Posts about Communication

A Fiaker carriage in Vienna: as typical of the city as its many coffee houses.

Austria: The science of coffee-brewing in Vienna

9.03.2015

Coffee is not just an invigorating brew but rather a scientific field of expertise worth being explored. Barista Schools popping up the world over bear witness to the cognition that a cup of coffee is not something to be prepared in one’s stride. It is a challenge which has to be given care and devotion at least as deep as is granted to the meticulously performed Asian Tea Ceremony.

Here in Vienna, each type of coffee is honoured with its individual cryptical name. The least one can do for a treasure accidentally left by the Ottomans after their siege of Vienna in 1683. Apart from war and devastation, they had brought along with them a culinary novelty: Viennese citizens discovered a number of bags filled with precious coffee beans in an abandoned Turkish camp after the battle was over. Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, a Polish-Lithuanian nobleman, had taken hold of the bags and opened Vienna’s first coffeehouse in the same year. www.wien.info/en/shopping-wining-dining/coffeehouses/in-the-old-city

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TED Talk. Maz Jobrani: A Saudi, an Indian and an Iranian walk into a Qatari bar …

9.03.2015

How are delicate issues best addressed? By means of a sound sense of humour perhaps? Comedian Maz Jobrani – born in Iran and raised in California – finds exactly the right tonality during his truly entertaining talk delivered in Doha, Qatar. As this video vividly corroborates, he succeeds in hitting exactly the right nerve the right way – judging from the jolly mood the local audience has obviously been transferred into. Maz is a founding member of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour premiered in 2007. Covering the US and Middle Eastern countries, 27 sold out shows in Dubai, Beirut, Cairo, Kuwait and Amman spoke for themselves. “Browner and Friendlier” is his second solo comedy show.

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Flotsam: When life is in a shambles.

TED Talk. Monica Lewinsky: The price of shame

23.02.2015

In her early twenties, she made the mistake of falling in love with her boss almost three decades her senior. When the public got wind of the affair, Monica Lewinsky was hurtled through the epicentre of a merciless international media maelstrom exerted by print, radio and TV and furthermore became one of the first victims of online public shaming. „In 1998, I was Patient Zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously… Public humiliation was excruciating, life became unbearable.“

In her talk, Monica speaks about our „culture of humiliation“. That cyber-bullying leads to cruelty to others, and that online it is amplified and remains accessible forever. „They anonymously stab you with their words. The more shame, the more clicks. The more clicks, the more advertising dollars.“ Other victims have been humiliated to death.

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A black-and-white drawing. T.E. Gordon's "Hunting with Golden Eagles". A creative commons picture.

Eagle Hunting in Western China

8.02.2015

China’s Kazakh minority preserving culture

Chinese Kazakh eagle hunters ride with their eagles during a local competition in January, 2015 in the mountains of Qinghe County, Xinjiang, northwestern China. The festival, organised by the local hunting community, is part of an effort to promote and grow traditional hunting practices for new generations in the mountainous region of western China that borders Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia. The training and handling of the large birds of prey follows a strict set of ancient rules that Kazakh eagle hunters are preserving for future generations. (Photos by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images, introduction: Qinghe, Xinjiang/China)

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A figurehead on an old sailbot looking into the distance. The workforce crisis in 2030.

TED Talk. Rainer Strack: The workforce crisis of 2030…

2.02.2015

… and how to start solving it now

By 2030 – are mere 15 years from now! – many of the world’s major economies will have more job openings on offer than adult citizens to fill them. It is common knowledge that the demographic scales are tipping and will soon be seriously out of balance. In their quest for job seekers ready to subscribe to a work life of international mobility, countries must peer beyond their borders, says Human Resources expert Rainer Strack. His advice for economies and companies alike is to start thinking in terms of a “people strategy“: Forecasting supply & demand, finding ways to attract great talent and to upscale, educate and finally to successfully retain them and their manpower. A chart shows the present wish list of countries given the best marks by possible future expatriates and prospective naturalised citizens.

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