Chapters and Facebook

Last week Chapters Indigo offered an interesting offer – 25% off your next in-store purchase, all the way up to December 24. You go to their Facebook fan page, become a fan, then print out their unique coupon. Check out the screenshots. This is what you see when you follow the Facebook fan page link I provided two sentences ago.

When you click the “click here” button, an option to share with friends will appear. Of course you don’t have to share, but why would you not, given the holiday spirit and the ease of information dissemination via one simple click?

The moment you hit “Publish” or “Skip” your coupon appears. Notice the “Print” button, which automatically sends the coupon to nearest available printer.I really like the use of social media here!

1. Chapters can measure the success of this campaign simply by monitoring coupon scans, which I’m sure have a special “from Facebook” code on them.
2. Chapters Indigo Facebook fanbase will grow, obviously
3. Chapters minimized the number of steps required in coupon acquisition (I’m always annoyed, but accepting of “Fill out this form…”, “Check your e-mail”, open e-mail, print the e-mail, etc)
4. …And embedded a simple viral factor

Brings thoughts about what Meteor Solutions calls earned media. Those that share the deal with their Facebook friends are effectively participating in the According to them, it’s your content, shared by your customers through email, blogs, and the social web. You can buy as many banner ads as you want, but when your visitors share your message for you… that’s earned media. It’s powerful, it’s growing, and it’s everywhere.

There we go. Maybe I’m so into it because I love reading and Chapters is better at delivering books than Amazon. Oh, and it’s Canadian. Didn’t think I’d ever get to this, but I’m heavy into Canadiana lately. But that’s for another blog post.

Filed under: Great Products , advertising, books, campaigns, literature, marketing, promotion, social media

Back When I Was Young..

too cute for alcatraz

Originally uploaded by dreamtiger

… I could escape Alcatraz only because I was too cute….

And silly, and associating myself with people who knew no limits

And San Francisco was as foggy as there was no tomorrow

And new friends appeared out of nowhere (that’s you, Michael L!)

Ah, 2000 and guess

Filed under: Great Times , 2005, memories, photos, polaroid, san francisco, self, youth

Cities and Horcruxes

I was walking down the street (how Dickensian and utterly, typically boring), en route to home sweet home, and I thought about something. I tried to figure out where my home was. Because I love my parents, my dog and the lovely house where they all live, I want to say, “My home is in Vancouver!” and yet when I am there I feel like I am on an anything goes vacation. I also feel different, like an outsider and almost like the blast from the future. So no, not quite there.

Toronto is fantastic, it’s a home. But it’s a home which is solely powered by my passionate heart. I make it what it is. I am the fire that burns in your eyes. And is it really home when one person is behind it? Perhaps not.

“Home is where the heart is,” I hear. Oh, what a relief! But where is my heart?

I love Berlin, my heart got lost there. Ibiza’s wonderful and Spanish only, seafood-infiltrated beaches devoured a big chunk of my pumping muscle, too. So where? I betcha Rioja is dying to eat the rest of what I have hiding behind my left lung. And I haven’t been to Congo yet.

So I realized that every bits of my soul are all over the world. Then I thought about Harry Potter, lord Voldemort and horcruxes. When I heard Tom Riddle about splitting his soul and leaving it to various objects (places in my case), I saw myself leaving bits and pieces of me everywhere. I love the world, I love to travel, I belong in the airport and I am the explorer.

I can leave bits of my soul in many places, thus living on in many places at the same time, and living forever. In very big fat theory.

In theory, I would be living in all of the cities I visited, because they affected me so.

In reality, however, I will probably be only living forever in the minds of people I affected. I will live on as long as the memory of me lives on in the people that were close to me. Perhaps down the road, the memory can carry onto people that I have not known. By creating something, by giving life, finding, building, teaching, showing, making, explaining, illustrating something to someone else, I can hope to give a part of my soul to them, thus extending my life. Man wants to be remembered.

I have to live my life prudently, expressively, beautifully and independently. I have to go where my mind and heart tell me to. I will not trust witches, nor will I subscribe to pure paganism. I will be me, and I will keep on splitting my soul in as many cities, places and people, as possible.

I live forever already.

Filed under: Great Times , Berlin, cities, harry potter, magic, self, Spain, toronto, travels

Atlas Not Shrugged [Projects]

My friend and a very talented photographer Eugen Sakhnenko started a 52-week long project on November 30. It is called ATLAS, and it is a weekly portrait blog that features interesting people. In his own words, it’s about “people that are doing something interesting with their lives.”As it stands, most of the people are from Toronto area, although Eugen has photographed bestselling authors and successful entrepreneurs from New York, too.

