Category Archives: Barcelona

On Spring

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The spring began today. For me, that is. Today was the first day I saw the sharp shadows on the plaza. Yesterday I spent six hours working inside a cafe, because it was cold and raining, and I did not have an umbrella with me to walk home.

Today I noticed it was spring. This afternoon the sky was blue, the houses looked bright, and I sat with my laptop outside, getting tanned for the first time this year. Sunshine! I know it is spring when the shadows become sharp. I first see the shadow and then realize what object it belongs to. Living in terms of the spring shadows. Living outside.

Spring Barcelona 1

Spring Barcelona 2

Spring Barcelona 4

Spring Barcelona 5

Barcelona, March 25th 2013

Just a Poem

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* * *
Never cry, never stop.
Let it go.
Only walk, only love.

In the snow
Leave your footprints
On thousand paths.

Tilt your head when you look
at the stars.
In the silence

The sky is too blue.
Live the thousand years
Of you.

Barcelona, March 16th 2013

Thursday Morning…. it is almost sunny

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So, this is Thursday morning. I’ve got bunch of emails in my mailbox. And I am procrastinating and not answering them. To tell the truth I do not want to answer them. It has been raining heavily for the past week. Right now the sun is almost out. Still everything around is wet.

Both kids are at home. They have been sick for a week now. They are constantly sick here in Barcelona. Their pediatrician says it is normal. My take on it, is that the city is full of people, infections, pollution. It is too much for the kids who have been born and lived their first years of live on a windy coast in Northern California and then in a remote village in Norway. They have never (well, almost never) been sick in US and Norway. Here in Spain my daughter attended school 1 day in January, 3 days in February and has not been there yet in March. Keeps me worried about her, also my second thought is why we are sending her to a private school when she barely goes there. Oh well… This constant sickness thing makes me want to go back to US. We all need some fresh, clean air. Soon…

About emails. I am just tired. Feels like I am constantly pushing people to do things. This is what running a business is. Well, not pushing. I guess it is called encouraging.  Sometimes it is encouraging, sometimes it is pushing. When it feels like pushing, I feel crap. Well, I feel crap a lot of times in my personal life too. Lately. This is a different story.

Funny, I started writing this blog last June thinking that my friends would read and follow it. However, my friends do not. Good for them. Instead I got bunch of other followers. People I do not know. Strangers. Anyway. When I feel really lonely I think I become a fish, so nothing matters. I wrote about it earlier.

During the past months I stopped listening to the music or reading anything that is not business related. Quite frankly, I just can’t handle it. Music or poetry makes me feel like I have no skin. Makes me want to cry too. So, I stopped. Much better.

At the beginning of the year I set a goal to start walking straight. I decided on it when I was taking Miro to his daycare. So, every morning walking the same route I would remember it and walk with the straight back for a while. Since my son is constantly sick too and is staying at home with me, I have not been walking this stretch of the road lately. Completely forgot about the straight back experiment. Need to walk better.

So, what about life. Right now it is about my work and the kids, plus some rain in Barcelona with occasional sunlight. Also, I have been meeting a lot of friends and strangers lately. It is good, most of the time, and feels really lonely at least 15 times a day. For very short periods. Yes, and avoiding any kind of music, songs or books. Can’t even read children’s story books. The stories are good, it is just me who can’t handle any emotional content. Except when I read to the kids in French. My pronunciation sucks so much, that it makes me smile and wonder how it should really sound.

Ok, I am done with my second morning coffee and now I am going back to work. Which is good. Keeps me busy and in balance. Kind of happy too. You just have to believe in it till the end and do what you know is right, and never give up. When you think about never giving up it feels much better. It makes me smile.

March 7th, 2013

Write What You Think

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Last week I had a skype call with Kevin about the customer development interviews. Towards the end of the call Kevin said, “I am sorry I did not give you any advice. All I did, was to voice my opinion”.

