Christmas Market Munich

Today was the last shopping day before Christmas because in Germany, nothing will be open tomorrow or Monday (well...maybe a few shops on Monday morning...). I.e., most stressful day to have to go out and get gifts. And needless to say, we were tasked with at least 4 gifts to manage, and ideally about 10. (We made it to 4, the rest will simply come late or are for my family so we have a few more days before we fly off to see them. :-) )

But thankfully, Munich Christmas markets are a fun place to hang out (with limits), and when good friends from Singapore are in town to hug and kiss, a warm mug of gluewein is in the hand, or one has a chance to munch on a giant marshmallow, it certainly helps make the time fly. Here are some photos of our afternoon, which we got to spend with Volker and Alex and their kids, gossiping about the old times in Singapore, and enjoying the frigid air (compared to the 35 degree swamp, which Alex was very happy to be away from...)

Tomorrow we head off to Pforzheim for the coming week.

On tippy toe among the Porsches

I'm waiting for the husband to get out of the bathroom so I can continue getting ready for work. And because I only left work at 10 pm last night, I just left work computer there, which means that while I SHOULD be hacking away on a presentation for a pitch we have this afternoon, I can't. Which means I have the luxury of posting one quick blog.

I've already rolled off my little Duesseldorf project (where I replaced Verena for two weeks while she romped around Thailand with her girlfriends), but this is one photo I definitely wanted to throw in before it was too late. That there is Torsten Schollmayer, one of my many new Sapient colleagues, who will be working somewhat longer term on the project I left.

Why is Torsten leaning against the Porsche of his dreams? What was really strange and funny, is that the client we were working for has a Porsche dealership smack in the middle of the office complex. We walked past hundred of Porsches many times a day. Walk to get coffee, drool drool nice porsche, drool, walk back to office, stare stare, nice porsche...and finally we gave up and of course went in and pretended to shop for a few minutes on our lunch break.

Yeah, well, when I win the Lotto. :-)

for vivek, from my new iPod touch

hi vivek, thanks for your SMS. I'm sorry it has been so long since I've written a decent blog. There are a combination of factors that contribute to this situation. Too much work at the moment is one. Then challenges with owning too much technology at the moment is another. I am carrying around two phones and sometimes even two laptops and also working with too many networks (home, work, client) that I can barely keep all the combinations straight, let alone try to blog using what I have. So here is a brand new experimental moment that is at one time super simple with no photo and only one finger typing, but at the same time incredibly brand new (for me) because I am blogging using my new iPod touch. Which is really blowing my mind. More blogging soon, I promise. We are headed to San francisco soon to celebrate the new year with my family. But I hope to get a few blogs in before we leave. Cheers.

Emma

Those are photos of Marcel and Emma. :-)
It's nice to work in a pseudo-agency environment. Marcel (new colleague of mine who works in Duesseldorf), brings his pup Emma to work two or three days a week. Sooooooo cute. She snuffles and grunts her way around the room and gets boiled vegetables as treats. I only got a few minutes to hang out with her because I was working on the client premises, but a cute little doggie adds a whole lot of character and fun to an office. And she's quite well behaved, so I guess completely unproblematic to bring in. Now I need to think about bringing Sammy and Sophie in to work when I am in Munich, I guess. :-)

You know, it's winter here

The snow has started to fall. Quite early this year. And while it gets wiped away a day or two later by a warm slushy breeze, it's quite impressive in its white lacy grandeur for a fleeing hour or two. The trees outside our windows get painted with the white stuff and take on a whole new character. It's like they have seasonal personalities.

We went to see American Gangster on Saturday night (Good! Except for I hated the scenes with the needles and shooting up and the scene where the bad cop shot the dog). As we walked from the strassenbahn stop to the theater (about 300 yards), a teeeeeenie tiny little BMW pulled up alongside us. I stopped in my tracks and asked Andreas, "What's that?" The tiny thing was barely bigger than the woman sitting in it. "Isetta," said Andreas. "Made just after the war cause they were cheap." CUTE! Probably ridiculously dangerous. But I grabbed my phone and stole a shot. The woman inside the car smirked and watched me shoot her. She probably gets photographed all the time in her little lawnmower.

