Video creates buzz among Northeastern students

Today, Northeastern got itself some nice presence over the web.

A few days ago I was proudly posting on my own Facebook page that Northeastern University ranked better in Google than Boston University (our rival, hence the reason why I am not linking their page to their keyword, keeping all my organic search efforts for MY school here) - to which I received sarcastic comments such as "I do hope students who Google "university" go to NU". Ahem, point taken. But I know from what school I'd be happy to receive my marketing education - oh wait, that's the school I graduated from last May. Score.

Anyway, today Northeastern was very much present on the web. Amongst the e-mails I still receive from them about books and breakfast with the Basketball team - e-mails that Gmail finally understood NOT to put in my priority inbox - Facebook was put in the loop as a video started to spread around the network.

I was quite happy that Facebook now stacks all related posts under one line (you notice this when it's one of your friends' birthday with whom you have 65 mutual friends and your news feed is not flooded) because I am pretty sure the entire Northeastern network ended up sharing this video at one point of the day or another - me included.

If you go to NU you know what video I am talking about, this kid - probably a BSBA - spoofing the song "Empire State of Mind" to describe life at Northeastern University.

I am not saying I enjoyed the voice singing the song nor that he should go to American Idol, but I honestly admit it brought back some very good memories and it was nice reminiscing about the last years.

If you haven't done so yet, check out the video here:

The other mention I am writing about is this Boston Globe article talking about international students. A French student from Northeastern, Alex Souetre, was interviewed for the article, comparing the cultural differences between American and French jobs. You can read the article here 

Posted via email from Jay Gee

Il vaut mieux escompter le pire. Nous n'aurons que de bonnes surprises.

Il y a plus d'un groupe de caractères dans notre société.
Concentrons-nous aujourd'hui sur le premier.

Ce premier groupe qui se définit généralement par une attitude commune
face à l'adversité.

Définition : Faciles à dompter, il suffit de leur imposer une idée;
chose facile également, simple même quand on y pense, en dictant un ou
deux arguments faisant appel à la perception de soi en situation
sociale.
Agir sur le sensible, trouver ce qui les touche et ce qui leur
importe. Jouer sur les sentiments, voici la solution.

Timides, sensibles, plein de potentiel la plupart du temps, ces gens
du premier groupe sont de plus en plus fréquents au sein de notre
société.

"Potentiel caché", "qui gagne à être connu", "timide mais une tête
pleine d'idée", "brillant mais qui brille par son absence".

Potentiel caché oui, qui se veut dévoilé de jour en jour mais qui
rarement ose s'imiscer dans des réflexions sur terres inconnues, c'est
pour cela que ce groupe ne brille pas immédiatement en société.

Car après tout, quel en est le risque? Il en est un risque existant,
que de s'adonner à des propos sans pouvoir anticiper la refléxion
d'autrui. Risquer de se tromper, risquer de heurter les sentiments de
la personne en face de vous, tenter une approche qui se veut
philosophique, et risquer d'obtenir une retombée soporiphique. Un peu
comme ce texte que j'écris.

Est-il plus facile par écrit?

Que définit ce premier groupe? Ce groupe de ceux qui risquent peu, de
ceux qui suivent, objectent rarement et opinent souvent. De ceux qui
évitent l'échec et l'inconnu, l'imprévu, afin de ne pas risquer la
déception et surtout de ne pas affronter la surprise.

Oh oui.

Trop de risques que d'espérer que le vent tourne. Oh mon Dieu.

Espérer qu'une surprise soit bonne, changer de bus le matin sans
savoir si le chauffeur sera plus agréable ou plus grognon que celui du
8h17. Commencer par se brosser les dents à gauche et non à droite, ou
changer de marque de lessive.

Risquer. Oser. Tenter. Essayer. Imaginer.

Cinq mots similaires pour les spécimens du premier groupe. Et pourtant
si différents?

Imaginer : Non il ne faudrait pas imaginer, cela serait accepter le
fait que la vie pourrait être meilleure (ou pire) que la situation
actuelle. Cela serait s'accorder le temps d'être oisif et rêver à
quelque chose d'autre. Surtout imaginer pourrait amener à essayer.
N'oublions pas qu'Alain a dit "l'oisiveté est mère de toutes les
vertus", oui, "mais également de tous les vices".

Essayer : Que se passerait-il si on aimait? Si cette nouvelle chose
s'avérait mieux? Si se brosser les dents en commençant à gauche était
moins fatigant qu'à droite? Pourrait-on changer le système?

Tenter : Changer le système, implémenter un changement, imposer une
autre façon de faire les choses. Non, impensable. Non pas sans avoir
imaginé et essayé. Mais cela est trop risqué.

Oser : Seuls les fous osent, ces gens qui finissent dans la rue, non
pas les gens bien. Non, surtout ne pas oser fermer l'offce à 17h pile.
Il faut fermer à 16h54 pour avoir le bus de 17h13. Non, surtout ne pas
arriver à 9h23, cela signifierait se lever plus tôt et oser un
différent chauffeur de bus. Non, non.

Risquer : N'en parlons même pas. Je ne souhaiterais pas me risquer à
donner des idées de changement à mes lecteurs du premier groupe? Cela
est-ce la raison? Non, juste que le risque est un concept aveugle à ce
groupe. L'inconnu, un peu comme le rock pour le Pape, ou le théâtre
pour Sarkozy.

Le risque est un concept aveugle aux gens du premier groupe. Le risque
n'existe pas, que le mal. Si cela n'est pas normal, c'est le mal.
Après une profonde analyse des facteurs liés à un tel changement, une
évaluation précise de la situation est effectuée. Si il est trop
difficile d'évaluer comment la situation pourrait évoluer (= trop de
risques), cela finira forcément mal. C'est vrai qu'il est simple de
penser comme ça.