During the week of December 7, 2009 I was a featured person. I’m very glad that Eugen asked me to participate after he attended Slow Art (which I hosted in Toronto on October 17). I feel that it’s important to highlight and encourage people that are doing something exciting with their lives. Moreover, I like that this is a year-long project and social media-fueled. Readers can connect with those featured in the project, they can learn more about them and strike up a conversation. We’ve been retweeting announcements at the beginning of each week. I personally am lobbying for an excellent wrap-up party next year.

Please check out my profile and leave a comment It would be much appreciated, and you can learn more about me, if you’re interested. Moreover, stay tuned to more awesome peeps popping up every Monday morning on the same photo blog.

Filed under: art , art, career, development, friends, photography, photos, self, toronto

Why Doesn’t Every Consumer Staple Company Do This?

In a quest to find a personal hygiene product, a stick deodorant, to be precise, I ventured into Shoppers Drug Mart, which is a Canadian (and better, in my opinion) version of Duane Reade or Walgreens in the US, Jean Coutu in Quebec and London Drugs in the Canadian West.

Walking through the aisles populated by at least one individual lost in thought and intimidated by choice of products that he or she came to buy, I stumbled onto my section. It is important to state that at first I kind of chuckled at old men bent over rows of toothpaste, females ardently arguing over two boxes of hair color which shades looked exactly the same, young guys figuring out bath tub cleaning supplies, and old ladies hovering over stacks and stacks of hand cremes and facial moisturizers. So many choices, so little time, so much uncertainty.

Then I became part of the comedy that I first laughed at. Seriously, how the heck am I supposed to choose an antiperspirant, there are like 50 of them begging for my bucks. OK, there is a gel type and a white stuff type. I pick the white. That’s a start. Then I start taking tiny steps to the right and to the left, unable to choose between two different brands (I felt like trying something different as my previous deodorant wasn’t particularly thrilling).

And then EUREKA. I see the brilliant people behind DOVE screaming their product benefits at me via a very visible sticker on their Ultimate Beauty Care antiperspirant stick (Radiant Silk type, btw). I immediately grabbed it, smelled it, like it, put it in my basket and walked away.

If at least ONE market player explicitly tells me why they’re better than their extremely similar competitors in the consumer staple market, I’m going to go with the loudmouth brand. Thanks Dove, thanks Unilever actually.

The 6 benefits and advantages are, just so I could hopefully inspire you to switch brands:

1. all day wetness protection
2. all day odour protection
3. formulated to stay on skin, not on clothes
4. Dove 1/4 moisturizers
5. smooth & silky application
6. beautiful fragrance

As a relatively unpicky (but quality-seeking) consumer, I want all of those features. But notice something? Every antiperspirant stick brand can make the same claims, perhaps sans the Dove 1/4 moisturizers part, but with their own secret ingredient. We’re talking consumer staples, we’re talking spending 15 minutes deciding between thing A and thing A. It’s almost all the same. And yet Unilever was the only one that explicitly shoved the differentiating factors into my face.

Bravo, you win my $4.39!

Filed under: Great Products , advertising, life, marketing, product, promo

2010 Kick Ass Time

It's not 2010 yet, but this was at Chris's birthday party & it looked awfully appropriate for the January 1st photo

Fun fact: I was born in the year of the fire tiger – um, can’t you tell?, – back in the hot and Soviet 1986 (eat your shorts, I’m young and loving it).

Not only do I like the fact that 2010, when split, is 20:10 (2, 2, 2!), but just a nice set of wholesome and beautiful 0-0 and 2 and 1. Anyway, excuse my obsession with semantics and the aesthetics. Off to some New Year ideals and promises, yeah?

In the new year, the beautiful and successful, 2010, I will use less brackets. And I will say “like” less. Down with the valley girl-isms. I should probably use less dashes, but I feel they’re underused and need more attention.

If anything, I’ll require larger supplies of exclamation marks in 2010.

I will also start my RSSP contributions in July 2010. When you start young, you get chances to end up in the big pile of dough… eventually.

I will have read at least 25 books. This year I read 18 or 20. I’m really aiming for 35 tomes.

I also want to completely stop eating meat produced from those giant farm plants where the animals get treated in the most terrible ways. I already don’t eat red meat, but I really need to eliminate processed meats and chicken breasts that came from hell.

I will become what is known as the gym rat. My gym routine will take precedence. I need to exert myself on the treadmill or die.

I will polish my Spanish. I spent three years studying it, and even could write two-page essays (um, on explorers. I wrote about Cristóbal Colón). It’s a shame to let language escape. Resuscitation! ¡Vámonos! Almodóvar’s films can and will help.

