Passing by a Fnac store on an ordinary Sunday I don’t imagine seeing anything else but big gray closed roll door. This Sunday at the Fnac in Rue de Rennes (close to the Montparnasse train station) was different though: they installed something called a “vitrine audioactive”Lit with a noticeable orange backlight, four CD’s are shown behind the glass and as soon as you tough them the CD starts playing. It made a lot of head turn and most people stopped to give it a go. What a way to promote your products (and your store) outside shopping hours!
The singing music store
Photography museum
Today was the last day of the expositions of (among others) Martine Barrat and Larry Clark in the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie. I was unsure if I would like it because I’m generally picky when it comes to museums. Either way the cold, hotel like, entrance didn’t get me very enthusiastic. Continue reading
Winchbuzz
When I first saw the poster of the Largo Winch movie I thought somebody had made a mistake with the release date:
Apparently this was not at all the case; following their link to the Largo Winch movie blog we see that the release is indeed planned for 17 December 2008. The site contains all sorts of insight on how the movie is made, pictures of the cast, and small interviews with everybody on the set. The goal seems to be to create a buzz then, but I can’t help but wondering if people wouldn’t have forgotten about it by December.
So more to come then?
Wanted: A 300 euro miracle worker
Salary has never been my main interest in a job but if a company is not willing to pay me more than 300 Euros, I assume that they are looking for somebody that doesn’t bring more than 300 euros worth of additional value into the company.
Yes I know that I’m not a professional yet, and that the learning process I am in costs a lot of money to a company (If you’re lucky to find a company, willing to give you that attention) But from what I’m hearing (from interns, teachers and professionals) it is quite simply a fact that most of the 300 euro companies are just taking advantage of their interns. Meaning a lot of work, but not much of a challenge, let alone a decent learning experience.
And quite frankly, how can it be any other way? A company that fixed the salary above 1000 will not be likely to accept just anything: they expect a lot from their intern. A company that doesn’t fix an income seems to want to base the salary on the person, which doesn’t seem like a bad idea either. But if a company fixes an income at 300 euro I tend to think that they do not care who comes in for as long as he’s cheap. I guess you would only settle for that at the point that you don’t think that you can do any better, you got refused by all the other companies offering higher salaries, or you were just too late finding anything…
So where is the interest for a company to put salaries that low? I would say to get the jobs done that nobody wants to do.
Me, I’m mainly looking for a company where I can put my qualities into action to help the company advance. In return I expect a company to supply me with sufficient challenges so that I can have I variable day of work in which I can expend my knowledge (and as a result my qualities) which places me and my employer in an everlasting win-win situation.
So where do I talk about money? Nowhere! Why? Because there is simply no way that you can find a company that complies with the above that is unreasonable about your salary
Update: I found an internship in february of this year, and in the whole search I only got confirmed what I wrote.
IT humor
It is not generally the place where I post funny things. For this post I will make the exception though. Besides it is not just funny but also very, very meaningful…
Marketing in the Metro
A perfect example that marketing is everywhere crossed my path in the Paris metroline number 8 this morning in the form of a homeless person. Continue reading
Lying Marketers
I came across this video of Seth Godin in which I think he made some interesting points.
Bill-Board-Boundries
In the Netherlands the attention drawing factor of billboards is being discussed once again. The conflict is an obvious one: a billboard is made to attract attention and politicians want drivers to keep their attention on the road. Continue reading
My first project : The French stereotype disaster
Just coming back for lunch I meet a colleague of mine back at school: we were done eating and ready to go back to the work we stopped more than an hour ago. This one team member meant that another 4 were missing. By calling them I would only find out that they had spend the last hour searching for a restaurant that could not be found.
It would take another 2 hours of waiting to find out that the colleague that had been blocking any form of decision making had gone home because of an headache. Another one had to go home because of bla bla bla bla bla and so only two of them came back apologizing for being late. Finally it took us half an hour to divide tasks and wrap the whole thing up. This means three hours of waiting for something that took half an hour.
I always believe that you should prevent stereotypes so for the moment I will not draw any harsh conclusions. Secondly I have heard the stories before so I knew more or less what I was getting into. Thirdly I feel kind of like a guest coming to any country so I feel a certain adaptability can be expected.
This doesn’t mean that I do not fear my future in France right now. However it does mean that I will never ever accept working like this again.
The exclusive mass
The general tendency of western economies and the companies in it seems to be up. An obvious thing: a company doesn’t mind if profits are a bit lower for one year, stockholders generally are because they want most of their money. But how are “exclusive” brands supposed to cope with that? Since everybody nowadays wants to be different aren’t we faced with a problem? Continue reading
How about brand identity?
Today I finished a book that I bought last year in the book store Carturesti in Bucharest. “Designing Brand Identity” by Alina Wheeler. I don’t have the feeling that this is a very common subject among marketeers, but it is surely not unimportant either. This book really gives some nice insight on how brand identities are, and can be, constructed. Very accessible and very interesting for both professionals and students.
My Romania project to an end…
I just finished my Marketing plan for my Romanian DIY store. I’m quite satisfied with the results of the project so far and the results that we made in the store. Either way it is for sure that both the store and the country it is in still have a long way to go.
My project will probably be dominated by the differences with the western companies, the difficulties of finding good personnel, the corruption and how hard it is to make use of the enormous potential the country has.
I do consider myself open to other cultures and I learned a lot from the Romanian culture mostly about a lot of values that we lost in the west. Still I am as western as it gets; never will I forget the relief I felt upon crossing the Romanian border (after we collected some money to pass the customs without checking of course). A feeling of safety and security that I couldn’t find in Romania.
Either way I cannot wait to come back here, even if it was just for the challenge…
Making money on the border
I’m back in my cramped bus trying to read a bit when we approach the border. In line for the Romanian Customs a guy jumps up starting to speak Romanian to the passengers. I don’t understand but people start giving him money, even so he doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that some people, including me, don’t give him anything. I think he has a bit more that 100 euros when he stops talking and walks out of the bus.
I lose sight of the moneyguy and look at the bus in front of us; all the passengers are out of the bus and on the sidewalk with their open bags in front of them and big douaniers shouting at them like they’re at war. I had spent two hours on that sidewalk in the cold coming into Romania, I kind of asumed having to go through the same this time.
At that point the moneyguy comes back in to the bus, we pass the bus in front of us, the barrier opens and we drive into Hungary. One thing is for sure; as a Romanian douanier low wage standards are not your problem.
Shopping
We’re standing in front of a bakery in a neighbourhood supermarket in Bucarest. After a good 2 minute wait for a women behind the counter doing her paperwork there is starting to form a line with annoyed people behind us. The lady acts like she doesn’t see it and keeps on organizing her papers. Somebody bends over the counter to ask the lady if there is anybody to serve us and that is the moment when all hell breaks loose: “can’t you see I’m busy?” she screams, followed by cursing that does not need to be repeated for making the picture clearer.
There was a day the manager of this store put out an ad for shopping assistent and she was the best candidate…
…we’re going to have one hell of a job finding the right people for our store
Call center efficiency?
Just for making some extra money I’m currently working in a call center offering free tickets for a networking conference to managers. Not the most famous job out there but very interesting to learn about sales. I also encountered a problem that I think is going on in lots of bigger companies… Continue reading