Ces gens sont tel un bateau qui resterait au port : ne courent aucun
danger mais ne vont nulle part.

Toujours la sécurité dans l'âme. La certitude que demain ne nous
apportera aucune surprise. Le confort que nous allons la où nous le
souhaitons.

C'est rassurant.

Mais mon Dieu que c'est chiant.

Posted via email from Jay Gee

The times they are-a changing

To many of you this looks completely normal: "oh, once again Josephine is flooding us with Bob Dylan related stuff", and yes once again - this time not on Facebook though - I am smothering you with Bob Dylan. Yes I want today's post to be one of his songs, and yes I know this song so well that I can perfectly hear Bob Dylan's voice as I read the lyrics. And to be honest, I don't really care if you don't read those lyrics, because I am not trying to introduce you to Bob Dylan, chances are you are one of my friends if you read that so either a) I play Bob Dylan so much that there is no way you never listened to him when you're around me, b) you are already a big fan (oh... duh). Whatever you situation may be, I feel like you should gather around and listen to this song again, because the times really are changing.

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

Posted via email from Jay Gee

Android: Week 3 of usage

A few weeks ago I did the stupid thing of buying a new phone. 

Sick of MetroPCS lousy coverage (and I won’t tell them to stop advertising and start investing because I know it’s not the same budget and I hate when somebody tells this to a company blah blah) and bored on a Saturday morning, I went  to the AT&T to buy the iPhone 4.

There, a very obnoxious lady told me quite aggressively that yes indeed I had to pay a $500 deposit to get a contract with AT&T.

Indeed AT&T has the annoying habit of charging a new customer $500 for a deposit if this customer has no credit history. I have had my SSN for now a year so I was in this situation. The same argument they always give you after is: “you’ll get it back in 12 months”…”Geez thanks can I pay credit? *facepalm*”… Besides I don’t even know where I’ll be in 12 months.

So I was all “Ok AT&T have rude CS but they have the iPhone 4, wait a minute $500???”, so I was bored and on spending frenzy (just gotten my paycheck) but some of Mother’s genes found their place in my system and that little voice in my head screamed “Josephine, that will be over $700 for a phone, this is ridiculous”…”yes but I love Apple and I don’t want the other Apple fanboys/fangirls to make fun of me”…”then keep your MetroPCS phone and save up”…”no way”. But well, all in all I listened to the voice (we argued for a while) and left AT&T, quite depressed for not getting the iPhone 4. Actually very depressed.

I ended up going to Radio Shack to see if they had anything to say about the $500 deposit. They had not. Grand.

I won’t expand on the story but I ended up buying the HTC Hero on Android, with Sprint (affordable plan… somewhat, and only $50 deposit).

And I was pretty excited, being a true Apple fangirl there was NO WAY I was going to buy a CrackBerry so Android, even though it’s Google operated and blah and blah, was a pretty good compromise. I wanted a Smartphone.

It’s been 3 weeks I’ve had my Android now (more or less) and I can give a pretty good feedback of this product: It is NOWHERE near as good as the iPhone. The problem now is that I still use my French iPhone as my MP3 player (well… duh) so I do use both all day to go on the Internet. The touchscreen on the HTC is slow, the entire phone is slow! Turning it on takes forever  so I never turn it off, therefore I always have to charge it because well the battery is so damn retarded (and I’m retarded for not turning off 3G). Sometimes also the phone will just shut down and restart. It also has this annoying habit of vibrating whenever I dial a number or pick up a call (but consider the 0.5 seconds lag that never ceases to make me believe I have a call waiting or I just received a text). I also dropped a bunch of calls for my phone being too freakin’ retarded to let me hit the “pick up call” button.

Well now I’m not saying I don’t like my phone, it’s maybe that the iPhone is too good and I got used to it. And also when you compare it to my old phone…. Well you better not. At least now I can hear when people talk, I can write more than 120 characters in my text messages and I have coverage in my apartment.

So do I wish I had waited to buy the iPhone 4? No, the old phone was way too much hassle. Will I pay the $200 early termination fee if the iPhone really goes to Verizon? Probably.

As for Android, it’s cool, I really like this, the apps are good – sometimes better than the App Store (you can try an app before buying it, but apparently same for the Apple Store now), and it’s highly customizable, widgets are nice too. I just wish I had another phone…

(pss, don’t tell Mother, she’ll say that’ll teach me how to spend my money)

Posted via email from Jay Gee

Why did Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize

I was sorting files on my laptop today and stumbled upon this, a text I wrote last year, and realized it was not on this blog. So it's old, but now public.

 

Let’s put it bluntly. BHO won the NPP because he realized the dream of MLK.

 

Ok, maybe not that bluntly.

 

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Many people are wondering why. And to them I can only say “read the I have a dream speech again”, because that is what I did, randomly, and then it stroke me. Because to my humble opinion, the reason Barack Obama was elected, is because he realized Martin Luther King’s dream.

 

Think about it a little while longer.

 

A little while longer.

 

Okay now we are good.

 

MLK did say he had a dream that someday we would all be equal, that someday the sons of former slaves and former slaveowners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood, that one day his four children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. This day has arrived. And it arrived last year.

 

When Barack, Hussein, Obama son of a white lady and a black man, got elected the 44^th President of the UNITED States of America on November 4^th, 2008, he created the physical representation of MLK’s speech 48 years earlier. By some wonders, this man managed to reunite the USA, to reunite African Americans and White Americans and give hope to every single one of them. He has this in his blood. After all who better than an African White American could be the pioneer in this giant leap for America?

 

The Nobel prize committee said it awarded the Nobel to BHO for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people”. To what extent can people judge he did not deserve it? In the history of Nobel Prizes award, had we only had war stoppers? Did we never honor efforts? Did we never honor tries? What about last year, Martti Ahtisaari, this Finish man who received the prize because of his important efforts over three decades to resolve international conflicts. Did he manage to resolve those? No, we still have Palestine and Israel throwing rocks at each other, British and American kids dying for their countries in Afghanistan, the Gulf war last for a long time and the two Koreas are still separate and 9/11 happened. Still, he tried, he made “important” efforts, not “outstanding” efforts to resolve those, and we honored that.

