A More Quiet Place

Infographic – When do german supermarkets open a second cash register?

November 26, 2013 by Fede | 2 Comments

November 24, 2013
by Fede
0 comments

Carbs on Carbs

If we’re friends, colleagues or you work at Back-Factory, you’re probably aware of the fact that I’m a Carbs enthusiast.

Let’s face it: carbohydrates stick with you – more precisely in your thighs and butt – longer than friends and lovers; they ARE one of the few certainties in our lives and we need to honour them by baking and eating cookies and cakes and muffins and schinken-kaese croissants several times a week.

I’ve always fancied them, as far as I remember, but I think dating an American for the past year has been a game changer: he expanded my horizons and showed me new possibilities of use which made my love for high-in-carbs food stronger and stronger. Continue Reading →

November 20, 2013
by Fede
2 Comments

The Future of Storytelling – Creative Task 4

The Future of Storytelling is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) born and developed at the University of Applied Sciences of Potsdam, near Berlin. The course is open to everyone in the world (who speaks English) and – if you enrol – it gives you weekly writing assignments. This is one of them.

TASK:

Take a camera, be it you mobile phone, a webcam, … , and introduce yourself to the other StoryMOOCers, telling us which works inspired your interest in storytelling most up to know. Pick out 1-3 works of art, literature, film, TV, game, a website or else and tell us what’s so special about it that you think it might help inspire somebody else anywhere on this planet.

I had many things in mind that could have been more hip, intellectual and alternative, but I realized that this had to be about Buffy.

I’m perfectly fine – in general – with art being just art. It doesn’t have to be life changing: you can like a movie or a book without having your world completely shaken by it, and it’s fine.

But then again I’d lie if I said that this tv show hasn’t affected the way I lived the most formative years of my life, my approach to the English language and the way I read and conceive art.

November 16, 2013
by Fede
2 Comments

HalLoveween

As you could probably already guess, I belong to that vast group of people who tend to have a bipolar behaviour towards love.

When I’m not in a relationship and I see people on the street holding hands my first desire is to shoot them with a rifle and barf on their descendants (all things that would be totally acceptable in an episode of Game of Thrones or, say, Russia but for some reason not in Berlin) .

Being annoyed by PDA is not the problem, though. The real problem comes when I start being in a relationship myself and experience a change of heart combined with a slight loss of lucidity, which in the past may or may not have me facing legal threats and false accusations of stalking.

As if the second date were really too soon to change your Facebook profile picture to a photo of you and your loved one.

Having sex.

Anyway, when Halloween came, some weeks ago, the most normal thing for me was dressing up as my boyfriend…

…and shoot a video in which I impersonate him. Continue Reading →

November 13, 2013
by Fede
0 comments

The Future of Storytelling – Creative Task 3

The Future of Storytelling is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) born and developed at the University of Applied Sciences of Potsdam, Berlin. The course is open to everyone in the world (who speaks English) and – if you enrol – it gives you weekly writing assignments. This is one of them.

TASK:
Last week we have dealt with character profiles for characters that already exist. This week we build on exactly this task by using your knowledge about how to create fictional characters to create a new fictional one.

I’m afraid that is not the correct answer – said the man inside the tv. Gertrude Mueller shook her head without taking her eyes off the black outfit she was busy ironing. On the tv screen a text saying 10.000 Euros got smashed by a giant 3D hammer and dissolved into the close up of a sexy girl who was about to cry. Ougandougou. That’s the capital of Burkina Faso – said Gertrude with a scolding tone. Continue Reading →

November 3, 2013
by Fede
0 comments

Infographic: Gender distribution in Social Media!

After collecting data for months I can finally publish the results of my study about gender distribution in social media. The data have been collected by looking over the shoulders of strangers in the train and going through the browser history of my colleagues while they were taking their lunch breaks. Hope you enjoy the resulting infographic.

November 2, 2013
by Fede
4 Comments

The Future of Storytelling – Creative Task 2

TASK:
Please pick any existing serial protagonist that you know very well, and use the attached PDF/the form below to create a character profile. This profile should include his or her most important traits. Please post the ANSWER below this question post.

Continue Reading →

October 30, 2013
by Fede
5 Comments

Lidl and Me: an update

After writing about my relationship problems with Lidl, the german supermarkets chain, I experienced some weird emotions. Expressing my deepest feelings like that, in front of everybody, made me feel naked and vulnerable, and I swore to myself that I wouldn’t have written one more word about it.

But then hundreds of you wrote to cheer me up, give me relationship advice and ask me how things with Lidl were going, so I figured the least I could do is give you a short update on the situation.

I’ll be completely honest with you: we went through tough times. Continue Reading →

October 27, 2013
by Fede
2 Comments

The Future of Storytelling – Creative Task 1

I registered to this cool online course about storytelling and – since I never say no to writing challenges – I’m gonna try to publish here my weekly assignments.
Hopefully I’ll manage to be consistent enough to do it at least twice before giving up/forgetting about it.

TASK:
Please think about which story you have read, seen, listened to, played or experienced has impressed you most in your life. … Which story can you still very well remember? Write down both, the summary of this story (what you remember of the story, not what Wikipedia says.. and – on the other hand: – what made it so special to you that you can still remember it.

Some years ago Jonathan Demme made a movie called Rachel Getting Married. It’s about a recovering drug addict (played by Anne Hathaway) who goes back home for the wedding of her sister, opening old wounds and forcing the whole family to remember a traumatic event from their past. Continue Reading →

October 19, 2013
by Fede
2 Comments

If you liked it then you shoulda put a pope on it

Like them or not, popes are the oldest community managers in human history.

Penalized by an absent CEO and a troublemaker COO, the Catholic Church wasn’t doing that well as a startup. It’s only after the figure of the pope was introduced – in fact – that the community started thriving and could be taken to a new level.

Opinionists, bloggers, press magnetizers: popes have been around less than Jesus (but more than – for example – Pokemons) and nonetheless they proved to be amazing brand ambassadors, always coming up with new outstanding marketing ideas.

During my recent trip to Rome, in particular, I noticed that the Church’s marketing efforts have become more and more visual. Take a look, for example, at these postcards, masterpieces of graphic design, featuring random circles placed over Rome from which various popes send a benevolent look to your friends and family.

Continue Reading →