DIGITAL
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Blogger interview – Chris, ‘Man with Ideas’
I met Chris recently in London. We seem to have similar views on life and social media possibilities, but Chris is braver than me – he is full of ideas and energy to actually turn them into profitable projects. Currently, he seems to be carefully looking around to find the best industry for himself, which as a student is a great proof of his long term thinking. Great fan of Seth Godin, very open and positive thinker, Chris just started his blog, giving me excuse to interview him;)
Syl: ‘Man with ideas’ is this your brand? What is the origin of this approach?
Chris: Well the idea came when people started asking me what I do, as it’s hard to define myself I wanted to have a universal “branding” and that’s how “The guy with ideas” was created.Syl: You have just started a blog. How do you feel about it? What convinced you to write it?
Chris: I have been meeting a lot of already successful bloggers and read a lot of blogs on various subjects.It’s an interesting and dynamically growing field which in my opinion will have a growing impact on lots of industries as it provides a pure word of mouth reviews and spreads very quickly.Syl: Do you have any other presences online? You are on Twitter, somewhere else?
Chris: I use most of the BIG social media tools like FaceBook, Linkedin, YouTube, FriendFeed, Meetup etc. and each one of them has a different purpose and usage.Syl: How does the blogging change your perspective on social media presence? Does it affect your personal/offline life too?
Chris: I got involved in social media because of the great connections aspect. It still amazes me how many interesting and interactive people join social communities and share information. For me it’s the best way to grow both on and off-line.Syl: I have met you in one of the London social media meet ups. What is your view on offline networking?
Chris: Networking has become a very intangible word. It’s hard to define if networking is effective because it depends on the venue and types of people that get together.
For networking to be truly successful the people who meet and the topic around it should be as close together as possible. In other words, a bunch of random people meeting, talking and exchanging cards is hard to succeed.Syl: What is your experience with social media? I think you have mentioned a project around educational usage of social media?
Chris: Yes, I was involved in a marketing campaign for my university and used social media as one of the tools. It’s a field which I really got involved with about 7 months ago and it completely changes the way I approach online relationships. It shapes the way people communicate nowadays but is still considered unnecessary for business.
In my view, it has great potential for business because when you think about it, business has always been about people getting together and exchanging goods or services.Syl: Do you plan to attend the MediaCamp in December? (one of the main topics is social media and education)
Chris: Yes, I am planning to go there as I have been on the previous one and learned about LinkedIn which helped me tremendously in networking. So I am looking forward to meeting new social media enthusiasts and learning the cutting edge technologies as they evolve so rapidly.Syl: You are Polish, so I guess I should not ask about what associations you have with our homeland, but I would like to ask you about your three words that come to your mind when you think about UK based Poles:)
Chris: Hard-working, motivated and curious.Syl: Do you network with local Poles engaged with social media as well? Would you like to? (it is one of the goals of Bar Mleczny)
Chris: Because I study and temporarily reside in the UK I didn’t get a chance to get engaged with Polish social media. However, it would be an interesting experience to see their side of the technology.Syl: Do you attend Polish events in the UK?
Chris: No, because my reason for coming to the UK was to get to know the British culture while studying, improve my language and engage with other students. I did go to those events back in Poland 🙂Syl: What is your favourite Polish and British dish? Do you cook?
Chris: Yes as a student I have to cook 🙂 Favourite Polish meal: most soups like Barszcz, Zurek, Rosol
Favourite British meal: fish & chips 🙂Syl: If we were to organise a social media event for local Poles would you be up for it?
Chris: Sure, I am always up for meeting interesting people and it does not matter where they come from. -
Blogger interview – Andy, Look In Wonderment
Tt’s been a while since I posted an interview, but I have been actually working on one – just this time I gave Andrew, the author of this blog, time to answer each question separately – so this one is a result of two weeks’s worth e-mail correspondence. Enjoy!
Syl: Hi Andy, thank you for agreeing to take part in the interview! Here’s the first one? When did you start blogging and why?