Cozy cozy cozy

Just lit the fireplace for the first time. Drank hot chocolate. Listened to the storm raging outside. Pet cat snuggled on sofa. Can you imagine it? Doesn't that sound nice? Of course, was reading "Web Analytics for Dummies" which sort of ruined the spirit of things, but then I haven't managed to buy any good fiction recently. hehe.

No Place Zone

Andreas just left a couple hours ago for a week in China. He's happy to go (I think) because it's his first business trip in 6 months...and...it's China. In Singapore he really got used to traveling somewhere about once a month. And often it was somewhere in Asia that he hadn't been yet - where he got to meet new people and check out a new city/culture. Before he left he told me he was really looking forward to eating Chinese food for a week.

We were both reminiscing on Singapore in the last day or two. I keep having these really strange moments. I'll be doing something completely normal - walking down the street, working out at the gym, eating at a restaurant with work friends - and suddenly I'll feel incredibly out of place. That's not even the way to describe it best. I'll have a brief feeling like: "what am i doing here? How did I get here?" Then I'll spend a minute thinking about what I would have been doing during that moment in Singapore. It's very strange. Almost a bit like multi-tasking too much. You have 20 websites open and you're flipping between them (ok, actively using maybe 5 of them, the other 15 are just open for later), and then suddenly you lose your train of thought and you have to peek at them to remember what you were in the middle of doing. If you can imagine that - but happening when you're walking down the street. You shake your head and think to yourself, "wait...how did this happen?"

Andreas asked yesterday (or was it today?) "do you want to move back to Singapore?" And honestly, I don't think I do. Which is not to say that I wouldn't want to go somewhere else in Asia - I'd love to move to India for a couple years - but I think in the long run I wouldn't be happy in Singapore.

Anyway, this is just a Saturday evening blog where you have a lot running through your head, (I need to take notes when I have good blog ideas...I have them all the time and then forget during the moment of truth), and can't express everything as I'd like to.

Two photos from our living room window again. Phone does a terrible job, but here are the really gorgeous trees outside just days before they drop all their leaves...

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This just in...

I'm not sure it's a good thing when I get a call from the husband, newly arrived in China, who declares: "It's nice to be back in Asia! I got here and it felt immediately like China - warm and muggy and dirty air. It's great!" Hmmm...I mean, well, we really liked living in Asia, but I'm not remembering the filthy air in the Chinese cities as fondly as he is, I guess.

Wake Up Call

Two great videos to post today. First, take a look at this (Hans, look at this one! :-):



then for a bit of a shift...look at this one - I had tears rolling down my cheeks on this one. From laughing.
This is a fairly accurate representation of what happens to us every morning. :-)))

Minisode blog

Interesting to learn that there is a new version of tv shows for viewing. Called a "minisode" and discussed in the NYTIMES a few days ago, the 150 online tv episodes being sponsored/offered by Sony here have been edited from their original running times of 30 or 60 minutes to lengths of 4 to 6 minutes. Sounds hilarious. Also reflects the attention span/time left for tv that people have today.

So this is my minisode Blog for the day. SHORT.

Two photos for you. A view of the thermometer outside our living room window. Yes, you read it correctly. Zero degrees.

And...although the picture doesn't show it very well, the white color there on the roof below the beautiful fall foliage is....SNOW.

I'm not sure I'm ready for winter.

P.S. Work going well. Still in training. Bunch of project discussions. Great colleagues. Great location (when I'm in Munich). LOTS to learn (which I like).

My(fricking!)hase

It's nice to be a technophile and all in order to be a little out there - one of those weirdos that adopts strange technology before everyone else so you can talk about your eccentric purchase/habit/hobby/indulgence/moment of extreme boredom.

