Richard for real

This is quick summary of presentation I did today at my uni’s study abroad fair. These are basically seven principles for maximing the use and pleasure of a limited period spent in a new location. All based on my personal experience as an Erasmus exchange student in Amsterdam last semester, but it should be applicable for other places and situations as well.

1. Learn the language

Even if English is widely spoken, knowing a few words and phrases of the local tongue will get you long way. It’s also a great of showing respect for and increasing your understanding of the locals you meet.

2. Conscious socializing

The uneasy feeling of not knowing anyone in a new place can easily make you bond with whoever comes in your way. This can lead to great things of course, but there is also a risk that it will keep you occupied from opportunities later on. Try to assess people as you would with anyone back home, especially during the first two three weeks.

3. Spare time occupations

A great way to get involved in a new community is to take up a familiar hobby or sport in the new context. This is a great way to connect with people with whom you have common ground, and a good entrance point to local networks.

4. Be a foreigner

Don’t limit yourself to being just an exchange student or just a guest worker. Frame yourself as a foreigner and you will see a lot more posssibilities. The expatriot community is a rich source of information, services and connections.

5. Bring what you want to be

When you are packing, don’t go for the things you use the most. Go for what you would like to use the most. This goes for clothes (bring more shirts to force yourself into a business look for example), accessories, gadget, books and everything.

6. Makes the most of mobile

I found a smartphone with internet access to be many times more useful in a new place than where I am more familiar. Just time you will by not getting lost is worth the investment in a mobile internet bundle.

7. CouchSurfing

This hospitality exchange community is an invaluable resource of information, events and people. It will definitely help you to get on the fast track to integration.

I had a rather (for being me) twitter intensive day so far today, so why not give this old draft a brush up and let it fly? Here are the twitter hashtags I’d really like to see in action:

#helpmetranslate – When google translate just won’t do it. Add on the relevant languages and someone will be there in a sec to help you out.

#randomlunch – For everyone seeking new company. Throw in your location and life-changing opportunities may come your way over a bite.

#commuternews - My friend @JonasLundstrom has started this locally in Skåne, Sweden. It’s fun and useful for knowing what trains are crowded, etc.

#BigIn[insertcountryhere] - Let others know what’s on the agenda around you. Help people get more global.

#globalinsight – Along the lines of the above. For the stuff everyone should know.

#twitlation – I often come across very interesting tweets in minor languages. When I do I sometimes translate them to English and RT. But I miss a proper label for this activity.

So what’s your favorite and what do you want to do on twitter?

I just came back from watching Renzo Martens’ Episode III: Enjoy Poverty at my local scene for quality documentaries. Afterwards I had an intense and interesting conversation with a friend who has a Master in International Economics. One tripod and one dialectic concept came out of this discussion.

We were lucky to have a Q&A session with Martens after watching the film and among other things (such as saying that the most important goal of the film was for it to be an auto-referential piece, depicting a certain status quo) he said that what people in materially well developed countries can do to improve the situation for those with a lower standard of living is to put pressure on the companies that deliver products which originate in less fortunate places by asking them for increased transparency. A key point in this is to demand fair wages and a thorough corporate social responsibility throughout the whole production process.

The tripod thought builds on this by adding two other ways of producing change and a more equal global society. Slightly au contraire to what Martens claims I would like to think that people who travel from rich to poor countries can actually make a positive difference. But as I see things the key to success here lies in personal engagement, which means that this behavior will probably be far less efficient than, to put it roughly, staying at home and buying the right things at the right price. What I have in mind here are small-scale projects aimed at developing competences and overall empoverment. For example, teaching languages or setting up internet access points. The second example is an already ongoing process, where people from developing countries who have made themselves a career in the traditional sense abroad return to their native area to share their experience and teach others the skills necessary to take a similar path as they themselves.

What is maybe more interesting is that Martens statement about how the power of the consumer can and should be used also highlights a way of seeing the world in two perspectives. These are different perspectives on where change necessary, given that we today live as humans in a global economic system that produces and perpetuates inequalities. The most obvious thing to change would be the system, since this is what seems to be the source of the problems. We see a number of groups acting to achieve this sort of change today. But we tend to forget that there is an alternative, which is more along the lines of Martens ideas. This alternative is quite simply to change the humans and how they act within the system. If we want a global system to be equal we need an entirely new paradigm of global consideration. Rather than trying to dismantle our economy to prevent harm, we can strive to evolve the people within the framework of this economy so that they think differently and behave in such a way that the system produces inequalities. This is a great challenge, which may seem as overwhelming as “putting an end to global capitalism”, but I believe it can be done. I believe the first step toward an equal and sustainable world economy is to promote and create a true global awareness.

This is just a little sidetrack from a discussion on sustainable global development that I had with one of my best friends a little while ago.

We were talking about the impact of new technology on sustainability and came to argue about whether new technology alone is enough to create a sustainable global community. Being more skeptical than my friend, I argued that even with huge technological advances some behavioral change is also necessary (in addition to the change in behavior that comes with new technological solutions of course) to achieve sustainability. To cut a long story short the conclusion we finally came to was that there might be some sort of scale between the two extremes of great technologicaladvance and largely keeping with today’s behavior at one end and significant behavior in change and sticking with today’s technology level at the other. If this model is correct, I believe that our challenge is to find a reasonable combination of the two end-points of the scale. Technological progress in inevitable, and does good, but at the same it would be stupid not to strive for a more sustainable lifestyle per se. What we need to do is to find the optimum division between energy spent on developing greener technology and establishing greener lifestyles. In my personal opinion, this would mean shifting part of our present technological focus towards lifestyles.

Finally some spontaneous and inspired writing, as it’s supposed to be. And again it’s a retake of some dialog with some friend. I really should have an audio blog, or would that be a podcast?

1. Buy a 747, redo the interior: two dancefloors, a few bars, chill-out and a VIP area next to the cockpit. Make sure the oxygen masks can be appropriately when need be. Then fly this baby around the globe and set up the most awesome parties at airports of major cities. Get a few resident DJs aboard and fill up with local acts from wherever you’ve landed.

2. Pick the 15 most bustling spots on the globe for a year to come. Send out clever correspondents to each of these spots and make them really get under the skin of the place and produce unmatched content. Content that brings understanding, fascination and inspiration. Batch it all up on a pay for access or ad financed website. It will be marvelous, all kinds of media, all kinds of people, all kinds of ideas.

3. Make a 24 hr agency that does everything by coupling 10 really creative, connect-and-make-it-happen kind of people in 5 teams and let them set up bases in suitable time zones. This way, there will always be someone on duty to take calls and cross culture global issues will not be a problem. Global, small-scale and efficiency can all come together. What could these people do then? Well, anything really, investigations, advertising, entrepreneurial projects, videos, events, etc and so on.

I don’t care anymore.