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Invisible Children at UCL

Michael — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:27:44 +0000

Last night Ann and I went to a presentation and discussion about the child soldiers of Central Africa and Global Citizenship.

Photo from Invisible Children

It started out as a civil war in Uganda but today, more than 20 years later, the conflict continues as a terror regime where the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continue to abduct children and mutilation and slaughter the local population. The LRA has caused the lives of thousands and dispalcement of millions of people in Uganda, DR. Congo and Sudan.

Invisible Children started out as a film project for three American guys and has turned into a grass-root organization trying to help the children affected by the conflict. It’s a conflict that hasn’t had much focus which is what the Invisible Children organization tries to do and one of the things discussed in the panel debate was how to bring attention to it.

The story is heartbreaking and what the organization is doing is really admirable in trying to give these kids a chance for an education and meaningful life. Until the conflict comes to an end it is worth reminding ourselves and our governments that we should not just stand by as this happens.

See the whole documentary Invisible Children: Rough cut.

Ferie villa i Sydfrankrig (DK)

Michael — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:04:06 +0000

Jeg bliver lige nødt til at nævne det sidste projekt jeg har været involveret i. Ejerne af galleriet AndersenArt i Espergærde har bygget en lækker villa på en bjergside i Frankrig og bad os om at lave deres hjemmeside.

Huset er fordelt over tre planer med fire værelser, to køkkener og tre stuer. Hvad jeg synes er mest cool er terrassen med en fed pool og udsigt ud over Middelhavet, Saint Jeannet og Baou bjerget. Derudover har de en fyldt vinkælder, internetadgang på storskærm og et musikanlæg hvor man bare sætter sin iPod til.

Ud over at jeg har kigget misundelig på de billeder Peter har sendt mig dernede fra har det været rigtig inspirerende at arbejde sammen med Peter og Terese.

En dag når firmaet går flyvende, må jeg ned og og prøve at bo i deres Saint Jeannet villa. Det er ved at være en del år siden jeg var med cykelklubben nede og cykle i området, det er et rigtig lækkert område omkring Cannes, Nice og Monaco, hvor der er rigtig meget at se og opleve.

Men tag selv et kig på det lækre feriehus :)

Request for colour photographs

Michael — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:05:00 +0000

As you might know Ann is in London studying for her PhD. In her studies she could use your help:

My name is Ann Fenech and I am a PhD student at University College London (UCL) within the Centre for Sustainable Heritage, where my work will involve a study of the lifetime of colour photographs.

Colour photos have been around for almost 100 years but we still dont know much about the ongoing degradation processes. This is what I aim to study. However, for this study to be possible, I need as many different colour photographs as I can find on which I can run the required tests.

This is where you can be of help: I would be very grateful if you could look through your photographs and see if you have any that you do not want to keep. My focus is on the chemical composition so the image in the photo is not important to me.

If you happen to have any pictures please contact me and I will figure out a way to get them to me. I will be happy to reimburse you for the costs of posting the photographs.

Kindest Regards

Ann Fenech
Centre for Sustainable Heritage
The Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL
1-19 Torrington Place, Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT

Im sure good karma will go to those who help

The American in Denmark

Michael — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:05:00 +0000

The US ambasador to Denmark James P. Cain just published a book called Amerikaneren (The American) about his perspective of Denmark. His�ambassadorship is coming to an end with the change at the White House but during the three years he was in Denmark he went out an met a lot of regular people. Among other things he got on a bike and biking 2500 km meeting people all over Denmark – he even made a stop in Toftlund my tiny home town.

One of the Danish TV shows made an interview with him (the interview is in English) where they talked about how he percieved Denmark. Some of the things he said was:

It is a little hard for a stranger to feel welcome and accepted in Denmark – its a little tough to get comfortable in this society. [...] I did come to understand that this society feel a bit insulated and under threat. It wants to keep the outside away. That creates some challenges for the society but also some challenges for newcomers to feel at home.

This reminded me of a blog post and subsequent discussion recently at Bluefishs blog about what its like to live as a foreigner in Denmark.