Sometimes, though, the pain of participating in the whole "beta testing" process can be more than you're ready to deal with. In this case...Claudia...WAIT TO BUY THE RABBIT.

The idea is very clever. It's a smart object that is supposed to do a whole bunch of kinda useless but cool things. Namely: tell me when I have an email, read out the 5 top headlines of the New York Times every hour (or once a day, whatever), play the radio, give me traffic and weather reports, read the top feeds of some of my favorite blogs, etc. Oh, yeah, and it's multi-lingual, and practices tai chi regularly with its ears.

Cute idea. If it would really work. I'm still working on getting these things to work: email, headlines, blogs, tai chi, time once an hour.

What is working? weather, market report, occasionally the time, her *mood* report, radio. Oh - and one other cute thing. Other users can send messages to my rabbit. And today...I got TWO messages. One from a woman in Munich - a student - who told me to have a nice Sunday evening. The other from some guy is Bucharest - that sent me a strange song.

For 140 euros, not enough. Of course, for 6 euros a month, I get premium service, but I'm certainly not going to commit to that with the current level of quality. Am bombarding company with SUGGESTIONS and recommendations for fixing their services (ok, I sent one email). According to Nabaztag blog, I am not the only one dissatisfied.

Andreas says I should send the little beast back. I think I should just feed it to Sammy if it does not improve.

Myhase

hehe
Now I don't have to look out the window. Myhase tells me it's raining!!!

More to come. You can send me messages which Myhase will say to me. Just need to register here for a name. (If you didn't figure it out, my rabbit is called "Myhase" which means..."my rabbit" in German).

Off to get haircut.

Sapient

Well, most people know by now, through one channel or another. But I wanted to wait to post something here until after I'd signed papers. Which I did on Tuesday. So the news is that on October 15 (yup, 11 days to go), I'll start work at Sapient in Munich. I'm joining their "Experience Marketing" group as a managing consultant - to do a combination of online/digital marketing strategy and project management. I'm quite excited and happy about the decision. I had spoken to them about two months ago about a position, but wasn't ready to commit at that point. After looking around and interviewing with a number of companies during the last two months, I'm pretty certain that this is the place where I will enjoy my work the most. Hopefully I'll have time to keep up the blogging. I'll try to keep topics away from work. :-)

No no no :-( + Yes yes yes :-)

No no no:


Yes yes yes? (more to come....in about a week)
Nabaztag

Going to work with the digital rock stars...

I'll sign papers next week on my new employment contract. The rock star comment ..well, will be explained at another time. A bit of an inside joke. Will reveal more soon. Am VERY excited and pleased.

Photo collage from weekend

I admit that I wanted to do a much more interesting version of what I'm posting. I was thinking a humorous photo timeline from my weekend. But I'm short on time, so what you get instead is just a photo collage. Some amusing photos in there, hopefully.

Most are self explanatory, so only a couple comments:
All were taken within a ten minute bike ride from our apartment, if not in our apartment.

The angel winged lamp was a cute little lamp we saw (Ingo Maurer is the designer) which had a touch mechanism on the wires to turn it on and off. Andreas seems to think that maybe I could just make one.

Chestnuts are unfortunately not edible - they are horse chestnuts and the building we live in is surrounded by the trees. Bummer. I love chestnuts. Well, at least they're pretty to look at.

The food there is from a really yummy ethiopian restaurant that we visited for the first time since being back here in Munich. I love ethiopian bread - injera - that everything is served on (you scoop up bites of food with the bread).

You have a view of the Isar river near our home.

A little flower shop around the corner (how can you not want to buy flowers at such a shop?)

And of course a Sammy and Sophie shot for you. Sammy looking mad because I am not giving him enough treats for his taste and Sophie hanging out on our stairs spying on me.