 

What about Kofi Annan in 2001? We honored his efforts too. Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994? Do people forget that that “political act” that “called for great courage on both sides” was the reason of the award because it “opened up opportunities for a new development towards fraternity in the Middle East”. Yes, Middle East, where all those bombs and mines explode and where those same British and American kids go to die.

 

Let’s make a point here, for decades, if not for the entire history of the Nobel Prizes, the prize has been awarded mostly to honor efforts, therefore a behavior that showed willingness to change the world, and that by doing this, in a way managed to change the world by changing peoples’ mind, by letting people ‘hope’ that the world can change.

 

Imagine what the world would look like if no one had ever tried. Well if no one had never tried it would have been because no one had ever cared. People would be selfish enough to feel content about the way they live and not care of what’s going on over there in the Middle East. After all, does it physically hurt my own person that a 19 years old from Dallas died because he got ambushed during boot camp? No you’re right, physically it does not hurt me. But mentally it does, because it makes me realize that the World is not all coloured, it is black and white. It is all good and all bad. And to me it is mostly bad.

 

But recently I changed my mind about that, and thanks to whom? Many people, not only Barack, my dear Obama. No, I changed my mind because people like him, or people like Kofi Annan, the UN representatives or even my next door neighbor, those people believe the world can get better, and by thinking like this, they make it better.

 

By giving hope to people, Barack Obama made millions of other people change their mind about the world. Citizens of one of the most segregationist countries 50 years from now voted for a black president. Those people solely decided that their country had changed enough that they could handle being directed by a “black dude”, a “Negro”, a “former slave’s son”, whatever we may call African American people. And this is not because he is a President that he changed peoples’ beliefs, no, as he said it himself, he was black before being a President. Shocker. Was he? Are you sure? Man that would mean that a black dude was powerful enough to change more than 50% of the population’s of the US of A vote for him and elect him as the head of their Government? Yes, why? Wait, does that mean that the White House hosts an African American? Indeed. Well so does it mean that we are all equal? Um, yes. That we live in a nation where people are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character? Yes. Does it mean that this nation rose up and lived out the true meaning of its creed?

 

It does.

 

Thank you Barack. You gave me peace of mind.

 

 

Posted via email from Jay Gee

No soda for 10 days

You read well, starting tomorrow morning I'll begin a series of 10 days experiments.

Tomorrow starts the whole experiment with no Soda for 10 days. So first all I don't drink a lot of soda usually, but I work in an office where I got diet coke for free so I started to drink a lot of those, and this is not good, and not only for my teeth. So starting tomorrow I will only be drinking water (sparkling or flat) for 10 straight days - until the 22nd. If the experiment proves beneficial, I may go longer. 

Then I'm open to suggestions for the other 10 days experiments. On the list I have "no cigarettes", "no TV", "no coffee", "no fish/seafood" (I'm already vegetarian only I eat fish and seafood because it is SO DAMN GOOD)... list is open to comments and/or suggestions.

Yours truly,

Posted via email from Jay Gee

Twitter is not for personal interactions

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Josephine Gavignet" <josephinegavignet@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 23, 2010 9:19 PM
Subject: Twitter is not for personal interactions
To: "Josephine Gavignet" <josephinegavignet@gmail.com>

Twitter is not for personal interactions

Ok so I have gone back to tweeting. It feels nice. Just by going on there and not really doing anything I have learned a lot by clicking on articles from the great entities I follow. Namely hubspot, mashable and what not. I have been getting some new followers which is nice, not all spammers even if they still represent a fair amount of my daily new "fans". What I have come to conclusion with is that well twitter is NOT for personal interactions. I am not saying it is not good for it, I am just saying that we don't want to see it here. Well now you can decide to stop reading this article, I won't mind, but something tells me you won't because if you clicked on this article it's because you're somewhat interested by what people have to say about twitter, or by things I write in general. So well here goes, I don't believe twitter is the place where you broadcast about what you ate at lunch or that your boss sucks. If your friends want to read about that on facebook ( and have not yet hidden you from their newsfeed) that's fine but us on Twitter who ended up on your profile because you once seemed worthy of our clicking on "follow", if and when we don't know you ( or your boss, if I did that would maybe interest me but only for reporting purposes) we honestly don't give a bee's sting of what you are doing.
My point here is that we all know what twitter is for. Maybe it was not Evan Williams' first and foremost thought when he created it but it is now. When I browse twitter, and it's the same for many if my counterparts, it is either because I want to read good and interesting things or for job purpose (which is ultimately good and interesting considering my job is web marketing) and we don't want twitter to become the place where you go if your friends are getting bored of your facebook status updates that are unreasonably frequent. I have to admit I've done this in the past and then you come to realize that you can always text it to the person you are really looking to get a reaction from. Or say just share it face to face. You should try. The problem with twitter is that we spent the last year or so not taking it seriously because nobody was using it. It was just the new fancy thing. But well now everybody at least knows it and chances are they are using it. For God's sake my parents know about it. So now twitter is becoming a valuable source of information and a much more professional tool. Because everybody can read about you when you use ashtags to share about your lunch experience. And that would be my final point: everybody can read about you. For the rest, keep a diary. And please not a blog.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Jay Gee

Quick update

So here it goes, I know it's been a while I have not posted here and I apologize for this lack of words from me.

