juicy week

Last week, i have been part of things that i appreciated a lot, and in whose potential i believe a lot.

IAA is launching IAA Young Professionals, a division that takes care of the interests and needs of young people (less than 25 y.o.). I was invited to the preliminary discussions last week, and i am priviledged to say that i am among the founding members of this chapter, together with a bunch of great colleagues. The reason i am so enthusiastic about this is that i know damn well what it means to be completely new in this industry, not knowing whom to turn to, where to learn from and all that. So i can only be glad we can make a difference for the passionate young people out there who need some support.

Speaking of passionate young people, the McCann Creative Mentorship that Mihnea and I are taking care of, has announced its first mentorees. It's been an amazingly refreshing experience for me, because some of the people who submitted their answers proved to be extremely funny and creative, and came up with crazily fresh ideas. And, what was even nicer, they also came up with interesting concepts, resisting the temptation to be creative just for the sake of creativity, to use one of the most loved cliches. However, i was quite disappointed by the very many who only submitted brief answers in Word format. I would have loved to see them at least trying to sell their ideas in surprising formats, which would have given them an extra credit for their work. Anyway, since this is an ongoing project, i am sure that more and more intriguing presentations will add up, making the selection more and more difficult.

And last, but surely not least, we had quite a productive planner meeting last Thursday, with many people coming and sharing their opinions on how to turn our APG into something useful for everybody. During the first months, APGR will try to become a sort of a knowledge-center, so that any person interested in planning can find useful information and support. This will be obviously doubled by trainings and conferences aimed at presenting the various forms and aspects of planning and research. And we hope we can attract as many members interested in planning as possible. In case any of you has suggestions or comments, please feel free to use our email apg@planning.ro.

Looks like there's plenty of work to do !

emotional

My sister turns 18 today, which makes me feel bonkers old. Happy birthday, sis !

APG meeting - things starting to roll

As you might know, our APG Romania had a voting session last week, and the result is a short-term board. Let's talk about this board's starting objectives, as well as the first steps that our APG should follow on Thursday, at 8 pm, in Codecs.

Everybody is welcome to share ideas, suggestions, expectations from the APG and so on - the more ideas we discuss, the better chances we have to turn this into something useful for everybody. So, what do you think ?

Precise location - Codecs, 37-39 Agricultori street, room 104 (very close to PRO TV)

mind-feeding

Filtr.tv is one of those nice small ideas that bring something interesting for the watcher's eye, as well as mind. What it basically does is to provide weekly playlists of short movies, animations and music videos developed by a selection of unique, undiscovered, and intriguing individuals and organizations (we call them contributors) who are either using online video to communicate or can be represented within an online video.

What i like the most about it is that it feels like going to a cosy contemporary art gallery: you travel through different perpectives, intriguing views, inspiring twists, refreshing combinations of ideas that kick-start your own closures and interpretations - i really like websites that act as a platform for that.

only 2 km away from extra special life

supporter's dilemma

I am facing a very serious problem and i thought that sharing it here might help me get suggestions. My problem is this: i have been a Formula 1 great fan for very many years. I've been mad about Ferrari and Schumacher - always supporting them, crying enraged when they were having problems and/or losing, being more than happy when they were winning. Sheer love.

When Schumacher retired, i pretty much stopped watching the races. However, some weeks ago i accidentally started watching a race, and all my passion for Formula 1 in general came back, so now i'm back to watching all confrontations. The sad part is that something very important is missing - i have no idea whom to support. Therefore, i watch F1 for the show, but at the end of the race i am quite neutral - no tears of sorrow, no tears of joy. I still love Ferrari in a way, but i felt really betrayed when they brought Raikkonen - back in the good, old days i hated Raikkonen, and i used to receive tones of aggressive sms from my friends who supported McLaren whenever Kimi surpassed Schumi. I know this is not really a rational argument against Kimi, but whenever i remember some of the Raikkonen/Schumacher races i get totally pissed off. Massa, on the other hand, doesn't really inspire me in any way, even though everybody says he's one of the rising talents (which he might as well be). I sometimes appreciate his style, but most of the time i get the impression that he's barely even racing. Maybe i should just pay a little more attention to him.

I cannot stand McLaren Mercedes. No rational reasons, again, but i always loved Ferrari too much for McLaren not to get on my nerves, and i hope it's understandable. The fact that Alonso is now part of McLaren only made things worse, since i've been in great pain when Alonso took away two titles from Schumacher, also winning in Schumi's last season (you cannot imagine what i've been through during the race when Schumi could have definately won the title, but car problems forced him to abandon - i just couldn't believe it and couldn't recover). However, i do somewhat appreciate and empathise with Hamilton who seems to be really promissing, and who's also my age :).

Even though i am a BMW fan when it comes to cars, i cannot say that they impressed me with anything in Formula 1 (by the way, i really appreciated the Williams-BMW duo). I would have really expected them to, but they failed to do so, which means that i cannot relate to them as a supporter. Nor to their drivers, Heidfeld and Kubica.