Andy: I started blogging in September, which marks a year from when I stopped doing science for a living. Now as I can take myself back and enjoy the best bits. I wanted to think about how world-changing discoveries are presented and what people think when re-hashing them on the internet. Maybe later I will look at what the people who design and organise the internet can learn from the way scientists use information.As for self-promotion, for now, I will try my best not to keep my blog light-hearted, avoid inflicting it on the uninterested and talk about other things when not blogging. Maybe one day I will change the world, or at least ruffle the feathers of some of those black hole makers and Frankenstein farmers.
Syl: That sounds very ambitious and I believe you can change the world! Tell me, did blogging change your life or affect it in any way so far?
Andy: I think blogging has helped me be a bit more expressive and articulate. When I’m writing a blog post I feel a real pressure to get the point across simply and in as few words as possible. The biggest plus is having something constructive to do when on the computer at home. Now I see that there are plenty of hours in the day, I just have to fight laziness. This has helped me tidy my life up and keep up with my sporting and voluntary activities.
Apart from that, no big changes, blogging’s quite one-dimensional for me at the moment. I will spawn further presences and meet people online at some point but I want to hit the sites with a bang rather than a sporadic whimper. For me this requires real-life motivating factors until these occur I won’t try to be something I’m not.
Syl: Hey, join me on Twitter then;) Seriously, do you think you will move to a different level with blogging, do you consider doing it more seriously, learning new tools or blogging for business in the future?
Andy: My attitude to tools is sometimes a bit like Michelle Greer’s, that is, I want to see them applied to real-world situations before discussing them at length. I think some of the meet-ups you and Lolly have been talking about recently sound really interesting as opportunities to do just that.
see here.I have thought about business blogging as it could be a great way to collate consultancy ideas and gain contacts. So the next question is what would my personal brand be about? My best guess at the moment is:
Managing knowledge better in business, science, and the voluntary sector.
But then how I would present that in a lively, colourful, engaging and concise form whilst “getting my butt off my computer” as Michelle puts it? I guess I could use some of the great community-built graphics programmes available on my Ubuntu desktop. As far as blogging on the move goes, I am still quite attached to my landline (I enjoy people thinking that it’s their mum when I phone them) and not prepared to spend more than about ÂŁ10 a month on my mobile, but maybe I could stretch to a linux tablet now wifi is getting more widespread.
As for Twitter, @strets123 signed up a few weeks back but needs to think of something suitably profound, insane or insightful for a first tweet. I’m also hosting a few bits on Flickr, play on last.fm and would like to try Linkedin.
Syl: Do you think about those presences as additional to your blog? Or you just like trying them out?
Andy: Part of me joined twitter because it would be a good way to get to know other people interested in blogs. I also like the low effort involved and a hickledy pickledy mixture of posts you get to read. Additionally, I think wiki tools like the cool thing you added to your blog recently could prove very useful.
Time will tell whether I will commit myself fully to other sites. It’s certain that some are more equal, than others, I guess I’m hoping for the market to become more mature and the way of using each site to involve fewer steps. Just like my favourite gadget, my DAB radio.Syl: Did blogging change your life so far?
Andy: Yes! – it’s been great having a window on the lives of my colleagues and fun interacting with you and others on different subjects. On the other hand, I want to stay in touch with my grumpy old man side, having reviewed “Blind Faith” I will have to take a look at Will Self’s “Book of Dave” next.
Syl: 🙂 I will need to shift the questions to cooking now (due to the fact I usually publish a part of the interview on Bar Mleczny) Do you know anything about Polish cuisine?
Andy: Not a lot, I think I’ve eaten quite a lot of great pickled gherkins from Poland over the years. As for barmleczny I love milk and the idea of a milk bar intrigues me… The milk marketing people here in Britain are often trying to rebrand it and sell it as a soft drink. Take a trip to an ageing ice rink or swimming baths and you might see nice simple milkshakes available without thickeners. The AMT milk steamers at stations are good too. There could definitely be a niche in the market to exploit.
