fundamentals of corporate communication: current trends and perspectives

potentially super duper conference this weekend in bucharest

it CAN'T be as cool, and I am SURE it won't be as cool as the amsterdam blogwalkeleven, but it's a great step ahead, for us, bloggers interested not only in writing, but also in the academical approach.

i can only be happy to see that there are things being done at this level, and i am really looking forward to participating.

a short sketch of the topics:


Jon White, “Corporate reputation, corporate responsibility: Foundations for organisational performance and competitive advantage”


Ryszard Ławniczak, “Internal Corporate Communication for Privatisation and Restructuring. The Case from Transition Economy”

Lars Thøger Christensen, “License to Critique: Corporate Communication as Polyphony”


Raluca Petre, “Institutional and Discursive Transformation; the Romanian state news agency”

plus many more in french and romanian.
yeah well, some titles sound quite boring, but but but judging before seeing would be unfair..

let's say this could be a cookie recieved in exchange for the absence from reboot 9.0.

i am mostly interested in the presentations on knowledge management, especially after realizing that i need to find a way to start communicating with my fellow coworkers, in a way or another...

grim against grim

DPA via Spiegel online

pleasant surprize to see the palme d'or coming home.
wondering still if it's not the time to shift the focus on a different angle of reality.
i don't exactly remember the last romanian movie that didn't depict social problems, poverty, repression, corruption or politics, and i refer not to the movies that go to festivals, but also to those that stay at home and never make it so big.
i really don't recall the last time i laughed, except at the 2002 production - Filantropica, which again, was about poverty and exploitation - a black comedy though.

i wonder therefore if these subjects are the only ones that pass through the director's mind when planning the next movie. is there really a need for catharsis, so strong, that no producer or director can avoid these over and over exploited topics? are these the only topics worht exporting?

it's sad to see that the past has such an influence upon the present, and even more, upon the creativity.

why would it be so difficult to make a thriller or just a comedy, or a horror excluding key words like

comunists
abortion
revolution
ceausescu
poverty
repression
corruption
bureaucracy
rroma
prostitution
beggars
handicaped
homeless
medical system

uhm, i guess it's already enough to make a bullshit bingo when watching a romanian movie. no offence to the palm d'or winner. glad to have won! sad though that only these topics can bring to life emotions.

a different type of a haircut

could a digital bohemian turn into some role model in life?
could it lose its essence of being different among the white collars, and turn into a hype, just like the manga haircuts?

i wonder how much of the being different, travelling, blogging, and walking around with the laptop is fake and how many of those who bohemian around really feel different or pose so.

i could be a bohemian, if i blogged more, if i could travel more to the meetings i feel like attending or if i would be continously up to date with the latest inventions and gadgets.
but well, i am currently busy with translating the RS/232 Settings for an ISEL machine at work, plus the exams, plus the graduation, plus the doing nothing afternoons, so where should there be time left for bohemi-aiming around?

i don't know how this life would fit mine, or if i could fit myself within this group and keep up with it.
the blogwalk last friday was my latest best escape from the over and over declared boredom of going to a place where my brain dies every day a little more, in this office at the end of the world, in a very crowded and non touristy area of bucharest.

my big problems remain though:
1. how should i manage to keep this job, where i do boring stuff, but i am being allowed to leave now and then?
2. how should i find a job to keep me functioning at normal parameters, and still have the time and money to travel?
3. what type of a life would i have then, if i am all the time on the road?
4. how should i get funds for all this extravaganza of travelling around?
5. would i become then the victim of my ever exploding curiosity, and die imbracing a laptop while broadcasting over the internet the latest conference?

bye bye darth vader!!

today starts the oficial week

"more afternoon delights, drinks, sun, and hammocks - more food for the lazy brain"


which coincides with the official week of
global fight against the evil forces which put exams, big projects at work, papers, deadlines etc. in may.


---speaking of evil forces.. one of my favourites---

don't let the phone spoil the movie. turn it off!

bye bye darth vader!!

the 8 most stupid commandments in a student library

(what's in the photos is under #8)


i've been today to the wanna-be-leftist library. that is actually the biggest student library in bucharest, but with a terribly rude + narrow minded team, and board of directors. (www.bcub.ro not sure if they also have a page in english.)

i've been hoping lately for more serious stuff on their lists of worries, like having an emergency plan in case of an earthquake or having a wirelass internet connection or buying NEW books, the newest ones being from 2004. unfortunately, there are other stuff on their lists.


some of their best worst ideas are:

1. though shall not enter the library with a laptop inside a bag or any kind of cover against light or dust. the device should preferably be carried in the hand, and exposed to the vigilent control of the guards.

2. though shall not bring own papers or books inside, or, if so, should rent one of the 3 (or was it 4?) rooms for individual study.

3. though shall not speak on the mobile phone, at the entrace (which is by the way isolated from the area were the intellectual effort is being done). in case of heavy snow or rain or nuclear explosion, please suffer in silence or go outside.

4. thouh shall pay for every photocopy of a document the double price of a photocopy in any other copy center in the city.

5. though shall pay for every document saved from their (at most 10) computers, which can be used by the hour. and not for free!

6. though shall not photocopy half of the books, but not for the sake of the copyrights, but because they get destroyed. and since there is just one example of almost each...

7. though shall not even dream of taking books at home for individual study.

today i've been introduced to the 8th, and newest:

8. though shall only stay in the normal reading position. any attempt of approaching one of the other sides of the desk will be punished with public humiliation, and who knows, maybe with the photo displayed at the entrace under "public enemy".
actually, my only reason for that was because of the sun strongly reflecting in the display of my latop. so someone from their personnel felt like teaching me a lesson in public, and shouted loudly that i should not sit in such an inappropriate position, just like in a bar(?!). geez, i wish it was a bar, with cool people, comfi couches, and drinks for free..


serioulsy now, why would anyone in a library care if i sit on the right side or the left side of the desk? maybe my unfortunate choice of the left side reminded them of themselves, stupid people with old inhereted habits of regulating everything, even the orientation while reading a book.



[the library has around 300 seats, at least this is the approximate number of coin lockers]