Opinion vs. advice. Advice is generally directed towards the listener and it is about the speaker. The person giving the advice will try to place himself in your shoes and give you a hypothetical guidelines on what should be done in the situation. The advice is not about the speaker, he has not been there, and it is not about the listener, he is not the one talking. It is somewhere in between and it is about nobody in particular. Advice is entertaining to listen to, it does not lead us to the painful truth and most of the times it is, well, useless. How many great things have been done by following an advice? Probably not too many. Advice lacks personality.

Opinion. Opinion always belongs to the person talking. Thus, it is personal. It is about the one. It does not require speaker to talk about any hypothetical situation. Opinion is real. A lot of times it is vertical (meaning, it does not spread out all over the place). It is sometimes painful. It is always powerful. The listener is not an active subject. Thus, at the receiving end we learn to listen. Period. We learn to listen. I want to make sure we all get this. Listen. Not talk. And we learn to be open to change our point of view based on what we hear. From this change sprouts our growth. Btw, have you noticed, advice often does the contrary, it closes us up?

We value opinions. They propel the change. The good ones are based on thoughts, not on cliches. The best are powered by passion.

Next time, please, write what you really think, your opinion.

Barcelona, February 26th 2013

Just Copy It

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Foto de Noelia Hernandez

Recently my friend from Bulgaria asked me to give her a few tips on how to make great pictures of her baby daughter. And she is not the only one. I get asked this question a lot. I sent her a link to my friend’s photography site and told her to just copy what she sees. Of course, it is not that simple, this is why I decided to write a post on this topic.

First of all, you do not need to go to a photography school to create great images. It is all about just making pictures. You learn while you do it. Here are a few tips I want to share with those interested in the subject.

1. Find pictures you like and plainly copy them. Select the background, surroundings, objects similar to the ones that are on the picture you like. Copy the light, the positioning of the person or object, the gestures, the expression. Copy as much as you can.

2. Find the right picture to copy. For example, if you are planning to make a picture of your boyfriend, find a picture of a man. Make sure the man has certain similarities with your boyfriend and that your boyfriend will feel comfortable with the pose, surroundings, light and the overall situation. The same goes for babies and for everything else.

3. Not all the “copies” will turn out great. Some of the shots you will make will look completely different from the original and will not be all that inspiring. And this is ok. Try it again. Change the original picture if needed. Learn to work with what you have. Shoot a lot. You will get it right after a few tries. I promise!

4. Pay attention to the details. For example, if the picture you are copying has a forest in the background and the person appears full length on the shoot, occupying approximately one forth of the image on the righthand side, please copy it all. Pay attention to what the person is holding in her hands. Look at the clothing, at the extras, at the hair. The better you are at noticing and copying the details, the better your pictures will be.

5. Expression is important. Make sure your subject thinks about what you want him to think when making the picture. The right expression makes the shot. We appear different when we think about different things.  Depending on the mood of the image you may ask your subject to think about a delicious meal, to imagine seeing someone he has been long in love with or to fantasize himself relaxing on the beach. Once you see the right expression in his eyes, then shoot. And, yes, make sure the eyes are in focus and given the priority in terms of sharpness.

6. Do not forget the 10.000 hours rule. It says that to be an expert in something you need to have spent 10.000 hours practicing it. Go ahead and shoot. Spend the hours copying the pictures you like and that inspire you. Use your kids, spouse, friends as the main subjects. They will love the experience. You will create some amazing memories for them. And yes, you will become a pro very soon.

7. Copying is creative. Trust me, it is. Just select great pictures to copy. After becoming good at copying you will see new angles that you can shoot from. You will discover new details in the scene. You will play with the focus. You will create art starting from a copy.

8. The last one: just remember it is ok to copy. Do not be afraid of it. It is actually great. This is how all of us learn a new skill. A skill that can later become a talent, a gift. Take any field and you will see that copying is the beginning of learning.

Take camera, select pictures you like and go for it. Copy. Learn. Create.

I would like to give credit to my friend Noelia for the pictures used in this post.

