My favorite holiday reads from Cambodia

Koh Rong Samloen ReadingI originally started this blog to share thoughts, reads and conferences that I found worthwhile writting about. It turns out that my last book review dates almost 2 years back, so it’s time to write about books again! Just came back from 2 weeks of really relaxing holidays in Cambodia, a beautifull country that has much more to offer than the magnificient temples of Angkor.

I have spent quite some time reading – as I do under that palm tree on the picture – and I ended up wanting to write a blog post about 4 of the books I have enjoyed most during our holidays, 2 of which are about Cambodia’s tumultuous history. Continue reading →

This Poor Breton Peasant’s Autobiography, an International Best-Seller

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The life story of an ordinary, brilliant, anarchist peasant from Brittany

Exactly 112 years ago, on January 6th 1905, a Breton peasant neamed Jean-Marie Déguignet wrote the last words of the story of his life, and died shortly after. He ended over 4,000 pages with these words : “I wish humanity  the power – even the willpower – to become truthfull and good people, able to understand and get along with each other, in a worthy and happy social life.” His own life has been neither happy nor worthy, which is why this best-selling autobiography is such a fascinating account of rural life between 1834 and 1905. I’ll try to make this review worth reading. Continue reading →

My Favorites of January: GE’s Hot Sauce, Brand Names Across The World & Facebook Reactions

Image by GE, via FastCoCreate.com

Image by GE, via FastCoCreate.com

Happy New Year! In France we have until January 31st to share our greetings, so I am just in time. This month, I have watched & read a number of things that I would like to share with you, including a beautifull 4K video of Brittany, a funny sketch about French peoples’ way to say ‘hello’, posts about GE’s brand marketing & activation strategy, or some articles about blockchain. I hope you enjoy it. Continue reading →

My Favorites in November: Advertising in 60 Seconds, Problematic Crowd Work & The Parisian Lifestyle

History of Advertising Timeline

This was a special month here in Paris, especially the second half, with the terrorist attacks and the start of the COP21 climate conference shrouding the city in a very particular atmosphere. Much more security, armed forces on almost every street corner, helicopters, heads of state… it’s not the usual Parisian life. But nevertheless, the earth keeps spinning, people will not stop going into bars and cafés, and I won’t stop sharing my favorite inspirations neither. Here are some tweets about entrepreneurship, marketing, creativity, crowd labor and Paris (of course). Make sure to look at the short video about Google’s “Alive Memory” project in Russia. Continue reading →

My Favorites in October: Importance of Self-Discipline, 100 Years Contour Bottles & Meaningful Branding

Image via VSA Partners (click to see video)For the first time since I started blogging, I’m sharing a self-improvement a.k.a. life advice article written on Medium, which seems to be the top of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs’ Hierarcchy of Needs. Entrepreneur and blogger Oskar Nowik writes about the importance of self-discipline in life, and it’s geniunely a great article. Other cool stuff in October include a fantastic interview of Coca-Cola’s brand historian Ted Ryan, a feature about the most prolific of all Wikipedia editors, and a short video called “IBM on Brand,” part of a series of short films created to capture the current thinking behind leadership brands. I hope you’ll enjoy it, and I’m looking forward to an inspiring and exciting month of November now! Continue reading →

My Favorites in June: Apple World Gallery, Heineken Lock & Google Expeditions

Image via Cannes Lions Archive (click to see video)In June, I would like to share more creativity and advertising, a bit less crowdsourcing and a lot less research-related stuff. And not only because it was Cannes Lions season. The image on the left shows an excerpt of Apple’s “World Gallery” video, which won the top prize in the Outdoor category, and which I share an article about in this post. I really like that a people-powered brand campaign won a Grand Prix at Cannes, it shows how advertising is taking user-generad content seriously. Other links relate to Facebook stalking, Russian humor, smart activation campaigns and… crowdsourcing. I couldn’t help it. Continue reading →

A Perfect Map Of The World Will Never Exist

I started reading the book on my way back from Singapore. A live map showed us where we were in real time

I started reading the book on my way back from Singapore. A map showed us where we were in real time (which is not anecdotal, as I found out after finishing its last chapter about today’s usage of maps)

I love maps, I could stand hours in front one, whether it represents my city or the entire world; whether it hangs on a wall or it twist at my fingertips on my tablet. It is quite a creative and cheap way to travel! I just finished a fascinating book: A History of the World in 12 Maps, written by a British professor, Jerry Brotton. He explains how humans have always been driven to represent the world around them, and how each of these representations is shaped by cultural, political or commercial interests. Google Earth is no exception.

Continue reading →