Accurate.

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Vanochtend zag ik het licht. Letterlijk.
Helaas was er met dit licht, geen bureau bijgekomen.

Het zit namelijk zo: in een appartement in het centrum van Gent met 3 bewoners moeten er keuzes gemaakt worden.
De meeste keuzes worden in overleg gemaakt. Zetten we de vuilbak binnen of binnen? Of meer existentiele keuzes: hoe plaatsen we de zetel zo feng shui mogelijk?
Maanden is er gediscussieerd over het creeeren van een bureauplaats. In een kamer is er nl. nog een stuk vrije muur over waar een bureau perfect zou staan. Zo een Louis Quatorze bureau met bijhorende fluffy stoel die een Mac en naaimachine alle recht aandoen (bij deze is mijn rol in deze discussie duidelijk).

Helaas zag een andere huisbewoner dat niet zo rooskleurig. En ik ben een altruistische persoon, dus ik respecteerde dat.

Nu ben ik ook een compromis persoon. En toen ik het licht zag, zag ik ook de oplossing.

Bewijs dat ik het licht zag. En dus niets aan het verzinnen ben.

Ik heb zonlicht nodig om meer menselijk te zijn, dus staarde ik ettelijke minuten naar het zonlicht.
Terwijl ik naar dat zonlicht staarde, staarde ik ook naar de terrasmeubelen die al enkele maanden onaangeroerd op een al even onaangeroerd terras staan. Eureka!

Ik sleepte het tafeltje van 50*50cm naar binnen en al even snel een stoel. De rest is geschiedenis.

Herbruikt terrasmeubel.

Beste H. (van huisbewoner), laten we even objectief naar dat gegeven kijken.

Technisch gezien kunnen er onmogelijk problemen zijn. Het vroeg geen technische hoogstandjes; alle muren bleven bewaard, er kwam geen elektrische zaag aan te pas, alle andere meubels bleven onaangeroerd.

Financieel gezien kunnen we enkel blij zijn. Er vonden geen cash flow verrijkingen naar handelaars plaats. Daarenboven namen we materiaal in gebruik dat anders aan het verslijten was.
Meer zelfs! De koffies die we uitsparen omdat we niet meer buitenhuis hoeven te werken,  levert een goudmijn aan nieuwe inkomsten die we kunnen gebruiken om oesters te eten en champagne te lurpen. Correctie: meer champagne te lurken.

Praktisch gezien zijn er ook voordelen: nu kan iedereen zich afzonderen. Je weet wel op die momenten dat je het nodig hebt. Zoals wanneer de afwas gedaan moet worden.

Beste H., ben je niet trots op me? Dat ik dit op deze constructieve manier heb opgelost?
Daarbij: als je even lief lacht ‘s avonds, mag je deze bureau misschien ook even gebruiken.
En moest je toch nog bezwaren hebben, dan degraderen we deze werkplaats even snel tot onaangeroerde terrastafel.

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Somewhere a year ago I was standing in the Acerta office scared to death to put my signature under the statement to become a freelancer. (Somehow I always thought government would rip all my money) But I did sign the paper.
And here are we now.

Fascinating. A word that perfectly describes the whole year.
I’ve earned money. I’ve lost money. I’ve spend money.
I’ve happily accepted new clients, but I have also refused clients.
I’ve had good experiences and I’ve had bad ones.
I’ve discovered which activities I like and which I don’t like.

But most of all: the past year I got ‘better’. Better skills, better time management, better tax insights…
And to start the new year I also got myself a better Mossel noch vis website that totally reflects the way I work; honest, to the point, served with a slice of humor.

The only thing that didn’t get better over the year is the bottle of champagne I just bought to celebrate the new year, hopefully an even more fascinating one.

Cheers!

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There are not a lot of people on this planet I admire only because of their job. However pilots, Google employees and judges always get a full drop of my drool. Pilots because I’ve always wanted their beautiful jacket. Google employees, well because Google just rocks. And judges because they have the skill to be objective whoever is standing in front of them.

And that is exactly what judge Victor Marrero must have thought yesterday when Christian Louboutin was standing in front of him.

The world famous shoe designer Louboutin always uses a very recognizable trademark in his shoedesigns: red soles. In 2008 Louboutin decided to trademark this red soles.
Yves Saint Laurent couldn’t care less and decided to design a pair of shoes with -here’s the big surprise of this blog post- red soles in its collection of 2011. (You feel the tension coming?)

Louboutin (and obviously the trademark office too) just forgot one small detail: it’s pretty hard to trademark something that is not yours to claim: colors.

Chances are very likely he ever bought a pair of red soles for his wife, and still there he was Judge Victor Marrero  trying to be as objective as possible during the lawsuit. ‘Louboutin’s claim would cast a red cloud over the whole industry, cramping what other designers do, while allowing Louboutin to paint with a full palette.’ And that’s unfair. End of discussion. At least for now since Marrero needed some time to think his decision over.
His decision will give green light for all shoedesigners to fake Louboutin’s famous soles.