Syl: Great, Andy, thanks for that feedback!:) So, if I say ‘Polish’ what are the first three things that come to your mind?
Andy: My Polish bridge friends and their ‘Polish Club’ bridge convention
The once growing, now possibly diminishing Polish community in Britain and the various opinions about it.
Word with lots of zs in themSyl: Zs, and sh, and csh:) And how about you, are you cooking at home?
Andy: Zs, and sh, and csh:) And how about you, are you cooking at home? Cooking has been a big part of my life for most of it. My late, great mum had me in the kitchen as soon as I could walk. We would make jam tarts, scones and nig-nogs (a name for brown oatmeal biscuits from our 1950s cookbook, unrestrained by the era of political correctness). I guess my mum taught me to just get on with it and not fear failure. This means I can often salvage an edible meal when others have given up hope.Either my girlfriend or I cook almost always, tonight it was a casserole with pork and home-produced cider.
Syl: Ah, you just made me hungry:) If we were to do a small Polish food party would you like to join us?:)
Andy: Sound’s fun, I’m in!
Syl: Thank you, Andy!:)
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SMC London Meetup – social media events
The Meetup on Thursday was brilliant – exactly what I needed: to sit down after quite a stretching day of business ethics training and relax with interesting people. I am glad I managed to have coffee with Chris before that so we could both meet rest of you guys! The place was packed but our little, quiet corner was just perfect for networking and chat. I shared my dilemmas on podcasting with podcast specialist, Janet Parkinson, and thanks to her encouragement I am digging the topic:) Fiona Cullinam, Billy Abbot, Anthony proved to be really cool people with great ideas! And every one else I talked too, of course!:) I had a sec to talk to Matt, the organiser, about the idea to keep it up as a monthly meetup (next up scheduled for the 20th of Nov) and I hope to be able to attend most of the meetups. It’s fun!:)
More info here.
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Yahoo, Microsoft and Google to adopt code of ethics
Yahoo news wrote about it, others did too, so I guess it’s not news for you, my dear readers, still I find it fascinating that those three big names are associated with work on a unified code of ethics to promote freedom of speech!
“We seem to be getting more grey areas in terms freedom of expression versus censorship, legal versus illegal and border versus non-border” (Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang)
Apart from the obvious need for a unified code of ethics for the web users in general, we see people like Yang addressing the issue of freedom of speech in talks to US government, as well as in relation to problems in China.
I am glad to see this initiative exactly when Amnesty is promoting celebrations around the 60th anniversary of Declaration of Human Rights.
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Blogger interview – Monik, 13, Etiole.com
If you remember my interview with Kid Tech Guru and read my comments to it, you will know who Monik Pamecha is. He is 13, lives in Mumbai, studies and runs Etiole.com technology blog. Here’s the interview.
Hi Monik, thank you for letting me know you would be interested in this interview. Here are the questions:
Syl: The logo of your blog ‘Live the dream’; what does it mean to you? What does stand for?
Monik: Actually living the dream represents my blog Etiole which states to you that to do what ever you ever wanted to do, like I wanted to blog so did it and if you want to do something go ahead and complete it!
Syl: You have mentioned monthly 20k traffic to your blog. How do you do that?
Monik: When I started it was like, quite boring but then as slowly readers started getting attracted to my blog I got even more interested in it. I used many tricks to get into “The first Result Page of Google” like some basic URL tips, by including some of the keywords in the post URL, I will not go into the detail! :), and other traffic bringing widgets like Blogrush, entrecard and so on.. I tried link exchanges and also would like to thank some of my friends who linked to me too, which helped me to get better PageRank (Google’s way of marking websites). And finally used Google analytics to find out what actually my visitors wanted, by finding out keywords which my visitors like and so I concentrated more on those keywords. I posted some of those tips on my blog too so that my visitors would be aware of it.
