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geek links and ideas

Find your voice

Marketing (in all its forms) is unlike everything else an organization does, because it’s always different. There’s no manual because everyone does it differently, and what successful marketers have in common is that they are successful.

The only way your organization is going to make an impact is to market in the way only you can. Not by following some expert’s rules or following the herd, but by doing it in the way that works. For you. Don’t worry about someone else’s invented standards for new media, invent your own. Avoid obvious mistakes, don’t follow obvious successes.

Find your voice, don’t copy someone else’s.

Seth Godin, spot on as usual.

Categories
in portugal

Senbazuru

1000 cranes

Thousand Origami Cranes (千羽鶴 Senbazuru or Zenbazuru?) is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings.
An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. The crane in Japan is one of the mystical or holy beasts (others include the dragon and tortoise), and is said to live for a thousand years. In Asia, it is commonly said that folding 1000 paper origami cranes makes a person’s wish come true. This makes them popular gifts for special friends and family.

(from wikipedia)

1000 cranes

seen a bit everywhere, in the streets of porto.

Categories
in portugal

my brother,

the informatics engineer turned beekeper, has gracefully introduced me to his new hive.

ana - the beekeeper's sister

i dressed the whole white suit, gloves and wellies, just to get near them, and then, i didn’t even take so many pictures… i’ve never been bitten by a bee (fingers crossed) and i wasn’t planning on that, so i kept my distance and let the zoom do the work :P
the little ones at work

it’s funny how they work – you just stack a wax frame with a very shallow pattern on the hive, and slowly and meticulously, the bees grow the pattern and fill it up with honey.
honey!he’s hoping he’ll have loads of honey by christmas, and i don’t doubt he will. things are looking (and smelling) pretty good!

Categories
in portugal languages rants

Où voulez-vous aller aujourd’hui?

yesterday, a french tourist asked us for some directions to a nearby hill. straightforward stuff, follow us, and on that road go straight ahead till you get to the top. and then, as i visualized the answer in my head… i couldn’t say a straight french sentence without sprinkling it with chinese. my french used to be pretty decent, but every time the man asked something, my first reply was in chinese, then i stopped, switched and tried to finish the sentence in french, much to his bewilderment (and my own!). i hope he found his way to that hill.

portuguese/english are the languages i use to think, but chinese is the closest thing to my “second language” these days: when i communicate with a non-english speaking foreigner, i instantly speak in chinese. it’s unconscious and… weird.

which is why i really need to find someone to practice this with, before i forget it all. any tips?

Categories
in portugal on the big screen traveling

montemor-o-velho, the castle

“onde nasceu fernão mendes pinto?
jorge de montemor onde nasceu?
a mesma terra o mesmo céu que eu pinto
castelo velho o que foi deles é meu”
– afonso duarte

“where was fernão mendes pinto born?
jorge de montemor, where was he born?
the same earth, the same sky that i paint
old castle what was theirs is mine”
– afonso duarte

montemor-o-velho

last tuesday, driving slowly between figueira da foz and coimbra, we came across the castle of montemor-o-velho, proudly standing on top of a small hill. we had no big agenda for the day, other than picking up the cats at midnight in lisbon, so we stopped a while to explore.

the castle was first heard of in medieval times (before the country of portugal was born), and it was successively conquered by christians and arabs and even by napoleon troops. in 1910, it was declared national monument, along with “igreja de santa maria da alcáçova”, a church within the castle walls.

the views from up there are stunning, green fields all around the castle walls and many squares of rice plantations (and some storks too) due to the proximity of the mondego river.
a vista do castelo

while the castle walls and premises are in reasonably good shape (the paths are clean and the lawns are taken care of, there’s even a little café up there) you can’t really say the same about the church. the frescos and statues could really use a hand. what battles are they trying to tell us about?

frescos

other details seem to have stood the test of time a bit better: there are beautiful tiles decorating the walls, writings and a few gravestones on the church floor.


the entrance is free and on the day we were there, there was no soul on sight. a whole castle to yourself, how about that? :)