Last post here... go to Amazee!

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging anymore for the last few months. I have been very busy getting married and building up my internet start-up called Amazee. Amazee is a platform that will allow local and global communities to evolve around common goals and collectively pursue them. We call this social collaboration, do not forget this ;-). Whatever you want to achieve in life, Amazee will be your home base!
I won't blog on blogspot anymore, but you can track my life and the ups and downs of young internet entrepreneurs on blog.amazee.com

My brand new toy

Wow, it's been a month since I posted my last post.. What have I done since then? On Friday, June 29 was my last working day as an accounting advisor. As already announced, I quit my job to realise other projects. My first task as an unemployed (or rather self-employed) person was to go on holidays for a week! I spent a great time at lake garda in Italy and was able to relax, reset my brain from my corporate life and even windsurf a bit. In the past few days I have been working on our business project with my two partners and - more importantly - I had to do get organised! Working for a big four company makes a lot of things very easy: you get a mobile phone, smartphone, notebook and other infrastructure that makes working very simple. On June 29 I handed back all these nice tools and gadgets to my employer and all of a sudden felt quite naked... So I bought some stuff for my home office.

Yesterday I found the most beautiful little smartphone in the world. My new HTC S710. It was love at first sight and I'm defintively not a very decisive person. Of course I didn't decide to buy it because of all the good features it has... which girl shops like that? But now - after one day of testing the functionalities I'm sure that I'll keep this gorgeous smartphone for a long time. The HTC S710 has Windows Mobile 6 on it, a slide-out QWERTY-keypad, a large and bright display, a 2 Mpix camera and many more. Using the organisational features such as emails, calendar and contact manager is really easy.

The positive side effect of this purchase was the price: I got it for 329 Swiss francs instead of 799, because I stayed with the same mobile service that provides my former employer. Now I'm walking around with a big smile on my face, proud of my latest acquisition.

Dumbest moments in business

You would actually think that all strategic moves in a global firm are carefully and well considered, that marketing campaigns are set up and implemented by clever people, that investor relations are led by qualified and competent people. Well, Business 2.0 magazine published an article about the 101 dumbest moments in business in the year 2006, which I find is very entertaining and refreshing. One of the grand-prize winners in the category marketing is Starbucks... here's the summary:
In August 2006, Starbucks directs baristas in the southeastern United States to e-mail a coupon for a free iced coffee to friends and family members. But e-mail knows no geographic boundaries and, worse, can be printed repeatedly. After the e-mail spreads to every corner of the country and is reproduced en masse, Starbucks yanks the offer, leading a disgruntled customer to file a $114 million class-action lawsuit...
That really was very dumb. Well, this won't stop me from drinking my coffee at Starbucks.. I guess this will even make me smile a bit each time I'm there ;)
Have a happy day, Dania

My crossroad

Long time no post... I had quite a bloggade in the past days because I didn't really know what to write about that would fit into the concept of my blog and teach you something about things going on in the Internet. So I'll just tell you something personal instead:

I quit my job as per end of June. I've been working for five years in auditing and accounting advisory and just thought it was time for a change.

I don't really know exactly what I'm gonna do yet. I have two major options: the first is that I build up an interesting web 2.0 platform with two partners and the other is that my future husband and I leave everything behind in Switzerland and go for a windsurf world trip. Not that I've been unhappy, not at all. I enjoyed my job a lot. But sometimes you are just so much into something that you don't see that clear anymore what your other options are. I sometimes feel like a slave of my own calendar. I want to take a step back now to figure out what could fulfil me more than what I'm doing at the moment.

Now, my two options are really great and I don't think I have anything to lose.

Option 1 is interesting because I want to gain some broad entrepreneurial and management experience in setting up an own company. We are working on the business plan at the moment and will start looking for investors quite soon. If we find some investors, I guess option 1 will become reality... if we don't ->

Option 2 is also great because a big dream of mine would come true to go windsurfing for a longer while and travel the world. Maybe there is a small cottage somewhere beautiful and close the ocean waiting to be discovered ;) Whatever happens, it is definitely very exiting. I'm very much looking forward to not knowing my schedule 6 months in advance and to feel freedom. My new motto: Just do it.