Syl: I have seen your mission statement on Facebook: ‘We want to have a record breaking traffic – 6,000,000 page views per week!’ What tools and promotion do you use to achieve that?
Monik: I mentioned it in the earlier questions that I use tools like Blogrush, Entrecard, Adwords keyword finder tool (to find which keywords have more density in the search engine), and also some Good, new and fresh content. I also love to listen to reader comments and reply to them is also a must, as to make up a reader-author relationship between me and the reader. I also did not want to put up ads on my blog (which helped to increase readers and search engine attention) but to run the blog I had to pay for the domain so I started putting ads. Using Feedburner is a very nice idea as you can reach your readers via various other ways.
Syl: Apart from your blog and Facebook, do you have other presences online?
Monik: I First Started on WordPress but then shifted to blogger ( I know it’s weird ). I love twitter too but got no followers as I joined it recently. I am on technorati too. I am not interested in social networking actually, but just to keep up with friends I am on Facebook.
Syl: You have mentioned you are 13. It’s exact lower border age for most social media sites and tools. For instance, Twitter does not allow people younger than 13 to sign up for the service. Would you be upset about it let’s say a year ago?
Monik: No, this is an age limit set-up by them for our safety so we should actually follow it but when anyone at a young age would he be able to understand the reason, obviously no. But then what is the problem even if you fake your age in your account? It’s safe and you can use the service too.
Syl: Do you think 13 years is a reasonable age to begin blogging and other social media presences?
Monik: I can’t answer this question, it depends from person to person, just like my brother says we shall not start blogging and social networking before we are 16 but I don’t think so. If you want to do something nothing can stop you, nor your brother and not your age.
Syl: How and when did you start blogging?
Monik: I started blogging a year ago or maybe before than that. Like you too, I first blogged on WordPress, then I shifted Xanga, then to Weebly, then back to WordPress and then finally to blogger, you see it’s a long journey. Blogging in India when a started blogging was like, What is a blog? , but I saw this man, Amit Agarwal who runs a blog called Labnol, who dared to leave his job a become a professional blogger and I saw his video where he told people how he earned from Adsense, my main aim from there was to setup a blog which would have much more traffic he would have and also have Adsense earnings in 6 digits, but unfortunately I got disqualified from Adsense but I just blogged and blogged.
Syl: What do you want to achieve with it (apart from impressive readership)?
Monik: I want to achieve some fame. I also want to get some attention and want to start a bloggers community, I already Started A blogging platform and Blog Showcase for it. I started some other services like Forums, Search Engine (powered by Google API), social networking website (powered by Ning) so that readers can enjoy many other things too and I want to give these services attention too.
Syl: I usually post a part of my interview on Bar Mleczny, my other place online (promoting Polish culture). If I say Polish, what comes to your mind?
Monik: Since I am Indian I really not aware of Polish Culture but would love to know more about it!
Syl: Do you like to cook? What is your favourite meal? 🙂
Monik: I occasionally cook, I can’t cook more or my mom will assign me a job as her chef! I love eating Pav-Bhaji , I think so everyone in the world shall not die before having tasted it. I know many people won’t be aware of it so if you want to know more just google it and look at the images, your mouth will start watering!
Syl: You are obviously interested in technology. Do you have other hobbies?
Monik: I am interested in sports too. I love playing soccer and badminton too. I love public speaking too so I try spreading awareness on the environmental issues.
Syl: What is your message to other younger bloggers?
Monik: It is not of much concern what your age is, go for whatever you like, not only blogging, may it be your love for soccer or for anything just go ahead and do it. Don’t worry about traffic, concentrate on your content because if that is good traffic will already be there reading it!
Syl: Thank you!
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MediaCampLondon – 13 December 2008
Media Camp London is happening again! If you are interested in workshops about different aspects of social media and are OK to spear a Saturday in December to do so, see below:
This time the themes are:
1. Games / web development / animation
2. Social Media / Communication / PR / Advertising / Business
3. Educational Technology/teachers /If you want to attend add your name here.
Trust me, it’s worth it:) Hope to see you there!