Ah - and my thumb maneuver? That's me renting a video over the weekend. I love the 24-hour service - all possible with an entry card and a kiosk that verifies my identity with my fingerprint. Since it's not legal to work in a video store on Sunday, they had to come up with a work-around here. This work-around works for me. Of course video on demand is even better BUT the download time must be taken into consideration (30 minutes to one hour with our broadband speed for a standard movie) AND the fact that the selection currently with iTUNES kinda STINKS, makes us still "normal" video/DVD consumers. I'm sure that will change within 12 months at the latest. (And don't tell me T-Net offers video on demand - have you seen their CRAPPY selection? Terrible...)

Test Run Video

I'm not sure if this will work without conversion.
If it does, it's a quick video of me riding through the English Garden on my bike....from my perspective of course...

Ah...it does work. Nice. Although very pixely.
Here's another snapshot.


Now that I know it works I'll try to do more. :-)

Vocabulary Lesson and Tenori-On

So there was some feedback from a few readers yesterday (not only the one who posted a comment) that I might have ...um... gotten too technical on people and way into discussing what I was doing rather than sticking to food, life in munich, friends, etc. Sorry Balu. (Although you should know that there are other readers who dislike my food postings...)

I certainly don't want to alienate people or use strange vocabulary that you don't understand.

In Germany especially, I have to be careful about vocabulary. I was in the car the other day with a neighbor of mine - we were visiting Ikea - and I was talking about life in Singapore, the MBA, etc. And I referred to "the MBA" a few times and finally at some point in the conversation she said..."so what is an MBA?" And I have to admit, it was tough to keep my expression neutral, but really that's not quite fair. In Germany, MBAs are not that common, and the equivalent here is simply called something else.

With this in mind and for those who are interested, here's my best shot at some definitions from yesterday:

1. web analytics: A generic term meaning the study of the impact of a web site on its users. E-commerce companies often use Web analytics software to measure such details as how many people visited their site, how they came to the site (i.e., if they followed a link to get to the site or came there directly), what keywords they searched with on the site's search engine, how long they stayed on a given page or on the entire site, what links they clicked on and when they left the site.

2. target audience: (Zielgruppe) simply the people that read my blog in this case. The people that I am addressing.

3. widgets: This is a bit hard to describe. Two examples are right there on the right hand side of my blog - the 3jam widget (where you can send me a text message to my mobile for free) and the Voki widget (where I greet you with the little cartoon image and where you CAN ALSO LEAVE ME A MESSAGE - by recording one there.) Essentially widgets are little pieces of code that are not whole websites by themselves, but have a function that you can use within another website.

4. my voki - this is the name for the widget that I just installed (the cartoon of me). The company calls it a "voki."

5. avatar - An avatar is an Internet user's representation of himself or herself, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, or a two-dimensional icon (picture) used on Internet forums and other communities. So the voki, which is a widget, is an avatar widget. I know, it's getting confusing...

6. web 2.0 - watch the video link I posted yesterday. The term refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites and wikis — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. (Sorry - I know I'm speaking Greek here - I need to define some of the words in the definition...)

So on a MUCH LIGHTER NOTE. Take a look at this video. I had a me-consumer-want moment when I saw this. This is a new musical instrument (called a Tenori-On) that has been released in Great Britain. It looks really interesting. I thought about getting one of these INSTEAD of an iphone. (I mean...if I have to choose at some point...maybe this would actually be more fun...then again..maybe not.)

Web 2.0 Bubble?

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you might have noticed a few things:
1) I'm not posting as frequently as I have in the past: I'm sorry - it's just that I'm really wrapped up in a bunch of projects and I also really want to say meaningful things on the blog and not just post for the sake of posting. I listened to part of a webcast of a web analytics expert this morning who reinforced this feeling with his views. His name is Avinash Kaushik and his webcast was of a talk he did at Google about web analytics. Quite interesting. But in his introduction to the talk, he also mentioned the feeling that "nobody wants to hear about your date last night" or something to that effect. And I often feel like the blogs I write are a bit "yeah, so WHAT?!" (I also think I've written some interesting blogs - at least for *my* target audience. Which is why I keep hacking away at it. Although sometimes I would like to write blogs which I dare not to...)