Well if I have to give you an excuse (and I feel the few people who actually read my thing deserve it for their support) I could tell you that I have been working a lot (for the past three weeks) and enjoying the summer in Boston (read "the heat") as most as I could. I could also tell you that I have been spending less time in front of my computer and more time in front of...well...tv (not better), or reading. I'd probably be lying. Truth is I was confronted to a major writer's block and the fact that I write in both languages does not help. I have to be honest with you and tell you I have been writing in French, very happy that my writing style had not completely gone out of my mind, and have just been too lazy to translate it. Because well I don't know who reads that blog but I know that most of the people I share it with know English well enough to read what I have to say. The French version of that sentence is unfortunately not true.

I have a bunch of stuff to update you with such as my new awesome job but I doubt that you are here to read about that. So just a quick update: job is awesome, onboarding (thank you Murielle for teaching me that word) has been great and I have a lot of things to do there. I feel I am learning a lot and I hope my footprint is as significant for them as it is for me. I don't mind the long commute as it gets me to read much more and write in my brand new Moleskine notebook. Also my job gives me the great feeling that the 4 years of study I've gone through were not pointless. And that's a good point considering I am at D-45 from starting to pay off my loans. Feel free to check out what we do by going on www.everestpoker.fr or on www.facebook.com/everestpokerFR.

On top of that Sean left last friday so the past weeks have been all about enjoying Boston knowing I would not see a bunch of my friends (including Sean) for a long time. However the good thing is that old time friends are soon going to replace the new found friends that left as much as they can as Damien is coming to Boston in now 2 weeks, Nicolas is moving to Ithaca in 3 weeks and I also have in sight to see my cousin Helene, visit Boston for a few days, former coworker and current artist Eva. So all in all, the summer has been and looks to be quite good. Hyacinthe also came to visit so life seems to get in shape as I move on with my post-graduation blues (almost cured). My planned trips include NYC, Newport Folk Festival, Philadelphia, Mexico, San Francisco and Toronto. Also with Simon coming back to Montreal in September, I might add this to the list. The fact that I am not allowed to leave the US or its neighbors Canada and Mexico for Visa purposes for another undetermined period gracefully forces me to visit places other than my parent's house in France. And that is a good feeling. 

So just a quick update on my life. I am still in deep writer's block coma but I felt I ought you some pixels being used. I am working on another post more interesting than this one. Consider it a teaser. Promised.

Yours truly,

Posted via email from Josephine's posterous

Mobile phones at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Only communication?

There have been a lot of things done in the past years to try and improve access to mobile phones for the bottom of the pyramid. Grameenphone in Bangladesh for example offers pre-paid mobile phone affordable to the poorest, Vodafone recently released the Vodafone 150 and Vodafone 250, two ultra low cost handsets that cost between $15 and $30, along with pre-paid plans. Indeed many things have been done to allow those people to communicate. But is the phone only used to communicate there?

The power of the mobile phone is much more out there. The mobile phone, as we will see in much more details in this post, is in the LDCs a tool that has the power to alleviate poverty, develop the competitiveness of a country and its people, bridge gaps between the population and bring business to the most remote areas of a region.

Mobile phones, microfinance and micro businesses

The first example I would like to mention is how companies manage to link mobile communications and microfinance all together. Let’s go back to Grameen Telecom. Some of you reading this post also know them as “Village Phone”. The village phone is the system developed by Iqbal Quadir that allows the rural poor to own a cell-phone and use it to generate business and thus revenue. The owner of the village phone will charge other villagers to use the phone, pay back its micro-loan (courtesy of the Grameen Bank) and keep the profits for him. The program has been so successful that it has been replicated in other countries (Uganda and Rwanda[1]) and in 2010, 13 years after its launch; it reached the milestone of 270,000 Village Phone Operators. The Village Phone thus allowed that many people to generate revenue thanks to mobile communication. Can you also imagine how many customers or Village Phone operators have been able to find jobs and to increase their quality of living, only because they had access to a phone?

Another example is FrogTek.They offer software applications for phones, designed to micro-entrepreneurs at the base of the pyramid. Thanks to the FrogTek application, that currently runs on smart phones, micro-entrepreneurs can use their phone to scan barcodes (through the camera), record all store expenses and revenues and, once connected to their Web servers, turn this into financial reporting, personalized recommendations and additional value-added services[2]. Their program answers one problem that micro-retailers have: the fact that virtually none of them have cash registers or other tools to keep track of their expenses and inventory, therefore highly limiting the scope of their businesses and its potential growth.

Safaricom and the development of branchless banking and micro insurance for farmers

We also all know of the initiatives taken by banks to allow transactions be made on cell-phones. M-Pesa for example is a service ran by Safaricom, a phone service provider in Kenya, that allows its user to pay bills, purchase airtime for their phone, deposit and withdraw money and make transfers. In my opinion, for people at the base of the pyramid it means a lot, it opens up the banking world (which can mean “savings account”), makes transactions easier for micro-finance institutions and customers alike, while connecting people. Also when you think of the amount of money that is currently lying under mattresses in Kenya, Tanzania or what not, imagine what it does to the economy of a country when it starts being accounted for in the banking world.

M-Pesa is not the only initiative Safaricom has worked with. Recently (March 2010), Safaricom has partnered with insurance provider UAP and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture to provide micro-insurance to farmers in Kenya. The program, called “Kilimo Salama” (Kiswahili for “safe farming”) uses mobile technology to connect the insurance provider with the Kenyan farmer and to pay or receive money, thanks to the branchless banking system available in the country[3].

PerfectSight, or how to use a phone to improve healthcare

PerfectSight is a semi-finalist in the MIT $100K’s development track this year. I would like to give a special mention to them in this post for two reasons: first, their product rocks. They developed a tool that scans and makes a diagnosis of your eye, looking for the most common eye problems (myopia, astigmatism and so on), then uses data connection to transmit the information to appropriate facilities, and dispense spectacles if needed. The second reason I will give them a special mention is for the tremendous potential this has: not only will it allow leveraging the most common (and most treatable) eye problems, thus increasing ability to get a job and get an education, but it can also be used as a business opportunity. Since the software and the tool on the phone do everything, by teaching villagers how to use it, themselves can own the business of eye correction for their village and make a profit while improving the quality of life in their village.