Barcelona, February 25th 2013

The No End Game

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Get into a game that has no end. If there is an end you will be interested in the final result no matter what. If there is no end, you will be interested in the process. Do not aim to win, aim to stay in the game as long as you can. Aim to learn while you are on the playing field. Aim to play among the best players.

You do the first step. There is nobody around. Nobody invited you to play. Nobody invited you to come. But there is also nobody who can tell you that you should go away. There is nobody to tell you that you can’t play. Thus, you can stay on the field and advance. You are the one to authorize yourself.  And surprisingly it works! It also feels lonely. It does. You look around to catch a glimpse of somebody you know, to spot a smile you recognize. To smile back at a friendly face. And you realize that you are completely alone. There are only followers. And you have to act like you have been here hundred of times before, and convince others that you know what you are doing and where you are going. And they will follow you. That simple. Well, you know the game a little bit in fact. You know you are here to play, not to win. Thus, you do not compete. This does not mean you can relax, slow down and prattle. People who follow you rarely become your friends. You can never turn to them and ask casually “What do you think, should we do this next move or not?”. They expect you to know it all, and this is why they are following you. The moment you show a sign of doubt you lose your way.

You have to be convinced of what you are doing. And you have to sound convincing. You have to be honest and integer too. You have to play clean, to trust and to inspire trust in the people around you. You can’t be false even a bit. If the game gets dirty, if it feels like you are becoming a salesman, you should be able to stand up tall and walk away saying out loud “This is not how I want to play.” And know that there is no return and be done with it. And you are supposed not to regret your actions. And there is not one face on the field who will let you be vulnerable.

It is an exciting game. It is the game you will embrace. It has the value of the patience and the persistence. It holds the passion and the commitment. It is worth the effort. It is worth it all to keep walking across the never ending field, to keep playing the no end game. It is damn lonely too. Have you ever walked on the sand dunes in the dimness of the night? You walk alone, you hear a light noise, you imagine right away that somebody else is walking close by. You can almost see his face. You smile back. You look around. No one. You look around only to realize that the wind and the sand had made the noise that made your heart jump and faint. And then you feel hundred times more lonely than ever before.

You just have to continue walking. Alone. That’s the game. And when the pain of loneliness becomes silence, you will enjoy its verse. And the break of the day will find you walking.

Barcelona, February 5th 2013

What’s Wrong with the Women Business Events

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cocktails on the business events

Lately I have attended quite a few startup, business and entrepreneurial events in the Barcelona area. And I am learning to avoid the ones that have the word “women” in their headline. I am not saying it proudly. Really, I do not.

However, all the events that carry the word “women” in their title, for example “Women in Business” or “Women and Entrepreneurship”, tend to be mostly about women and not about business and entrepreneurship. During a two-hour presentation you do not hear anything informative, interesting or challenging. There are no references to business growth, to metrics used, no hints how to raise capital or manage human resources. You do not get an insight into the industry they are working in or in how they reach out to their customers. All you get to hear is how those women overcame the guilty feeling of leaving their kids at home or how they had to prove themselves in front of their family and friends for starting a business. It looks more like a celebration of the fact that they are not staying at home with their kids and actually doing something, independently on how good or relevant their work is. I tried to imagine a man CEO doing a presentation like that. And I could not. Really, can you see any man on the stage starting a business presentation talking about his childhood years and then going on how he got married and how his married life was affected by the fact that he also run a business. And how he felt about it.

Until this changes. Until this changes drastically, women will not be in businesses on the same level as men are. I would like to go to presentations where women and men talk about their yardstick as the founders, about how they created their company culture, what metric they focus on the most. I would like to see numbers. Yes, numbers, not dry and boring numbers, as women sometimes call them, but exciting numbers; Because while business is not just about numbers, but without them it would never survive and grow. I want to see numbers that would let me understand the growth of the company in a certain timespan and how different product introductions or marketing tactics affected this growth. Through those numbers and the founder’s vision I would like to be able to picture the future of that industry. This would make an amazing presentation!

