech never existed... But it was so funny to see business leaders analyze a fake speech and base their debate on a false statement that I could not get my heart to interrupt them... at least not on the expense of my own money.

So, the Star Trek rerun lost me as viewer. I guess urban legends beat science fiction after all. :)

Who's leaving BT?

"BT head of branding quits for university lecturer role"

This little news article made me a little sad:
"The head of branding"? In Romania, we're still working on getting marketing departments up and running... But I'm sure we're on the good track :)

Abort the sheet... sorry ship

The newspaper business in Romania is heading for trouble as most of the papers started to offer special issues with DVDs, books and CDs. On a medium range outlook, these moves mean big red figures for the entire industry as such moves spoil the market, generating a competitive spiral on a different level as the industry’s core business. PS: The funniest initiative so far, is Cotidianul’s (Realitatea Catavencu) move to offer the 1st season of "Prision Break" on DVD. Most probably, ProTV (CME) is not amused :)

New and Improved: Outlook 2007 Gets Slower

"You may experience performance problems when you are working with items in a large .pst file or in a large .ost file in Outlook 2007" (Microsoft)

I guess most Outlook 2007 users have experienced perfomance problems by now :)

I find it unbelievable that in the age of information overload a software company releases a SLOWER file system.

"Dear User,

Yeap, our new software runs slower.
If you want it to run faster just disable all your helpful add-ins or split the .psts or just work on your local hard drive.

Best regards,
msft"

Thank You For Smoking

Nicomarket is EU's newest "stop smoking campaign" sporting a fresh approach: reverse psychology. Well... if it works for Homer Simpson it just has got to work for EU citizens.

How stuff works - The Simpsons

Homer's Brain: Don't you get it? You've gotta use reverse psychology.
Homer: That sounds too complicated.
Homer's Brain: OK, don't use reverse psychology.
Homer: All right, I will!

PS: Let's see how this works on me: "Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool.Smoking is cool." :)

Dangerous Carrots

All "James Bond"s, Bruce Willis and even "The Saint" are clumsy guys when Clive Owen steps in. I can't tell whether Shoot 'Em Up is a parody or a comedy.
Only one fact remains: carrots can kill :)

Organizations are like people

Organizations_Habits_inspired_buddhism
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

Organizations are like people: they have both good and bad habits. Brands are, pardon the syllogism, like people too. :) So, this matrix ("Four Right Exertions" of Buddhism) is helpful to all 3 entities.

Who cares ...

..if one's surrounded by concrete when one sees such joy in the sky? :)

Croatia

Some pictures from Croatia.
My 2 cents: Great views of nature and "virgin" beaches (read "rocks&stones, no sand").

My bookshelf is growing

Gone fishing?

I might have gone fishing for a while, but check this awsome "I hate the seaside" movie. :)

Beginnings

In the beginning your desktop is uncluttered. It's always neat and fancy and comes with the producer's wallpaper of choice.

But you always need to change the picture. And then to have a few more shortcuts on the desktop. You also have got to install iTunes and Picasa.
And then you'll have to reconfigure the iPod and import music and picture.
And then you'll have to update the system and back it up.
And then... it's 2 in the morning and you'll have to sleep...

Here we go.
I've bought a laptop on Friday and have taken all the above steps. The next morning I decided to clear some space on my working table to make room for the new laptop, which I named Fridolin. To make a long story short Saturday evening I came to the conclusion that I really need to buy a home, a big one. It's just that I have suddenly realized that I need more space... However, when one buys a home, it's always neat and uncluttered...

I guess this happens when one buys new stuff :D

Imagine this...

Steve Jobs' keynote guidelines
Originally uploaded by igrec

1.) Get rid of 2 of the 3 iphones.
2.) Put the booklet on the table
3.) Make the 3rd iphone as big as the table and put it where now the booklet is
:) this is my whish for this year's WWDC

PS: Microsoft's Surface is close, but it's running Windows ;)

Tagged: "Simply Successful Secrets"

"Compose a new blog post listing the top 5 to 10 things that you do almost every day that help you to be successful. They can be anything at all, but they have to be things that you do at least 4 or 5 times every week. Anything less than that may be a hobby that helps you out, but we are after the real day in and day out habits that help you to be successful."

•Staying informed – I use almost all information tools available via websites (RSS stuff: Google Feeds on my personalized homepage, blog feeds, news screening etc)
•Asking questions – almost risking to appear stupid but getting insight into matters of interest
•Quality Control – residing in my light obsessive compulsive disorder, checking and rechecking my work helps very much
•Being Curious – Doesn’t matter that I’m in professional services, I’m reading SF, love writings, technology columns, political commentaries, biology stuff, math articles, cooking magazines etc
•German literature – reading and re-reading studied works in German (Brukenthal Highschool reminiscence) helps drawing parallels between business, life and art

Tagged by Alina, tagging for Dana.

