At a meeting earlier today:
Meeting Chair: Have you got those metrics yet?
Metrics Guy: Yes, except for the numbers.
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Author: Joey deVilla
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Stats and Stripes
Notify Edward Tufte! Alert Global Voices! This is too cool!
The Portuguese magazine Grande Reportagem has an
interesting project called Meet the World, which takes countries’ flags
as uses them as area graphs to illustrate statistics about the country
represented by that flag.
For example, in China, the ratio of red
to yellow in its flag is the same as the ratio of its working
14-year-olds to its 14-year-olds in school…
Click the photo to see all the flags in the set.
…the ratio of blue to white in Somalia’s flag is equal to the ratio
of women who have been genitally mutilated to those who haven’t…
Click the photo to see all the flags in the set.
…and the red:white:blue ratio in the United States is equal to the
ratio of those in favour of the war in Iraq to those opposed to those
who haven’t the foggiest where Iraq is (here’s a hint: go to Saudi
Arabia, hang a left).
Click the photo to see all the flags in the set.
Be sure to visit the Meet the World page
and see the whole set of eight flags (Angola, Brazil, Burkina Faso,
China, Columbia, European Union, Somalia, United States) and the explanation behind the project.
While running around picking up items for our mother’s day dinner,
I noticed that many of the ubiquitous Queen Street West posters were
covered with little mini-posters that read “I love you Mom!”:
An “I Love You Mom” mini-poster. Click the photo to see a slideshow of my photos of these mini-posters.
I didn’t get as many pictures of these as I wanted, but I got four good
ones and put them into this photo gallery [click here for a slideshow].
Whoever did this, I salute you with a filet mignon on a flaming sword!
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Mother’s Day Dinner
Yesterday, I helped my brother-in-law Richard prepare a fancy mother’s
day dinner for Mom, my sister Eileen (mother of 2 little boys with a
third on the way) and Dad’s sister Autnie Beth, who has done so much
babysitting for two generations of deVillas that she counts as a mom.
Richard, whom I suspect is a frustrated restaurateur, planned and printed out menus while I played the role of dutiful sous-chef.
Dinner started with scallops on a bed of mâche with three dipping sauces:
- A raspberry sauce, garnished with fresh raspberries
- Balsamic raspberry vinaigrette
- Homemade mango relish (see the recipe below)
I prepared the mango relish and plated the appetizer; Richard
sautéed the scallops. The photo below shows the dishes just before we
put the scallops on top of the mâche:
We then moved to the main course, which consisted of:
- Grilled prime rib
- Risotto ai Quattro Formaggi
- Grilled red bell peppers
- Grilled asparagus
For wine, we had a viognier that Richard picked out. It was really good, and I’ll have to bug him for the name.
For dessert, a tarte (whose name also escapes me) from Richard’s and Eileen’s favourite patisserie and caffes lattes which my nephews Aidan and Nicholas made (with a little assitance from Eileen).
After dessert, I called Wendy’s mom, because she is, as far as I’m concerned, my mom too.
It was an absolutely delicious meal. I’d like to thank Richard for
planning the whole thing and inviting me to join in and to congratulate
Mom, Eileen, Auntie Beth and Wendy’s mom — happy mother’s day, ladies!
Mango Relish Recipe
This recipe is simple, but labour intensive. The ingredients are:
- 3 mangoes, ripe but firm
- 1 large vidalia onion
- ¼ cup white wine vinegar
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Chop the mangoes as finely as you can without their turning into
mush. Chop the onion finely. Blend the chopped mangoes, chopped onion,
vinegar and olive together and let the mixture site in the refigerator
for at least an hour. The longer the relish has time to sit, the better
it tastes.
We served this with sauteed scallops, but it should be equally at home
with any seafood, chicken, pork or if you’re a vegetarian, grilled
eggplant, portobello mushroom or squash. As with any recipe, the better
and fresher your ingredients, the better this will taste. I got French
wine vinegar from a gourmet food shop (Max’s Market on Bloor Street,
just west of Runnymede), the oil was a good brand from Richard and
Eileen’s pantry and the mangoes and onion came from store that
specialized in fruits and vegetables.
Bon appetit!
Click the picture to see the book’s web page.
Dave Thomas — not the founder of the Wendy’s burger chain, but author
of the highly- acclaimed book The Pragmatic Programmer — helps to put out a series of
useful programming books bearing the Pragmatic Programmer mark. One
such book coming out in August is titled My Job Went to India (and all
I Got was This Lousy Book). Here’s a bit of the book’s description from
its site:
HINT: It’s not “their” fault, it’s ours…
The American IT job market is slowly coming apart at the seams, and
it’s all our fault. Most of us have been stumbling around letting our
careers take us where they may, and now we’re surprised when our
companies are shipping our jobs overseas for a fraction of the
price. It’s time to take control of our careers, and in the process,
learn to stay both relevant and employed. This book will show you how
to take action to avoid becoming yet another casualty of offshoring.
There’s a little more detail about this book in my professional blog, The Farm.
Dave notes that some people have written to him claiming that the
book’s title is racist. Dave in turn has set up a forum in the form of
a wiki page where you can comment on the issue and even vote on what he
should do.
My own feeling is that the title is not racist, based on the old maxim “if it bends, it’s comedy. If it breaks, it isn’t.”
What do you think?
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He’s Back!
Wait a minute — there was one thing that I wanted to blog: the return of Michael O’Connor Clarke to blogging. Luckily, Michael’s initials and circumstances lend themselves very well to an AC/DC-inspired “welcome back” graphic:
Michael’s posting entries in his blog again, and he’s also looking for work. He writes:
After four terrific years flacking my brains out as a senior exec. with some of Canada’s foremost public relations companies, I’ve decided to explore options to re-enter the technology sector, where my career began. I’m certainly not averse to agency gigs, of course – the priority is to find the right fit with a creative, growing organization. Right now, it’s all about finding a job where the sanity level exceeds the craziness.
His qualifications:
- Managed 45-person global marketing organization for Canada’s third-largest software company, with total accountability for US$4.5 million budget.
- Grew market share of global software company’s principal product to 42% (by independent estimates), through focused and intensive marketing campaigns.
- Created and grew new Technology Practice for Canadian arm of large international PR agency, generating $1.2 million in new revenue in first year.
- Developed and presented compelling new business pitches resulting in significant key account wins against very strong competition (including winning business with Accenture, eBay.ca, Agilent, MDS Inc., AOL Canada, H&R Block, and others).
- Led the communications plan for one of the largest and most successful technology sector mergers in Canadian history — Hummingbird’s $300 million acquisition of PC DOCS Group.
- Successfully managed the integration of two international marketing organizations into one with minimal disruption to clients, staff and business partners.
- Co-designed and executed long-term PR strategy for Compaq Canada that led to national media coverage increasing by 64 per cent in first 12 months.
- Co-founded successful UK-based software company; negotiated acquisition by Canadian technology firm; relaunched in North America and helped manage through $36 million Initial Public Offering.
He’s smart, funny, knows a helluva lot about both the PR and software fields. He keeps the company of far brighter lights than I, including Suw Charman, AKMA, and Doc Searls.
For more info, see Michael’s blog entry, Gizza Job.
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Your Field Guide to Kryptonite
Everything I want to blog about is accompanied by photos that are still
at home on my camera, so in the meantime, as part of my recent Superman kick,
please enjoy this Kryptonite Handbook (click the picture below to see the whole guide).
