Migrated to Wordpress...

...so I can start a few things all over again. No worries, I do feel like starting all over again...quite a lot:)

You can find me here.

Cementum - interview with Richard

You cannot imagine how enjoy doing those interviews! I not only learn more about people I work with, but more and more look up to them - their ideas are brilliant!

Here's one I did with Richard, author of Cementum, blog based around his project of writing a sci-fi novel. Here you go:

Syl: Your blog, Cementum, is describing the process and your expierences during writing of your book. What ispired you to start the blog? What is its aim?
Rich: Well, I’ve been blogging for a number of years now about various subjects. Prior to starting to blog about my novel I was blogging about technology, and as much as I enjoyed it I found I just didn’t have the time to do both, i.e. blog regularly and write a novel. So I decided to combine my two passions and blog about writing a novel, include some tips, try and join the aspiring novelist community online, get involved and have some fun with it, and it’s been great so far. Lots of feedback, always constructive, always interesting.
The aim was to just talk about my novel writing experience, add some tips in there on the experience I have had and possibly get some feedback. Since I decided I am going to try and get it published however, I’ve ‘upgraded’ the reason for doing it, to self promotion as well, so as well as joining the conversation and community around novel writing, I wouldn’t mind a bit of traffic these days as well.

Syl: What is your book about? When did you start thinking about writing it and what made you want to publish it too?
Rich: The book revolves around my own personal fatalistic beliefs and tries to explore how they work, why I believe in them and how I can explain them. It’s done through the medium of science fiction and, at its basis, tries to show how you can believe in Fate, without having to believe in a Sky Wizard (read God), I know it’s a contradiction, but that’s what I enjoy doing, challenging myself. Taking two opposing views, smashing them together and seeing what comes out the other end.
I hadn’t thought about publishing it until I got a few of my peers to read some of my first chapters, just to see if it made sense really. They came back with shining praise again and again so I thought, well why the hell not try to get it published. It’s a very personal book, very exploratory, raises some deep philosophical questions about the inner self and society as a whole, but it’s definitely readable, and after some revisions, I think could do pretty well.

Syl: What was the main challenge while writing the book? What is your favourite part of it?
Rich: Sometimes I sit down and have this stream of consciousness whilst writing, it’s called surrealist or automatic writing, where your brain just pumps out ideas and prose, without any real thought or structure. That’s the best part, just letting my imagination literally run free and turn ideas into words. It’s brilliant. The most challenging part is exploring my personal beliefs, my own belief system is complex and full of contradiction, arguing with myself about it and why I believe in it is very difficult. Putting the words on the paper isn’t a problem.

Syl: How does a book writing differ from blogging? What are the similarities?
Rich: Novel writing and blogging can be compared on one level I think; that you’re often putting yourself out there for others to read and praise or criticize, whether intentional or not. You’re bearing yourself to the world, so to speak.
A novel will always give a real insight to the author, and similarly a blog will always give you an insight to the writer. But similarly, you can get authors that ‘write by the numbers’ like Danielle Steel, that just pumps out romance novels to a certain structure, in the same sense, blogs can be purely informational blogs that don’t really show what the writer is all about. However, given that the author, or blog writer, has chosen to write about romance, or tech, or whatever, you can always get a little bit of info on them by the subject they chose.

Syl: If you were to choose, which one would you prefer?:)
Rich: VERY difficult question. What if I take, blogging a novel? Like each post is another chapter or paragraph or something like that, I’ve seen them around. I’ll go with that, it’s cheating a little I guess but I get to embrace both of my passions then!

Syl: Going back to your blog - you have a very stong presence on-line. Does this presence influence your life and/or vice versa?
Rich: My presence online has influenced my life for a number of years now, since I went to my first ‘geek meet’ about seven years ago now. I remember it well, a bunch of us hired out an internet café for 24 hours, and generally drank and geeked out for that period. Since then, my online life and real life have been a blur, just the other day I went to a stag do of a friend who I’ve known for 8 years, we first crossed paths in a gaming forum, now we’re good pals, crazy really.
Now everyone is jumping online with the explosion in social networking, which isn’t a bad thing, but I generally like to keep ahead of the curve. I like to get involved in all the latest technologies to get to know new and interesting people.