“Hey, you know, we’ve never had to change that bulb…”

There's a light-bulb in California burning for more than 106 years. Wow!
However, I guess it will have to be replaced soon as both US states and EU are planning to ban traditional lightbulbs :)
via

You Know It's 2007...

...when Sibiu becomes European Capital of Culture :)

You Know It's Christmas...

...when you see a Christmas tree and get to glue your present :)

Rest If You Must...

...But Don't You Quit! :)

Thanks to all those who contacted me with questions regarding my lacking to post new things on brandlyyours.

I've taken a brief pause from writing but I'll be back as soon as possible in 2007.
Until then please try and have a Merry Christmas and a great & happy New Year!

This Week-End’s Light Bulb

Ainslie Haircut
Originally uploaded by bill.streeter.

Ok.
Imagine you go to a barbershop to get a haircut and you:
1.) Keep bouncing on the chair while the barber is trying to get your messy hair look neat and sexy
2.) Ask the barber to only cut the hair on 1/2 of your head in order to assess his professional skills
Now imagine how you will look after this nice barbershop visit :D

Services, and especially consulting services, need buyers cooperation and can not be “demonstrated” before you buy them.
Please see this post for more on services and their characteristics.

That’s Branding Dude

After 16 Formula1 seasons, 91 won races and 7 championship titles Michael Schumacher got a “Grazie Michael” from the Ferrari team.

As I am biased :), I saw a branding and communication mantra in this larger than life banner. Brand essence and effective communication have at least this in common: sheer simplicity.

After so many successful races, championships and years what more can one say to a true hero and leader? I think “thank you” is the best choice given the context and I’m joining the guys at Ferrari in thanking Michael for his passion and the quality time he provided us with during all these years.

3rd October

German Philosophers
Originally uploaded by iAli.

Today's Germany's National Day - "Tag der Einheit".

Being raised as a German :p (studied all subjects in German until I got to the AES), it should not be a big surprise that I consider this day as my second National Day, after Romania's 1st December.

The land of Luther, Goethe, Nietzsche & Co is also one of Romania's top economic partners in 2005 with 12,000+ companies registered here and a trade volume of more than EUR7bn (imp+exp figures).

What's this, doc?

Lamy cartridge
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours.

Looks like some spooky test tube from CSI or the chemistry lab, doesn't it? Actually its the nifty way Lamy packages some of its ink cartridges. :)
I'm a fountain pen freak and I love Lamy's stuff. The sad part is that they won't sell their products in Romania and I had to ask a colleague to buy me accessories from the expensive London.

Pizza @ Romania

"Belea" - a Romanian word (Turkish orgin) for "problem, misfortune, difficulty, etc"

This is what I think we're in right now. We're in "belea". Why? Because we'll join to the European Union in 2007. Please keep reading this post, I promise not to write about statistics, GDP, politics, parties (political ones :D), social issues and abuses or other much debated issues regarding Romania and its accession to the EU. Although it wouldn't be unrelated.

I just want to quote a comment on bbc's web page:
"I don't think Romanians should be allowed into Britian. There are enough Italian restaurants in the country as it is. Hang on... What's that... Oh, look at the atlas......never very good at Geography...

Richard, Edinburgh"
Source and other comments on this topic

Richard's comment made me laugh at first. But it's actually sad, that we couldn't position ourselves within the EU. And I don't mean it in a geographical way.
We're in "belea" but we'll manage. We always have and always will. That's us, that's Romania. :)


PS: Brandient has recently published a view on (Re)Branding Romania.
You can read it here.
Also, please check my del.ici.ous tags on Romania for other links on RO, branding & co.

OneWebDay+Swiss Cheese Memory

2 pounds of swiss cheese
Originally uploaded by v+k.

Today's the first OneWebDay. Cool, huh?
I started using the internet back in 1995/96 or '97. Sorry, my memory's like swiss cheese. :D
Upgrading from an "e-mail only" account I soon began to surf the web, build web-pages and get info for my articles (for a local paper).
Now, as I look back, I find myself asking two things:
1.) Where is this thing called "the internet" going?
2.) Am I addicted to it? :D

Reminder to Self: Slow Down on the Caffeine

Reminder to Self: Slow Down on the Caffeine
Originally uploaded by Flipped Out.

Perfect Photo. Title fits as well ;)

Ok, where's my mess?

New place
Originally uploaded by msandrasch.

As I moved into a new place, I'm trying to find my stuff between all the blue plastic bags. No worry, I'm sure the usual mess will surface eventually. :D