Strangely enough, at some points, i've been really impressed by Fisichella, and in a way i was happy for him when he switched to Renault, cause i thought this gave him more chances to prove himself as a good driver. At some other points, he disappointed me so badly that i thought he had nothing to do with driving, after all. As for Barrichello, i appreciated him when he was part of Ferrari, but now he's just average, although i thought that the combination between him and Honda would be nice.

This is obviously the very abridged version of the story. And i know it's mostly emotional, but how rational can i get, after being so damn passionate about Schumacher and Ferrari for so many years ? I guess my heart is still with the constructor, but supporting Raikkonen just feels unfair...

sleeping randomness

Last week, i was so sleepy i couldn't believe it. I even fell asleep on the door, and i am not kidding. I simply couldn't keep my eyes open. This whole situation was both embarassing and discouraging for me, since i've spent a lot of years sleeping 2-3 hours per night at most. But i must be getting old.

This state of mind randomly reminded me of all kinds of sleeping-related things i've watched or read at some point. Here's five of them, in an obvious random order, as well as topic.

The house of sleep - a novel written by Jonathan Coe i've read many years ago and considered interesting at the time. Actually, i was fascinated by one particular character, named Terry, a chronic insomniac who was obsessed with movies.

The science of sleep is a Michel Gondry movie i liked quite a lot. Mainly for two reasons. One - it reminded me of the period when i used to let my imagination fly far more than i do nowadays; which meant that instead of cross-referencing a lot, i pictured all sorts of oddities around me. Two, cause i love the sound and concept of "Parallel Synchronized Randomness".

Nocturne, one poem by Ruben Dario that was sent to me by a friend years ago.

Andy Warhol's first film (or, better said, anti-film) Sleep, about which he said: "I could never finally figure out if more things happened in the sixties because there was more awake time for them to happen in (since so many people were on amphetamine), or if people started taking amphetamine because there were so many things to do that they needed to have more awake time to do them in... Seeing everybody so up all the time made me think that sleep was becoming pretty obsolete, so I decided I'd better quickly do a movie of a person sleeping. Sleep was the first movie I made when I got my 16mm Bolex."

Suzanne Vega's song "Tired of sleeping".

pic from here.

non-blogging consequences

This blog has been deserted for too long now. And during this time, i tried to come up with all sorts of reasons to convince myself that there was a very good cause behind me not writing here anymore. Most times, i felt like i was too busy to post (which is not so far from the truth), some other times i felt like i 'd rather use the time for doing something else, sometimes i felt like i didn't really have anything interesting to say, some other times my enthusiams was simply cut down by all sorts of talks about blogging vs planning or blogger vs. practician. At times, i even got annoyed by all the fuss that was created on blogs following events such as Olimpiadele Comunicarii - when the unhappy people used the blogs as the perfect environment to let go of all their frustrations and insult other people who were only trying to help. More recently, i blamed not posting on the fact that i have temporarily moved away from my home, and no longer have internet, which must be one of the silliest excuses ever.

And then, slowly and surely, i started to realise all the drawbacks that not blogging has on me. Like for example:

1. my daily dose of interesting bits dramatically decreased - i simply love the blog brain, not necessarily for the times when it reminds me of random "cultural" or scientifical facts that i could have read lots of books about or even looked for myself on wikipedia, but more likely for its "amazing ability to come up with all sorts of hypotheses that sound correct and have the added benefit of being totally impossible to verify", as Scott Adams puts it. Blogs are full of ideas and, most important, thoughts - some brilliant, some crazy, some silly, but who cares as long as you can always make connections and get something out of them ? I mean of course i spot all sorts of things in the street, i read all sorts of things in newspapers and watch some on television, but their tone sounds more argumented, more like "these are the facts", and less like the "you know, this thingy crossed my mind this morning, and i can't realise whether it's retarded or genius" blog-tone.

2. the more i postponed posting, the more i postponed reading - and i mean even postponing reading blogs that i adore, written by people who always get me curious with their posts.

3. the less i blogged about them, the less events i attended - i used to be so much more connected to Bucharest arena - no matter how tired, i still found time to simply know about very many of the things happening, and i also found time to attend at least half of them. I went to events, museums, i compared, i combined, trying to extract something interesting enough to share. And actually, this isn't only limited to attending stuff.

4. blogging less meant getting in touch with less wonderful people - and also losing touch with some of the wonderful people i "met" via blog. Quite an obvious one, isn't it ?

5. lack of blogging reduced my enthusiasm in implementing all sorts of small projects - sometimes blogging feels like writing my very small manifesto and keeping track of how consistent i am with it. Otherwise, many of my small manifestos remain notes in my notebook i often forget about.

This being said, it's time to gather the Word docs i saved as drafts on the laptop, even though they seem really silly, like the one trying to prove what a great planner Hitchcock would have been.

pic from here.

interesting2007

Interesting2007 has been one of the most exciting experiences i've ever had. The atmosphere, the presentations, the rhythm, the mood, the audience, there simply was something special in the air that made me feel very special to be part of the gathering.