Syl: There is a lot of discussion recently about blogging dying out. Do you agree?
Rich: I don’t see blogging dying out, I see it getting diluted as more and more people get involved, and I see it getting rubbished as more and more companies / money grabbers try to take advantage of it. Blogging is here to stay, just how much people trust it and the people who blog, is the real question. 4 years ago if you saw a blogger, you’d instantly trust that was a person without an alternate agenda, now you have to take your time when hitting a new blog to see who the person is, what they’re trying to sell, what ideas they’re trying to get you to read etc.

Syl: What about more traditional genres - novels, traditional letter writing, printed books (as opposed to e-books), do you think we will gradually move away from those?
Rich: They’ll always be around, just in more limited forms. I occasionally like writing letters to people I’ve not spoken to in a long time. With the advent of E-Ink, e-readers are becoming a lot more popular and easy on the eyes, books will always be around though, unless the green lobby gets its way of course~!

Syl: You live in Oxford now - what is your favourite place in Oxford for writing?
Rich: definitely http://gdcafe.com/FrontPage/frontPage.htm G&D’s cafe on cowley road. It’s nicely lit, it’s got a good atmosphere, they do great bagels and brownies, it’s independently owned, it has free wifi and loads of power sockets and the icecream is awesome. I’d say I’ve written at least 50k words in there in the last 8 months. The staff are really nice as well!

Syl: You have seen our new project, Bar Mleczny, and already gave us few tips. Do you think one day you would like to sit down in our Milk Bar and meet few Polish readers of your book?:)
Rich: Yeah absolutely, I’d love to go to a milk bar, I adore milk always have, so writing with a big glass of fresh milk sounds like a great idea to me. The polish contingent wouldn’t be too bad either! Hehe.

Syl: Have you ever been to Poland? If so, what was your best and worst memory of it?
Rich: I haven’t, although I’ve planned on going a number of times! I’ve had a lot of polish friends whilst working in the states over summer months of old and I get along with the polish very well. I think it’s the hard working attitude, the love of drink and a good time, their impassioned nature and consummate humility that I see in a lot of the Polish people I meet that I enjoy about them. They’re very much like the Scottish, and being half Scottish myself I can see why we get along. I’ll get to Poland one day, when, I’m not sure, but some day!

Syl: Bar Mleczny is all about culture and food. What is your favourite dish? Do you cook yourself?
Rich: I try to cook every night, I love it, I find the process very cathartic and love having produced a tasty meal at the end of it. I really enjoy cooking a nice curry, Indian or Thai, my spice and sauce cupboard is always full of hot and tasty things!

Syl: When I say 'Polish food/drink' what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
Rich: Vodka and erm, Vodka! The polish guys and girls I’ve hung around with in the past have always enjoyed introducing me to very nice native vodka’s, which I’ve always encouraged. In terms of food, I’m not sure, I think I’ve had a polish dish cooked for me once or twice when working with the Pols, but I can’t remember what it was, it was a good few years ago now and I’m fairly sure I would have been drunk at the time of eating as well!

Syl: Just last question about your book (2 q's:): when can we expect the book in stores? Will you continue blogging to promote it then?
Rich: In stores?! Lets not get too ahead of ourselves here! But seeing as you asked, I’ll go with the ‘dream’ scenario, which is basically; Finished in the next few weeks, revisions up until Christmas, submissions in the new year, get a publisher by the end of the first quarter, sign contract, marketing, printing and release late 2009. Though like I said, that’s the ‘dream’ scenario, and is highly unlikely. And yeah, I plan on building Cementum as a platform for discussion and exploration on all the novels I write in the future, and as a place aspiring novelists can use as a resource for tips and advice. So you’ll see it around for a good while yet!

Colin Mercer on the Inter-Web - interview with Colin

Here's the second of my blogger interviews. Check Colin's site before you read it:)

Sylwia: How did you start your adventure with blogging? When? Why?
Colin: A multi thread question, a lovely place to start, at the beginning. My first experience of blogging came from being called into my boss's office and being told that I had to start blogging and that was that. This was a corporate blog which I was the sole person contributing on for around 6-8 months. I probably shouldn't say much more about it, a quick Google search for "colinm blog" should make it pretty obvious though.

That’s the boring, accurate answer out the way, onto why I started blogging at colinmercer.co.uk. I honestly don't remember, I have had the domain for a little while, then the opportunity of hosting came up so I thought why not give it a go again. Being back involved in the industry after uni meant that I had some time on my hands to experiment and get involved so I did and Colin Mercer on the inter-web is the outcome.

