To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

The blue bird. Twitter. Intertwining our personal life with our responsibilities at work. Experienced as increasingly annoying at home and as more time-consuming at work. How should we see Twitter? As a good tool, or a monster; to tweet, or not to tweet?

Recent research by Brandfog shows that CEOs who tweet are held high in regard. More than 85% of consumers and employees rated CEO engagement in social media as somewhat important to indispensable. People who still deny the importance of social media within the business environment, must admit to being rather short-sighted.

Although I fully believe in the strength of social media and think the majority of firms should actively participate in creating online communities and engaging in e-marketing, I also see some downfalls. Studies have shown that employee productivity dramatically decreases when social networking sites are allowed during working hours. Some studies go as far as saying that employees spend more than 2 out of 8 hours to ‘being social online’, which does not benefit companies much. So in fact, we are dealing with a catch 22 here. On the one hand, companies benefit from social media in terms of employee and consumer engagement and positive effects on corporate image, while on the other hand employee productivity decreases.

My view on all of this is that the cons are easily outnumbered by the pros and that firms, especially B2C firms, should all actively engage in strategic social media initiaties. Nothing makes consumers feel more personally involved than receiving a ‘Retweet’ from their favourite brand. Negative experiences and complaint can be solved more easily by engaging in personal contact via Twitter.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

Tweet!

Holland’s hardest prisons?

Last week I was watching a Dutch documentary about Tony, a repetitive offender who ends up back in prison after yet another armed robbery. Court had decided to subject him to a 7-week program at the Pieter Baan Centre.

(For all foreign readers unfamiliar with the Piet Baan Centre, this institute is a ‘forensic psychiatric observation clinic, operated by the Ministry of Security of Justice, where suspects of crimes in the Netherlands are observed to ascertain whether they can be held wholy responsible for their suspected crimes.’ (Wikipedia))

During the documentary, we follow Tony as a team of dozens of psychiatrics and behavioural analysists pass by and create a detailed image of Tony’s childhood and the influences this might have had on the offences he has committed. As I’m watching, Tony regurarly throws a fit of temper, as soon as someone refutes with anything he says. I’ve only seen him showe remorse once, when he explains how awful it made him feel that one of the girls working in the last shop he robbed, peed her pants out of fear. Tony comes across as extremely unsympathetic and the team of highly educated researchers later conclude that Tony is a narcistic, self-centered person who is extremely likely to continue his path of repetitive (armed!) offenses. They estimate the chances that Tony will fall back to the pattern of drugs and armed robberies as high as 95%, so they’re basically sure that it’s just a matter of time before the same crimes will be committed yet again. The eventual verdict, after 7 weeks of observation, is that Tony should be admitted to a so-called ‘TBS-program’, a measure taken to help criminals of unsound mind return back to civilization.

As the camera follows Tony in his cell, approximately 4x3m in size, we can clearly see there’s no shortage in luxury in his living conditions. A television, radio, books, computer… People who earn just below modal wages probably can’t afford some of the facilities this convicted criminal can freely make use of. Any time Tony had to attend sessions or interrogations, he is taken by one of the members of the psychiatric team, someone who is probably paid around €100 an hour by the government.

I can not believe why the government would be willing to invest such a huge sum of money on someone of whom they are pretty much certain will commit similar crimes after his TBS program anyway? Tony is just an example, but I would like to stress the fact that he has been in and out of jail since he was young, arrested over and over again for the same crimes. Why doesn’t the Dutch government realize that this jurisdictional system is highly ineffective? Yes, I agree to the fact that (almost) anybody, depending on the nature of the crime, should be given a second chance. I do not agree with the death penalty, I’d rather say I oppose such an extreme measure. However, I do think that the government should start to take on a more realistic approach in putting serious repetitive offenders behind bars. In America, if you get arrested for, let’s say, steeling a car for the third time, you’ll get sentenced with life in prison. But here, if you get arrested for robbing a gasstation at gunpoint for the 60th time, you’ll get the latest copy of Nicci’s book, cable tv and high speed internet. Something to think about?

Is monogamy an illusion?