Denmark is a very homogeneous country and having experienced life elsewhere I would agree with Mr. Cain that the Danes are not always good at embrasing other cultures.

http://politiken.dk/indland/article598282.ece

Election day

Michael — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:05:00 +0000

The Danish prime minster called for a snappy election on November 13th just two weeks away. Well luckily I’m in Denmark so I went to the city hall to figure out how I could fulfil my democratic duty. Turns out I had to cast the vote right there and then to get it in. So I didn’t get the whole 20 days of campaigning – my vote is on a ballot ready to be counted.

Updated my blog

Michael — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:05:00 +0000

While some of the weekend was spend with a bunch of IAESTE people at the Karltejn Castle, my hung-over Sunday was spend at the computer.

Ive changed the look of my blog for a cleaner one. There are usually plenty of pictures in my post so I decided to go for a simple design with Depo Clean theme. Here is a few more shots from the castle.

Finally, Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Danish TV

Michael — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:05:00 +0000

Watching news in US can be a quite scary experience. The coverage is often one-sided with rhetoric, graphics and music that accentuates the spectacular of any event. Try and watch this Amy Goodman presentation about the state of journalism in US.

The only American show I watched regularly while I was in the States was Daily Show. It is hilarious in its characterisation of the eneral news coverage and its a decent source of information whats going on in the world. When I came back to Denmark I was disappointed that a channel like TV2 Zulu hadnt brought it to a Danish audience. But lo and behold DR2 has just started to broadcast it weekdays at 23.30 – finally!

But were is Steven Colbert? His Colbert Report is – if possible – even funnier than Daily Show when he gives it as a hard hitting, besserwisser newscaster.

Arb Design is blogging

Michael — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:05:00 +0000

In the last year or so in Denmark blogging has changed from being something the established media and companies would talk about to be something they read and used. (Links in this post will be to Danish sites)

I find it very interesting what is going on right now as people in companies are blogging. There are some great benefits from communicating in the form of a blog:

Informal way of communicating passion
Gain information about costumers through a dialog
It can underline and enhance your brand
Let the company have a human face and voice

On the other hand there are some drawbacks or pittfalls as well. Blogging as a private person is different than blogging as part of an organization or a company. Andreas Johansen, former Synkron blogger wrote about some of the difficulties about blogging for his company.

Finding the proper voice – not too personal and geeky, not too corporate and marketing-speak
Its difficult to get comments so the costumer interaction stays one-way
It can be difficult to find the ressources to blog
Your boss, colleague, cotumer does not understand the blog format

All this said we have decided to start Arblog, the blog of Arb Design. Right now it is easy to find stuff to write about because Rotaboard is getting started and getting attention from interesting places.

Now go read, subscribe and comment and I will be happy

RotaBoard – the simple work planning tool

Michael — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:05:00 +0000

The paper calendar on the back wall of a business is an easy tool to use, just grab the pen and write on it. When it is done make a photocopy to everybody on the staff and youre done.

Some time goes by and you end up with this

You know how it goes, people get sick some want to exchange their shifts or youve lost your paper copy and cant remember when you have to work next time. The shortcoming of the paper calendar is that it is difficult to keep everybody up to date on the changes – and change always happens. Enter Rotaboard

A week ago we launched RotaBoard the first of Arb Designs own products. RotaBoard is a simple work planning tool for the business or team were you have to coordinate and distribute a weekly workplan.

With RotaBoard we wanted to retain the ease of using a simple paper calendar but add the benefits of having it online. Take it for a spin and let me know what you think. Wed love to hear your feedback. All you need is to sign up and you are ready to go

IAESTE Traineeship abroad presentation

Michael — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:05:00 +0000

Last year I did a presentation at IAESTE Michigans Employers Symposium where they invited potential employers to hear about IAESTE and benefits of take on a foreign trainee. This years Symposium was last month and Femi and I got asked if we would do a remote presentation. We looked into different solutions for doing remote presentations but ended up creating a video with the presentation and then doing the questions afterwards through Skype. It was fun to make and I finally had an excuse for making a presentation Lessig style:

UPDATE: and Menlo Innovations became employer of the year.

Last but not least the deadline for Danes to apply for a traineeship abroad is coming up 22nd of February. There are about 55 jobs waiting for Danes out there so check out the job catalogue (PDF) if there is anything that sounds interesting to you.