Syl:Does your blog reflect your private life? Does your blog affect it?
Colin:Almost entirely, everything I blog about is private life related. I am a keen lifeblogger, which means that when something happens I like to blog about it instantly. Whether this is a picture of me in the pub with some mates, or whatever, I like to throw it straight up. Until very recently I have kept my blog based entirely on my personal/private life, now I have started to add in some more things about work and other topics.

The only affect the blog has had on my private life is positive, opening the door to meeting a wealth of new and wonderful people who previously I would not have had any contact with.

Syl:You post a lot about your company’s projects/events. Am I right you are a fan of full transparency when it comes to marketing?
Colin:This is something which has changed a fair amount in the recent weeks, until now I have stayed away from posting about what I do with work. Previously I would post about work situations, or happenings at work, or places I was going with work without a reference to who I work for. This I suspect will continue as I want to keep up some separation from my blog and my work.

Full transparency in marketing is something I am 100% behind, as you know, I spend a good whack of my time at work striving to achieve this. I feel that this does not affect my decision not to post about work on the blog as I am far from running a marketing blog.

Syl:You have several presences on-line. What is their role in relation to your blog? Which one is your favourite and why?
Colin:I do indeed have several presences, my latest challenge is to tick all the boxes on usernamecheck.org, and undoubtedly I will get bored very quickly. Their role I guess is to try and increase the awareness people have of my blog, the overall aim would be to get my opinions in front of as many people as I can. However, in practice, the blog merely acts as a tag to link all the presences together, and gives people I encounter on individual sites the opportunity to find out a bit more about me.

My favourite site is clearly Twitter, I find it very easy to update and keep up with the people I want to keep up to date with. I also love the Jaiku, but find this much harder to follow than Twitter is.

Syl:How about your friends, do they blog? Do they use Twitter?
Colin:I have a few friends who blog, this number is ever growing as I slowly but surely convince my existing friends to start blogging, and make friends with people who are already blogging. I would say a higher percentage of my existing friends use Twitter than blog, coincidentally, in the last few days I have had a number of people ask me to explain "this Twitter thing" to them, which is encouraging.

Syl:What does the blogging mean to you (in three key words)?
Colin:Meaningful, empowering, brain-splat

Syl:I want to publish part of this interview on bar mleczny (www.barmleczny.blogspot.com) if that’s OK, hence my next question:
Colin:What is your favourite dish? Do you cook?
Being an English male, Steak, Chips, Peas, Green Beans and English Mustard wins the day. Yes I love to cook, I wouldn't say I'm great but I like to experiment and find great satisfaction in accomplishing an edible meal.

Syl:What is you favourite foreign cuisine?
Colin:Curry, however I'm pretty sure that the curry I like isn't actually foreign cuisine, just our version of foreign cuisine. So I will also say Mexican, things like Fajitas, Tacos, etc.

Syl:If we were to have a Polish cuisine evening once based around cooking and eating and possibly drinking Polish shizzle, would you join us?
Colin:YES - you bring the vodka, I'll get the cucumber!

Thank you, Colin!

Why I like England...

Google+Simon Says=Chromon, celebrating 10th Birthday

I know, Google celebrated last weekend, but I have one bad characteristic - I do not like to post when it's expected, I prefer to do it when I feel like. I have quiet days, and active day. Guess which one it is today?:)

'Google' came into the system of basic metaphors of our language and dictionary now, and it's hard to believe that this baby is 'only' 10 years old. I use the calendar, gmail, google image search, orkut (well, not much so), Picassa, Google Earth, I try to use Google labs gradually. I count on Google Alerts. YouTube is on my daily list. Google Maps is where I always go if I look for geographic location of new places. Now I am moving on to Google Books (The Tale of Genji - first novel ever- is there too - what a bizarre feeling:)) and cannot express my graditude to blox.pl/Gazeta.pl for making a deal with Google so I can use gmail on my old gazeta.pl e-mail account!
And hey, I still blog on Blogger, hehe...

I think Google holiday logo's are pieces of art. Hey, Google team, how about exhibiting them?;)

(Dilbert Google Doodle - May 20, 2002)(Google celebrates Vincent van Gogh's Birthday - March 30, 2005)

Check them out here.

So, to celebrate, let's play:) Remember Simon says? What do you think of this version?



