When will Latin American governments get it?

As said in some of my previous posts, I was at the Creativity World Forum in Ghent this week and I was really surprised by one thing, but let's start from the beginning.

The event itself was organised by the self-proclaimed Districts of Creativity, an association of what I can only term regions-state borrowing from Kenichi Ohmae's term. These districts of creativity include Flanders (Belgium), Qingdao (China), Shanghai (China), Lombardy (Italy), Nord-Pas de Calais (France), Karnataka (India), Maryland (USA), Baden-Württemberg (Germany), Rhône-Alps (France), Catalonia (Spain), Scotland (UK) and Québec (Canada).

I was at the Karnataka booth (Bangalore, the IT capital of India is in this state) and I was pleasantly surprised by the attitude of the government representatives there. Regardless of the fact that I am a student and I don't have anything to bring to their country they really explained to me what are they all about and invited me to come. I couldn't help but contrast it with the attitude prevalent in most of Latin America that Foreign Direct Investment is the devil and we are so much better without it, and how the Indians really try to attract as much as they can but not only stay at the lower end of, in this case, software production, but keep on repeating their matra of "moving up the value chain" (no pun intended).

When will our governments start doing that?

Séléction Féderale

You can see that Belgium is quite a dividied country when the newscasters here don't talk about the football national team, they talk about the football federal team. They say that Belgians are only united around the football team, the king and the flag, and I'm really starting to see that it's (almost/mostly/???) true. Interesting.

Suomi 1-0 Adzerbaijan

Valkosininen joukkue pelasi hyvin ja uskomaton fakta on, että kansallisjoukkue on taulukon päässä Portugalin, Puolan ja Belgian edessä Eurooppanmestaruukseen väylällä. Hyvä Suomi!

Veracruz 1-2 Chivas

The Mexican football league follows a very strange system for those that follow European competitions. It has two tournaments per year (Apertura during the fall and Clausura in spring) and a system of league followed by playoffs. 18 teams are divided in three groups based on last year's performance out of which the top 2 qualify to the quarterfinals, and another 4 teams to a preliminary play-off round. If you don't get it, don't worry, neither did I when I was a kid...

Why is this important? Because Chivas did qualify to the preliminary play-off phase, and played on wednesday against Veracruz, beating them 1-2. Tonight the "holy flock" plays at home, and we hope to get to the quarters. It would be very important for the team and the fans to win the league given that we haven't won in 9 years, we're still the team with the most titles in the league, and this year is our 100th anniversary (we had big celebrations in May).

In the meantime, I'll leave you with wednesday's goals and I hope I wake up a happy man tomorrow morning.

FU Business School

I was talking with a guy who runs a biotech start up I met at the Creativity World Forum about the fact that he feels that he hasn't heard enough in business literature and training about the failed cases in business, meaning all the companies that for some reason or another failed, and why. That's why I propose the creation of a new paradigm in business education:

The Fuck Up Business School

At the FUB you don't learn how to be an efficient business leader, you learn how to be an inefficient one. You study all the mistakes that previous companies have made so that you can innovate and make new ones. After all, trial and error is the best way to learn, so why don't we leave the error part to previous attempts? ;-)

Constitución de Cádiz

Juro que no sé por qué siempre que hablo con algún amigo catalán o valenciano que conozca un poco de historia siempre terminamos hablando sobre la Constitución de Cádiz. Ésta fue la primera constitución liberal en el reino español, la cual reconocía "Las Españas" como partes integrales del reino, ya estuvieran éstas en la península o en ultramar. ¿Por qué es esto importante? Porque algunos historiadores piensan que si la constitución de Cádiz no hubiera sido prohibida por Fernando VII, las colonias americanas no se habrían independizado (p.ej. algo que muchos mexicanos no saben es que la guerra de independencia de México empezó como una protesta contar el rey, no contra España), y sin forzar demasiado la imagiación se puede llegar a pensar que viviríamos en una especie de confederación, en lugar de ser el cúmulo de países descoyuntados que somos. No sé si sea plausible dado un entorno histórico que contiene tanto la revolución francesa como la estadounidense ni tampoco si estuviéramos mejor o peor, pero es interesante pensarlo.

