Rolling Talks

Whats up? Summer news

While some clients are enjoying a well-deserved summer break, others are more than happy to benefit from more attentio(n). Summer time will definitely be a good mix of work and 'me time', and the opportunity to finally get ready for more personal professional projects I've had in mind for a couple of months.

One of them is the launch of a brand new Social Media Task Group within the IAB Belgium. The first meeting has just been planned to September 25th in Roularta offices. Sara Rachdi and I will introduce the goal of the Task Group and share ideas and plan on what is to/could be achieved in the first year of practice.

I'm really looking forward to discussing my favorite topic with great brains from the industry and to see it evolving from overhyped, undervalued (love this - stolen to Microsoft Advertising;) 'just tools' to a more legitimate strategically structured discipline. The group is open to anyone (meaning advertisers, agencies, freelancers, media groups ) willing to contribute actively to educate the market, share best practices, you know what I mean :) If you're interested, join us at 2pm at the usual Zellik meeting point. I have a few names in my wish list, lets see if I'll be heard :).

A second project is to go ahead with the initial interviews I planned when I started Rolling Talks. Now that I'm equipped with more professional tools I'm really excited to eventually be able to let the Belgian actors in the market share thoughts on what they're up to in Social Media. Get ready for video updates. (Along with a new blog for end of September).

A third one will be to disconnect. Completely. For 4 weeks (I know jealous people, and they know my answer: You can do it too). To start "school" with pure, fresh energy. I'm planning a trek to Ladakh, little Tibet in north of India. Any experience to share, any books recommendations? let me know. Any legal stuff to bring back? I'll be traveling light.

Thats it for now folks ;)

Ogilvy makes my day

Last September I spent a day in Paradise and was blissfully given my own Key to Paradise. And lost it last month while preparing for the Emakina/Attentio Academy. Kind of a loss really, losing your key to paradise! I thought about it from time to time then decided to send a quick mail to Veronique VanHoorickx, Ogilvy Brussels Communication manager, to share and grieve over my loss.  And maybe because her 6 year old daughter is a cell-angel-ist or most probably because she's a compassionate  woman she sweetly mailed me my second key to paradise. Confirming me 2 things:
- There's no such thing as The key to paradise- nor 'The One' anything really
- 'Ask and you'll receive' is a nice counterpart to my other favorites 'Give and you'll get'
Thanks Véro!!!!!!!!!!!
Psst: want to know what my key looks like? Take a quick look here  -->

Me and my cello

Had a great laugh after a great but stressful day playing this cello game on the web. Its the first time I touch my bow in 2weeks - and it has to be a virtual touch of course. I have to congrat my cello teacher who sent me this link- she understands her client, she gets right to my heart :-) I got as many fingers cramp with the trackpad though 'playing" the Swan from Camille Saint-Saens than the ones I got 'playing' life kids' ritornellos.

Fun promotional campaign idea for the Berliner Philarmoniker.

Off to childhood

What's sexy?

This week I started playing with two of the sexiest objects I've been dreaming about for a couple of months. They'll most probably both inspired me for posts to come.  Guess what they are and let me know which one you find the sexiest :-)

January 16

Just a couple of new offers, a new client to welcome (should think about asking them when I can start mentioning what I produce for them), a favorite client to pamper (Simon I know you'll want to know who the hell is that :), an other one to grow, a Salesforce training, a first IAB event, a crying 2,5 big baby to escort daily to a strange new environment, a way too embarrassing activity to relate here, a 100 year old Granny anniversary, a couple of very energizing lunches with lovely ladies (more on this) and curious men (idem :)...How can we be January 16th?? Thanks God I was lucid enough not to make any stupid writing related good resolutions, except to say 'NO but thanks ' to more content contribution, which I already applied once. As I mentioned today, if you feel you miss my oh so valuable contributions to my loved blog (roadmap 2008 includes moving it to Wordpress, btw, and look for a ghostwriter- kidding), better to give me a call than to wait for my updates. My blog is dull!! Yet in life I'm so utterly revolutionary ;-)

New year, new soul

2007... what a year... I felt pregnant with a new world, à juste titre :-) 2008 will be some interesting year I can already tell.
I wish you all every possible mistake for 2008 -  Stay on the learning curve :-)

Heading to the south, chasing the Sun!