Source here.

Apologies to the Girl! (TweetStats)

I would like to apologize (even though it's extremely late!) to the Girl for not responding to her @-tweet! I translated her interview in Hungarian once and posted it as a comment on her blog (very good interview btw) and now - thanks to results on TweetStats - I can see she messaged me on Twitter and I have ignored her. I do not ignore people normally, but it's difficult to follow all the tweets if we need to work sometime too:) So I am double-happy that I have found this tool tonight.
I also noticed I use Twitter more nowadays - see above. It's probably due to the fact that I use it for communication more now, than I used to. I used to use Twitter for tips and news on social media or info about my friends. I am more active now, simply because it saves me time. I also got into the habit of updating all my friends with the news earliy int he morning, before I start work or while my Outlook is opening (my dear Vista makes me wait for it aprox. 15 min, grrr...)
Yes, I do like TweetStats, even though I am a linguist - I hate numbers and I hate stats...usually;)

Privacy on-line or tweets on the bus

The more I read about ethics and on-line privacy (the two often come together) I contemplate my own openness. See the example above - just to scan my own content I have tweetbeep and google alert set up for my name. This is what I have received today:) Funnily enough I am happy to see it up somewhere where I have not expected it, simply because I am a fan of postmodern and I like to see the game of sudden and unplanned together with my own experience in it. I remember that morning - after my first coffee, with a book in my hand, just left my son at the nursery which he loves...relived that he is in good hands and I can relax one more hour before I go to work.
I lost this moment among all my tweets, now it's back:) 'Tweets on the bus' is a cool site, as opposed to Twenis and the like (of which I am unsure when it comes to ethics, I guess it's quite subjective).
I wish someone could come up with a similiar blog collecting all tweets containing the word 'coffee'. Judging from my Twittercloud, I would be able to include more links;)

Two new blogs on media ethics

Kicked off this month can potentially turn into great source of knowledge about media ethics. Starts with basics, like this article on codes of ethics.

'My opinion is that everyone has their own set of morals, and what may be an important moral to one person may not be to another. Judging by your own set of morals may be appropriate in some situations, but I think it would be hard for me to feel ethical using this theory within media.' - which seems to be general media ethics approach as opposed to the traditional, principal ethics. So, we know what we will find here - probably interesting arguments pro and against certain actions, journalist ethics and case studies. Hopefully!
I will keep an eye on both sources.

few interesting events

BlogWorld took place 20-21st of September, so I strongly advice the website and the blog.

Future of Web Apps is planned for 8-10 of October in London. Souns like a niche event, but might be interesting for all bloggers.


Internet Hungary (14-15th of October) is a great idea for Hungarian speaking bloggers, like me, but it struck me that the website has no translation in English - at least I can't find it. Am I so blond?And do not forget that 15th of October is the Blog Action Day 2008, this year commited to the issue of poverty.

Drinking a bio cola while sitting on a grave in front of Oxford Cathedral?

...not typical but my son is capable of anything really...:)

Economy Crisis in the US

Lunch time, thinking time;) Just found Scoble's post and see how upset he is by today's decision of US Congress. I usually do not like to take part in discussions about US politics or economy, still this is a large issue and affects us all, right. Why are we all upset?
Because the decision made by an institution on the other side of the world will affect our lives? ( I really want to have my own house one day, but without my bank's support I can forget about it, etc).
Because the decision was wrong - at least according to specialists and common sense.
Because an average US citizen trust her/his government to make right choices and believes in democracy.

'This is shaking my belief system pretty thoroughly, because I actually do believe that a decentralized system is stronger than one with one guy or gal in the middle controlling everything. But for a decentralized system to work we have to 1. be smart and 2. believe in each other. Those two things are proving to me to be pretty trying right now.'

I know there is a lot of academic discussion about quality or actual power of citizen in the US democracy, but let's put it aside. Let's look at the situation of other democracies too - Poland, Hungary - countries I know - kicked it off so well, and I am not convinced they do it right. Polish reality/economy is not too promising, Hungarian one even more depressing than the typical Hungarian pessimism. I just wonder if there is a perfect, balanced democracy? UK seems a very well working one to me, and we still have leaders taking UK boys to fight wars (why do we need to fight wars at all nowadays? I thought we all learned the lessons from II WW?). It's all down to trust (yes, Scoble is right), common sense, peaceful approach and mutual respect. It's all about working for better common wealth in order to achieve happier private life, right?
Apologies for my idealism, but when we look at it realistically even citizen based systems still depend on part of the society - not always the most smart, knowledgeable and ready to make right choices par of the society.