Creativity World Forum in Ghent, Belgium

This week I had the opportunity to attend the Creativity World Forum in Ghent, basically mentioning how regional governments, enterprises and individals can compete and benefit in the so-called creative economy. The event was comprised of two days of conferences and workshops, with some cocktails and extensive networking thrown in between as it happens in this kind of events.

Generally I can say that I was inspired by the congress, but there is still left one nagging feeling that the word "World" is slightly too pretentious in the name, given that there was nobody from two continents (South America and Africa) and the vast majority of the participants were Belgians from Flanders. However, I believe that it was a very good initaitive by the local government and it's interesting to see the already the rise of the region-state that had been predicted by Thomas L. Friedman and Kenichi Ohmae.

Planta 4a

I saw this movie some weeks ago in Dutch TV. Quite nice, but very, very sad. Recommendable if you have a chance to see it.

This blog will most probably be on "publishing holiday" for the next week or so. Hope my four readers (Germán Dehesa dixit) don't miss me too much.

Addicted to languages

I have to say that I'm really glad that I have a TV in Brussels, even though in the beginning I was very reluctant. The reason is simple: except for Finnish, Portuguese and Spanish-language channels, in my (very small) TV I have plenty of channels in French, English, Dutch, German and Italian, which means that I can practise those languages in the comfort of my home.

It's not that I speak any of them perfectly (there is no such thing anyway), but I really like the different doors they open, different ways of thinking and so on. As my old German texbook name said, they're bridges between peoples.

The most fascinating thing is that there's still so many to learn. I'd like to study Latin, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Russian, Náhuatl, Yucatecan Maya...

So much to learn, so little time...

When beach or city holidays are not enough

I read an article in the newspaper about trends in the tourist industry that made me think. Now there are tours on offer to see the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Ground Zero in New York, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina in Lousiana or the tsunamis in Thailand, and even an "illegal immigrant tour" in central Mexico where the tourist pays to feel how it is to cross the border through the desert guided by people who have done it.

Is it that we want to empathise with people who are less fortunate, or only that lives in the rich parts of the planet are just too boring?

Aterciopelados

Another post in the series of "Rock en Español".

Aterciopelados is a band from Colombia who has enjoyed success accross Latin America for the past 15 years. As is the trend for Rock en Español acts, they fuse Colombian music with rock and hip hop to astounding success. They have even been nominated by TIME as one of the 10 best bands in the world, and the same magazine has also just published a review of their latest album, "Oye".

Below some videos.

Bolero Falaz (El Dorado, 1994)


Florecita Rockera (El Dorado, 1994)
El Estuche (Caribe Atómico, 1998)
Maligno (Caribe Atómico, 1998)
El Álbum (Gozo Poderoso, 2000)
Luz Azul (Gozo Poderoso, 2000)

More information from Wikipedia or the Official Site.

The news you see determine your reality

I've noticed something very interesting during my trips around the world, and that's summarised in how I decided to title this post. Even though we have become more "globalised" there is no single news source (to the dismay of CNN, BBC News, Euronews, Al-Jazeera and all the others I'm forgetting). Some examples below:

• In the U.S. newscasts tend to be of a local, state or national nature, and international news tend to be about Iraq, Afghanistan or any other perceived security threat. Seldom do you hear anything about their neighbours (Canada & Mexico) unless there is a problem. Almost never do you hear about Europe.
• In the UK the news are mostly local or national, but they tend to report quite a bit on both Europe, the U.S. and the security crises of the day.
• In Brazil, they're mostly national, about the neighbouring countries (Argentina, Venezuela, etc.), the U.S. or Europe.
• In Japan, they're mostly about Japan (at all different levels), the U.S., China or Korea.
• In Finland they talk mostly about local news, national news, what happens in Europe, the U.S., Sweden and Russia.
• In Mexico they spend their time talking about national politics, security and local news. The international news section is brief but usually quite varied, although there is a big focus on news items about the U.S. anyway.

It is very interesting to see that even though we live in a time when world wide information truly is at our fingertips, we tend to receive very little of it if we don't search for it ourselves, and the differences in perspective are absolute startling. That's what it's all about, of course.

Belgians are nice, but their country is weird

I have now quite a few local friends, mainly from school, and I think we get along quite well. They are in general nice people and everything seems to be OK. However, I can't help but notice how deeply is their country divided along linguistic lines, and how difficult it is for some of the Belgians to bridge that chasm.