Those examples are few among countless of operations that are being developed while I am typing this article. It only shows that a simple tool can be used in many different ways to solve global poverty by developing and securing business at the BOP. And I did not even mention how mobile phones can be used by governments to warn about crises, diseases, aid etc, by NGO, hospitals and schools to educate about health, AIDS or what have you… Yet.

---

[1] http://www.grameenphone.com/index.php?id=79 Accessed on June 2, 2010

[2] http://frogtek.org/solution Accessed on June 2, 2010

[3] http://www.scidev.net/en/new-technologies/kenyan-farmers-get-micro-insurance.html Accessed on June 2, 2010

Posted via email from Josephine's posterous

Boston - Memories

So some of you who know me know how much I love doing photo mashups on iMovie. As geeky as it might sound. I don't care. I like doing it, I like taking the time to carefully pick the pictures and choose music that either fit the images (or not really... it does not matter actually) or the atmosphere around it (that is more true).

 

Well this time didn't miss the opportunity and I made this video of Boston. Well a video of you guys actually. In the video you can see many people with whom I have been more than happy to share my last 2 years with. Some people are missing for a lack of pictures but most of them are in. Also obviously you'll be able to see some places of Boston I particularly like.

 

Photos: courtesy of Josephine & Patrick Gavignet, Murielle Brenon, Ana Sanchez

Click here to download:

Boston.m4v (74758 KB)

Posted via web from Josephine's posterous

Summer

I have always felt that summer was a weird time. 

When I was a kid it was a time of happiness and vacation. Not complete vacation as I recall as a kid having to sit every morning in front of "cahiers de vacances" those books that your parents get with exercises so that your brain does not melt under the sun of Bretagne, Alpes or wherever you would go and so that you are ready when the school year starts. 

When I grew up I was only taking some summer "cahiers de vacances" concerning a specific topic where my grades had not been that great so I am not left out when the new year begins. 

Usually my parents would bring us the the Alpes where our vacation home was. I remember to hate it as a kid. I mean okay the scenery was great but when you are 10 years old and your parents bring you to a village with 500 souls, including 300 cows, with no TV and no friends, and your only options being hiking this road or that road... It's not the vacation that you hope to have. Fortunately they would understand this so we would also go to other places. I remember quite clearly going to Switzerland two years in a row, also in the mountains but at least there were kids and TVs there. We also went to Italy to visit. I don't have bad memories of this so I assume I liked it. Sometimes also one family friend would invite us in Bretagne (Brittany) where I would literally have a blast sailing, riding my bike, going to the beach, being a kid. And also there was Préchac, where some of my relatives have a big house with a swimming pool and tennis courts. It was in the Southwestern region of Aquitaine. I would sometimes be sent abroad by my parents or to summer camp. I went to Germany, England, Canada, went on music camp, theater camp, computer camp (no comment) and regular camps.

All in all summers as a kid were great. Ignorance is bliss as they say. Yeah total ignorance and no worries whatsoever except "what am I going to wear on the first day of school" or things like this.

Then we grew up. I reached the age where I was old enough to work in the summer. Thankfully this age is 16 years old in France so it gave me some buffer compared to my American friends. My first job was a typical summer job working in a fast-food restaurant. And ever since that job when I was 17 years old, I never stopped working at least a month. Vacations grew smaller, fun was much more appreciated. I also had internships ever since I entered college, every single summer. So to me now summer is just like another season and you might find it weird but thinking of spending 3 months being lazy does not get my fancy.

I finished college about a week ago. I deserve a vacation I guess. But well no, I had other opportunities. I am grateful enough that my parents accepted to support me for an unpaid internship here in Boston. I could have used that money to visit friends in Germany, Mexico, Ireland, China, Japan, Australia, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, Canada, California, Louisiana, Texas or wherever. But no I chose to stay here.

My point here is that today was my "first" day at "work". What is my work. I am interning for Invested Development, a company that seeks angel investment for socially minded entrepreneurs. Basically. What am I doing there is awesome. I am going to spend my summer finding article topics for the blog, expand our fan base on Facebook and Twitter, and write as much material as I possibly can. The outcome is awesome as well. The amount of information I am going to go through is enormous, the knowledge I am going to get is humongous, the people I am going to meet are tremendous. Also it means Boston in the summer. It means long nights in the garden just chilling and having fresh beers because it's too hot inside. It means Fenway Park and the Red Sox, it means sailing on the Charles and Sunday afternoons playing ball in the Common. It means rooftop parties and wearing flip flops at 3am.(Boston I love you). It also means Newport Jazz and Folk Festival with Pat, Philadelphia to visit Kris, New York City to see Audrey and people happy around because they get a tan on their skin after 7 months of shitty weather. It also means more time to look for a full-time job here.

So yeah summers are weird. Hopefully this one will be a good transition both. I'll make sure to keep in touch and provide you with some new information about my learning experience!

Yours truly,

Posted via email from Josephine's posterous

A country we could all stay together in

The other day I was daydreaming or something, or just went very emotional over everybody leaving Boston soon to new horizons. I was thinking of Ana going to Mexico, Sean to Ghana, Eimear and the other Irish to Ireland, Guillaume and Murielle to London, Victor and Vincent and all the frenchies elsewhere in Europe, Steffen and Andy leaving as well. Pretty much I was thinking that as much as Northeastern brought us together, we are bound to go to different countries because well none of us really can stay here easily or have different opportunities in different regions in the world.

I personally as you might all know already want to stay here because I feel I haven't spent enough time discovering what Boston can bring me and because let's face it I kinda like it here, in spite of the rain and the snow, the wind and the lack of sun. Boston is an amazing city, those 2 years were amazing and I see no reason why I should stop it all of a sudden.