It saddens me and scares me like hell. That is why I do not post about politics nor economy:)

Work ethics - ROWE

Sorry, I cannot stop myself but share this with you:
' “In a Results-Only Work Environment, people can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.” This is not simply company-sanctioned flextime. A true ROWE has unlimited paid vacation time, no schedules, no mandatory meetings, and no judgments from co-workers and bosses about how employees spend their days. In other words, managers trust employees to get their work done and do not mandate — or even comment on — when, where, or how it happens. Because everyone is evaluated based on what they accomplish, as opposed to how much time they spend looking busy at their desks, it becomes clear very quickly who is actually getting work done and who isn’t.'
More about ROWE work model here. There is also an interview with Harvard Business blogger, Tammy Erickson, about ROWE.
Let me know what you think!

(Me, I spent 2 min reading the article and posting it, so I think I will get my work done;) (OK, I will take 2 min off my lunch because I AM actually BORING:P) )

'Ice-cream'

Chauvinists Earning More?

I have just learned about a research conducted by University of Florida. See the final findings
‘Men in the study who said they had more traditional views of gender roles made an average of about $8,500 more annually than those who had less traditional attitudes controlling for job complexity, number of hours worked and education level.
Delightful.
The situation for women was reversed. More traditional views on gender correlated with decreased earnings — about $1,500 a year less.’
Why am I not surprised? No, seriously, I am not being cynical here!

What I really would like to see though is a study, like this one, showing stats on male and female passion bloggers/web 2.0 bloggers against commercial bloggers. I would be interested in the results.

Is this ethical? Few words on female blogging…

PR Girl is asking that question when referring to women bloggers who and earn money with their sites. I think it is a very complicated issue, and I understand the concerns of well established voices of the blogosphere, still – did we not join it because the internet gave us the eternal freedom of speech? I would rather like to look at the results of those blogging activities that were mentioned during the blogher.com event.
I am currently very much occupied with the reasons for all of us to blog and I understand we all have different ones. Still, in the light of current law in the UK, it is against the law for a company to conduct any marketing activities (=pay bloggers to express their opinions as well) affecting and CHANGING financial behaviour of the brand consumers. I think it’s a brilliant way of judging blogger ethics too.
As far as the writing itself is concerned, we cannot ask every single blogging person to forget about projects based around earning money. It’s just a different type of blogging with its own issues. Isn’t?

Pix: My Dream

Blog Till You Drop! - interview with Lolly

You will probably think I am crazy - I am interviewing people I know! Yes, but I have a reason to do so, even more than one:
1. I look up to them.
2. I want to know what they think.
3. I want to know if an interview can help me to know them better.
4. I want to share this with my other friends:) and readers:)

I am including in interviews questions I do not know the answer for in our private lives. I am genuinely interested in their reasons to blog, exist on-line and in their every-day life. I am interested, so I ask:)

For the first one, I have asked Lolly, author of two blogs - Blog Till You Drop and Cosmopolitan.
Here it is:

Sylwia:First of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask you few questions, Lolly. Here they are:

Syl: You blog was celebrating second anniversary recently. Tell me, how did it all start? The blogging I mean?

Lolly: I started my career in medical marketing, and I was desperate to do something more exciting but kept hitting a brick wall. A friend of mine who worked for an Internet start-up suggested I start blogging… I was hooked within months and started experimenting with a variety of social media tools. I seem to live and breathe social media these days!
Syl: Did your approach to writing the blog change since the first few posts? How does it affect your private life?

Lolly: My writing has definitely changed over time - I used to blog a lot about traditional marketing and advertising but I seem to write about anything that’s Social Media related at the moment. When I read some of my old posts, I feel like an inexperienced schoolgirl!

I write whatever tickles my fancy and I do not have a set agenda. Some people have joked that I am glue 24/7 to my computer screen but I do have a life offline, so no blogging does not affect my private life at all.

Syl: Did you have on-line presence before starting a blog? You are active on Twitter, Facebook etc - how and when did those preceses join the blog one?

Lolly: I used to spend a lot time on MSN Messenger and Skype. I also had a MySpace account for a while (we’re talking late 2005) but I quickly got bored of it… Pink glittery GIFS aren’t my thing!