I'll give a stupid example: TV. You have several channels in French and several in Dutch, and you may have the same football game at the same time being broadcast in both channels. The French-speaking news say very little about what happens in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, and vice-versa. Even the Telemarketing ads are in both languages depending on the channel, even when they're selling the same thing (these days they keep on pushing a "Disco Fever" CD collection, which actually looks quite nice, but anyway) .

I don't think they'll truly separate, because, as a teacher said: "What do we do with Brussels then?". However, it is quite interesting to see the dynamics between two communities that live next to each other but only rally around the Red Devils (the football team), the Flag, the King and Kim Clijsters (the tennis player).

Sigue la mata dando en Oaxaca

Sigue la violencia, sigue habiendo muertos, sigue la policía, las demostraciones y la intransigencia, sigue Ulises Ruiz en la gubernatura, y ahora para acabar, hubo bombazos en el D.F. ¿Hasta cuándo?

Suomen talvi ja hiihto

On jo alkanut, ja en ole siellä. Toivottavasti pärjäätte hyvin (nöh, tiedän jo). Täällä on vaan pilvistä ja sateista. Eilen näin joku mainos telkkarissa jossa joku kaveri hiihtia, ja minulle tuli ikävä. En mä usko että muiden on helppoa ymmärtää miten hyvältä hiihtaminen voi tuntua. Ehkä jos pystyn jäämän Suomeen kauemmaksi aikaa voisin mennä kilpailemaan, hehehe.

En V.F. ou en V.O.

Mieux en V.F... quelque chose que s'écoute trés bien en francais.

• Seigneur des Anneaux
• La noveau publicité de BMW ("pas que une voiture est seulement une voiture")
  

Mieux en V.O... quand en francais s'écoute légèrement ridicule.

• Quelq'un film avec Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Les Simpsons
  

Recommended Book: Everything is illuminated

Recommended Book: Everything is illuminated
Originally uploaded by Chiva Congelado.

This is a very good book. Just finished reading it. The use of language is very interesting here, even though I'm still thinking about the messages. The story is very moving, and it has a lot of character.

Soda Stereo

Another in the series of posts on Rock en Español.
No anthology of Rock en Español could approach something resembling completeness without mentioning this legendary Argentine band. Soda Stereo was one of the groups that defined the sound of Rock en Español, and they were one ofthe first to prove that Spanish-speaking rock acts could also have success beyong their countries of origin. From their first album in 1982 to their disbanding in 1997 (after a farewell tour that took them across Latin America to sold-out venues) they were one of the most recognised bands in the scene, and are still a big influence in the music heard today. Singer Gustavo Cerati still has a certain success with his solo carreer.

Some videos below.

De Música Ligera (El Último Concierto, 1997)



Cuando pase el temblor (Nada Personal, 1985)
Zoom (Sueño Stereo, 1995)
La Ciudad de la Furia (Comfort y Música para Volar, 1996)
Ella usó mi Cabeza como un Revólver (Comfort y Música para Volar, 1996)
Persiana Americana (El Último Concierto, 1997)

For more information you can check Wikipedia or the Official Site.

Chivas 3- 1 Atlas

The Guadalajara city derby ended with a nice 3-1 result for my beloved Chivas. Alberto "El Venado" Medina had a very good performance, scoring 2 goals.

La situación de Oaxaca

Después de ya varios meses fueron desalojados ayer los maestros de la APPO (Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca) del centro de la ciudad de Oaxaca por la Policía Federal Preventiva. Por desgracia, hay reportes de que hubo un muerto. El conflicto empezó con un plantón en mayo porque los maestros de la entidad demandaron mejores salarios, pero sufrió una escalada porque en un enfrentamiento entre éstos y la policía estatal hubo un muerto, con lo cual los maestros exigieron la renuncia del gobernador de Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, del PRI. La capital del estado ha estado tomada desde finales de mayo, con las consecuentes pérdidas económicas en una entidad que depende mucho del turismo nacional y extranjero (por ejemplo, el festival de la Guelaguetza fue cancelado). Ahora que se ha reestablecido el orden en la ciudad sería buena idea forzar la renuncia del gobernador que no gobierna para garantizar el cambio en una entidad que es de las más rezagadas del país.