Chiperoni ku Basel

Category: General

  • eleven forty eight

    Happy Saturday.

    I am installing a Joomla 2.5 template. Finishing off my tax declaration. Listening to the radio. Currently on air: a feature on tea. Random fact: Germany consumes more tea per person than China or India cos there are many people so poor they can’t afford even tea. Africa exports the majority of its tea. Just discovered: dradio.de publishes a playlist of the music it plays.

  • Kamikaze wasp

    While cycling this morning – on my way to church – a wasp flew directly into my face and stung me on my lower lip. Somehow I managed to remove the stinger. Luckily I am not allergic. I used my bottle of ice water to cool the sting.

    Natural remedies:

    • place a slice of onion on the sting
    • make a paste of baking soda and water to reduce the itch

  • Wi-fi fridge

    Do we need this?

    Looks like more and more machines are built to auto-transmit signals back to the manufacturer.

  • Saturday

    timeless tea for health and quality life

    Slow start to a beautiful day. Listening to dradio.de and sipping Chicco d’oro coffee and reading my way thru awesome Twitter people and browsing thru Flickr. 2 laptops, 1 iPod Touch, 1 Blackberry, and 1 Canon digicam all within close distance.

    Generation screen.

    It’s caturday.

    Planning to head to the swimming pool later. Loading my iPod with podcasts. Lack of time will always be an outcome in a capitalist environment. Days like this are pure luxury.

    Links to read:
    Link 1: Yesterday I stumbled across this HBR blog post on the disciplined pursuit of less. Some interesting questions to think about…

    • “What am I deeply passionate about?”
    • “What taps my talent?”
    • “What meets a significant need in the world?”
    • “If I did not have this opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it?”

    Link 2: A trend I have been following for years – the emerging new opportunities in Africa as a result of mobile and web technology – is now being recognized.

    Even in small markets like Malawi, software companies are emerging. Developers such as:

    Link 3: Strong passwords are not enough. We need to invest more time in securing our online passwords. See this how-to at Lifehacker and this post by Matt Cutts. More hassle. More work.

    And Facebook only allows me to enter one cell phone, automatically removing the cell phone on my other Facebook account; apparently one person = one Facebook account = one cell phone number. I currently have 4 Facebook accounts. But on the upside, I may never need to spend energy on resolving this, cos Facebook may become irrelevant… n’est-ce pas? How one botched IPO can change the outlook of a company, is quite mind-boggling.

    Music: My favourite band this summer is Boy. Love their sound.

    Buon weekend. And please feel free to leave a comment.

  • The thing to do

    Try this. Try smiling. And before you know it. People smile back. And greet you.

  • Beautiful day

    I went photo-walking with other Basel Flickrites.

    We walked from Messe-Platz to Depot Basel. My highlight was the garden boxes in front of Basel Depot.

    Some of my snapshots:

    (more…)

  • Low cost stock photos

    for future reference, a list of useful photo resources:

    http://nicoleschnell.ch/post/16935324027/stockbilder-for-free

    Searching on Facebook:
    I previously posted this link on one of my Facebook accounts. But i couldn’t find it although i knew which timeframe and FB account. Plus if a FB post doesn’t have any likes or comments or shares, it gets demoted. Very one-sided approach. Some of my data is valuable and useful to me in future, that’s why I am posting it in the first place.

  • nchenga

  • mmmm

    I made some hummus following this recipe

  • Kämpfa, kämpfa

    via Cyberwriter, the Swiss version of “Never give up”

  • Copy and paste from Chrome to Gmail

    My Gmail tip of the day: copy and paste from another website to Gmail.

    Via Lifehacker.

    And with this hack, I will not need the spammy ads via Send using Gmail (I hope) (maybe).

  • Not linear

    via Whiteafrican, I read this blog post

    The problem with most social networks is the assumption that your life is linear and that people are interested in accumulating their own personal histories in one single repository.

  • Searching within Gmail

    Useful help on advanced search for Gmail

  • Uploaded my slides on Slideshare

    Chiperoni.ch on Social Media….

    Here are the slides:

    Social media

    View more presentations from nchenga.

    Based on this outline.

    I mentioned Fredrick Bvalani’s Fuel Watch group in my intro. Which I think is a powerful example.

    I had lots of fun presenting.

    There were a lot of questions about privacy and loss of control. My point was it’s difficult. You can try to minimize the information about you. But even if you’re not actively using social media tools, somebody else may still be writing and posting about you. In today’s online world, various data streams and apps are combining, processing and publishing. You need to adjust your privacy settings.

    Heh, Handmade2_0 how about getting together and presenting our information overload meme some day?