Blogging is the foundation of everything I do online – I have a social presence on a number of other sites (LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, FriendFeed, Twitter but to name a few) but they all relate and add value to my blog. Facebook used to be purely for my real-life friends but I have now added a couple of bloggers I get on really well with.

Syl: More about your private life, I guess:) As French blogger in London, what can you say about the local blogosphere? You attend the geek meet-ups, so what do you think about people you meet there?

Lolly: The local blogosphere is awesome as there is always a party / meet up going on! Everyone knows everyone! The French blogosphere in London is buoyant – you would be amazed to see how many French bloggers who work in the digital / social media industry live in London

Syl: What is the French blogosphere like? Where do the bloggers meet, georaphically I mean?

Lolly: That’s a tough question! I read a few French blogs but I am not part of the French blogosphere – I write in English after all. The Social Media scene in France is also very exciting – there are dozens of Meet Ups in Paris but also in my hometown, Lyon.

Syl: Do you miss France? Do you think about living in other parts of the world?

Lolly: I am not French, so I don’t really miss France. I would love to live in NYC – who knows; someone might read my blog and offer me a job ;) I also love Italy so that’s definitely another option!

Syl: I'm an expat myself and I am asked that question very often (well, maybe not so often in the UK, still) how do you decide upon a country you want to live in? Is it just job or persoanl hapiness driven choice?

Lolly: I originally studied modern languages and I used to travel quite a lot in my student years. I simply fell in love with the UK. As far as I am concerned, I must be in love with a language to move a country. Job and happiness are of course also very important

Syl: I see you like travelling and run a travelling blog aside from your main one. What is your best and worst memory from Poland?

Lolly: I loved Poland! Nice country, nice people, nice food! My worst memory is not being able to speak the language and the roads! I really thought I was going to die in Lodz at times!

Syl: If you could choose a country to live in, where would that be? Why?

Lolly: NYC career-wise (wait a minute, that’s a city!) or Italy as the lifestyle, language and people are simply amazing!

Syl: And a last very general one: what is the best and the worst aspect of living in a different country?

Lolly: The best aspect is that you learn a lot from other people culture-wise. The worst aspect is that however hard you try, people will always see you as a foreigner.
Syl: thank you!

(If you have any other questions, let me know, I'll ask;))

Part of this interview is also available here.

blogging ethics and 'One Nation Under Blog' - new book about bloging ethics

ted i:I wanted to talk about it since few weeks, but somehow I felt I am not educated enough in the subject of blogging ethics. I read all the main books (Manifesto, Scoble, etc) and followed all the ethical and unethical issues comming up on-line to be able to express my own opinion. Today I was challenged myself, so I think it's good time to put is up.
I think it's a must.
As some of you well know I work in WOM Marketing and my position is very much connected to marketing ethics (engouh if you do a proper Google search) so I really need to separate my private life from the proffesional aspects of it. Nevertheless I blog since 2004 and was always interested in social media to certain extend, so it's dificult to find the balance between work and private interest. I actually think it's great to be able to work in a place where you can use your interest and enhance both your performance, as well as you own knowledge.
This blog however, as well as all other presences of mine on-line are devoted to my private interests and I want to keep it this way. As TechWag is putting it righttly, my blogging is about ambition and 'talks about the things that are important to him (me:)), without advertising, and without an obvious money motive'. Even though some of the topics might correlate with my work, I always make it clear that it's my private place.
So...
Today I was contacted by a very friendly blogger to take part in a project which - based on the first short (via Twitter) description sounded interesting. I like taking parts in different projects, especially when we talk about creativity, activism or social media. I cannot and I do not feel comfortable about taking part in projects involving any material reward and/or sponsored campaigns. I am glad that the approach taken today was personal, friendly and understanding and I am happy that I can use it as an excuse to make this statement.

So yes, feel free to contact me, but be prepared I might have to say 'no' to keep my presence the way I want it to be:)

Blogging ethics is a complicated issue. Each of us has different incetives for blogging and we have different standards too. The gurus of web tried to put together different codes of cunduct and we all learn and try to stay flexible with all the new technologies coming up. Our perception of privacy changes too. I personally think that the blogging ethics has, is and will always stay in the region of common understanding and respect, and will be based on personal agreement.
I also hope we will all stay open for new ideas, and choose the ones we actually find suitable for ourselves.