At last, I would be grateful if on business meetings and related events people would stop asking me how I manage to take care of our two small kids and run a business. If I would be a man, you would never ask me this question, right? My husband never faces this one. Neither should I. I’d rather talk about business. And I promise it will be exciting, challenging and relevant.

Barcelona, February 2nd 2013

Princesses and Cavaliers

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Princess and cavalier

Kids were running around on the Bonanova plaza. “I am a princess, I am a princess,” shouted the girls. “Monster, monster,” cried my almost three-year-old son, and with his imaginary sword started to fight an imaginary monster. “I am a princess, and the cavalier is defending me,” said one of the girls. “You can’t be a princess, because I am a princess,” said the other girl. “No, no, I am a princess,” said the third one. “Then I will be a queen, and you will be the two princesses.” After a three minute argument it was decided that one of the girls would be a pink-dressed princess and another one would be a purple-dressed princess. “What are you going to be,” they asked my daughter. “I will be a horse,” and my daughter started to trot like a horse around the plaza not paying any attention to the princesses. “If my brother is a cavalier, then I will be his horse. A cavalier needs a horse. Can I be your horse?” she asked her brother. The little cavalier nodded without stopping his imaginary fight with the monster and told his sister that her name will be Titan. Titan is my son’s favorite pony, sometimes we take him back-riding in a local pony club and he always wants to ride Titan.

There we were, a group of parents watching our kids play on a sunny afternoon after school. My three-year-old imagining himself to be a cavalier and fighting imaginary monsters. My five-year-old trotting around the plaza like a horse and making all the adequate noises. She was totally absorbed by her horse character. And her five-year-old friends were grouped in the middle of the plaza discussing what kind of princesses they would be.

I am wondering if all the girls naturally want to be princesses or is it something that the society heavily pushes on them and their parents support? I honestly do not think that eighty percent of the girls prefer pink and purple to all other colors, and that they mainly want to play princesses. It is the media and the society that tells our daughters that this is what the girls should like and be like. And we as a parents are just lazy. We do not use our own judgment  because it is always easier to go with the flow. Do not get me wrong, there is nothing bad in wanting to be a princess. But is it really pink that makes one?

I think that we greatly misunderstand what being a princess or a cavalier means. It is not about dresses, it is not about owing a spade or a knife, it is not about wearing pink. It is about patience, it is about education, it is about manners, it is about deep feelings, honesty and integrity. Occasionally I saw girls, that appeared to me real princesses. I saw them at the cafe or at  a party. And by the way they hold their cup, by the way they wait their turn to speak, by they way they can ask you a question or give you a compliment, and be honest and fresh in their words, by all that they remained me of real princesses. And by their genuine and open smiles too. And I, like everybody else, felt lucky to be around them. I even stole some tips from those children, and tried to pass them to my own.

There is nothing wrong with wanting our sons to be cavaliers and our daughters to be princesses. Not in words or color of the dress though, but in the essence of the concept.

I often question myself how to teach our children to be patient, to use their own judgment and to be able to think for themselves. To meditate, and to stop and breath through difficult situations, and not to be guided only by their emotions. I wonder how to encourage in them the deep feelings and attachment towards others, towards the people that surround them. We read books that talk about honesty and beauty. I tell them stories and I talk to them about what surrounds us. Yes, I also try to teach them manners, to show them how to be genuinely interested in others. And, no, I do not think that manners are old-fashioned. I ask myself how to encourage them to learn to listen and to ask questions about others. To always look tidy and clean. To never say “I want” or “Buy me this”. And, finally, words do not matter that much. Kids learn from us, from how we behave, from what they are exposed to in their everyday life. And my yardstick as a parent is to watch myself more than I ever did before, to be a good example to them. To never be lazy. And, of course, to offer them all existent colors to dress in, to like and to play with.

And then, if my daughter decides that she prefers pink, I am fine with that.

