Vorfreude

Vorfreude is Word of the day. It's German and means "anticipation" (the happy version)

I am looking forward to:
* Traveling by train to Sibiu (mhm... mountains, books, ipod etc)
* Seeing Goethe's "Faust" (theater tickets for Saturday evening)
* Sleeping
* Mom's cuisine
* Casting my vote (1- JUN Romanians vote for their new/incumbent mayors)
* Seeing Sibiu

And, as Vorfreude grows, Endorphins grow stronger :)
The following chain of bla bla letter groups is betaEndorphin: Tyr-Gly-Gly-Phe-Met-Thr-Ser-Glu-Lys-Ser-Gln-Thr-Pro-Leu-Val-Thr-Leu-Phe-Lys-Asn-Ala-Ile-Ile-Lys-Asn-Ala-Tyr-Lys-Lys-Gly-GluOH

You're right, I can't read this letters either. But some chemistry guys took a picture of one of betaEndorphin's relative:

Pic. : www.chemistryexplained.com

Math, Roads and Retail

On Wikipedia, a Dacia Logan is about 4 meters long.

First math problem:
How many Dacia Logans does it take to fill a 1.5 km road with 3 lanes / direction?

Second math problem:
This one is tricky.
We have a retail complex near city B (let us assume: 1.5 km from the nearest traffic light within city limits).
Ok, I'll give you 3 lanes / direction.
Being big, the retail complex has 9500 parking spaces.
All people living in city B drive Dacia Logans.
The parking lot is 50% full until all shops close.
Question: How many minutes does it take for the last car leaving the parking space to reach the traffic light within city limits?

The following chart offers you a cheat sheet as I transformed parking spaces and all 3 lanes (for one direction) in kilometers.

40% Rain

60%

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

The Golden Stag at 40

At 40, "The Golden Stag" international music festival in Brasov, can be considered one of the oldest "deers" in the world.
Initiated in 1968, this festival had some rough years in between, but the Romanian National Television (TVR) decided to organize it again this year.
I found the first few minutes from the 1968 edition on youtube and wonder if organizers will remember to invite Mr. Draghici to this year's edition. Draghici was the first performer to take stage at "The Golden Stag" and still lives in Romania.

PS: In case you're wondering. Deers usually live about 8 years but can also reach 17 years. Wikipedia (Romanian)

"The Golden Stag" - website

Luke I'm Your Father

I just found out that this page is related to "An Astronomical Alphabet"

Also want to check your web-site-relationships? Type "related:www.mywebsite.com" in google.

Here are my relatives :)

3 Pictures from Tirana

Should you have the money and business experience, now is the time to invest in Albania. Here are some pictures taken in February 2008.

Thoughts on... Reference Points

Apple leads Q1 sales in premium priced PCs (pardon the term :) ).
Now that's a shift of perspective.

"Apple's retail market share is 14 percent, and two-thirds for PCs costing $1,000 or more."

Thoughts on... Parking in Bucharest

Even though I have never driven a car within Bucharest, I also suffer from lack of parking space.
This is because as a pedestrian I have to:
(1) slide through tiny little spaces between crammed parking lots
(2) jump over impromptu placeholders such as beer cases transformed into parking place-holders
(3) pay attention to cars riding on side-walks in search for a parking space

However, having said all these, I wonder:
Would solving the parking space problem in Bucharest trigger a spike in petty theft?

Or putting it in another way: There is a number of people making money as "freelance"-parking agents in Bucharest. Should parking spaces abound tomorrow, what would you recommend that all these people do in order to get money?

Romania: iPhone is Orange

France Telecom spokesman Bertrand Deronchaine said Orange will be the exclusive iPhone provider in Belgium and Romania, with co-exclusive or non-exclusive deals in other countries. He declined to offer more details about the arrangement

The first good reason for me to switch back to Orange :)

Link to AP News

Restaurants in Romania: €1.22bn

A little bit of self-promo.

Visionwise Consulting, the company I am currently with, has just presented an overview on the Romanian restaurant market. (occasion: Food Service Industry Forum 2008)

The 3 bullet summary on Romanian restaurants

• Market estimated at €1.22bn in 2007 and set to reach €2bn by 2010
  
• In 2006 only 55% of the 5267 active companies were profitable
  
• Most common consumption occasion is "meeting with friends" (67.1%) and top 2 things appreciated by clients are food - and service quality

Happy eating!