Does this mean the end of Louboutin’s imperial? Or are his designs more legendary and are the red soles only the icing on the cake?

To be continued.

(In the meanwhile if you are a pilot and you feel like doing a good deed today -other than bringing people home safely-, don’t hesitate to donate me your jacket.)

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For several years I was one of those laggards completely obsessed by ignoring the digital camera revolution. I got and old analog Canon that my parents used in their second youth and I refused to give it up. Can you imagine? My parents transferred to digital photography before I did. Funny. But embarrassing.
For more than 4 years I thought I just loved analog pictures because it’s more exciting and I believed that. But the truth is: I never loved the hassle of analog pictures, I was just afraid of digital photography. Afraid to lose the most precious visual memories because I would trust them to a machine instead of my paper shoe box.

When Facebook arrived, I realised scanning pictures was a waste of time, so I stepped to the dark side and got rid of my parents’ Canon. Bit by bit I moved my stuff to the almighty Cloud. And although I believe the Cloud is farely safe, I kept being a freak on controlling my own stuff.

Basically I store all my stuff on Dropbox. But because Dropbox is American, I have duplicates on Nomadesk (Belgian). Both cloud computing services. Like that is not enough, I also store everything local on my MacBook and back it up with TimeMachine. I’m pretty sure you think I’m a freak, but hey, computers crash, hard drives crash and data centers can fail too.

During the years I even noticed there are several other handy cloud storage services although they are not meant to be ‘back-up’ tools;
A big bunch of pictures I store on Facebook. On my personal profile, but also on fanpages that have never been published, my written cooking notebook got replaced by my blog. Just like pictures of my make-up and hairdressing work, brilliant business and other ideas I e-mail to myself (thanks to @wwdj for the tip)….

Until today I never regretted moving all my stuff to the cloud (au contraire) and I never lost something up there. But there is no feeling like opening the mail box, seeing that my printed pictures arrived and having them in my hands. One can never change entirely.

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Last year I wrote a post about some lessons learned in my 22th year.
I thought it was a cool way of reflecting about  the year that flew by, so what’s keeping me from doing it this year? Nothing. So here I am again, some days after I turned 23.

23 cool things in my 23th year of life:

1. Operations rock. Especially the moment they put you to sleep. Fascinating!
2. My first festival (yep I am one of the laggards)
3. Realizing how many people actually remember your birthday if it’s not displayed on Facebook
4. Becoming a freelancer and being my own boss…
5. … which meant I could invent my own ridiculously funny signature and company name
6. Buying my own MacBook with student discount and paying it as a freelancer
7. Converting my mother to an iMac user (hipster mom)
8. Telling people you’re a student and a freelancer
9. Walking a dog, without owning it. (Thanks to Dierenasiel Gent)
10. Officially leaving my parent’s nest by changing addresses
11. Trusting a hairdresser with my hair and realizing afterwards that my own haircut was better
12. Graduating for the second time (as marketer)
13. Dealing with 2 evening courses at the same time (that was fun! No really!)
14. Living with a Columbian flatmate who brought coffee and sunshine in the house
15. Getting a perfect job @ Vooruit
16. Being picked up in the airport for the very first time (exit pathetic train rides!)
17. Buying a closet designated for my collection of shoes
18. Driving a car
19. Champaign tasting/buying in Reims like I’m rich and famous (I wish)
20. My dad owning a dessert company, making sure I don’t get underweighted
21. Winning a 300 euro Logitech remote with a game of poker
22. The look on people’s face when they find out you studied ànd you are a hairdresser
23. Celebrating my last day as a 22′er in another country.

See you next year!

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Brands interacting with people. Love it.
Especially if they use the information for product improvement or co-creation.

But nothing more irritating than brands asking questions to their Facebook fans without purpose.
Interaction, because the marketing guide tells you to do so.

H&M is a great example. They ask their followers tons of questions, but I never see any result with the given answers.
Customer co-creation is not always that easy, so asking product advice just to keep your social networks alive is fine by me. But if brands can’t interact seriously with me -as their fan-, neither can I.

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Facebook fanpages are overrated as proven by this paper stating ‘if you are happy about our hair dressing services, spread the oral word!’

Facebook is retro. Paper is the new social network.

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For some reason people are very curious about the future. I never quite got that ‘thing/timing’.
From the moment I started my hairdressing course for example, people started questioning me what I wanted to do with it after graduating. The course takes 3 years to complete, so they asked me quite some time in advance what my intentions were.
And even after 2 years my answer to that question is still exact the same as after the 1st lesson: ‘We’ll see’, followed by the same question in the opposite direction; ‘what/where are you going to be in 5 years?’. Normally followed by a considerable moment of silence. Because who really knows how his future will look like?

People are very occupied with what is going to happen. And that is something I never understood. I’m always busy trying to figure out what is happening now. And although my future interests me very much, I’m only sure about what’s happening now. And for now, I am happy. More than happy.

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