‘1 in 4 people has cheated before in their relationship and 4 out of 5 consider monogamy to be an illusion’  – NU.nl

According to market research by Cosmopolitan among more than 500 men and women in the Netherlands, the majority of both sexes consider monogamy to be an illusion. Oddly enough, cheating is dissaproved of by 90% of the respondents, something I find extremely contradicting. So most people think they would never be able to stay true to their partner in a relationship, but then again, probably the same majority would be outraged if their partner cheated on them. Hm. Sounds funny, doesn’t it?

I myself am a devoted disciple of the monogamy concept, so I could help but be interested in why other people would be willing to jeopardize their relationship. According to the same research, most striking issues are:

•  50% says temptation increases in a new environment, out of their partners’ sight – men especially seem to seize their opportunity during business trips
• Women generally worry more when their men are out of down for business – and quite rightly, so it seems –
• But, women tend to feel less guilty about cheating in retrospect: 1/3 shows no remorse

• Most important reasons to cheat are excitement (woman) and lust (men) – I would say, really? But I’ll restrain myself from personal comments 😉
• But the worst thing of all is that more than one third of cheaters chooses to cheat in the comfort of their own home…. The betrayal!!

Oh well, who am I to judge other peoples’ relationships? The research even reports that most relationships even grow stronger, because people generally tend to look at their relation through different eyes. Sure, I bet that many women would loooooove for their men to cheat, just so he would give them a bunch of flowers every now one in a while. I’m not buying that. And would people really behave similarly carrying a pile of feelings of guilt with them? In my opinion, cheating does not benefit a relationship on any account and someone should choose either a monogamous relationship, or no relationship at all.

New Year’s resolutions in october!

What is more cheesy than coming up with your New years resolution than on, right.. New Year?? Therefore, this year, I’m going to do things differently. So here is a list of my good intentions and I will start with them tomorrow!

* Smile more

* Don’t let the little things get me down. So no ‘Oh my god it’s raining’, but instead ‘Oh,           luckily I have a hooded jacket so my face won’t get wet anyway !! ‘.

* Be happy with myself

* Go sky diving

* Finish my Masters cum laude

* Drink more water and less Coke

* Eat more salads and less pizza

* Be able to run 10km by coming summer

* Write at least 5 (interesting!) blog posts a week

* Go to Finland to see Jonna, Mika and Thomas ( I already booked my flight, so this can        hardly go wrong! )

* Start writing my first book

* See my girl friends more often ( we’re all so busy )

* Work less during weekends

* Only buy clothing when I’m 100 % sure I will wear something

* Plan my trip around the world (tips&tricks, anyone?)

* Continue drinking red wine

Well, I guess this was about it for now. Not too bad right?? What are your ‘New Years’ resolutions’?

Unforgivable ignorance

‘A 2-year-old Chinese girl died a few days ago, after she was run over by a van in a busy market street’

At first, I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard that 18 people had just passed her, leaving her lying on the street in a pool of blood. But, I figured, something must have happened for people to overlook her. Then I saw the video in the news and it took a lot of strength not to burst out in tears. This tiny girl was walking down the street, looking over her shoulder unexpectedly, when she gets hit by a van. The driver must have known he hit something, because he stops and waits for a while. Then he continuous driving, running her over yet again with his reer wheels. The toddler lies there seriously injured in the middle of the road, and person after person just walks past. I wouldn’t even call it ‘walking past’, as some of these people almost have to step right over her, as you can see in the picture above. Even on the video, in bad quality, you can clearly see that she’s bleeding. And then after 18 people, woman #19 finally picks up the girl and gets her to a hospital.

18 people pass a dying girl in the street. 18! China is probably seriously ashamed of this incident, since articles keep popping up about how it is common for people in China to press legal charges against their rescuers. This, supposedly, holds citizens back now in offering help when they see an accident.

Well, isn’t that an easy way out? Sure, so there have been incidental cases where someone sues his rescuer, but is that really the first thing on peoples’ mind when they see someone injured? Probably not. I’m guessing it has more to do with the fact that Chinese people are always in a rush, doing business 24-hours a day and being primarily self-interested. But are they to blame? Can we point the finger at the Chinese people in general, because what if they do not adopt this way of living? They are either hard-working or poor and there are not that many options in between.

