Inspiring video on the protest movement in New York against the heavy misuses of speculants and greedy bankers by occupywalsst.org. Today is a global action day, with protests in different countries. The media here reported on it. In the video it says: “A new angle on Occupy Wall Street reveals the strong micro community that has formed there.”

Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall St.) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

A friend sent me a powerpoint with the following story about friendship and sharing:

“A young lady was waiting for her flight in the boarding room of a big airport. As she would need to wait many hours, she decided to buy a book to spend her time. She also bought a packet of cookies. She sat down in an armchair, in the VIP-room of  the airport, to rest and read in peace.

Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a man sat down in the next seat, opened his magazine and started reading. When she took out the first cookie, the man took one also. She felt irritated but said nothing. She just thought: “What a nerve! If I was in the mood I would punch him for daring!”

For each cookie she took the man took one too. This was infuriating her but she didn’t want to cause a scene. When only one cookie remained, she thought, “ah, what this abusive man do now?”

Then, the man, taking the last cookie, divided it into half, giving her one half.

Ah, that was too much! She was much too angry now!

In a huff, she took her book, her things and stormed to the boarding place.

When she sat down in her seat, inside the plane, she looked into her purse to take her eyeglasses, and, to her surprise, her packet of cookies was there, untouched, unopened!

She felt so ashamed! She realised that she was wrong… She had forgotten that her cookies were kept in her purse. The man had divided his cookies with her, without feeling angered or bitter, while she was very angry, thinking that she was dividing her cookies with him. And now there was no chance to explain herself… nor to apologize.”

The moral of the story…
There are four things that you cannot recover:
The stone ….     after the throw,
The word …. after it’s said,
The occasion … after the loss,
The time …. after it’s gone.

Hello, nice person, did anyone ever tell you just how special you are? The light that you emit might even light a star.
Did anyone ever tell you how important you make others feel? Somebody out there is smiling, about love that is so real.
Did anyone ever tell you that many times when they were sad your e-mail made them smile a bit, in fact it made them glad.
For the time you spend sending things and sharing whatever you find, there are no words to thank you, but somebody thinks you are fine.
Did anyone ever tell you just how much they like you? Well, my dearest friend, today I’m telling you.
I believe that without a friend you are missing out on a lot.
Have a nice day, and I’m glad we are friends.

Today I was at a management workshop of my office at Red Cross. In the morning we were informed about the results of a staff survey done by an external institute. The lady who presented the results mentioned that she has done numerous surveys and always there was a higher job satisfaction with women than with men. This is found across different professions and countries, and they can’t definitely explain why. Also part-time employees generally have a higher satisfaction than full time workers…. The satisfaction at our office is generally quite high… People very highly appreciate when they feel accepted in how they are.

In the afternoon a university philosopher spoke to us about power and leadership. It was partly a dialogue with the audience about what are the attitudes and values determining how we deal with other people – superiors, subordinates, team members. We read short extracts from philosophers like Marx, Macchiavelli, Socrates and Kant where he showed attitudes we encounter in our everyday lives: It is normal that we are being used at a job, but what happens if we start feeling we are only used, like objects and not like personalities? What happens when the use is getting less, be it through disease or old age? Do you meet the other as a fellow being or as a function to be filled out? When you notice that you are just being used, you feel unwell and easily being misused.

The philosopher had a brilliant mind and raised many questions. I liked his style but at the same time the image of a mental juggler, a player rose up in me, and memories of the times of my studies of philosophy came where I felt fed-up with these and those concepts. Listening to the philosopher I felt tattered with the time, and I sensed the need to be centred in me, to get aware of the foundations of values for which I take my stand and which guide my actions.

In the evening when meditating I felt well diving into silence and leaving the waves of mental agitation back at the shores of the ocean of the mind. I later thought that reliability and meeting the others on a fair and equal basis and with trust in one one another is essential for being and working together.

When opening my computer I found an e-mail of Sri Kumar just with the words “Thank you Ludger.” I had written him twice the last 2 weeks asking for the next texts of the Vaisakh Newsletter (VNL). He wrote yesterday: “I was touring a lot. In two days time I will send you the text. Please bear with me. There are too many issues happening here demanding frequent tours. All were emergencies.” I answered him: “Yes, emergencies always have priority. At my work there is also a flood of emergencies…, and the VNL will come when time gives a window.”

I highly appreciate his reliability in our cooperation and the attention he gives to minute details. It has been an inspiration for me since years in my dealing with others, especially via e-mails, be it at my job or at home, with the good-will activities. I thought, you don’t need big philosophies, but a loving, reliable and consistent relation with your fellow beings to create trust and comfort. A short feedback expresses a lot of caring attention.

A bee using a flower, but fertilising it at the same time

A friend sent me the link to the Newseum in Washington DC. It is a huge museum about 500 years of news history, with very modern technology to let the visitors experience how and why news is made. Since news shape very much the way we perceive the world – and this is being constructed – it is a very timely initiative.

Most of us won’t go there, but they have a fascinating map of about 800 “Today’s Front Pages” (yesterday, Saturday, July 30, 2011 they had 785 front pages from 81 countries.) where you can just put your mouse on a city, almost anywhere in the world, and the newspaper headlines of the day pop up… Double click and the page gets larger…you can read the entire paper on some if you click on the right place. This site changes every day with the publication of new editions of the paper.

On their site they say: “The front pages are in their original, unedited form, and some may contain material that is deemed objectionable to some visitors. Discretion is advised.” 🙂

You have also a section of a number of European papers. So when you want to have a quick overview of what the world is talking about…

There are also a lot of exhibitions, about such “important” topics like: “First Dogs: Presidential Pets in the White House” (images of dogs belonging to 23 presidents, including the newest addition: Bo, a six-month-old Portuguese water dog), “Pictures of the Year” and “The President’s Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office“.