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Oxford Geek Night 9
OK, here it is. I am really happy that I decided to go to the Oxford Geek Night yesterday. First of all the place: Jericho Tavern has a great history. That is the place where bands like Radiohead started their stage career. Jericho is a nice area of Oxford and I was lucky to meet few kind people before the event, who live there – they gave me encouraging ideas about it, so I might consider moving there in January.
Secondly – people: very friendly, very open minded, networking orientated crowd. All you need to do is just step in:) I like this type of atmosphere, simply because I am new to the city. I am happy I met Tom Dyson from Torchbox (sponsoring the event, next to Google, and Moo), who was kind enough to answer few questions and help me out with asking more (yes, I did ask questions, as usual :P). I am also happy I managed to meet @peejaybee. Pity I didn’t get hold of @ihatemornings or @benwerd, but hope to do so next time.
The first presentation delivered by Jeremy Ruston on TiddlyWiki impressed me entirely. The second one was closer to my heart – since I am interested in modern literature. Adrain Hon described his project We Tell Stories and even though the website is quite self-explanatory, it’s great to see how the campaign was planned, completed and perceived. (I do not agree with Stumble Upon generated traffic to be called organic, but it’s just me being picky – I am actually happy the project was so successful and I hope there will be more to come!).
I couldn’t stay to hear all the short presentations, and pity because when I talked to Martin Chapman, he was quite convinced and excited about their idea of Price Wars. Anyway, it was good to be there, and I will definitely join the Geek Nights from now on. I strongly advise anyone interested in those topics to come along, it’s worth it. More info, and hopefully soon some pix, here.
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Blogger interview – Julius Solaris, Event Manager
I met Julius via Twitter and Lolly, almost at the same time. Our common passion, coffee, proved to be so crucial that Julius suggested #coffeetalk on Twitter. I also met him personally on Monday and did a short interview. Before you read it, check his Eventmanager blog (brilliant check-list for event organisers), LinkedIn meet-up, very impressive LinkedIn profile (7500+!) and Twitter.
Syl: You have a strong presence on-line. When did you start blogging and why?
Julius: I started in 2004 for fun but took it seriously at the beginning of 2007 with www.eventmanagerblog.com I always had a passion for events and my interest in social media was skyrocketing after I studied online marketing. I felt the need to share my opinion with like minded individuals. I like arguing and I have a strong opinion on how business should be made. Blogs are amazing media and the user generated component make them powerful enough to keep me hooked up.
Syl: When did you start getting involved in events organising and how did this involvement evolve into social media event organising?
Julius: I started organizing club/disco nights when I was 16. I always had a passion for events and the feeling of getting in touch with people you like. When I got a better grasp of how events such as conferences, meetings and congresses are run, I started to develop my own opinion. I am against control and breastfeeding customers or attendees. Social Networks gave me the chance to experience new forms of aggregation such as Meetups or BarCamps.
Syl: I saw your tweet today saying that London Meet-up reached 200 members – congratulations. What audience are you aiming with those events? Can other bloggers attend?
Julius: Linked in London is a Meetup for those who have a profile in professional networks such as Linkedin or Xing. The aim of the meet up is to bring your network live. We welcome people for a number of different industries and we also do themed nights. Next one is for event planners. We’ll soon have a speed networking session and social networks specific nights.
Syl: It must be great to see your ideas kicking off. What is your next one?:)
Julius: Next one is ecoCampLondon , ecoCamp is a BarCamp about the environment and sustainability. I co-organize that with Carmen from Green is not a colour. We organized it already in Italy and it was a great success. We are planning to replicate here in London. We’ll be hosted by UnLtd, a great organization who support social entrepreneurship projects.
Syl: You have proposed #coffeetalk hashtag on Twitter for all coffee lovers. You have also mentioned an event happening on the 1st of November in London. Are you the organiser? Tell me more about it?