Barcelona, January 31st 2013

Others cannot Imagine Your Dreams

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Sagrada Familia Inside

This week I went to the Sagrada Familia for the first time. What I got from this experience is the notion that it is impossible to imagine somebody else’s dreams. Impossible till those dreams become reality. Like everybody else, I saw the images of the Sagrada Familia from inside and outside at least hundred times. I looked at it in the tourists books, I made pictures of the facade and even mailed a dozen of cards with its details to my friends. Yet, I have never realized how that space can change one’s understanding of reality.

Sagrada Familia

If somebody shows me a suburban house from outside, I can imagine how this house will look inside. Square from outside, it will be shaped in square units inside, may be it will have an arch in the hall or an arched window. The space in predictable, how you will feel inside is somewhat predictable too. When I saw the Sagrada Familia from outside, I never imagined how it will look inside. The fact that it is a church, made me think that it would have something of a church in it. I could not have been further from the truth.

Sagrada Familia Church

I entered a forest. An open space. A space without walls. The columns were trees. I walked in this enchanted forest and the afternoon sun was playing light tricks through the colored maple leaves.  It did not feel like a safe place. It did not feel like one was walking in the right direction. There was no direction. A place to get lost amidst the light spots and the shadowed passages. Exactly as in the deep woods. With the shades of all shapes and sizes. With the wind weaving through the branches of the trees. With the lights sliding over the trunks.

Shades in the Sagrada Familia

What impressed me so much was the magic of being lost, of not having any answers. The fact that I could never have imagined how this space would look and feel. This space is its creator’s dream. And we can never imagine somebody else’s dream. We can foresee how the square building will be structured inside. We will not be surprised when we enter it. We will align our expectations with what we see and go with it. It will not change the way we see and understand things. Only the spaces born from the dreams have this power.

Sagrada Familia

Others cannot imagine your dreams. You need to make them come true. You need to build something very true to its stem. Very true to the essence of the impossible. Do not let go even an inch. Forget about expectations, predictions, reality. Do not look for the path, do not long for the safe. Forget what others would like to see. Entering this open space made me realize that others cannot imagine your dreams.

I am talking to you. I am talking to myself too.

Sagrada Familia

Barcelona, January 27th 2013

Leaving the Room

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Image

Two days ago I was walking back home after a team meeting. It was raining and, as it happens sometimes, I was thinking whether or not I should just abandon my crazy startup ideas and get a regular well-paying job.

I was struck by the fact that I am committed to my vision and the startup because seventeen years ago I stood up in front of sixty people and left the room.

It was the first day of my student life, the first day of college, the first day of class. The auditory was filled with nervous students and we all listened to the aged professor who talked in general terms about our future. Thirty minutes in to the speech I stood up and asked the professor, if that was the only topic we were going to talk about for the next two and a half hours. The professor admitted that we were not supposed to talk about anything in particular on the first day of school. Then I said that I had more important things to do and could not lose my time in that way. I picked up my backpack and left the auditory. In front of all sixty something students.

I have to give credit to the professor. He turned out to be an interesting man and we had many insightful discussions on medieval poetry and prose later on. That first day of school he was just doing what he was supposed to do: cater to his auditory. Right now I understand that Spanish students did not expect to learn anything on the first day of class.

Since then I followed my path. I worked for others and I created my own projects. Majority of them failed, some of them survived. All these years my motivation has remained the same, my venues have changed. I work to make people more powerful, to show them the chances that lay in front of them, to encourage them to make their lives better. Our latest project BluewordAi is an expression of this vision.

I believe in what we do. Even so, twice a day, I think that I am just messing up with my life and I should get a good job and help within the system. I know am capable of it. I can follow the directions. I run my own company not because I cannot work for others. I do it because I am committed to the vision of a better society and I have the urgency to play my part in *making* it better. And because when I was seventeen years old I stood up in front of sixty people and was able to leave the room as it was boring and not productive to be sitting there.

Barcelona, January 23rd 2013