The whole thing was mostly interesting because of its randomness - and it kept on bombing us with different ideas, different angles, different perspectives, developing far less like the regular planned big teaching seminars and conferences and far more like the exact way in which we find ideas and inspiration - combining a bit from here, a bit from there.

At times, the randomness and events-on-stage made the event feel weirder and slightly spookier than a Star Wars convention. Which is kinda brilliant. There were moments when i simply laughed and wondered what would happen next, and i didn't get disappointed for a moment. The combination of topics included tips on how to split a log, video games and art, the challenges encountered when you you try to use simple everyday actions to change the world, television, tips for making a better erotic film, comics, niceness, knots, food reconstructions, printing, Ibsen and muppets, tubes, skateboards, finity, Oprah, science of spying, amazing pics, fobias and many others.

Once again i was reminded the fact that no matter whether they're used to talking in public or not, whether they're used to writing presentations or not, people are just brilliant when they talk about something they are really passionate about. And passion can get really contagious at times.

I was very glad that Alina and Ileana were also there. And it was also really nice to talk to John, who's up for a brand new experiment and who will also be in Romania soon, Ben, who was kind enough to sign me an autograph and draw me a map of London, and Faris, who had just been to Romania. And i even got a chance to say hi to Paul Colman himself.

Amazing day, amazing feel. Pics soon.

instead of counting sheep

We're dead curious to know how many planners Romania has (and making bets about it), as one of the first APG Romania actions. So please tell us about you here.

resolution

"It's just this crazy day - so damn many things to do. Tomorrow it will all be different". "The weekend...aaah - the weekend will be free". "This is the last weekend when i work instead of doing other things". "It's just this crazy week. Next week i'll have spare time". "It's just this month. I'll have to reconsider my lifestyle next month"...

This is how i've been lying to myself lately. And it has to stop, so that i can post on my blog once again, and attend all interesting events again, and watch loads of movies, and practice sports, and stay out like crazy and so on. That's it :).

warning signs

This is a warning sign for tourists - the hand-written small print claims the warning does not apply to Hungarians.
Smoking area - but smoking kills.

the weekend

Although i wasn't very pleased with the idea of going to Poiana Brasov again, my weekend turned out to be very nice and relaxing. I took the good, old Red Road up to Postavarul, took loads of bad pictures of trees and thought a lot about recycling, mostly following a very interesting and engaging "Focus on ecology" conference in the Czech Center. One thing is certain - one way or another i need to get involved in environmental issues, and try to make at least a small difference.
Walking in the woods is always fascinating for me - and i usually focus on one particular detail, which i observe all the way. This time the detail was snails.

And, speaking of snails, i can say that i had plenty of slow food (now that the movement arrived in Romania as well). And it felt so good to talk to the chefs, be explained all sorts of stuff about Romanian traditional food and recipes, as well as particular serving methods. I also admired an exhibition of pickles - those people develop pickling as a form of art :).

i support

A very nice recent campaign caught my attention - this year The Civil Society Gala gives all of us the possibility to help shape the Romanian civil society, by "adopting" an NGO - linking to it, promoting its projects, talking about them and so on. I think that's a really great idea, especially if all of us "adoptive parents" remember to keep an eye on the chosen NGOs.

I would adopt many of the featured NGOs, but i just thought that i should focus on one for the time being (and then maybe record podcasts with people from the other names on the list as well). And that one is The Ecology-Sport-Tourism Association (AEST). I like AEST because i somewhat perceive it as a sort of a gathering of planeteers (Captain Planet sense). They help form eco-volunteers, and i know how difficult, yet vital, this has become among the vast majority of young people. They have already formed over 600 eco-volunteers, who either developed their own associations, or they further collaborated in various eco-projects. And i strongly hope they keep on doing their great job (at this point, i am very tempted by the idea of becoming an eco-volunteer myself). Their projects for 2007 include:

• 5 volunteer camps in Apuseni, Bucegi, Cozia, Piatra Craiului and Piatra Mare


• eco-volunteer training courses, addressed to students


• "Ecoturistica" educational magazine


• implication, together with other organizations, in a vast campaign against the destruction of forests

Stay tuned for updates :).

last night's meeting

Really enjoyable planner meeting last night. Even though we thought nobody would show up, we ended up with very nice company including Leo colleagues Andrei, Daniela, Monica and Stefan, IqAds mogul Costin and nenorocitu, whom i've been dying to meet in a loooong time.

I guess that research was the main topic on the list, with us chatting about focus groups, Leo Youth and Q methodology and IPA. Not much about APG Romania, though we did speak a little about the differences that might exist between planning in Bucharest and planning in other Romanian cities.

Oh...and we considered a bit starting a blog to mark down Costin's adventures. I think he'd make a great cartoon strip character as well.