So I was thinking about that and posted as my Facebook status: I wish we could create a country for all of us to stay in together. 

I know it's impossible, and as far as I have some pretty crazy ideas sometimes, I won't tell you that I am about to create a new country. I just allowed myself to meditate and think about that. Think about what this country would look like. No immigration law forcing us to leave, no language barrier that we can face. Don't start me on technical stuff such as jobs and stuff, I don't want to think about it right now and I don't want you to think about it either. 

This is an exercise I am giving you, an assignment (pretty cool now that we are done with finals), just allow yourself to think back and relax, meditate and lead your mind to dreaming. Write it down, share it with me, share it with us. It won't hurt, we know it's not possible, but to me in the midst of asking myself questions and wondering what my future will be, I have to tell you those were pretty good vacations my mind took for 30 minutes. I love you all so I want you to experience that as well. Don't be afraid, just do it. 

If any songs or painting or drawing come out of it with you my artsy friends, please let me know and I'll share the lyrics here and the images on Flickr.

Yours truly,

Posted via email from Josephine's posterous

"Open data will foster innovation" - Hans Rosling, Gapminder Foundation

Ay all,

 

So today I was looking up change.org as I do very often and for once did not click directly on social entrepreneurship to see if they had new pots but rather I clicked on the Global Poverty topic and found this article called "Children and the World Bank agree: it's good to share". The article talked about a new website that the World Bank launched this Tuesday.

 

The website is a huge (and by that I mean THIS big) database full of data concerning development, aid, poverty, hunger and whatever you could think of that the World Bank works on.

 

It also features reports of over 200 countries that are pages with basic information regarding the country such as Region, income level, GDP nominal and population but also a bunch of indicators concerning Health, education, infrastructure etc.

 

The indicators page is a list of 331 indicators (by alphabetical orders so it is easier to find) from Gini coefficient to military expenditure, new businesses registered or whatever you can think of. They present the data by country and you can look it up on a neat map or a table, sort by year, download the data or even share it.

 

The topics section includes 16 topics that you can select to get relevant data. Currently the topics are:

• Agriculture and Rural Development
• Aid Effectiveness
• Economic Policy and External Debt
• Education
• Energy and Mining
• Environment
• Financial Sector
• Health
• Infrastructure
• Labor and Social Protection
• Poverty
• Private Sector
• Public Sector
• Science and Technology
• Social Development
• Urban Development

The website is really easy to use, beautifully designed, you can download any single data you want from it (completely open source!!!!!!) and pretty much buil your own reports. Think CIA Worl Factbook and Gapminder's offspring with the genius and intelligence of the World Bank.

 

I think what the World Bank made a huge step in making all this available to us and I would recommend you check it out whenever you need data for reports, presentations or just because you're a nerd when it comes to these things... Here: http://data.worldbank.org/

 

Yours truly,

Posted via email from Josephine's posterous

The World is not so flat

Thomas Friedman wrote "The world is flat" where he observed the many benefits of globalization. One of them was the destruction of geographical hurdles and the annulment of the time-distance spectrum. I mean yes it's true that it's easy for a business man to fly to India from San Francisco for affairs, the developed world showed us how convenient it was thanks to the development of transportation. And by that I mean planes.

 

And then Eyjafjallajokull decided to teach us a lesson. At the second day of the eruption I was genuinely feeling bad for my friends who got stuck or whose plans were delayed because of the volcano. I am still afraid that the second eruption and the risk of another volcano erupting might even disrupt my own plans, that is to say my family visiting in two weeks or my brother going to Finland next friday. But also one thing it taught me, and I think this is what pisses the governments the most over the huge loss for airlines, is that well nope, the world is not flat. Just by seeing how Mother Nature can mess up the entire world strikes me on how unbalanced our world is. How can we say that we have been successful at developing the world and flattening it and it is a better place and that all is going to be solved, when it is so easy to witness hos fragile it actually is? A volvano erupts, big time, the entire airspace over Europe is closed, tourist and businessmen alike are stranded. But also imagine what it does to trade!!

 

I think it has been too easy to take everything for granted as the latest changes have happened so fast. We had financial crisis that shattered and questionned our economy but every time we were slightly able to get back in the game. This time it is something that we cannot control. No policy can prevent Eyjafjallajokull to keep on erupting just as no policy can make ashes not dangerous for planes. We have to figure it out in another way.

 

I am not saying I am happy this happened. I am seriously afraid of the aftermaths. But on the other hand I am quite excited to see if for once, our leaders will have learned their lesson... The world is unpredictable.

 

Yours truly,

 

 

Posted via email from Josephine's posterous

Merci Cesem, Merci Northeastern, Merci Nicolas, Adelaide, Papa et Maman

As I am about to graduate from Northeastern in now 2 weeks, I have a bunch of papers to write, reflecting on my four years of college. What did I learn? Do I believe I chose the correct major? What was the most important class I had? Would I do this again?

 

And I think that as much as I did not believe in the choice of my major for the first three and a half year of my college career, I can now reflect upon it all and tell you that yes, I would do this again.

 

There are many thing I can complain about and I am going to go quickly over it, but the one thing I can and will remember for a long time is that finally, after 4 years of college, I can see how my education can fit in the image I have for my life.

 

So what am I complaining about?

 

Well the course I chose is not the easiest and most social one I could have chosen. In 4 years, I lived in 3 different cities, 7 different apartments and 2 different countries. I had experience with 4 different companies, and pretty much did 4 different jobs in those. I met many people that I had to say goodbye to and only few of them I will see again. It put a strain on my relationships with my long-time friends, new-found friends, and family. I can't recall how many times my parents blamed me for not giving enough news, my friends from France for not coming back enough or not spending enough time with them when I was home, my brothers for not caring enough about what they do with their life. It has been hard, countless times I had to admit that going abroad forced me to abandon friendships or projects (my high school rock band is a perfect illustration of this) and every time I was thinking this, I was seriously asking myself if it was all worth it. I think this is the most difficult thing that I had to do all along those four years: move on, quickly, adapt to change, rapidly, and not look back. It is even harder to even think of leaving now that I finally adapted to Boston when people who knew me before knew I did not want at all to come here in the first place. By the way Cesem, thank you for not allowing me to change tracks...

