If you log into wikipedia lately you get this huge message from Jimmy Wales himself asking for money (strangely enough just read somewhere that they have a new board of directors and a new chairwoman with nothing better to do than spend about 6 mil euros they have already raised). Anyway, what I am mainly concerned with here is that even if I wanted to make a donation, I would have to go through a lot of trouble.
Romanians do not have a charitable streak - obviously, we have been without money for such a long time we do not have the drive to give it our freely. But even with new stuff opening our eyes and with truly emotional causes coming up, it's really effing hard to make a donation. Online, it's basically impossible unless you want to go through the hassle of being rejected time and time again by PayPal because you live in a country with an awful record.
So, my question is this: why can't there be an integrated donation system. Basically like PayPal makes your purchases possible, this system would make a summary of all existing causes and donation requests and you only needed to log-in, make an account, register a card and donate whenever and wherever you felt like.
I want to give, really, but I don't want to try really hard to give.
PS: if there is such a thing, direct me to it. Jimmy needs my help.
Showing posts with label something. Show all posts
Showing posts with label something. Show all posts
1/07/2009
1/06/2009
Deprivation
Feels a bit strange to be writing about this in the midst of all of this turmoil, with Gaza, and people losing jobs, and people committing suicide over losing money and all.
BUT, as I dive into the recesses of the WWW I am getting this overwhelming feeling of deprivation, of being cut off from huge chunks of happenings, cultures and events which we can only feel our way around but never really get the full force of.
Everytime I meet my friends in Brazil and London, everytime I read the profiles of Onion readers in the Onion personals, everytime I look through the reading lists of Faris or Russell, and read them casually mentioning books they may have picked up while browsing, everytime I read the NYT movie reviews I feel deprived. Because with all the vastness of knowledge and openness that Internet is giving us, we still live in an area, in a region, in a country where there are no levers to make things readily available.
We need to call aunts from the US to get movies, to beg there is some nut uploader who thinks of indie movies when snatching that cam in the cinema, that the post office will not mess up if you order from amazon, to look for bootleg copies, to drag on colleagues who travel abroad to bring stuff. We are deprived. We used to be deprived of food, clothes - my mom did people's homework to get money to buy jeans, of basics. But now we have them, and somehow we are stuck at the stage where we enjoy being satisfied with the basics.
We are deprived of movies, books, exhibitions, music, series, posters, socks, boots, bags, stickers. And, OMG, are we deprived of decent TSHIRTS and of the casual discovery of good things. Because it's impossible to browse when you are deprived, discovery is not possible when you do not have the basics. We read memoirs of advertising people who have died a million years back, who speak of coupons and have never even heard of the Internet. We go to conferences to see people to invented marketing back in the 70s. We are catching up with decades of stuff and this prevents us from moving forward. Because we are deprived.
It took me two years before I first heard of them to be able to casually go and buy a gella skin.
Deprivation. It's stupid.
BUT, as I dive into the recesses of the WWW I am getting this overwhelming feeling of deprivation, of being cut off from huge chunks of happenings, cultures and events which we can only feel our way around but never really get the full force of.
Everytime I meet my friends in Brazil and London, everytime I read the profiles of Onion readers in the Onion personals, everytime I look through the reading lists of Faris or Russell, and read them casually mentioning books they may have picked up while browsing, everytime I read the NYT movie reviews I feel deprived. Because with all the vastness of knowledge and openness that Internet is giving us, we still live in an area, in a region, in a country where there are no levers to make things readily available.
We need to call aunts from the US to get movies, to beg there is some nut uploader who thinks of indie movies when snatching that cam in the cinema, that the post office will not mess up if you order from amazon, to look for bootleg copies, to drag on colleagues who travel abroad to bring stuff. We are deprived. We used to be deprived of food, clothes - my mom did people's homework to get money to buy jeans, of basics. But now we have them, and somehow we are stuck at the stage where we enjoy being satisfied with the basics.
We are deprived of movies, books, exhibitions, music, series, posters, socks, boots, bags, stickers. And, OMG, are we deprived of decent TSHIRTS and of the casual discovery of good things. Because it's impossible to browse when you are deprived, discovery is not possible when you do not have the basics. We read memoirs of advertising people who have died a million years back, who speak of coupons and have never even heard of the Internet. We go to conferences to see people to invented marketing back in the 70s. We are catching up with decades of stuff and this prevents us from moving forward. Because we are deprived.
It took me two years before I first heard of them to be able to casually go and buy a gella skin.
Deprivation. It's stupid.