Still, I can’t believe 18 people ignored this dying little Chinese girl. In the aftermath of this incident, I think that everyone worlwide should start to think about the common humanity. No, you should not go to church in order to make yourself believe you did something ethically right, just consider what you would have done in a similar situation. I am just hoping you’ll say you would stop and call an ambulance, if not, then where the hell are we going?

We’re all ‘just’ animals

“You and me baby ain’t nothing but mammals”

Taken from a song by the Bloodhound Gang, this song is basically an outline of today’s blogpost. No matter how sophisticated we think we are, as human beings, we’re all just animals. Recently, a friend of mine posted a video on facebook, where a dog got hit by a car. He was lying in the middle of a busy highway, cars passing by on both sides and he wasn’t able to move. Then, out of nowhere, a second dog approaches, which first crosses the highway in order to get to the wounded dog and then starts dragging the dog to the side of the road to get him to safety. Not with his teeth, but with his paws!! It appears very far-fetched and it might be an uncommon example, but come to think of it, what other animals do not show similar behaviour?

People have a tendency to feel extremely superior over animals. Is there enough evidence to justify this superiority though? For example, recent evidence into the behaviour of killer whales, suggests whales work together in groups to create waves that sweep seals of their protective ice floe.

Dolphins are known to cooperate in teams to chase groups of small fish onto the shore banks, making them easy snacks once they’re out of the water. In the most extreme droughts, elephants travel hundreds of kilometres following invisible tracks that they have memorized and which lead them to water sources. Some elephants have been seen mourning for days over the bodies of their dead calves, unwilling to leave the corpse behind.

I am not saying here that, in the near future, I expect to be waitered at a local restaurant by a monkey that speaks three languages fluently. All I’m trying to point out is that the differences between animals and human beings might not be as big as we’ve always anticipated. Animals are, without a doubt, smarter than many people have thought for a long time and I think it’s about time we start treating them with the corresponding respect. How ‘human’ is it to harpoon whales and next slaughter them while their still alive, just because a bunch of weirdos love to eat their meat?

Maybe we should take a look at animals more often, to get a sense of what being ‘human’ to one another actually means….

If you still think the story of the wounded dag is far-fetched, here’s the video. It still amazes me.

Inspirational quotes

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” – Oscar Wilde 

I’m a huge fan of meaningful quotations, that inspire me at any given time. When I was 12, me and my parents were enjoying a weekend at the Island of Texel, when I found the quote on the picture below:

I hung this quote in my bedroom, at the foot of my bed, and so I faced it everyday. It sounds weird, but during the difficult times of my childhood, this quote really pulled me through sometimes. From then on, quotes have been very influental to me and I make sure they’re – literally – everywhere. In my agenda, for some inspiration on those long working days and on my Facebook page, so when I scroll back every now and then, it’s like a very personal diary of my feelings, that other people will never interpret as such. 

 

 

Leaving quotes in places you forget you left them after a while, sometimes provides you with an unparalled sense of awakening. It reminds me of what is important and what really matters to us in the end. It helps me to make sure some things don’t get to me and, on the contrary, to make sure some things do. Here are some of my favorite quotations:

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“In the hope of reaching the moon men often fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.” – Albert Schweitzer

“Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?” – Guevara

“The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.” Arthur C. Clarke 

The issue of gender-thinking

This weekend the finals of the annual ‘Formido’ race were held at Circuit Park Zandvoort. We happened to be invited as VIPs and I also happen to love car races, especially the ones with Aston Martins, Lamborghinis and Porsches. As we were walking around the paddock and the track in general, I noticed there were almost no women present, which I found quite odd. Not that I was expecting the place to be crowded with super excited women and only a few men, but it was as if they had been pursueing an anti-women policy at the entrance.