 

I also often complain that I did not learn enough, that I did not learn real life things. It is true that I learned how to do a SWOT, how to calculate a dividend and build a balance sheet, how to implement a marketing campaign for any kind of product, from the yogurt to the make up and even the insurance. I can also recognize what a professional powerpoint presentation is and I know who Porter is. But when you take all of them one by one, it is pretty useless. I don't want to work in finance, I don't want to be the VP of marketing at Johnson and Johnson because I apply a la lettre my marketing classes. When I look at my peers I feel like they are going to go on having very successful careers in whatever they studied and I am really glad for them. They will be very successful at applying concepts and even innovate on those concepts to climb the ladder. I always felt that I was maybe not studying the good thing because I could not see myself in the corporate world, doing my 9 to 5 building Excel worksheets. On the other hand I did not really know what I wanted to do either.I think now after those four years I cna honestly say that it is not what I learned individually that proves me that I studied the right things. It's more knowing that whatever I do later, I will be able to apply those concepts the way I want to and they also brought up concerns and worries or interests I never knew I had. Put it as the existentialism of education. Thank you Sartre, you will always be in my heart.

 

Now that I think about it, the biggest complain is this life of nomade. But after all I look back at a previous post and I say that it is what I want. True. I have been talking with certain persons that are in the same situation as me: going abroad, leaving friends and family, even for a short period of time, and I think after this experience, we are quite never the same. I have to admit, I am afraid to go back. I am afraid of the re entry shock, not finding things as I remember they were, and having changed too much to feel at home again. I want to keep on being a foreigner because at least when I am one, I know I am not at home and I don't expect to be. John Denver said once "it's good to be back home again", he was not talking about his home, he was talking about his new-found home Colorado. Maybe I found a new home that is the world. I remember taking a class at Northeastern that was called "Cultural Aspects of International Business" and in that class we had speakers come, talking about 3rd generation kids, pretty much people who at a young age started to move around the world and don't really have a heimat. I never moved as a kid, grew up in the same city, same neighborhood, same apartment for 18 straight years, had the same friends, the same schoolmates, so obviously the shock of moving out this much in 4 years was even bigger. Also a big change is that my parents moved out when I was a Freshman. It is not even that I don't want to go home, it is just that I don't have a home anymore. I have been in limbo for 4 years with my stuff spread around the world: clothes in Boston, Lyon and Paris, guitar in another city, bass in london, furniture in Boston and Lyon, friends in Paris, Lyon, Boston, New York, London and everywhere else in the world. And I have to admit that I kind of like that. I like that my life is hectic.

 

You might think I am contradicting myself but I am really not, I thought this post through and I have a conclusion. I am saying that the hardest in 4 years has been to move around a lot. The deed has already been done, my friends and family in France that I still have after 4 years are used to it, they don't blame me for leaving, they still love me and they still are proud of me, they know who I am, they've seen how much I changed and they know I changed in good. They are going to be happy whatever I do because they know that I can do the sacrifices needed to do something I like, since I already did them and most importantly that I think the decisions I make, that if I do something it is because I know I am going to be happy doing it. Would I do this again? Definitely, without thinking. I can think of all the bad thing it did to me and it is nothing compared to the good: my relationship with my brothers and parents strengthened, especially with Edward, I know what I want to do with my life, I am much more open to the world, I think by myself not through the ideas that people put in my head, I discovered a life I like, I met wonderful people that forever I will be happy to have met, people who changed my life, I am particularly thinking of 2 that will recognize themselves if they read this post, S and A thank you. I finally reached a point where the persons I really care about do not blame me for leaving anymore, Nicolas, Adelaide, Maman, Papa merci d'avoir ete la pendant ces 4 ans.

 

Now that I reached this point that I know that whatever I do I'll do it for a reason and that nobody will blame me for it, I'm telling you Boston, I'm going to stick around for a while...

Posted via email from Josephine's posterous

How long can you go without a computer?

Well, I was hanging out on Hulu.com the other day, making the most of the first morning I don't have to rush at the library at 8am, and I watched this documentary called "Disconnected". The documentary was a class project by three students at Carleton College, MN, they decided to go without a computer for a period of 4 weeks. 

When I say "no computer", I don't only mean "not my computer", they wrote their papers by hand or on a typewriter (please forgive the typos professor), had to register for classes on a paper format, left themselves notes in their mailbox instead of sending e-mail and so on.

The results of this experience were pretty interesting though. The results are that well it's a real pain to go without a computer. True you get the time to clean your room, actually DO your homework, play ping pong, have a real dinner or whatever, but it is a pain!! You cannot get contacted via e-mail, which is THE way people contact you know. One of the students, Chel, was saying how he had to go the offices of the professors he needed sometimes 3 times a day to get an answer since they were not calling him back. Forget the inconvenience of not checking the news on the Internet or watching Facebook. Here I am talking about real-life challenges, no source to do your research, and think about the number of institutions that now do everything via the computer? What about timesheets?

In the end they had to use proxies, people doing the research or sending the e-mails for them. Cheating? Maybe, but also survival. You can explain to your friend that you're going computer free but go explain that to a potential employer to tell him why you cannot respond to his e-mail... I don't really see that happening.

The positive result is that they are now able to log off from time to time. They are able to enjoy the sun shining or whatever (I don't want to be too cheesy here) and do things outside of the screen.