See you all in 2008! Take care,xxx

This is not an other Bubble!

Hat tip to Monika from Attentio ;) Dedicated to my 'The Bubble 2001' dear friends Tattoo and Dine.  World palace and great mind meetings times are coming back guys!! :-) Meet you in Brazil or Dubai, your choice really ;)

Whoosh!! Time's flying by!

For the first time in my life I know have the feeling I miss a couple of hours every day to be with my kids ( learn to read Flamish with my daughter, play "li pimobiles' with my son who might turn out to be and speak Italian) and obviously to blog. I always easily fought back people's 'lack of time' argument by a very assertive 'set your priorities' one and  ''if you dont have it you must create it' and I have to admit its not that easy. True though much more easier to do it for loving demanding kicking kids than to spend an other hour with the laptop updating Rolling Talks. Specially when days have gone so quickly since the last post and you absolutely want to post over Forrester seminar before going on. 100% wrong. Lesson learned?  We'll see...
So very shortly on what happened these last 3 weeks so I can move on: Forrester conference in Barcelona was one of the best I attended so far. Content was what you can expect from those guys (hopefully more on this later) but meeting and spending great time with names I put down a year ago in my inspirational bloggers book was the best part of it. The event showed me once more the power of blogging: this common characteristic is enough for people who never met to actively seek to get to be together - I was delighted to meet a lot of them from so many different home lands, Spanish, Australian, Dutch, French, American, Danish, etc. on the 2 nights I spent there ( you might like names do you ? :-) Second event in London Brand Advocacy conference last week with business partner Attentio was much more disappointed on this side and indeed very few speakers were bloggers. Might sounds naive but once you experienced the blogger bond events lack appeal when this component is missing. In between, a lot of consultancy, industry watch, clients production 'stuff' and events prep. Might sounds not 'such big deal'  but believe me it's taking me hours a day. Cant believe December is here.  Happy December to all ;)

Sea, scultpure and sun

If you feel like spending a beautiful autumn day at the sea, go to Knokke and check my friend Sven juicy sculptures. And make sure to meet the artist, he's one of the sweetest Cakes I've ever met ;-)

When? From 30/10 to 29/11.Where? Knokke-Zoute, Digue n° 652 (Galerie Alphonse d'Heye)

Take a quick sneak preview here:

Who wants to have a pet when you can have a Tim?

I promised to post it - and then came Lisboa and then came London, and then yes I felt a bit 'behind me'..Great team at Adhese is looking for some support. They are as cool as they look so if you feel like going to wonderful Gent to enjoy working in a very creative place, contact them.

Here's Sven explanation about the video, if needed (copied with authorisation ;)

sven@doggybites.com says: (10:16:17)
we don t want people who think in straight ad traditions : fast exiting etc...
sven@doggybites.com says: (10:16:39)
we want another personality, one who can bite down in a problem
sven@doggybites.com says: (10:16:51)
and is willing to sacrifice a lot of time in it

Rolling Talks update

Looks more and more like a diary book and even not a very often updated one. I guess I have to put more in practice what I'm selling...Anyway, to make this short and efficient, here what I've been up to these last 10 days/nights:

- helping Attentio with a monitoring presentation we organised yesterday for agencies around buzz monitoring. I must say that even if I was happy to see a bit more than 25 persons coming from communication agencies, PR agencies, Media agencies, I could feel while promoting the event there's a HELL of a lot of education to be done on the subject. Good news I guess, since:

- visiting several agencies like TBWA, Dansaert&fils, Cherry&Cake, Mindshare, Pr-ide to discuss Social Media and think about practical uses for their clients

- working on a secret third-party User Generated presentation ;) and an official one for Euractiv who kindly asks me to be a speaker at their 2nd media workshop they're organising next week to launch their blog platform.