Talking of new ideas...

I am looking forward to see new publication on this topic, book titled 'One Nation Under Blog' described by Jason Falls here. I keep the track of political blogging in the US and I hope we will all come out of it with few learnings. I wonder what this book will suggest...

Update: just found this policy, good to see other bloggers -actually involved in piching - state their ways on-line. Very, very clear!

Blakle - social media baby

When I discover - or like in this case - am told about sties like Blackle I feel like a social media baby...walking in nappies still. It's a cool idea, and I bet my fellow blogger D4M4G3 (Hungarian blogger who just posted about his trip to London with few cool pix) knew about it and has it in his collection of black shizzle. If not, I am honoured to impress him. (I doubt I do;))

Tweader, 'a tool for Twitter'

It is an interesting tool indeed. It allows you to track back conversations (@...) on Twitter. See loiclemeur's conversation here for instance. It does not always pick it all up, but in principle it's great to actually pick only those tweets that are conversational.

This tool makes me think about the Twitter itself. We all started using it probably just to try it out, to see how it goes...and at the back of my head I had the thought of 'just another social media bit, surprise me!'. And it did indeed! I grew more and more interested in microblogging simply because my presence on Twitter started to turn into something serious. After few weeks I got to the stage where Twitter was:
1. Providing me with insights on what the leading web 2.0 personalities use, do, suggest - and where form can you learn it, if not from them?
2.Serving as secondary to my blogs tool to network/communicate with my old and new friends.
3.Giving me the flexibility to be present on-line while I am away from my PC (I must admit I am sceptical about mobile blogging, and I know I will have to face it soon, still:/)
4.Most of all meeting extremely interesting people!
As I am getting into more and more apps and tools based on Twitter I really think it's a great platform, simply because it matches our busy lifestyle!
Blogging will not die, obviously we all need it and always will, but microblogging is a great appendix, intro and wrap up of all we do on our blogs.

Twestival

What a great idea! It's one of those events that makes me really, really sad that I cannot attend! Damn! It looks like few of my friends are going so at least I can be happy for them and have a chat afterwards, but it really annoys me that I am stuck at home that night. (I feel like a bad teenager who needs to do the homework instead...that annoyed). Anyway, do have a look at their website, and do try to sign up for it. It really looks like a cool place to be for all Twitter and social media fans. And to meet people like @ihatemorningsdotcom:

Ethics - interesting sites

For those interested in issues of ethical trade there is an event happening in London soon.

Corruption is an ethical issue which is and always will be actual. I am glad that places like Transparency International educate the global audience on facts.

Ethics Resource Center seems to be more focussed on US business ethics, still you can find cool reports on UK issues as well.

If you are interested in actual events and international ethics go to this site.

But most of all I advice you to check the London based Institute of Business Ethics, where previous European Conference of Business Ethics was hosted. The site gives great insights into basics of implementation of ethical code and policy in a generic way - any business friendly. They link to great sources of Ethics studies, also mention upcoming events and most of all - train people interested in business ethics.
I am actually planning to attend this one, on the 30th of October. If anyone is planning it too, please let me know!

Do we like personal? Ad new Twitter and the like...

I have recently learned that Felix, person sitting next to me in the office is writing a blog, and found interesting post on his site about personalisation for iPods, iPhones and laptops - GelaSkins. Enchanting designs and the fact that I actually like ALL of them (!!!) made me order one just for a trial.
The service is great (delivered from Canada within less than a week, although while processing the order I agreed to wait for 20 days), costs OK and the quality perfect. The main worry - the glue quality prooved to be perfect, you can take the skin off just as easily as you put it on. The touch pad of my IPod works just fine, so I am one happy customer.
The idea made me interested in the whole personalisation thing. Why do we like the new Twitter? Because we can make it more personal and desing based on our own easthetical needs. Why do we like blog engines like Wordpress or Blogger - because we can customise them easily. But is that always true? The more options the better? To what extend? New Facebook seems to go towards simpliffying rather than overcomplicating. Still I personally like a small dosis of my own taste (or lack of it;)) in everything around me.

Delete the deleted

Do you sometimes feel like your day is completely unreal? Maybe it's the rain, maybe it's the tears...somehow I felt very out of space today....and then while cleaning my Outlook I saw this...


Bizarre, bizarre day...