Julius: No, I am not the organizer, but I will be a very active participant. I discovered the group on Meetup.com and I am looking forward to the next one. Being Italian, my espresso comes first and I need to express that socially!
Syl: Apart from your blog, meet-up presence and Twitter are you active somewhere else online?
Julius: I am a strong user of Linkedin. I have more than 7500 direct connections there plus more than 3700 people in my Event Planning and Management Group. I recently discovered Xing and I am becoming a great fan of it! Obviously I am on Facebook and also on A Small World, a very secluded one. I use also delicious which is great for bookmarking.
Syl: What is the role of your online presence in your life? Do they affect each other?
Julius: I try to keep my personal life out of the online world. Online is my work, hobbies, passions and interests.
Syl: Talking about drinks and food – I am usually posting part of the interview on my Polish Bar Mleczny initiative and I would like to do it now if you agree, so I will have a few questions related to your expat life in the UK, ok? Do you cook? If so, is it Italian or rather local food?
Julius: I cook Italian food obviously. But Italian is not my favourite to eat. I am a fan of Thai, Greek and Japanese. In the above order.
Syl: Do you know any Polish dishes or drinks?
Julius: I am very ignorant about Polish food but definitely interested in knowing more. I enjoy polish beer though.
Syl: Would you be up for a social media event based around cooking Polish food, let’s say in Oxford?:)
Julius: Sure!
Syl: Just going back to events – do you organise events focussed on Italian culture, expat life in the UK or for Italians living here?
Julius: Not yet, although I definitely have Italian coffee/wine event in mind. Oops I already disclosed too much information.
Syl: And the last one: what are your plans for the next 6 months?
Julius: I learned not to make long term plans, so we’ll see what happens
Syl: Thank you!
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Ethics of social media anonymity – why are we so open and is it good or bad?
‘I think it important to set out that bloggers have no inherent right to anonymity. When I start publishing my thoughts online, it’s too easy for an intelligent reader to figure out who I am, and that facility in and of itself reduces my expectation of continued anonymity. That is, from a practical standpoint, I cannot expect my anonymity to be long-lived, and therefore I should not value it too highly.’
Do you agree? I just came across an extremely interesting post by PalDM, on ScienceBlogs. (Post I am referring to is a part of a larger discussion, more can be found here and here.)
I completely agree with its content. Writing a post on a blog is a huge responsibility, just as any other act of social media presence, simply because the engagement with broad audience needs to be transparent, factual and..well..make sense, right?:) Why is it then that we still have a number of anonymous bloggers who upload their content following the same rules? Is it a question of our everyday life, or is it a question of our personality?
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Blogger interview – Xavier Lur, Kid Tech Guru
Let me introduce you Kid Tech Guru, Xavier, a 14-year-old blogger from Singapore, passionate about technology. In his words ‘Currently, I’m only a 14-year-old student who loves blogging and is keen to share his tech knowledge with you all guys via this blog. Running up this tech blog is just a part of his interest and a place for me to kill time.’
Here is the interview:
Syl: Hi Xavier, first of all, thank you for agreeing to respond to few questions! When did you start blogging? Why?
Xavier: Since July 2008, I have been blogging at KidTechGuru, with great thanks to Mr Alvin Phang of GatherSuccess.com. One day, when I was reading the newspaper, something eye-catching caught my attention. It was the problogger – Mr Alvin giving a complimentary workshop on how he makes money online. I was inspired by his talk and from then on, I started to set up my blog, but with zero blogging experience!Syl: I will start with a serious question bothering me a lot since I started to work in business ethics – we usually see that social media sites set up the lower age limit for 13. Do you agree with those policies?