And there’s professional goals, but those are better left for planning on paper and in Awesome Note. I already started with the new division, talked with VP’s about future plans and have a personal list of accomplishments and project ideas. It’s on.

Going to SXSW in the new year is also a goal.

Tentative: I will go to Vancouver during the Olympics because I can get a free bed, room, house AND the best dog in the world to stay with. Bugs Tomato is my man! It’s my chance to visit a city during the Olympics. I’m probably not going to be at London 2012, maybe Sochi 2014, probably not Rio 2016, but who knows.

Either way, I will be happy, learning, yearning, trying and achieving. 2010 is only the beginning of the awesome 12 year cycle. Make amends or get out of my way. Rawr!

Filed under: moving up , 2010, film, ideas, life, memories, self

Before December 7th Is Over

I made a promise to myself (masochistic in some sense) that I will top the number of blog entries written last year in December. I’ve to write about  14 more entries. Seriously, you want to hear about this? I can expose a lot more than one can normally allow a public blog which gets visited by grandmas and censored men in China.

Oh, okay, today Toronto’s Twitter and Facebook exploded in a flurry of snow pan-accolades. There was minuscule, FAKE snow falling down and melting before touching the mother Earth. I tweeted, “Must we resort to yelping ‘Snow!’ at the sight of extremely temporary nanosnowflakes? The ground is still gray.” As long as the ground is gray and defiled by the autumn, there is no salvation. But keep waiting, I’ll be the first to write an Ode to snow. God knows I wrote one to the stock market in 2005.

Last weekend was a great eventful deal of foreign speakers, preventative medicine, karaoke (I do a great rendition of Downtown, Purple Rain and Torn) and dancing till the wee hours of the night when all our energy broke apart the speakers (figuratively, but perhaps not, speaking). Faktory night on Queen & Noble was fantastic except for the $10 PBR, which we prudently shared like our ancestors might have back in the fields of Portugal or Russia (I like how our countries’ initials are neighbors in the alphabet too! ‘Tis important, it is, trust me). Anyway, I did my 75 minutes of dancing. Doing all that cardio in the gym does pay off when it comes to having to wiggle on the dirty warehouse dancefloor with all you’ve got. I’ve way too much energy, and I revel in that fact. Eat it.

OK, go listen to António Variações here  to make yourself more cultured: Dar e Receber

Filed under: Great Times , 2009, dancing, mp3, music, party, snow, toronto, twitter, winter

Self-Made Miró

Recently I read a fantastic biography of Joan Miró, “Miró: The Life of a Passion” by Lluis Permanyer. During my visit to the Miró Foundation in Barcelona’s Parc de Montjuïc I discovered a lot about Miró. I never knew he produced some of the works that I found. In my 2008 notes I wrote “check out his hair pursued by two planets AND letters and numbers attracted by a spark”. I remember the wonderful balance between objects in the paintings, between tension and sweet resolve. And the blinding building, the white mixing into unbearable starlight piercing the eyes. Sunglasses futile.

To get back to the book. I am amazed by his determination, willpower, and confidence in self. Many people didn’t believe in him, including his own father. He struggled with poverty, with unacceptance, but ultimately, he remain loyal to himself, true to heart and never stopping.

Miró had a vigorous routine, he was not a social animal, he worshipped work, he was with the same woman throughout his whole life, he always did the right thing. I understand it’s difficult, and I know it’s some paralyzing. I’m in awe. You can and should build yourself. Make yourself. There is only one life, why not stick to your guns. If Joan could get through all the hardships, wars and persecution, so can we get ahead in our comfortable lives.

Look. Miró’s routine around 1934:

At six o’clock he got up, washed and had coffee and a few slices of bread for breakfast; at seven he went into the studio and worked non-stop until twelve, when he stopped to do an hour of energetic exercise, like boxing or running; at one o’clock he sat down for a frugal but well-prepared lunch, which he finished off with a coffee and three cigarettes, neither more nor less; then he practised his ‘Mediterranean yoga’, a nap, but for just five minutes; at two he would receive a friend, deal with business matters or write letters; at three he returned to the studio, where he stayed until dinner time at eight o’clock; after dinner he would read for a while or listen to music. All told, an inflexible routine which he imposed on himself faultlessly and recognized as necessary to ‘keep fit’ as a painter.

From the same book:

“Miró told me that he used to go to bed very early, and never without meditating conscientiously on what he was to do the next day: this helped him to concentrate his attention and to attack his work with dizzying vitality early the next morning.”