So my advice, log in and check the video. It is here http://tinyurl.com/yccau2j

Posted via email from Josephine's posterous

Canto 6 Bakery

Hi folks,

The other day I went to JP to repair my bike (turns out it's even more dangerous now but well at least I got my brakes back!) and when they were doing some stuff on it, Sean and I went to have coffee.

We went to this little bakery - cafe on Washington St called Canto 6 that I really recommend.

Besides the fact that they have a lot of pastries (French!) they also had a succulent olive roll that actually tasted like olives and that was made of quality bread. Sean had a cranberry scone (not really French I'd give you that) that was apparently really good too.

It is pretty small in there, which makes it cozier, but they have a bench outside if the sun ever does its come back in NE. Also a bunch of sandwiches available that I did not have the time to try.

Overall it is less expensive than Starbucks, friendlier, more unique, and definitely trade fair. If you're ever in JP swing by!

Canto 6
3346 Washington St
Jamaica Plain
www.canto6bakery.com
M-F 7.30 - 6.30
S-S 8 - 5

Posted via email from Josephine's posterous

Nomad Life

Hey everybody,

As you might know I am about to graduate from the wonderful Northeastern University and I have no idea what I am going to do later. Oh of course I know what I would like to work in, but I don't know how to reach that goal per se. For older readers, you've been there, you know how it is to ask yourself questions "Am I making the right choice", "will I regret it if I do this" etc... And that's pretty much the state of mind I had lately.

And then I started to do something really immature but that proved to the best idea I ever had. I started to just ignore the pressure, take the ostrich-like approach if you wish. I focused on school work and MassChallenge and my friends. I started blogging again, reconnected on Twitter, posted my resume on Monster, let it go and had some interviews, began going intensively on TED.com and began translating for them. All in all nothing that could "get me a job" as my parents would say. Well that's true. Yeah.

However, what I realized by doing all of those things (and being an intern for 6 months taught me that too) is that first of all I don't need the get the best job in the big corporation that my parents have always dreamt for me. Not only do I not need it but I most certainly don't want it. I look at my friends who are about to embark on a life-long of frustration, in a dark office with a tedious job and a lot of money. Good for them. Not for me.

I also know that I am not happy if I stay too long at the same place, I want to move all the time, I want to discover new things or I grow tired of my environment. Zapping generation, it's what my parents call us. How is it a bad thing? I don't think it is, it's the way of life, not being able to do the same thing for a long period of time is not necessarily bad and is not necessarily a sign of inconsistency. It is the sign that our generation is changing, and so is the world. And this is due to technological improvements, globalization or what have you. Now all we need is the dinosaurs to realize what's happening.

Because I accepted the fact that I need to change, I started looking into that path of life, and I've seen the trend. It is not only me, it is indeed all of us, we are always on the go, it put my hopes higher than they were and I decided to embrace the change.

What's moving now is entrepreneurship; and by that I don't mean I want to create my company or whatever. Well actually I do, but not now. What I mean by that is that start-ups, young businesses, small businesses are attracting more and more people, including me, because they change faster. "Ability to adapt to a fast-paced environment" is written in almost every job description and I want to say "the only way I can prove that to you is by telling you my age, because all of us are able to adapt to a fast-paced environment, this is what we dream of". Having a nomad life, expatriating often, changing jobs, changing positions and tasks is what I want my life to look like.

What is even better with globalization is that we can do that now. I have a computer with a built-in webcam and microphone, most likely I got Internet everywhere I go, I got an iPhone and a bike. Today my office can be my bed and tomorrow the coffee shop around the corner. Next year? For all I know it could Accra, Ghana or Boulder, Colorado or even Paris, France. I can wake up to the mountains or the sea and have the job I'd have if I was living in the city. It's up to us, it's possible and it's happening. Now.

To get more insight of the life of a nomad, check out my cousin's blog 52ndwest. A French citizen living in secluded Austria who travels around to Mexico, Europe and the US. It's the way to be.

Yours truly,

Start Up Visa Act

The Startup Visa Act


So okay it might not be new but I discovered this today. Actually I discovered a lot today, I joined change.org (and I recommend everybody who cares about others do the same) and there I read about the Start Up Visa Act.

The Start Up Visa Act is a bipartisan initiative to spur innovation in the US. ANy foreign-born entrepreneur that can get at least $250,000 of US investment can get a temporary Visa for period of one year to establish its business in the US. At the end of this year if they have reached the (high) level of $1 million US investment AND have created at least 5 full-time jobs, they can get a permanent visa.

So well for someone like me who thinks that the US are much better than our home country for entrepreneurship it is great news. Granted it puts a strain on your mental health if at D-10 you are still at $250,000 investment but after all we cannot ask yet to have the same situation as everybody else because of our status of foreigner. Will it relaunch the American dream? Most certainly will I want to say and on a more general ground it will relaunch competitiveness in America and this for three reasons:

• On a foreigner point of view it will motivate more people to set up businesses in America. Let's face it, the best entrepreneurship ecosystems (Boston, New York City, BOulder, Austin, San Francisco and Seattle) are in America and currently it is pretty much impossible for foreign start up to set up operations there. It is not that we do not want to, it is that we cannot do so.
• On a local point of view it will flatten the competition between American and foreign companies for investment. Sure American investors are more likely to invest in an American company that does not have this temporary status but if your product is better, they will be drawn to investing in yours rather than other.
• Which leads to my third point, it will increase competition between companies, we will have to be the best to get those investments, and by spurring competitiveness, you generate better, more efficient and more nimble organizations 

Now the act is not yet finished and people are lobbying for it to get a move on, and we can take action on that. How? By joining change.org and looking up for the act and signing the petition.

I made it easier for you to do so by clicking on this link http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org/blog/view/tell_congress_to_pass_the_startup_visa_act

You can do something today, they need 200 signatures on the petition and they have 99 so far.

Josephine