Dania

Fonero, fonera, olé

I'm sorry for my decreasing posting activities and also sorry for not keeping up my blog relationships that much in the past few weeks. There is just so much going on in my life right now (which I will write about soon) that I barely spend any time on the web. I promise to get better soon, please forgive me for the meantime!

This weekend I did have some time but no Internet connection, because I spent the weekend in the Swiss alps. It was nice - on Sunday we were able to sit in the garden in tank tops and today it was snowing. Is anybody still insisting that no real climate change is happening? Okay, different subject. Back to the Internet connection... I received two comments to my last post from Peluka and Steven regarding my petition for free WLAN all over the world and they both related to FON:

FON is the largest WiFi community in the world. You can become member and share your wireless Internet access at home and, in return, enjoy free WiFi wherever you find another Fon Access Point. Now that's exactly my point! Why should you pay for Internet access on the go when you have already paid for it at home? So FON decided to help create a community of people who get more out of their connection through sharing. They call members of the FON Community "Foneros". To become a Fonero you need to buy "La Fonera". La Fonera is a special kind of WiFi router - a "Social Router". That’s because when you activate your La Fonera, you become part of the FON Community.

FON is creating a bit too many new words at once for my taste, but I guess that's part of a cult they're trying to build up around this service. This is clearly an interesting concept, but of course only works when they manage to build up a huge community. I hope they succeed.
Due to my busy timetable I haven't properly checked the map yet to find out how well "Foneros" are spread over the world and especially whether there are any in the places I often visit (e.g. windsurfing destinations, Swiss alps). But I'll save that task for another day and rather get some sleep now :)
Good night, Dania

Petition for open wireless networks

I'm just sitting in a small café in Utrecht, the Netherlands, waiting for my train back to Zurich, Switzerland. I spent a few days visiting my friend in Den Haag - my computer is with me, as always. Every now and then when I'm visiting a new place I try out whether there is any internet connection available and surprisingly there almost always is! Now, the trouble is that the networks are often secured and not open for anyone to use, which I think sucks.

First of all, in Europe most people pay a flat rate and therefore do not suffer any financial disadvantage when there are some free-riders surfing along. Secondly, people are getting more and more mobile. I don't really have one fix working station, so any nice café or parc can serve as an office as long as my notebook is with me. My WLAN at home is not secured. Anyone visiting my neighbour (or even my neighbour himself) has free access to the Internet. In return I hope that more and more people all over the world open up their connections to me. Thanks again to "Rancho Delfin" that I had Internet connection during my two-weeks holiday in Venezuela!
So, I plead for open free wireless networks. If you have a secured network please rethink and open it up! What goes around comes around.
Dania

Blog meme

I’ve been tagged for the first time by wotZcool who received a blog meme by Christy and passed it on to me.... of course I had no clue what a blog meme is.
Basically a meme is a small task you complete and then pass on to other bloggers to do the same thing. So it requires active participation by the blogger and is often a series of questions that a blogger answers to share some personal thoughts on random topics. When you choose the other bloggers and pass on the meme you are tagging them.

So the meme I received is to give five reasons as to why I blog and tag five other bloggers.

So, why do I blog?

1. First of all, because I want to learn. My blogging activities keep my motivation up to stay informed regarding latest developments in the web world and blogosphere.
2. Because it is a challenge to write. I need to come up with new topics for new posts and really have to be creative.
3. Because it does not have anything to do with my job. I work as an accounting advisor.
4. Because I want to build up a network of people all over the world. I love the global character of blogging: No matter where someone physically is, the blogosphere is a small world after all...
5. Because I'm addicted to acknowledgement. This a quite personal confession I'm making here ;)

And I will pass the meme on to:
1. Louiss
2. Billy Warhol
3. Wayne / Octane
4. Fedele
and
5. Michael Arrington (..rather known as TechCrunch... it's worth a try, isn't it?)