2) I've been outfitting my blog with all kinds of wacky widgets: Yup - as I mentioned in the last blog, I've been working with andUNITE and we're considering a whole bunch of different ways to drive users to the site. :-) So this is a little bit of a test pad to see who uses what, to play around myself, etc.

3) Latest widget: my voki. A bit boring at the moment cause I chose the very conservative look and my vocal message is not exactly EXCITING. But I think the idea is cool and has a lot of interesting potential. There are lots and lots of places to create an avatar for yourself, but these guys were able to personalize it a lot more than others - if you press the play button, you hear my recorded voice welcoming you to my blog. (Claudia - maybe Mika can create one for your blog.)
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On a seperate note. Last night I was trying to explain to my mother what web 2.0 is. I keep sending around this really cool youtube video that does what I think is a really good job of explaining it. I think a simple text definition is boring.

And especially since I started working with Christian and Bernd, I've been really excited about web 2.0 projects. But I've also been worried. Because I remember web 1.0 and the big crash and I have this ominous feeling. I read this blog this morning (yup, where I first saw "voki") and had that sort of sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach...

Julie andUNITE

I've been holding out waiting for the English version to go up, but I simply cannot wait anymore. The English version will be up by the end of the month at the very very very latest. And then all you English speakers can also go see what I'm talking about. Never fear, there will be another post - inviting you to check out it out.

So, especially for the GERMAN speakers out there - take a look at the place I've been spending some of my spare time. And certainly *don't* hesitate to go take a look at it (the website, that is). Technically, you can't get in unless I send you an invite. But...this is only for a few more weeks and if you want to peek inside right away, then by all means, shoot me an email (or write a comment below) and I'll give you access as soon as I get the communication. Who ARE these people and what AM I TALKING about? Such good questions.


I've been working primarily with Christian and Bernd (top photo), the founders, since almost the beginning of July on their start-up venture called "andUNITE." "andUNITE" is a *different* web 2.0 concept. (Don't know what web 2.0 is? Go look at this very cool little video on You Tube - I think it does a really nice and also beautiful job of explaining what web 2.0 is.) Yes, it is community-based, yes it has to do with networking. But to cut to the chase, it's actually quite a simple little (BIG!!!) concept):

1) You use Google or some other search engine, probably on daily basis, to look up information.
2) Sometimes you find what you're looking for. Sometimes it takes pages and pages to find what you're looking for. Sometimes you don't find anything you're happy with.
3) the new service "andUNITE" helps to solve this problem.
4) by simply using the andUNITE interface (either the website or a toolbar you can install on your browser), you CONTINUE to use your favorite search engine to look up words. BUT, all the terms (or just the terms you want) you look up, get collected on your profile page.
5) People with similar search terms will be "matched" with you. Don't worry - it's not like you have to be best friends forever. It's only to show you when someone else has looked up the same term.
6) The idea is that a) you can find PEOPLE who might know more about the thing you're looking for and can help you or b) you might be looking for people that are simply like you.
7) Sort of a mix of search and networking. Social Search.

What do I have to do with all this? Well, I've been working on the sales and marketing plan, helping prepare the site for its U.S. entry, doing some usability analysis and consulting, and talking to as many end-users as I can for suggestions on how to make it even better.

Ich bin eine (gulp) Ami - (I am an (gulp) American)

I was not quite prepared, I think, for last night's party - although, don't get me wrong - it was lots of fun. :-)

It wasn't really until this morning that things hit me that the conversation around me (at least partially) has changed in the two years I've been gone. I guess last night was actually the first time since we've been back that I was at a party with a larger group of my peers. Until now it's been family and individual friends and occasionally a small group of people from the building we live in (older crowd).

What am I talking about?

Here's the thing. When I left two years ago and in the year or two before that, when I'd talk to people on a personal level, the topic of "being an American in Germany" would often come up. And we'd chat about my political bent and my views on the war in Iraq and more generally "how it is to be an American living in Germany." Then of course there's the standard curiosity about what's the same and what's different, etc, and that will always be there.