- enjoying an inspiring dinner last Tuesday at the Mess with Microsoftees Surya Vanka , Geert Desager (whom I finally met), Tom Mertens , and other fellow bloggers like Brice and Ine (whom I will hopefully meet better next week at the Brussels Girl Geek Dinner)... Surya called me a 'meta blogger', referring to my mission to help companies integrate blogs as a marketing channel. I like it but not worthy of it..in regards to my own so non consistent production for RT..

Over for what I can talk about :-) Still have not found time to start my Tai-chi lessons but I'm a regular student at my music ones, on Wednesday nights, impatiently looking for my cello teacher to show up. Coming days, no more posts: Lisboa for pleasure,  London for business, back in Belgium for Customer First. :-)

Pregnant with a new world

Yesterday I turned 34. It was my first celebration since I registered on Facebook and I was pretty excited to discover what it will be like to receive virtual gifts. Let's make this clear though: virtual gifts are ok for virtual friends! A bon entendeur :-) So: I was dedicated a song, received more chocolate and cakes than I could possibly virtually eat, balloons, a magic 8 ball (??!? 8 is my favorite number so ok I keep it), a garden dwarf (hopefully virtual) and lots of lovely e-mails and e-cards (comme quoi..).

A few months before I told a friend I felt pregnant with a new world. A few weeks after I resigned from my Antidot job to jump into social media. I'm having so much fun I hardly believe I'm working. I've been meeting so many great people in such a short time, life's probably going in a fastforward tempo -and that explains why I'm ageing so quickly!. Meanwhile I'm juggling all day to get things done - and my blog is suffering while I do the talking :-)

But I feel blessed.

Enjoy Jacques

My dear Jacques invited me to the new trendy place in town, that is... Enjoy! Since I'm racking my brains each time Tattoo calls me to give him my last recommendation for lunch, I thought I would just post it here. Since Enjoy does not have a website -yet- and that the staff told me they would be the next place in town, that's two more reasons to post about it. Awesome food coming in small portions and beautiful to the eyes - try the ozen egg-, great place, sweet smiling waiters. If you're one of my go-lunchers remind me to take you there. Thanks for the lovely lunch and for taking me out to the newest fancy places in town Jacques.  How was your privacy check on porn sites this afternoon? I'm on with my research on breast topic. Exciting jobs we have :)
Enjoy details: waterloo bd, 22. Phone: 026415790

In London, darling!

That's where I am for a couple of days, meeting some business partners and enjoying some time off with my friend Jo. We'll be posting our new nice discoveries on Eurostar recent blog - Belgian initiative- Placetobiz. Jo is a frequent Eurostar traveller and she already contributed to the platform when she discovered the Oyster card. She likes the idea of sharing tips with the fellow travelling business community. My 1st tip will be about shoe repair and where to find them- my Tunisian shoes did not survive their day-long walking in East London yesterday... Im now in the business lounge of our hotel- only one free connected computer in this high standing hotel! What a shame! But since Im a guest here I wont complain nor mention it publicly ;-0... As Im typing this, Im eavesdroping a conversation with ' forum, discussions, negative comments in...positive comments since..competition...' I love this city ;-0

When Art comes from women generated media

Picture this. You're one of France's best-known living conceptual artists. You're 51 and visiting Berlin. Your mobile beeps, it's an email from your boyfriend. In a hideously self-absorbed message about human emotion, he dumps you electronically, saying it hurts him more than you. He signs off: "Take care of yourself." You're heartbroken. Then you think of its potential as art (more...).

Take care of yourself, Sophie Calle

note:  I would have loved to express myself on a 'take care of yourself' blog :-)

When Jo first saw me in the Onze Lieve Vrouw 's infant school playground, she thought i looked like a cool&pop mummy she'd like to meet. Add to that that our kids Olive & Tristan felt in love too and you get how we became friends. Well, i think you'll agree with me to say that she's definitely the coolest cat after checking her video (her first time on stage for her 10 year's wedding celebration last summer). In the background, you can also get a glimpse of friend Christian Ricx, ex-advertising boy and famous Impromptus members ;)

Jo just announced she decided to participate in the next Star Academy casting. I'll also make sure she's getting a blog within the new Sony's community :-). Go go girl, we lovvvvvvve you :-)

And if you ever take the Eurostar, watch for a tall, smart looking business woman, on her way to one of her IMS Health Paris or London meetings :-) 

Why I haven't been blogging for 6 days!