Filed under: art , art, books, determination, miro, productivity, self, Spain

When I Die

…I will think of the water, and the morning in Ibiza and how I dipped my whole body in the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada, thanks to the boy, and how the big trees spoke to me, and how I wrote, how I felt, how my friend who can’t talk to me because she couldn’t stand the person she was with me, was imagining she was going to be a statistician at Greenland.

I would think about the small square in Barcelona that I was at – the walls were littered with gunshots from the civil war and how I choked on my little insignificant tears because all the boys died. And when I die, I will – as much as I hate to admit it and even type – fucking enjoy the fact that I’m writing it, – I will think about that boy who wished he shared all his younger memories with me, the boy who wished he could erase all the party memories before he met me, the boy who could not make me happy but who tried, tried, tried.

I will see Russia, Czech Republic, South Korea, Finland, England, Germany, the USA, Thailand flash before my eyes, the elephant’s trunk touching my leg lightly, and me almost drowning in the Indian Ocean, the soft voices of faraway Australians yelling.

I will think of the love, of the people who cared, of the people who made me who I am today; I will owe everything to my amazing parents and to my amateur choices, to my yearning soul and to my writer’s desire, to my cocky behavior and to my illustrious wit, to my undying passion, textbook loyalty and otherworldly thirst.

I want more than the world! i will undo all dying with my death.

I will die for you, I can die for you. I want to experience everything and I want to tell the most boisterous story that there ever was, I want you to feel how I felt, I want you to understand. When I die, several thousand lights and souls will die with me, I cannot help it, I will not help it, I will destroy, I will discourage many beautiful things with me.

I will think of the beautiful girl with wavy hair and gluten allergy – yes, us in the Western world, – I will think about many things I did wrong, but I will iron out every most beautiful memory into the most horrible iron story in history, the story of past, of tradition, and try to undo all evil and hurt with my death.

Take me, take me, take me!

(Related post of mine)

Filed under: imaginings , animals, death, history, imaginings, memories, self

Berkeley Illustration (Art)

What a great find on Etsy! A Portland, OR illustrator Ryan Berkeley of Berkeley Illustration captures various members of the animal kingdom (some as obscure as caterpillars and chiroptera, that is, bats) with humorous and creative mini-descriptions. I personally love imagining personalities and traits of not only various people, but objects and sometimes animals, just by looking at them. Glad Ryan took the extra steps and captured the mammals in dashing suits. Check out some of the work, and go buy some Christmas prints for your loved ones in 5×7, 8×10 and 11×14 sizes here!

With his winning smile, this giraffe is a natural catalog model. As you might suspect, most of his jobs are booked for neckware but he also does good business with men’s slippers and bathrobes.

After cataract surgery ten years ago, this cheetah realized that an eyepatch can be a real conversation starter with the ladies. His eye has long since healed but his social calendar remains quite full.

This bat is a lover of the nightlife, especially 80s Karaoke night. He always gets the crowd going with his falsetto rendition of “Dancing In The Dark”.

Tragically this squirrel has a vicious peanut allergy. Luckily he lives in an area that has an abundance of berries.

Once a popular jazz pianist, this shark has most recently become a song and dance showman. His voice has been described as “a cross between Louis Armstrong and Kenny Rogers”. Unfortunately his fierce temper has limited his gigs to biker bars and convict picnics.

Filed under: Great Products, art , animals, art, creative, review, shopping

Strigoi Strigoi

I watched this film during the After Dark film festival in Toronto. At first, I was very, very excited about the following description: “Strigoi is  Vampire movie that defies categorization. Shedding a fantastic light on a post-communist Romanian village, the film introduces us to an ancient myth: Strigoi, the souls that rise again after death to seek justice if they’ve been wronged, their appetites intensified by a hunger for blood.”

Sounds good, right? Add the appeal of post-communist countries, heavy color correction, Eastern European demeanor, handsome lead (Catalin Paraschiv) and you’re set.

Wrong. Directed by Faye Jackson, Strigoi is a slow, slow, slow film with droning, repetitive and not particularly humorous (nor scary) dialogue. It could also easily lose 30 minutes of footage and not risk losing any major points of the story. I was so surprised. Moreover, I feel the movie was mis-marketed as a vampire horror. Nothing particularly horrific happened, there were no fangs either. Save yourself some time and don’t bother actively watching it, although it would make an okay background soundtrack.

Although the film did receive the Best Film award at the Toronto After Dark Festival,  Eerie Horror Film Festival, South African Horrorfest and the Maelstrom Film Festival, and the Best Director at the Fantastic Film Sydney, I don’t think anybody really heard much about it. Who bought the distribution rights to the movie? It didn’t go mainstream.

