GenevaLunch

GL in the news: 24 Heures feature

Google rant: Ungeachtet der Höhe Ihres Budgets, huh?

Google finally got my goat. I'm tired, tired, tired of having things on my computer suddenly appear in German because someone at Google has not studied Google Earth, or any atlas, enough to know that German is not Switzerland's national language. Paypal, I hope you are listening because you have the same ridiculous problem: you insist I say where I live before I can continue with your forms but once I do, you decide I want to talk to you in German, which I don't.

Switzerland = German is an equation that doesn't work in nearly half of this country. I want my Google language to be English and I live in a French-speaking area. (continue reading)→

Weather 21 March 2007, green Lake Geneva, St. Prex harbour

Close to shore Lake Geneva is churned up by the snowstorm just starting, and layers of colour - glacial runoff and sandy lake bottom being whisked together - streak the surface. (continue reading)→

The moo cards arrive: a moment of excitement over my new toy

Moo cards are delightful, small cards you can have made from photos you upload to flickr (there are alternatives). On one side is that photo you love so well and on the other the practical information you decide to give to others. Some people like to swap moos. Cows like to swap their offspring, babysitting for each other. This apparently has nothing to do with moo, as in the cards, however. (continue reading)→

Moo goes to Lift07

A very exciting thing happened today, with perfect timing. My moo cards showed up in the mail, left in front of my St. Prex mailbox. I was heading out the door to the first of the Geneva Lift07 conference events, a loose "Hi, I'm so-and-so, who are you?" drinks session at the end of the day. I had some work to do at the Tribune de Geneve beforehand, learning about the content management system (cms) for the newspaper's new web site, under development (I write a blog for them and produce the English Corner news there).

First pre-Lift07 event: drinks at the Bastions Restaurant in central Geneva, but as the first arrival I had to content myself with playing cards - flickr moo cards with GenevaLunch information on one side and photos we've run on the site on the other side.

Whether it was the excitement of moos arriving or the tough business of focusing on a cms, which is not my favorite part of uploading news to the web, I don't know. I forgot to check the time of the Lift event. I arrived at the Restaurant des Bastions to find - no one. The somber Monsieur serving everyone assured me that no such event was expected.

At a time like this the only thing to do is sit down by yourself, order a drink and play cards.

First arrival at the Lift07 pre-conference drinks at the Bastion restaurant: a bit lonely, so good to have my flikr moo cards along. The drink was hot chocolate because I had an hour's drive home later and the Swiss are strict about alcohol and driving, which I think is wise. The cards were my magic little moo cards! I had time to muse on moos. Here's what is so great about mooing:

• You can carry 100 or even 200 in your pocket without making a hole
• You start to hand them out and other people surprise you by saying "Oh! Your moo cards!"
• You can put the one thing you want everyone to know (www.genevalunch.com) on one side of the card, leaving off your mother's maiden name and your five private phone numbers plus the one to call in case of emergency
• On the other side(s) you can have all the photos you love, and that you feel others should have noticed and did not when you posted them on flickr. There is a down side to this. Maybe no one really wants a card with a closeup of a raisin in the middle of a slice of Swiss bread.

I am looking forward to the creativity, mix of people, and information I will find at Lift07 but I'm also really, REALLY looking forward to giving everyone a GenevaLunch moo card.

"Illustration credit Andrice Arp, courtesy of BookMooch.com"

The first people to walk in were John Buckman and Jan Hanford Buckman, who'd flown in from London, and they promptly said, "Oh, your flickr cards." We sat at a bigger table, swapped little moos and they told me about their amazing business life, running Magnatune and Bookmooch. The first is an online music label which pays musicians properly - you have to like their "We are not evil" approach. And Jan spends much of her life on Second Life, to the amazement of Paul Kocman, a Geneva-based chemist who is attending Lift07 just because he thinks it's good to hear new ideas and new people.

Geneva, we have Lift-off!

Technorati Tags: geneva, GenevaLunch, flickr moo cards, lift, lift07 (continue reading)→