Olga Belogolova

Stay Hungry; Stay Foolish

There are times that I forget. I forget that I want to be, I’m going to be, one of the crazy ones that changes the world. I forget not to settle. There are times that I let the noise of others’ opinions drown out my own inner voice. I forget that somehow, somewhere, within I already know what I want to become. I forget to be fearless and shun embarrassment and failure.

But a man who loved what he did, loved his life and brought to the world some of the most beautiful and creative products it has even seen died today. I don’t have a Mac and I don’t have an iPad and even my iPod died a year ago and I have yet to replace it. Still, I recognize that this man changed the world, changed music, changed movies, changed (and will continue to change) journalism, changed our culture and all because he woke up every morning, looked in the mirror and carpe-diemed the crap out of that day. He woke up every morning knowing that he was going to love what he did and who he came home to.

All of us aspire for that. No, not the inordinate success that comes with being the co-founder of Apple (though it wouldn’t hurt), but the simple happiness of loving our jobs and our lives. It’s not just luck that makes that happen. It’s, as Henry David Thoreau put it, learning to “reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”

This morning, my phone wasn’t plugged into its charger, my alarm didn’t go off and I overslept. Tomorrow I will wake up, look in the mirror and ask myself: ”If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”

Like everyone else out in the world today, I saw the news that Steve Jobs died this evening. I saw it in my work email – something about a news alert – and I saw it explode on Twitter and Facebook. Like the many millions, I wondered how to process this. How did this affect me? This man that I didn’t know, but somehow found his way into all of our lives. I told a friend earlier tonight that I want to feel inspired again. Watching Steve Jobs address the the graduating class at Stanford in 2005, I got the message: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Now I remember.

A Middle East Feast

So as I was reading Jeff Goldberg’s much anticipated cover story for the Atlantic and, ironically, eating my favorite Trader Joe’s, sorry – “Arabian Joe’s” pack lunch titled “Middle East Feast,” something interesting happened:

I dropped my cell phone into the hummus.

Now, if you know me, this isn’t a very unusual occurrence for me. I lose and/or break cell phones and other valuables on a regular basis. Just this week, I have spilled tea and water all over my desk at work, Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

Being a lover of metaphors, analogies and all sorts of literary snob goodies, I of course thought this was symbolic. After all, the Atlantic piece is talking about Israel’s likeliness to bomb Iran sometime soon.

Out of the suspicion of hidden symbolism in my cubicle lunch, I decided it was worth a tweet.

The tweet and the conversation that ensued…

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Building Youth for the Future

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

When I traveled to Jordan in 2009, part of the press trip included a visit to the Jordan River Foundation’s Queen Rania Family Center, where we were told about Queen Rania’s efforts in development and community empowerment projects.

In our subsequent visit to the Jordan Investment Board, Dr. Maen Nsour spoke to us about Jordan’s necessity to concentrate on its human capital, due to its lack of oil and other resources.

Yesterday, the Jordan River Foundation signed agreements with four charities in order to help young Jordanians enter the labour market. According to a JRF statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times, this Youth: Work Jordan (YWJ) initiative “will benefit around 450 young people,” providing them with life skills, technical and vocational training. The hope is to encourage employability, entrepreneurship and civic engagement among Jordanian youth.

Judging by what I heard during my visits in 2009, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Not only does it go along with what Dr. Maen Nsour told us about investing in human capital, but it also goes hand in hand with what Jared Cohen is emphasizing at the State Department these days – the importance of focusing on youth in the Middle East.

Great piece on gastrodiplomacy

Just wanted to share a good link. Paul Rockower, who I mentioned in my post on Gastrodiplomacy, recently had a piece on the very subject published in the online magazine called Nation Branding, where he writes about Taiwan’s efforts to incorporate gastrodiplomacy into their diplomatic relations. Rockower is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, researching Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy.

Here is it is: http://nation-branding.info/2010/07/21/branding-taiwan-through-gastrodiplomacy/

Excerpt:

“At home in Taiwan, the government is planning on establishing a new Taiwanese  food foundation- a culinary think tank that will assist coffee shops and restaurant  chains that promote Taiwanese foods abroad.  The creation of such an institute  could not come at a better time.  Recently NPR’s Morning Edition featured a story of  the immense popularity of Taiwan’s coffee store 85C, which recently set  up shop in Irvine, California.”

woohoo, something of importance  to the world is happening in Irvine, California (may be the only reason I chose that particular excerpt)!