11/19/2007
Profiles
Today I read three profiles of different people... of all three I envy most this guy
Jeff Gomez: He was a kid growing up in late 60s/70s in the Manhattan projects, where he felt like an outsider. In order to deal with this, he became involved in Sci-Fi media. Created his own Godzilla content by repurposing mass media imagery found in magazines. As he got older, he began to explore mythology and fantasy worlds, and was floored by the realism of those worlds. He wanted to emulate this, and find a system of rules that allowed him to do that, such as D & D. He needed to find a way to make fantasy worlds accessible to other people in the projects, and he began to get a sense of what the interactive experience was like for non-fans. Started looking to BBSes as places to extend the role-playing worlds. He predicted that there would be this kind of ongoing storyline on TV and these would go back into novels or video games, and low and behold this came to be. He began writing Palladium books, and Valiant comics. They asked him what character to pick to make into a video game. Suggested Turok, the Dinosaur Hunter, who ended up becoming a major property for Acclaim. Later brought Magic: The Gathering to Acclaim's attention. Now heads Starlight Runner Entertainment, which takes intellectual properties and develops fictional world around them.
He speaks here
Jeff Gomez: He was a kid growing up in late 60s/70s in the Manhattan projects, where he felt like an outsider. In order to deal with this, he became involved in Sci-Fi media. Created his own Godzilla content by repurposing mass media imagery found in magazines. As he got older, he began to explore mythology and fantasy worlds, and was floored by the realism of those worlds. He wanted to emulate this, and find a system of rules that allowed him to do that, such as D & D. He needed to find a way to make fantasy worlds accessible to other people in the projects, and he began to get a sense of what the interactive experience was like for non-fans. Started looking to BBSes as places to extend the role-playing worlds. He predicted that there would be this kind of ongoing storyline on TV and these would go back into novels or video games, and low and behold this came to be. He began writing Palladium books, and Valiant comics. They asked him what character to pick to make into a video game. Suggested Turok, the Dinosaur Hunter, who ended up becoming a major property for Acclaim. Later brought Magic: The Gathering to Acclaim's attention. Now heads Starlight Runner Entertainment, which takes intellectual properties and develops fictional world around them.
He speaks here
11/13/2007
Business and creativity
Advertising is an appealing business because it looks like easy work, lots of cash and glory. I mean not even movie making sounds this good; in movies you have to learn scripts which is, well, some sort of work. But in advertising you simply have to be talented.
Now, one thing I have noticed about advertising in Romania is that it is seldom if ever concerned about the business part of the work. There is no interest in knowing the boring details of the client's business, market share, distribution, all that crap. It's mainly about ideas and creativity. And again I wonder, and I seem to be doing that a lot, how can an industry that was born out of the need to assist business in getting better results survive if it loses interest in what it was, ultimately, supposed to help with?
Now, one thing I have noticed about advertising in Romania is that it is seldom if ever concerned about the business part of the work. There is no interest in knowing the boring details of the client's business, market share, distribution, all that crap. It's mainly about ideas and creativity. And again I wonder, and I seem to be doing that a lot, how can an industry that was born out of the need to assist business in getting better results survive if it loses interest in what it was, ultimately, supposed to help with?
Against the current
Opposite to my workplace there is a huge alley where the city hall has been trying to plant flowers. Because the alley lies between the tube station and the several companies situated on the other side of the road and there is virtually no path accross, people cross through the to be-flower beds. This is not polite but makes sense because the companies' offices are every five meters apart and there is only one passage every 300 metres across the alley. Every morning city hall staff comes and digs out the area to prevent people from crossing and every afternoon new paths are treaded into the flower beds because people just cannot be bothered to walk an extra km to get to their workplace.
:-)
Pretty much like the silent struggle of companies to push services and products that people do not like. I mean, no one wants to pay to download stuff unless it's from Radiohead or iTunes and it's decently priced. But still there is the downloads police. No one wants to buy a cheaper phone with a subscription but telecoms force you to subscribe in order to get your iPhone cheaper. I will not buy content from my mobile if it is not truly new and worthy. So, iMode and Live! better buck up.
The question here is: is it worth fighting the natural impulse of consumers or is it more profitable to find a solution that will make both happy? I think Radiohead might have the answer. When will the rest get it?
:-)
Pretty much like the silent struggle of companies to push services and products that people do not like. I mean, no one wants to pay to download stuff unless it's from Radiohead or iTunes and it's decently priced. But still there is the downloads police. No one wants to buy a cheaper phone with a subscription but telecoms force you to subscribe in order to get your iPhone cheaper. I will not buy content from my mobile if it is not truly new and worthy. So, iMode and Live! better buck up.
The question here is: is it worth fighting the natural impulse of consumers or is it more profitable to find a solution that will make both happy? I think Radiohead might have the answer. When will the rest get it?
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