Filed under: film , film, movies, review

Master Organizer

I took this in Vancouver in 2003;
uploaded by dreamtiger

I have issues with time. I keep thinking – I know, – it goes away somewhere and is never coming back. Which is not a lie to be thinking. I try to fill up my time with meaningful activities, good people, cultural enrichment, jolly delicious food and drink, and generally good things for me.

I, like many of us humans, tend to forget things as well. That’s where the electronic, Internet and old-school analog productivity and remembrance tools come in:

Since 2004 I have been keeping a series of To-Do Books. They are the classic 32-page, 7mm ruled Exercise Books with a Canadian map on them; I believe children practice writing in those; those exercise books are relics sort of. I’ve been using them (am on book 6) to write down tasks I had to do. All tasks fit into either the Career/Academic column or Personal/Hobby one. It works, folks. When I’m not at home, I jot stuff down in the Gmail tasks feature – it’s split into work/career activities and personal/whatever lists.

I downloaded Awesome Note for my iPhone, which I love, and which is helping me manage various types of lists, from what to buy at Shoppers Drugmart to Business Books I want to read to longer-term professional and personal goals.

I love me wall Calendar and scribbling in the little squares. I’ve a weekly Organizer which is something I miss from the days of school – weekly agenda with homework, appointments, dates, parties, and big due dates.

Every evening i prepare my Daily To-do post-it. It’s usually for the day ahead type a thing – key tasks and pressing issues that need to be resolved. Usually no more than 3-5 tasks, although I personally find that if I overwhelm myself I’m more likely to start working on them at 10am instead of waiting till 2pm on a Sunday afternoon.

When I feel that I won’t be able to make the most of the groceries in the fridge, I sometimes write out meal plans. But they’re the least successful as I scramble things around.

NOW. That does not mean that I never relax. I also plan Days of Nothing, where my biggest task for the day is to go to a spa, make my way to a coffee shop, or just walk for at least 30 minutes.

I don’t beat myself over uncompleted tasks, some of which have been known to carry on from page to page in my To Do Book for weeks!

PS. One more blog post tomorrow and my blog-writing will equal that of August 2009. This December I will try to beat last December’s numbers, but 17 entries is a lot and I want to enjoy my time with the family.

Filed under: simple life , iphone, life, memories, photography, photos, productivity, self, tasks, time travel

Discussing Dreams in Dreams

American Dream uploaded by dreamtiger

I just had a dream, some part of which was interrupted, because way too much sunlight entered my room (I think), and within the dream I had a problem seeing. I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but I noticed that on sunny mornings (never night), closer to the waking time, and when my face is turned to window or is otherwise exposed, I have trouble seeing in a dream.

So I just dreamed that I was at a friend’s mansion, wandered off into the unknown premises on my own, then – presumably, – turned towards the window in my sleep and got blinded in the dream. I started seeing my dream film in split screens, kept bumping into walls and objects, walking in circles and generally behaved in an erratic and disoriented fashion.

Then I somehow got out of the strange room I got myself into (there were other odd qualities about it, but that’s beyond this post’s scope), and hurriedly walked down a luxurious set of stairs towards my friend. I told him about the experience I just had: “I just experienced something, and got lost in your house. You know how when you’re dreaming and way too much light gets in the room, blinding you, so you stop seeing right in a dream? You see split screens, become disoriented and you know it’s morning in the waking world?”

He said, “No”.

But of course, he’s my brain’s production, and my brain probably was not anticipating the scenario where I actively start discussing this particular dream and why I couldn’t see properly and that I knew that this dream film was a movie anyway, yet I obliged its rules.

Filed under: imaginings , dreams, obsessions, photos

Derrida

o my friends, there is no friend

Filed under: random facts , derrida, friends, philosophy

Apologetic WestJet

I meant to write this a while back, when I first received the e-mail from WestJet. WestJet, a Canadian low cost (arguably) carrier, e-mailed everyone on the WestJet list and apologized about the new reservations system being glitchy. I personally didn’t notice the glitch as I haven’t been booking flights; also, I don’t see how the system is better than the old one.

So below is the first A note from our President. The company written and sent the second one, and the third one. Apologizing in advance may be an overkill at first, but it definitely softens a consumer’s heart when  he/she does indeed starting having problems booking holiday tickets. I think it’s great that their PR team mobilized and handled the communications so well and prevented an online/offline outburst from so many outspoken Canadians (myself included). See the full message below. And follow them on Twitter! And buy flights with them! Maybe we’ll even cross sky paths

Filed under: Great Products , good life, marketing, recommendation, westjet