Xavier: In my own view, I don’t really agree with that as I feel that everyone be it age 10 or even age 80 can participate in social media sites. As what the authors of ‘Wikinomics’ – Don Tapscott and Anthony D.Williams says, “mass collaboration is important as it changes everything in today’s Web 2.0”. Therefore, I think that we should get the kids involve in these social media sites as this will create some interaction between the children and the adults in the online world. However, some strict rules must be implemented.Syl: I will be honest with you – when I saw your Twitter profile and checked your site (which is how I learned about it) I was very impressed to see that you are 14 years old and so successful. Do people very often ask you how come you started writing your blog?
Xavier: Oh yes, sometimes loyal readers who are curious drops me an email and ask me how and why I created this tech blog. Most of the people who read my blog are impressed by blogging feat and love what I write about technology (although a minority says that I’m faking my age as a marketing bait for my blog).Syl: I see that in your about section you receive not only great feedback but also very creative advice. Do you find it useful?
Xavier: Feedbacks and advice from readers are greatly important and useful as you need them on how to improve your blog. For example, when one is a salesman, he needs feedbacks from customers about his attitude, how good is the product, what can be improved, etc.Syl: Apart from your blog and Twitter so you have other online presences? Which one of those is a primary place for you?
Xavier: Besides writing articles about web tools and stuff in my blog and my active presence on Twitter, I do spend quite a huge fraction of my time in the net on Entrecard. For those who don’t know what Entrecard is, it is a site which enables users to drop and advertise cards on other sites with a so-called blogging currency – “Entrecard Credits”. I find this web service quite interesting as it gives me the opportunity to drop by on cool sites and read their posts. (Let me tell you something which you might not know – the person who created Blogger known as Evan Williams, sold it to Google and founded the microblogging platform – Twitter.)Syl: Does your blogging affect your private life and/or vice versa?
Xavier: Of course it doesn’t! I just treat blogging as my hobby.Syl: You have posted the n Twitter link to the most successful, young entrepreneurs. Are you interested in earning money from blogging?
Xavier: I’m interested in making money from blogging by just selling some ad spaces but not into affiliate marketing. My main objective of this blog is to share my tech knowledge with people around the world and hope they benefit from it. As simple as that!Syl: Your approach toward blogging is very professional, judging on your content. Do you plan to take in to the next level and work in blogging related industry?
Xavier: As I’ve said above, I take blogging as my pastime. Hence, I may not consider taking it to the next level and work in the blogging industry. When I grow up, my main source of income will not come from blogging. My goal is to become a financial investor as I love how the way stocks behave (not the money! lol).Syl: You mention sports as your additional hobby. Is there something else?
Xavier: Besides sports like soccer and badminton, I’m interested in F1 racing, fascinated by how fast those F1 drivers – Massa of Ferrari speeds on the track! Zoom…!!! Hope I can watch it live and not on TV!Syl: I am usually posting a part of my interview on my secondary, Polish blog committed to promoting Polish culture in the UK (http://barmleczny.blogspot.com/ ) , and if you agree, I would like to post it there too. Hence my question: what do you associate Poland/Poles with?
Xavier: When you ask this question, the first thing that came up in my mind is that Poland is a leading producer of food in Europe (if I’m not wrong). By the way, you have a nice blog!Syl: My Polish blog is mainly about culture and cuisine. Do you like cooking? What is your favourite dish and drink?
Xavier: I’m greatly excited when you talk about cooking. Although I’m not a great chef, I enjoy cooking meals for my family once every month. Usually, I would cook stuff like bolognese spaghetti and Chinese cuisine. My mum is a housewife but I can proudly say that she is a great baker. She loves to bake delicious cheesecakes and chocolate cookies. My favourite food is Passionfruit Cheesecake especially made by my mum and my favourite drink got to be Iced Lemon Tea. I dislike drinks that contain soda.Syl: I don’t want to keep you long. Thank you very much for your answers. Is there anything else you would like to say to my UK, Polish and international readers?
Xavier: If you a kid or teenager like me, try to enhance either your talent or what you’re good at doing. It would be great to start young when your brains are working fast and intelligently. But if you’re an adult, you can either brush up your skills or do things which make you happy and lead a meaningful lifestyle.