But last night was a whole new ballgame. The standard question that most curious people used to begin a conversation with an American with: "What do you think about Bush?" has changed. It's reached a meta level now. People are no longer curious about what I think about Bush (thankfully mostly done with that embarrassing and painful conversation). They want to know "How it is to be an American living in Germany having to face the conversation/criticism about my country, people, and president?" They're fascinated to hear about the nail-biting, cringe-inducing stories about having to somehow defend my country in public. (Because, yes, I have tried on some level to explain that not everyone in the US supports the Iraq war and really not everyone voted for Bush.) They already KNOW without having to ask that I face this all the time. And they want to know how I respond to it. Something that I find absolutely fascinating, although I don't know if it's true, is that one of the guys I spoke to last night told me that in Munich there is now a course being offered to Americans to help them RESPOND to Bush criticism in public! OMG!

Another woman I spoke to had a different, but somehow related set of questions. She was curious about my media consumption habits. More specifically, she wanted to know where I read/consumed the news. Her questions revolved around the concern that I might have a hard time finding out the "truth" if I read American newspapers *or* German newspapers. I.e. American newspapers were obviously bent so far right that I couldn't possibly read truth from them and German media was obviously bent so far left, that here too, I might not figure it out...pretty interesting.

For both conversations I was really unprepared. What to say? I think I need to take that course - or the follow up meta-level course.

In all conversations I am of course immediately and verbally excused as "an exception" (an exceptional?) American. I bothered to learn the language, I am not "typically arrogant," and "self-centered." (Wow - how to respond to that?)

And they were more than willing/wanting to follow up the initial conversation with a trade-off "love-hate" fest. Which is: "what do you love/hate about the Germans/Americans?" and then each party makes lists. They want to know why they have a reputation abroad (U.S., Singapore) for being stiff, formal and humorless. :-)

I sort of stuttered my way through the evening, albeit with lots of laughing, but whew! Need to think about that one a little more.

Happy happy homemaking

Along with baking many batches of cookies today for our upcoming house party (everyone in apartment building is involved and each apartment invites 10 friends), I considered cleaning the apartment, had friendly conversations with the neighbors, went grocery shopping, and murdered at least 30 creatures.

I also murdered at least 50 creatures yesterday. And you thought I was such a nice person...

We have an ongoing fruit-fly problem. Granted, I have fruit lying around and there certainly are enough breadcrumbs and other savory items around all calling out to the little drosophila. But...that's how I want my kitchen to be. (Well, ok, I could do without some of the crumbs - but I like having fruit and tomatoes in bowls.)

Last week I walked around like a zombie with my hand-held dust buster. Getting dressed - ZAP!, cooking - ZAP!, cleaning - ZAP!, working on presentations, CV, etc. - ZAP ZAP ZAP! What's really really rewarding - maybe sort of like scrubbing your face or brushing your teeth or many other personal hygiene tasks that we won't talk about here - is watching the transparent dust and dirt holder fill up with the little annoying fruit vampires. Before the dust buster I had been slapping them with a rolled up notebook - but then I had to scrub the wall/mirror/window to remove their corpses every time I did that. At some point during wall scrubbing and subsequently dust busting - I realized how much TIME I was wasting on the continuous hunt.

So I googled "getting rid of fruit flies" or some such term and was happy to learn that I had everything at hand to get rid of fruit flies passively. Namely: One glass, a small amount of alcohol - preferably wine, one sheet of paper, a bit of tape.

See the contraption (and the success!) right here. (I know, you're all going "ick!" but some days...well...this is really the most exciting thing to blog about.) Passive murder. I'm responsible. The smell of the alcohol draws them in and then they can't figure out how to get back out through the funnel. They fly around until they die from exhaustion and drop into the liquid below.

I'm hoping when it gets colder that they will mostly die off anyway...

Shelf Cat

I admit it, I put her up there. But now she's been up there for an hour and has no interest in coming down.