 

That made me wonder; why is it that certain sports or hobbies seem to be so unattractive to women? I have never let this ‘stereotype’ image of specific sports influence my own preferences, and thus I grew up going to car races, snowboarding, playing GTA on the PS2 and so on. It never struck me as odd, until it seems that, now that I’ve grown up, society has a weird way of separating the genders. Go to a random car show. The only women you’ll find there, are probably the ones that were dragged their by their significant other, putting on a dismal face until they’re finally able to go home. It’s the same the other way around though, you just have to come up with a different event. As I’ve been to one recently, I’m going to take the spa as an example. Many men love to swim. Many men enjoy whirlpools. But why are there so little men in a place that revolves around pools, saunas and steam rooms? I hardly saw any men during my visit – I was there for about 3 hours – and again, I wonder why?

 

Does society learn us from a young age that, as a woman or a man, you’re supposed to like certain activities and dislike others? Are girls taught that they’re not supposed to like cars, or drinking beer, or go-karts? Are men laughed at when they admit they enjoy a visit to the spa sometimes? I wonder if this is something like ‘placing genders in a box’, which would be a very limited standard to the supposedly very ‘open-minded’ Dutch culture. But ,then again, is this phenomenon culture related, or something global?

I can only be happy to say that I’ve been very lucky not to be raised with these steoreotypical mindsettings. Someday, I’ll make sure my kids learn that, cars are not for boys, and riding a horse is not just for girls.

The next Steve Jobs?

The death of Steve Jobs last week, the creative mind behind the enormous success of Apple, was a wake-up call to me and probably thousands of other people worldwide.

Apple and its products have changed the business world as we knew it and created almost a culture of dedicated followers, people obsessed with iPhones, Macbooks and so on. It did not come up with smartphones or laptops, but simply changed existing products into objects of desire. Without Jobs, can Apple continue the magic?

In a world where no one had ever heard of ‘brand management’, ‘social media’ and where employee welfare was at the bottom of the priority list, Steve Jobs was an odd man out. But with his out of the box way of thinking and focussing on the creative aspect before or maybe even instead of focussing on profit margins,he came up with something original. Although economics, strategy and managerial studies have gained huge popularity over the past decade, will this really contribute to a new series of ‘Steve Jobs’ successors? I’m not sure. So much focus has been placed in research on transforming pretty much every organization into something creative, but this focus might have a contradictory effect. When extensive theories on creative organizations and creative ways of managing them are being formulated, doesn’t this automatically result in some kind of standardization? The more we’re forced to think ‘outside the box’ and be relentlessly original, the more it might restrain our actual creativity.

I think Apple was lucky to have a man like Steve Jobs. I think it wasn’t Steve Job”s time yet and I think the world will miss out on some great ideas. I do not think that someone remotely similar to Steve Jobs will come along in the near future. He was a fresh breeze of air in this capitalistic era and hopefully we can continue to learn from him, in retrospect. Thank you, Steve Jobs.

Soaking and softening: time to yourself

Yesterday, me and my boyfriend went to Sanadome, a spa complex in the midst of a forest in Nijmegen. It’s a place where you can relax in all kinds of whirlpools, steam rooms and saunas. If you want, you can also book packaged deals, which could include for example, 2-day spa entrance and a stay overnight.

I find though, that after soaking for about 4 hours, I don’t need to return the next day and start the same routine again. But maybe that’s just me, because I know that whole organizations thrive on those ‘retreat’ vacations, where you spend a ridiculous amount of money to meditate 4-hours a day on a bamboo mat in a remote village in Eastern-Europe.

What is this about modern day society, that the only way we can find piece and quiet when we pay a shitload of money and are forced to ‘enjoy and relax’ ourselves? Don’t get me wrong, everybody is free to spend their money on whatever they want, but I do think this trend is something completely useless. Personally, I would get much more satisfaction if I were able (I’m not saying I am ;)) to take my time and think about stuff I’d have done that day, in my own home and on a daily basis. Wouldn’t that be far more rewarding and soothing than going somewhere for three weeks to think about issues that have been piling up for a year, return to your chaotic home and spend the next year worrying about everything until you’re finally able to go to the ‘retreat place’ again?