Machinarium – journey, surprise, excitement.

November 7, 2009 by Liga

machinarium

I recently had a chance to try Machinarium. It’s an award-winning independent puzzle / adventure game developed by the ingenious studio Amanita Design.  ’Machinarium is an extraordinarily beautiful creation. It’s a sort of beauty that games are almost never graced with’ (rockpapershotgun.com).

Machinarium took the prize for “Excellence in Visual Art” at this (2009)  year’s Independent Game Festival. And it’s totally clear why. The hand-drawn scenes and characters are captivating and entertaining.

The game itself is catchy and exciting. Journey of the main character is full of unexpected surprises, the scenes and tasks are artistically crafted. And if you get stuck there are two levels of clues.

The game has a stunning audio track and a very high level of playability. Some puzzles may keep you in the game for a while but it’s such a great pleasure. Enjoy!

Green peas pasta

November 4, 2009 by Liga

farfarelle

 

Our housemate Marko showed us a brilliant pasta recipe tonight. As he said ‘it’s tastiest of the easy-ones’.

You take canned or frozen green peas, fry them with onions in the olive oil until you get a green mushy paste.
Meanwhile you boil farfarelle (bow-shaped pasta) until tender.  You put some fresh cream in a bowl, add pasta when it’s ready, mix it with the fried green peas and add thinly sliced ham.

It’s quick and absolutely DELICIOUS!

X-mas is coming

November 3, 2009 by Liga

halloween_by_cuu

I was passing by some shops today and was startled by the view.

Two days ago all the shop windows were full of pumpkins and skeletons but it seems that it was only a small necessary interlude, something you have to get over with to get to the actual big thing – selling Christmas.

All the witches have been quickly swapped with Santa Clauses, spiders and cobwebs with little angels and artificial snow. But I doubt that’s because the shopkeepers prefer positive over scary. It’s just so that on x-mas people spend more.

It looks like not just people suffer from the recession. The Halloween spirit can quietly wrap itself in the cobweb somewhere in the attic corner and dream about the old days of glory and celebration.

(Thanks to cuu for the photo.)

Sweetest thing ever

September 21, 2009 by Liga

Amazing pictures!

September 4, 2009 by Liga

RobertoBernardi

I saw this and couldn’t not to share it with you.

This is not a photo, and no, it’s not a computer generated image, it’s a painting! Yes, a painting – oil on canvas – skillfully done by artist Roberto Bernardi. Go to his website to see some more.

Enjoy.

All in one – Twitter

June 3, 2009 by Liga

suedecrush

It started as a simple idea – you tell your friends what are you doing now. You update them as often as you want, only limitation is 140 characters per message. You guessed it, it’s Twitter.

Now it’s huge. Everybody is in there. When it just began its life and a friend asked me to join, I was not sure what good it will be to me. Now I am really happy that I joined early as I was able to watch it grow and collect valuable contacts.

Now it’s rarely the case that someone is twittering only to notify everybody that she is bringing her cat to the vet. Twitter is the place where you can get latest information on recent affairs (like AirFrance airplane disappearance), it’s widely used in conferences and public events to notify participants about the recent changes or inform them about ongoing actions.

It is the place where you can share your knowledge and interesting links you have found on the web, where you can ask questions and get answers, where you can learn from others and show yourself. Akhtar Sheikha in his blog 2experts Design shows beautiful examples of artistic and multifunctional Twitter pages: the authors are not only posting meaningful messages but also giving the reader more information about themselves on their profile background.

It’s so multifunctional, that it’s your blog, your newspaper, your email and messaging device, and your business card at the same time. So use yours wisely!

The Groundswell

May 18, 2009 by Liga

groundswell

Finally got my hands on and read The Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

At a first glance it seemed the book does not contain anything new for me, but sinking deeper I realized that there are a lot of fresh ideas for everybody. We all have heard of such social web tools as blogs, forums, wikis, and on-line communities but there are so many ways how to use them. Some ways are smart and beneficial for the user and for the community, some ways are better to be avoided.

The authors provide an insight in the opportunities given to the businesses by those social technologies.  Some most important things which are emphasized throughout the book are:

  • Decide what are your goals and who is your target audience before employing any particular social technology tool (and remember, it’s not about you, it’s about people you want to communicate to; it’s not about your company or product, it’s about solving your customers’ problems).
  • Choose your tool wisely depending on what you want it to do.
  • Always be open and honest, it will ensure the bond with your audience and also your credibility.
  • And most importantly be willing and ready to listen (people on-line will have what to say about you, and it wont necessarily be good things) and to act accordingly (not ignoring, not shouting back but talking to and solving the problem).

In addition to well written ‘theory’ Charlene and Josh provided a lot of interesting and educational case studies in every chapter, helping the reader grasp the idea better.  And sometimes the unusual approaches to problem solving using social technologies can be very inspiring and lead to new development of tools and make their usage even more efficient.

I recommend this book to anybody who is in marketing, communications, customer relations, PR or in general has to maintain a relationship with people inside and outside the company.

Groundswell blog.

Future of the Marketing Garden

May 17, 2009 by Liga

dwarfs

Until now I tried to stick to a particular theme or style of the blogging (and as a result blogged very rarely). I tried to look professional and with that limited myself to dry and quite soulless posts.

From now on here you will find anything that excites me not only as a professional in marketing or design, but also as a person and individuality.  I decided that I wont put any restrictions to what appear in my blogposts (as long as the content is something I would be able to show to my mom :) ).

So cheers and enjoy!
(As I definitely will.)

Understanding your customer

February 22, 2009 by Liga

passing the key

It has always been an important matter to understand your customers: what are their needs, what do they want and how do they make the decision to buy or not to buy your product. In times of economical difficulties (like global recession) and major changes (like a fact that by 2040 or even earlier hispanic population in US will surpass the white non-hispanic inhabitants) understanding of customers are crucial.

I liked the creative approach of a real estate broker who used his knowledge about his customer to his own advantage. “Hispanic would-be homebuyers were allowed to spend a night in the house so they could invite family and friends for dinner prior to making the purchase decision. The family decided to purchase the house after getting positive feedback from the guests.” The knowledge of an importance of family members and their opinion in a hispanic family secured the real estate broker a deal.

Pay attention to who are those people you are going to sell your products to and customize your approach accordingly. It will definitely pay off.

Happy New Year!

January 11, 2009 by Liga

When everybody talks gloomy, doomy and recession this picture seemed encouragingly bright and positive.  So thank you for staying with me, hope to see you again and have a very happy new year.

aaa

Photo ‘Happy 2009′ by faeryboots