Later Edit: Tim Harford's "Dear Economist..." column tackles the issue of "service" being added to restaurant bills. Well, in Romania restaurants don't add service to bills and the average tip is around 2 Euros.

Sinatra: Ten Years since He Left for Good

The US Postal Services today launched a commemorative stamp.

I remember reading on the cover of my first Sinatra MC that he's called "the voice". And you know what? I could never mistake him for someone else. I'm a fan.


One of the best profiles written about Frank Sinatra is Esquire's 1966 "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" By Gay Talese.


PS: The Wall Street Journal is running a review of other initiatives to commemorate his death. (The author doesn't like the way the marketing machine is running)

Conspicuous Demand in Romania

After reading that Romanians last week bought yachts worth €15 million, I remembered that low-income African-Americans are thought to be some of the biggest customers of high-end sport shoe retailers in the US.

The general rule put on the table in Slate Magazine is this: "In general, the poorest people in any group are forced to opt out of the conspicuous consumption arms race—if you can't afford the signal, even by stretching your finances, you can't play the game."

This rule applies to Romanian millionaires as well. Imagine a Romanian millionaire with a lower than average income (average of his peer-group: the millionaires). He / she must be crying because 'Life's unfair" and some other guy bought a new yacht.




Business Standard Story about yachts: Romanians invested some €15 mln in luxury yachts - Business Standard

PS: The economist who came up with this conspicuous demand theory is Thorstein Veblen

Thoughts on... Trust

It seems logical to me: trust is proportional to credibility, reliability and intimacy (how close people let you get to them). Also, trust is indirect proportional to self-orientation.

So, with my meager 8.4 score, I'm asking you: What's your Trust Quotient?

Trusted Advisor Associates > Trust Quotient Self-Diagnostic

PS: Self-orientation should affect all other scores in this order: intimacy +++, reliability ++ and credibility +

Consumer Insights (Germany)

Stern Magazine asked readers: "Why do women magazines have girl names?" (German only)

Besides the obvious answers concerning female bonding and search for a best friend, here are some of the real [funny] insights:

1. "This is only due to the lack of courage of the parents, to name their children Schmidt Playboy, Hustler Mueller or Autobild Meier"
2. "Because men can't remember names and they would not be able to find 'their' magazine again"
3. "So that men shouldn't have to say such things as: 'I spent yesterday one our on the toilet with Horst [German male name]' "

You Know You're in a Cash Based Economy...

...when you stand in line to use the ATM.
(It happened last night.)

You Are Not Seeing Double

Please bear with me as I am getting better at working with ScribeFire.

I have recently switched to this Firefox add-in and
since I'm learning-by-clicking :)
I often find myself publishing an update to a blogpost as a new post.

So, you're your eyes are ok, my clicking is double :)

CEC Bank Rebrands

As CEC starts rebranding, today's business press turned greenish.

CEC Bank is 144 years old and still having the guts and strength to start a rebranding process set to last until 2010. (I know that the Romanian state is trying to privatize this bank, so a well-done face lift can only help :) )

Liking or disliking the new logo is a subject for designers and other pundits. What I have noted yesterday, was that the process started in a coherent and well orchestrated way:

• press conference
• new website
• Check out the car design for auto-credit
• I wonder why they did not register cecbank.ro or cec-bank.ro...
  
• new TV ad (expect to see a 20 sec cut very shortly :p )
• CEO's tie was branded

The "MacBool" of MacBook Pro's

MacBookPro Prices
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

Playing with "MacBook Pro" online prices.

Thoughts on ... Scarcity

One of the first concepts introduced in economics 101 classes is "scarcity". Now, economists broadly define it as follows: "[...]scarcity is the problem of infinite human needs and wants, in a world of finite resources." (Wikipedia)

However, I'll let maverick economists debate about the various theoretic details about scarcity and write down some brief did-you-know thoughts:

Did you know that...

• Scarcity is a the foundation of Porter's five forces? Think about it: It's scarcity which generates power for each of the 5 elements of this model.
• Scarcity is the key to higher profit margins for buyers, sellers and suppliers
• Scarcity dictates market attractiveness
• Good branding is about perceived scarcity?
  
• Strong brands command premium prices as the perceived scarcity lowers the product's / service price elasticity

I have just finished reading The Undercover Economist (Tim Harford) and, beacuse I was impressed by the compelling arguments this economist makes in his book, I am trying to jot down some ideas about how economics offers some of the greatest insight into branding and strategy. This is the first post of an "Thoughts on..." series.

I'm walking a thin line here, so please bear with me :)