  • Preparing my next social media talk

    I have been invited to speak on social media somewhere in Germany. (Im Ausland!!!) Apparently this gathering of people doesn’t use new media applications yet. (Really? Truely?)

    This is my abstract:

    Erst gab es Blogs und Flickr, dann kam Twitter und Facebook, und jetzt gibt es G+, Pinterest, Foursquare und Klout.

    Immer mehr Web-Anwendungen drängen auf den Markt und buhlen um unsere Online-Aufmerksamkeit.

    Wie nutze ich Social Media für mein Unternehmen?
    Lohnt sich der Aufwand für mein KMU?
    Wie manage ich private und berufliche Kontakte?

    I have approximately 30 mins. Which means about 12 to 15 slides. I am planning 4 main sections:

    1) What is social media?

    2) Using new media tools for my company

    3) Using new media tools for personal reasons – develop your micro-brand

    4) How to get started – Chiperoni’s recommended checklist

    Okay here we go! Details:

    1) What is social media?

    Social media is a misnomer for online apps, that use current web and mobile technologies to publish information (text, audio, video).

    […]social media isn’t a PR tool; it’s not a marketing tool ; it’s a communications tool and a media making/distribution tool set.

    Social media is fast. It requires no techie skills such as FTP, HTML, CSS. Everyone is a publisher. Within 3 minutes I can set up an account on Facebook, WordPress.com, Twitter, or Tumblr and vent my anger or frustration or delight about a product or service or person. This is referred to as user-generated content.

    Screens of examples: blogs, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Klout, Foursquare

    Nobody can say what social media tools will prosper and what tools will peter out a la MySpace and co. But the principle of real-time will remain.

    Social media has substantially changed the way organizations, communities, and individuals communicate.

    News finds me.

    It’s not about stats, no. of likes, or followers.

    Note to Social Media Mar­ke­ting Dorks: The hard currency of the Inter­net is not Face­book “Likes” or Twit­ter “Ret­weets”, as flavor-of-the-month as they might be. By them­sel­ves, they’re worthless.
    The hard currency of the Inter­net is “Social Objects”.
    i.e. Social Objects for peo­ple to SHARE MEANINGFULLY with other people

    2) Using new media tools for my company

    I assume that a company wants to raise awareness and influence a buyer’s decision. 😉

    In the 90s we accessed the printed version of Zimpel to find out which journalist wrote about microengineering and sent out faxes. Today lots of journis are on Twitter. See Leumund’s list of Swiss journalists on Twitter

    Very obviously, as a Marketing Communications specialist, I am going to adapt and move to Twitter. Especially if I am a small or medium-sized business.

    Huge benefit: As an SME, I can circumvent the gatekeepers and get access to my stakeholders directamente. Press releases are no longer for the press only, but for everybody interested in your company’s products or services.

    Huge benefit no. 2: SEO. More surface area for Google to find me. (Analogy: ocean of data – more islands pointing back to my company website)

    Huge benefit no. 3: when a shit storm is raging against my company or an external communication crisis comes along, I already know how to use new media.
    Example: SWISS during volcano crisis.

    Huge benefit no. 4: costs are still lower than print, billboard or radio/TV advertising.

    BUT, social media is not working for all companies. You need to find the right platform and the right strategy / tone of voice / mix of useful content vs pure advertising. Everyone needs their own tailor-fit strategy.

    3) Using new media tools for personal reasons – develop your micro-brand

    My personal benefits have been:

    • Networking
    • Learning
    • Reflection
    • Knowledge management
    • Positioning myself as a specialist
    • Fun

    For every online comment you receive, there are about 200 visitors that didn’t say a thing about your post. Very few people comment online, but many people will read your entries and comment offline when you meet face-to-face. Or even e-mail you photos of Nutella alternatives from their last vacation to post in your collection.

    4) How to get started – Chiperoni’s recommended checklist

    Inspired by Su Franke, David Meerman Scott and Elise Bauer…

    Before you dive in and set up your social media accounts, please consider the following checklist:

    • Do some research beforehand – which new media platform is suitable for my topic? Is my potential audience using this web application? Can I add value to the existing online conversations?
    • Look at the legalese – who owns my content? What limitations are there in the terms and conditions?
    • What information about my company or my personal life, am I prepared to make public? Would I say the same kind of things in a real-life, face-to-face meeting or in front of an audience?
    • How do I handle private contacts vs business contacts on my social application? Do I know enough about the privacy settings? What happens if I make a mistake and I set the wrong privacy for an entry?
    • How important are online contacts / networks for me?
    • Consider the effort – you will need to post at regular intervals to gain any kind of traction. Prepare a pipeline of topics / an editorial calendar. Set up Google Reader with a list of sources that write about your topic.
    • Frequency is very important
    • Be authentic
    • Be a thought leader – develop useful content. Most of us have been overexposed to advertising. I am jaded. I am cynical. I will challenge and question any kind of advertising posted on the internetz. Instead follow Elise’s ideas on thought leadership.
    • Find your social object.