For those who don't know yet: two weeks ago, i decided to quit Antidot to fully jump into the life my little sneaky blog has created for me these last months. Muuuuuuuuuuch more on this later, but now you know at least that i'm not blogging so regularly because of my blog :-)

For those who know, i want to thank you all for your great support, advices, projects to come, excitement, trust, and gifts !!! Hugo, Alex, Tattoo..what can i say??.. I have GREAT family and friends, but hey! I chose them ;) If anyone feels like showing me an other love proof, i'll be needing a new PC pretty soon- well actually a Mac would be far better :-)

And if you ever wonder how it feels: FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE is the word

Laugh of the day

Good laugh coming from Le Meur's feed this morning. Sorry for those who don't speak French and those who don't give a damn. You're absolutely right! Je m'égare aussi... :-)

"SegoSarko

Elle : Et vous, Mr Sarkozy, savez-vous quelle est la part du nucléaire ? Hein ? Vous ne savez pas ?!?
Lui : Si je sais : 50% !!!
Elle : Ha ha ha, il l'a dans le dans le cul le lutin ! C'est 17% ! Pauvre tanche !
Lui : Qu'est ce qu'elle me dit la gourdasse ? 17% ?!? C'est le taux d'utilisation de tes neuronnes grosse vache du Poitou !

Women network: let's Jump!

I spent the whole day yesterday at the 1rst Belgian active women event with friend Alex and i realised how energizing and refreshing a woman-only crowd is - and i'm no way being feminist. It was lovely, well organised and a great networking event thanks to Isabella Lenarduzzi, her team and the whole bunch of talented women sharing their professional&personal experience - i was not surprised a bit to see fizzy Sylvie Irzi, country manager for MSN Belgium, as one of them. I was delighted to feel so much openness, curiosity, passion, all mixed with a strong desire to improve what we're achieving in a very balanced way of life - tips on how to keep and increase our energy was of course part of the game :-) Only one minor disturbing element: there were indeed a few men at the event, some of them speakers and translators. I think it'd be best to keep them for technical stuff and catering - and i'm no way being bitchy :-) I'll be there next year that's for sure. Kudoos to everyone :-)

Skiing with Daddy or give snowboarding a try?

   Off to La Clusaz and childhood souvenirs for - at least- a week! That's where i learned skiing 30years ago - gosh...  going down the snowy slopes at no race with a little red helmet and withouth sticks, arguing to not pay the platter lift with a 'my daddy is following a bit behind those' while the daddy was trying to stop a little devil before she could go for an other one. Hmmmmm... Now it's my turn to stop a little 6 years old devil and enjoy a family holidays. I'll just have to keep away from my little brother's loving proofs- last time we went there together his 1m94/78kgs broke my nose- remind my mum that a 2 years old can indeed walk too close an icy stream and fall over - but she'll probably remember that better than I can- and convince my dad to give snowboard a try . Hmmmmmmmmmmmm cant' wait :-)

If you find any interest to follow the van Wassenhove-Maerten epic holidays, have a look here and try to spot a   :-)

See you in April! and a happy Bwards too all ;)-

Today I sold banana and fishes

And it was fun! I had one of the greatest time since i've been working at Antidot! It was a pleasure to work - hard- on this reco last week, this week-end and a pleasure to present it today in front of my pairs :-)
While working on it i realised once more the power of this virtual world we're living in with so real nice people.

Special thanks and kudos to Seth Godin who inspired me for my reco - i made the 'one page for each banana' part of the recipe, much appreciated ;-)- and who so kindly answered 2 mails within hours inquiring about one of his free e-document. This world is magic! Let it take you away...Keep on connecting!!!!

ps: I forgot Alex who offered me to work at her place on Sunday to escape the kids and much more.. but she knows that ;-) Merci m'dame!