Roofs of Wiesbaden (part 2)

You will probably recognize the "freedom of the press" fellow from an earlier post in my Wiesbaden DP blog (that's actually how I spottet him). The roof to his left belongs to the Kaiser Friedrich Therme and in the background you see parts of the Neroberg (left) and Sonnenberg (right).

For a colored version of the photo click here.

Vote for Organic City!

Last year, Seamus, a friend of mine from the MSP, together with Sarah Mattern started a project called "The Organic City". It's a community storytelling project focused on the downtown Oakland (California, USA) areas surrounding Lake Merritt. Through their website they encourage people to read and write stories (text, audio, or video) about local places. Right now they're also working on a mobile experience for the stories.

It's a really fun project and they've been nominated for a Webby Award 2006 in the Best Student Website category. Please check out their website and then vote for them! Voting is open to the public from April 11th to May 5th at http://peoplesvoice.webbyawards.com.

Sick: Roach-Brooches

I saw this on another blog and am still upset about it so I decided to post it here as well. Isn't this sick??? A "designer" came up with the idea to make a brooch out of a living roach and sell it in a boutique in Salt Lake city. Of course the boutique couldn't have hoped for a better advertising but in my opinion they went too far this time!

Madagascar hissing cockroaches are decorated with colored jewels and put on a silver chain leash to be able to crawl. Thank goodness something like this would not be possible over here due to laws (at least that's what I deeply hope for) and I'm surprised that apparently it doesn't seem to be forbidden in the US.

Besides the fact that someone must be really disturbed to want something like that as "jewelry"!!

Article, photos and video

Frohe Ostern! Happy Easter!

~ Happy Easter! ~ Frohe Ostern! ~
 

Being self-employed

Well, I'm not breaking any news to you when I say that being self-employed in general is not easy and I'm sure anyone having gone through this experience will agree here. And I'm not gonna talk about all the things you have to find out and solve here to be legally on the save side, or projects, or anything like that. No, this post is about the status and acceptance of someone being self-employed in Germany.

A while ago I came across a blog of an American ESL teacher living in Germany and talking about her experiences. Unfortunately, I only copied a quote in my notes and forgot to bookmark her blog so I wasn't able to find it again for this post... Too bad. Anyways, here is what she said:

Germany is a "company town". It is not entrepreneurial. Working for yourself is even looked down upon as having a job with a big business and a desk that you go to for the next 30 years is considered what is appropriate and correct. It is secure and that is what is important (never mind the fact that all over Germany companies are going out of business or downsizing large percentages of their workforce.) [...] Being an entrepreneur here is the opposite of what it is in America, with America being something you aspire to have and here something only desperate people do.

I copied this because at first I was a bit surprised of her view but the more I think about it the more I must agree with her. Not necessarily from a business perspective since especially in my field a lot of companies work with freelancers and I have not had any bad experiences with any kind of attitudes yet.

It's more on a personal side... Especially the so called older generations still hold on to this view she described. The younger generations are a bit more open although some of them grew up with this point of view and see no reason why they should change their mind about it. Others start to see the simple necessity to be more flexible for the job market these days. I'd say it's more and more changing...

How about you? Have you made any experiences like this? How is the acceptance in your region/country?

Thanks to Fraser who found the blog I have quoted in this post!! You can find it here, towards the end of the page under "Doing Business and the Economy".

Webgrrls Germany

Great news: This weekend I've been elected co-leader for the regio-group Mainz/Wiesbaden. Together with my other co-leader Martina Gajewski, we're going to coordinate Webgrrl events, meetings, presentations, cooperations etc.

Webgrrls is a non-profit organisation targeting women working in the New Media field. Members come from all kinds of industries - web/graphic designers, editors, legal advisors, copy writers, programmers, web administrators, and so on.

It's going to be an exciting challenge!

Practicing with camera

Have been walking around with my camera during the weekend, getting used to all the options it has. Here are three photos from the outcome...