Companies existing because of IT

I've got a few parttime jobs, and one of them is cleaning.
The very young company Homecleaning&Services offers several services to private individuals, for example home cleaning, car washing, baby sitting, painting the house, et cetera.
The company acts as a mediator between the customers and the executors of the services.

This company couldn't have existed without Information Technology. Almost every way of communication goes via the internet. It already starts with the way of advertising and recruiting new employees: via the internet.
I found my job at Homecleaning via Zoekbijbaan.nl, my job interview was at a cafe (not at an office) and was taken by a girl that had this task of taking job interviews as her parttime job. It was a very informal interview and I would have gotten the job even if I had been the greatest idiot in the world. (I just needed money so I was glad I got the job anyhow).

It appeared that I wouldn't become an employee of Homecleaning. In fact, Homecleaning had no employees that execute the services. When I got assigned to a family, I would become their employee.

Currently, I work for a family six hours per week. Every time I clean, I let the families mom sign a little contract which gives me the security of being paid the hours that I've worked. Every day/week/month I can fill in the hours worked at my personal portal at the website.

My portal looks like this:

Data about me:



Data about 'my' family.:







As you can see, my portal gives me several options.
I mostly use the "Urenregistratie" option. Under "Formulieren" you can find information about the acting-out of the services, about bank holidays and about the paying. There you can also find the weekly contract I told you about.

The tab "Intructievideo" is a new one, which I have never clicked on before. I appears to be a very long video clip with a lot of words and of bad quality about how to clean a house. The final two tabs probably speak for themselves ("Contact" and "Log out").

With the "Urenregistratie" tab you can fill in your worked hours:




And at the end of every month, the customers receive their accounts, check them and pay it to the cleaners/car washers/baby sitters et cetera.

Voila, Homecleaning gets profit with only being a mediator.
That's a way of IT making you rich.

Lovemarks

Brands are dead, according to Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saachi & Saachi. Saaci & Saachi is one of the biggest creative companies worldwide.
Roberts figured that there had to be something beyond brands.

Here Kevin Roberts gives a short explanation. You should watch it, Roberts is a funny guy:



So first we had Products, then Trademarks, later Brands and now Lovemarks will take over the marketing world.

But what is a Lovemark?
Have you ever heard anyone say thay they ust LOVE their iPods?
Or that they think their new Mini is so CUTE?
According to Roberts, Lovemarkt are about three concepts:
Mystery, Sensuality and Intimicy.
(source: http://www.lovemarks.com/)

But how come Roberts thinks iMacs are sensual? Why do people want to touch their new Minis?

Companies have to create a relationship with their customers - keeop them loyal to their brands. The key word is Communication.
Digital communication.
Two-way communication.

All big companies nowadays use Twitter, have a Facebook account. They keep their websites up-to-date and provide their customers with constant information.

Just take a look at the Lovemark website (click!):



It says "Community", "Poll", "Join", and "Nominate" everywhere!
It calls, asks customers to engage in the Lovemark hype!

How the product itself becomes a Lovemark?
I have no idea. You'll probably have to ask Apple, Saachi&Saachi, Volkswagen, Converse, Starbucks theirselves!

An ode to Word

Who does NOT use Microsoft Word?

Ah, I thought so: everyone of you uses it!

Well, me too. And although I'm pretty skilled in using Word, the program still gives my head aches now and then.
You guessed right: I've a headache at the moment. I'll tell you why.

I was working on the Midterm Report for Media Use in Organisations. I was almost done: the content of the report was complete. The only thing left was the lay-out. And I'm not satisfied with a lay-out based on accidental Word-tools. I want Word to recognize the structure in my paper. So I work with nummering/headings.
But oh my god, what an effort it takes to get the fancy lay-out I want.

For example: I had already written my text, and now I wanted to place sections under headings: 1., 1.1, 1.1.1, etc.
This, Word cannot handle. It is impossible to do this without getting really frustrated and losing a lot of time. Every time you try to place a section under a heading you sort of have to set Word at ease and reassure the program that you're not doing anything stupid.

Another example:
I had written out my interview questions. I did this structured with lines and dots.
Now I dare you: try to move the questions a little, using the 'ruler' function. Move the questions from:

A


To

B


At once, without getting frustrated.
I did not succeed.

Please tell me if you have troubles with programs like word too! Or if you've got some tips, let me know!

Stumble upon

A friend of mine told me about the website StumbleUpon.
He said it was great for when you're bored and you want to be entertained.

So I'm going to take a look. On the website, you are greeted by:

"Discover cool stuff Personalized to you!"

You are asked to fill in your interests. I will mark the following words (amongst others):

Bizarre/Oddities (I'm a curious person), Books, Clothing, Food/Cooking, Music and Shopping

"Start Stumbling"

(That actually sounds quite hurtful)

I'm a bit confused at this point. I see a website for giving and getting books. I have to sign up. Is this still StumbleUpon?

Ah, now I see, this is BookMoch.com, a website localized by StumbleUpon based on my interests.

Click Stumble to Discover some of the Best Sites on the Web

Click!

This time I get a short clip on Youtube which shows two people making music.

I like it! It is really interesting and surprising!
It sure is entertaining!

Take a look

StumbleUpon

New look!

Hey everyone!

I was bored with the old look of my weblog.
At first I wanted to make it look professional, but I realised it was also a bit boring.

Today, the weather was really nice: It wasn't cold and the sun was shining all day long! This inspired me to design a new look!

Well, design... Not really.
It is not hard to change the colors and I owe acknowledgement to http://iunewind.com/ for his or her pretty wallpaper, which I used for my banner.

Please fill in the poll at the top right on my weblog.
I'm very curious!

Thank you!

Kind regards,

Tessa