    See David Meerman Scott’s book on the new rules of PR and marketing. There’s an excellent free e-book to get you started.

    I strongly recommend Su Franke’s talk on networking.

    Mut zum Netzwerken 2.0

    View more presentations from sufranke

    Especially Su’s last slide is important: once you start your social media home, don’t leave it uninhabited.

    Last slide – further reading:
    all of the above links and some more!

    Your comments? Additions? Feedback?

  • Alles wird gut

    I went a’photo-walking. Some snapshots:

    FRAGILE

    vespa

    entrance

  • Searching on Google Plus

    A couple of days ago, I read a post by Louis Gray highlighting Google + search. And I just read this article on the new linking.

    Inspired by +louisgray.com, here are some Google + searches to try out:

    Search engine optimization
    https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/Search%20engine%20optimization

    Gapingvoid
    https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/gapingvoid

    Search for content on Malawi
    https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/malawi

    Blantyre, Malawi
    https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/blantyre%20malawi

    Chiperoni
    https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/chiperoni

  • Zigubu

    I have returned from a 3 week visit to Blantyre. It was a very relaxing holiday. I visted family and friends in Malawi’s biggest city.

    The weather was beautiful as expected: hot and rainy. Even though the rainy season has started, temperatures soared to 36 degrees and more on several days. Blantyre is located at an altitude of over 1000 m above sea level.

    Due to an ongoing fuel shortage, I didn’t travel to other parts of Malawi. We did not manage to fill the tank even once during the 3 weeks that I was there. It was very frustrating to queue for 3 and a half hours only to hear, 5 vehicles away from the pump, that diesel is finished.

    The forces of demand and supply set in. Black market prices soared to 100 to 120% of the regular filling station price.

    Every day you could see men walking around with yellow containers (called zigubu) in search of liquid gold. Zigubu. From a linguistic point of view, I like the word very much. From a driver’s point of view, zigubu are very frustrating, cos it’s a synonym for hoarding.

    I found Fred Bvalani’s Malawi Fuel Watch group on Facebook to be a very useful source of information. Zikomo kwambiri.

    Since I left the fuel situation has improved. I hope this will continue.

    Internet

    Throughout my visit i found TNM’s mobile data service to be reliable. I also like the fact that TNM are advertising their products and services in Chichewa, Malawi’s national language.

    I noticed that several friends and contacts are using Blackberry smartphones. I am wondering if this is a RIM strategy?

    Easyjet for BLZ!

    Both of my flights from JNB to BLZ and back were packed to the max. Since Air Malawi’s grounding, the SAA flight is the only regular airlink. I heard there is a small jet that flies to Lusaka. But that’s about it. Passengers flying to Nairobi need to take a bus to Lilongwe, 400 km away from Blantyre, to reach the Kenya Airways connection. I wonder what the limiting factor is in the business case. Evidently it is not so easy. Once upon a time, Comair was planning to buy Air Malawi. But wouldn’t it be cool if Malawi was accessible by means of a low cost airline similar to Easyjet?

    As usual I’ve posted some snapshots on Flickr.

    I am back in Switzerland. To my amazement, the weather is very mild this January. So far I haven’t really felt cold, despite my tropical break.

  • Baking Schoggi-Weggli

    I am making Schoggi-Weggli based on this recipe

  • Bicycle snapshot

    auf zwei rädern bleibt man jung

  • Apache Wave and Walkaround

    In my inbox:

    “If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including Apache Wave. There is also an open source project called Walkaround that includes an experimental feature that lets you import all your Waves from Google.”

    http://incubator.apache.org/wave/

    http://code.google.com/p/walkaround/

  • Three snapshots

    near basel sbb

    peeking thru the window

    garage t. inglese

  • Chrome apps

    I am trying out a couple of new Chrome apps:

    chrome apps

  • DLF for the win

    I have always been a radio junkie. Listening to news and current affairs.

    Favorite radio stations include BBC World Service, NPR.

    Started listening to Deutschlandfunk. I like the detailed news hour coverage.

  • About the longevity of crazy, futile ideas

    Many social media centuries ago, 2 bloggers started collecting photos of Nutella alternatives. It was just a fun idea on the sidelines. Started, while we were talking about Nutella culture and regional variants in Italy, Israel, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany.

    Well, we’re still collecting.

    Many thanks to all contributors.