Tag: Stress

Back to Africa

Moleskine entry: August 5th, 2009

Lucozade Energy Challenge number three begins. It’s about 9pm at the time of writing, the plane is taxiing to the runway and we’re very nearly on our way.

The task this time round is white water rafting on the Zambezi river. First stop: Cape Town, South Africa. From there, onwards to Livingstone, in Zambia. After that? God knows.

Wherever we end up, I can not wait.

The challenge is different in oh so may ways from those that have gone before. First of all, this is the first challenge that we’ve had any official Lucozade presence with us. Sam and I both report into our respective agencies who, in turn, report into Lucozade/GSK. Their main contact there? A guy named Nick.

I first met Nick during the final stage of my interview process for the gig that I’m writing to you from now. An Aussie and all round nice chap, he’s a welcome addition to the team.

Speaking of ‘the team’ I’ve already mentioned Sam and I are back on the case, this time however we’ve been joined by four freshl graduates from Scotland. Kenny, James, Wullie and Stuart. All good lads and all, it would seem, on the trip of a lifetime. Our first video is already in the can and I think after a small amount of coaxing, they’ll be talking and playing up to the camera in no time at all. After all, the more personality and energy these guys have, the easier my job gets.

🙂

We’re flying over Brighton now, crossing the English Channel. At last my mind has found peace. I mentioned that this trip was different; we’ve had a longer gap between this and the the last. Ten days in fact.

Quite possibly the longest ten days of my professional life.

Jeebus.

Balls to it! (a Whatley rant-a-thon) Part 2: Facebook Events

WHY OH WHY can I not just hit ONE BUTTON and sync my events on Facebook with every other sodding calendar I have to keep?
See Plaxo/Yahoo/Google/iCal/And any bloody S60 calendar app I tend to be running on my N95 right now…

WHY?!

Talk about a blinkin’ walled garden. Apparently the walls are coming down. Well blow me if that’s not about time. I wrote a piece (that I never published here but hacked it to pieces, updated it and edited the mobile parts of it together here for smstextnews) wayback in September detailing what a pain in the ass backside this was/is.

The piece (entitled ‘Think of the Children’) talked (well – the unpublished parts did anyway) about Jaiku and Twitter and how they can happily ‘co-exist’ within the industry… Hang on – Let me go get the quote:

I’m sorry if this is out of context – but you’ll get the idea:

The walled garden appproach that these services offer mean that interoperability between the competition* (*my definition of competition is anything that competes for my spare time – my Nintendo DS is competition for the book that I’m currently reading for example) is impossible.
Imagine if you will Yahoo Mail refusing to send your emails to a Hotmail (sorry – Windows Live) account and/or a Gmail account.. Ridiculous huh? But this is what is happening currently with MySpace/facebook.

.

The Operators/Carriers of this world have finally come round to the idea that interoperability is the way forward. A quick glance at any website proves this as I would imagine you’d be hard pushed to find a tariff that doesn’t include Xnetwork minutes. Of course, this has not always been the case… but, eventually they (the operators) sat up and listened.
This is what the social networking sites of today should be working towards..

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I’m a big fan of the micro-blogging service known as Jaiku. But more so am I a fan of one of the co-founders – Jyri Engelstrom.
He believes [or at least I think he does] in complete and open syncronosity across such services..
This is evident not just through recurring themes on his blog but also whenever he is asked the question:

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‘Which is better; Twitter or Jaiku?’

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You would think that, if pressed, he would of course say ‘Jaiku’. He would have to! Right? Wrong.
No. Jyri is an evangelist of co-existence… What do I mean?
Twitter works. Jaiku works. Why shouldn’t they work together?
Why insist that the user must choose one or the other and not both?

.

Taking this theme and expanding on it… – Why can’t I send a message from my facebook to my friend’s myspace?
If I tag a photo on flickr why aren’t my bebo friends notified?
One day, I hope, this will be the case… much like, as mentioned, how Xnetwork minutes are now ‘as standard’…

So yeah – interoperability (or lack thereof) really hacks me off..

But hey – while we’re still on the subject of facebook (ish)…

Cont in Part 3…

Harassed & Stressed

*Yawn*

Morning all – I am shattered.
Didn’t get much sleep last night and this morning I managed to oversleep.
Brilliant.
Then I get to the tube station only to discover that the travelcard on my Oyster has run out.
Brilliant.
Not only that but I also don’t get paid until tomorrow.
Excellent.
So I queue up to try and get it topped-up, half an hour later, my debit card fails.
Why? See previous point.
Fantastic.

What am I to do?

Well – at this point I had a good mind to turn around, go home, back to bed and sod the rest of the day off.
But no – I persevered – I managed to get through the barriers (just). Sneaky I know but I called my friend Alex to have a good moan and she insisted that I had no choice but to get myself to work (cheers Bongo, if you’re reading this).
So fifteen more mins later (when the tube finally turned up) I climb aboard a sardine tin-esque tube carriage…

..and off to work I went.

[EDIT: Just noticed the gormless looking dude over my right shoulder, on the bottom-left of the pic – brilliant – hahaha]

Note – my tube is NEVER that busy in the mornings.
What an absolute pain in the arse. GRRR!

Anywhoo – I’m at work now.
Ranting coming to an end.
Dunno what I’m gonna do about getting home yet – should be interesting.
Maybe I’ll work really late and sleep under my desk – that’s not a bad idea….

Oh – and on top of that – I’m moving house this weekend apparently.
Must start packing soon!