The Newseum, Washington DC, Photo: James P. Blair/Newseum

A very beautiful YouTube video story about a beggar and an unconventional help with the power of words.

A friend sent me the link to the website of a new film, ALUNA, which is being made by and with the KOGI, “a genuine lost civilization hidden on an isolated triangular pyramid mountain in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, nearly five miles high, on the Colombian-Caribbean coast. The Kogi are profoundly frightened by what we are doing to the world, but also well aware that we have no understanding of the forces which we are unleashing. They believe that the only hope of survival for mankind is if we can learn why they are so scared, and they know that we will only believe what we can see.”

The movie is not a work of fiction. It will be released end of 2011. Very impressive.

My friend sent a second link to another film: Connected. An Autobiography about Love, Death and Technology. The synopsis of the film says (extract):

“Between texts and tweets, memes and microchips, we’ve become great at breaking the world down into byte-sized bits. In the process we’ve stopped seeing the forest for the trees, never mind the root system that connects them all.

For centuries we’ve been declaring independence. With insight, curiosity, and humor, this film asks if it’s time to declare our interdependence instead. Connected is a journey through the interconnectedness of humankind, nature, progress and morality at the dawn of the 21st century.”

An Argentinean friend sent me the link to a beautiful short film about “Validation” in the multiple sense of the word – and of honouring the qualities of others and thus, spreading joy and inspiration. The style is a bit “American”, but nevertheless – enjoy…  More than 3.7 million views on YouTube.

A friend sent me an amazing TV commercial video from Honda, done already in 2003. It shows a domino-effect of things moving and is a symbol of the inter-relatedness of events. It is done without digital tricks, happening like this. It took the team 606 time to try and 3 month before it was ok – just for this 2 minutes video. The recording costs were 6 million dollars, but it was a great success. Enjoy.

Photo: From the video (c) Honda

I yesterday was at a fascinating conference of the Swiss fundation of certified non-profit organisations about Pictorial Worlds of NGOs. It was held at the Paul Klee museum –  a place for images…

Pictures are used for fund-raising, for sensitizing the public and for informing about people in need. The discussions were about the effect of pictures, what is a good picture and what are the possibilities of the language of pictures. And where are limits and dangers of misuses.

There were very interesting inputs. The head of the media service of the catholic church showed how today there is such a flood of images, that images are destroying themselves. The speed of the image flood keeps increasing. There is a trend from static images to moving images. Images try to capture attention, to rise emotions, and this often by means of creating irritations.

As an example of irritation he showed an unusual video about accident prevention – there are more people dying by stumbling than by cars. Irritating pictures are often used, but they can (consciously or unconsciously hurt feelings like the exposition arranged with plasticized dead bodies or pictures hurting religious feeling like the Danish caricature of Mohammad. Personality rights can be violated, when images are used without the consent of the persons shown, especially with children from developing countries.

A well-known Swiss filmmaker spoke about his portraits of people living on the margin of society – people in need, physically or mentally handicapped people, so-called “local idiots”. He tries to give them a voice and show the individual reality, which might deviate from social norms. He tries to “meet levels” and not to stand above the portrayed ones.

The last speaker was from a marketing agency, he spoke about the problems of time and money in creating impact: You see about 2000 pictures a day, everybody wants to have your attention. He presented examples about what is a powerful image. He gave 9 theses, seemingly contradicting themselves:

The strongest image is positive – showing a video clip of positive emotions. The strongest image is negative – often used; is a symbol; is created in the head (he showed a text of an Indian campaign against killing female fetuses, just a text describing how you can kill the fetus and try 3 month later to get a boy…); can be just a phrase (an inspiring campaign of a Japanese city turning its destiny from a big coal mining town to a non-successful amusement park going bankrupt, and now to a city of love where there is no divorce -recreating its destiny and attracting people from all over the country); is costly; is simple; is an experience (a campaign of Red Cross Portugal selling hope in a shop); and is a reality.

The strongest image factor is the idea. And this is true also for other inspiring activities. Inspiration comes through ideas, and this is the moving factor – not money or greatness. Master DK says: “Energy follows thought”. This is an applied form of it.

The hall where the meeting took place. For me the red decoration was a symbol of the images crying for attention.

The Klee museum: Moving lines of attention

I was today at a Social Media Marketing conference in Zurich. Marketeers and web-consultants spoke about using social trends for your website with different tools, platforms and strategies, for increasing one’s presence in the communities. While most speakers gave very interesting presentations, others weren’t much relevant for me or seemed to give an exposure of the portfolio of their agency, spicing it with slogans. As usual you had to filter yourself to get the nuggets out of the sand.

I was much interested in the way the dialogue between business and users is being orchestrated and in understanding better the strategies and technologies. It was fascinating to see how the mechanics of human curiosity and gossiping are being used in this. Most relevant is to understand the users and what they want. This is often not so clear, and easily the gap causes miscommunication.

As expected at such a conference, people were busily twittering the whole time. There was a feeling in the room of keeping oneself in a state of excitement and continuous communication. The last speaker even highlighted this as a kind of telepathic inter-relationship between all participants. I thought I don’t want this kind of permanent interconnectedness. Inter-relationship is not just in talking, but, more so, in silence and in subtle linking through meditative work – this not particularly being the sphere of social media marketing.

So I didn’t join the conference with twittering or linking in, trying to keep the everyday information overkill with some inner filters at a distance. I had some talks and took some good inspirations back home. I now ask myself if I shall nevertheless do a step into the twitter-world after some steps into Face-Booking. I saw interesting vistas, but time is scarce…

One’s own website is just the top of an iceberg where the sphere of social media networks like facebook, twitter, flickr and the like offer fields for extension of the scope of influence.