In all seriousness, however, the fact that the Taiwanese government has chosen to put their effort and even investment into the creation of such a foundation is a good indicator that gastrodiplomacy is an important means of cultural communication.

Silly Rabbit, Trix are not just for kids anymore.

I recently read this great article, “Brands as People, People as Brands” on the Mr. Youth company blog called “grownup thinking.” It’s a re-post from promomagazine.com. In this particular article, Matt Britton, the founder and CEO of Mr. Youth, writes about how brands are becoming more humanized, because of the high relationship emphasis of the Facebooking, networking consumer generation. He mentions how Honda and Ford are using Twitter to humanize their brand by creating personas rather than simply using company names to Tweet in an approachable manner.

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Gastrodiplomacy: The Yummiest Politics

Moi + Baguette + Cheese (Place des Vosges, Paris, 2008)

Food is kind of a big deal. Whether you have it or you don’t. Whether you rock at it or you fall under the radar. For some nations, food a defining factor.

I say Italy, you say pizza, pasta and cannoli (and may only be after The Godfather)

I say Japan, you say sushi.

I say China, you think about your college diet.

As I said before, food is kind of a big deal. After all, it’s our lifeline and what better to use to define a nation than the way it manages this essential and sometimes even oh so satisfying lifeline.

Wikipedia even has an entry titled “national dish.” Sadly, though, most of the dishes mentioned on it are virtually unknown foreign words to the world’s population unless they are the expected and mainstreamed bratwurst, pizza, pasta, sushi, tapas, etc. Some of the entries will surprise you as well and some of them may no longer be true. Through globalization, we are all changing our national identities and that most certainly involves a culinary aspect as well. Continue Reading…

Trophies Collected in the Victories of Mind over Matter

“Nobody, however, who has paid any attention to the features of our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition which tends rapidly to the accomplishment of that great end to which indeed, all history points — the realization of the unity of mankind.” – Prince Albert (Theodore Martin, The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, Volume 2 (New York: D. Appleton & Co, 1880).

Prince Albert said this in 1851. Today, almost 160 years later, we still hear the echoes of these words in our international conversation.

Since we were talking about some healthy international competition in my last post, let’s knock off two cultural exchange birds with one proverbial nation branding stone.

While the Olympic tradition is an athletic exchange between nations, where they have the opportunity to present their countries’ best athletes on one international arena, world expos/exhibitions provide the same opportunity for business and technology.

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From Yuri Gagarin to Sochi 2014

Sticking to the theme of my last post about nation branding, I wanted to talk about a specific example. The Olympics have always been a symbol of renewal, peace and international collaboration and for many countries and cities, hosting has turned into a means of rediscovering themselves, pumping up their economy and essentially, redefining their brand. I was recently browsing the Sochi 2014 brand site via the Interbrand company site and they are all about branding not only the event itself, but the “Russia of the future.” And frankly, it’s pretty cool…

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Nations: To Brand or not to Brand?

In Marketing Week this week, Mark Ritson, who is an Associate Professor of Marketing, writes about country branding. His take on it is summarized in the headline of his article “Countries are countries, not brands.”

Written in reaction to South Africa’s preparation for the FIFA World Cup, the article not only looks down upon the country for trying to build a stronger country brand with this opportunity, but other nations who have viewed themselves as a brand and the branding agencies that were hired by them to do it. Continue Reading…

Checks, Balances and Requests

Talk about checks and balances…and Open Government, for that matter.

Google Inc., which has been in the news for quite a few censorship and government scandals recently, has launched an online tool which tracks government requests to remove content or reveal personal information about users. While they aren’t turning down governments for some of these requests, they are making that information publicly available, which is a pretty cool check on government, even if it only shares the numbers and not details about the specific requests. They do, however, list out if requests were fully or partially complied with, whether there was a court order, and what kinds of requests they were, such as “blogger,” “Google Video,” or anything else under the sun really. Continue Reading…