Longform

“Europeans work about an hour less a day than Americans”

Americans continue to clock in far more hours than their European counterparts. Europeans worked 19% fewer hours than US citizens, which correlates to about an hour less each weekday, a new working paper shows.

If you look through the post, you’ll notice that France has the second lowest number of hours worked per week, just before Italy, with about 19.3 hours.

I’m not exactly sure where this comes from, and how it measures against the actual 35 hours work week we have here. However, it does correlate with the ongoing idea that the French are very productive, being able to “do the work” in less time than others.

Obviously, this is an average, not reflective of everyone in the French population. And just like any country-wide census, YMMV —Your Mileage May Vary.

Just… keep in mind that I might be biased on that one!

 

[via Quartz]

Incoming Transmission #3

I found an interesting article yesterday: “Is Your Podcast Being Held Hostage By iTunes?

 iTunes is notoriously finicky, and its team tends to take a Honey Badger approach to the concerns of indie podcast creators.

You can file this under “OH HAI, This actually happened to me.

See, for about a month and a half, my podcast was essentially in iTunes limbo, which dropped my monthly listenership by about 60%. Sixty Percent!

In that time, I had numerous conversations with the support team who confirmed that they had fixed it, or forced the refresh, but each interaction took, at the very least 3 days between a message or action, and the actual refresh or result being in effect.

In a way I’m incredibly grateful not to be financially reliant on iTunes, because I would have lost half of my income from this revenue source otherwise.

Also thankful to have a good listenership over other sources (such as Mixcloud, Soundcloud, and most of all the dedicated microsite.)

artwork

I think this is important for a number of reasons —

  1. First of all, you can't be reliant on a single platform. Just like anything in business, you can't put all your eggs in one basket and need to diversify. In my case, that means uploading to the services I've mentioned earlier, as well as here on my own blog.
  2. In a similar vein, I truly believe that owning your content & distribution channel is very important. It's great to have access to a bigger audience on a specific website, but you are limited by the platform as well as the terms & conditions. On your own website, you can do whatever you want.
  3. At this point in time, I'm trying to reach as many people as possible, so being easily findable on different sites, including my own, is a great way to see how different people and communities react.

“Hate speech on Twitter reportedly steered Disney away from buying the company”

The trolls who take a toll on their fellow Twitter users with alarming regularity have finally taken a toll on Twitter itself. Bloomberg reports that the Walt Disney Co. ditched a potential acquisition of the social-media platform, in part because it did not want the family-friendly Disney brand to be associated with the hate speech…

On a hopeful note: maybe this will get Twitter to look into it much more. Also worth noting that this would be the perfect time to let Twitter users buy the company!


[via The hate speech on Twitter reportedly steered Disney away from buying the company — Quartz]

U.S. journalist faces charges for covering a protest ↦

“Here’s a story about a prosecutor in North Dakota charging a journalist with ‘participating in a riot’ because he was unhappy with her coverage of that event.

An infamous quote from George Orwell comes to mind:  “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”

[Source]

Incoming Transmission #2

This post marks an attempt to publish more personal & regular articles. I’ve actually written this part yesterday, but thought I’d split my post in two smaller and more manageable bits.

…Continued from Part 1

Throughout the day, I try to switch off of my client work to catch up on interesting newsletters, and other bit of news.

1

You can also find me hanging out on my Twitter or Facebook feeds sporadically. Interestingly I’ve ditched Snapchat and catch up on Instagram and its stories because I also use the app for my client work. Posting on several accounts, I also take a minute to see what my friends have posted recently.

Around 3-4pm, until 5-6pm, I get to see and hang out with the girlfriend, as she comes home for her break from work (she works in a restaurant). Usually, she comes home and naps, and later I walk her to the restaurant and we stop for a coffee and sweet treat on the way. It’s a good way for us to spend some time together throughout our work days, but also for me to head out and take a breather from work.

It also serves two more purposes:

I usually stop working around 7pm, when a French TV show called Quotidien comes on the air. It’s a mixture of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — two of my favourite daily talk shows in the US. Essentially, they take a critical look at the day’s news, focus on one important topic in the first half, and then take a more relaxed approach to subjects of concern.

With the French Presidential election coming on next year, you can be sure that politicians are heavily featured in the spotlight these days.


To be continued tomorrow when I’ll be talking about a totally different subject…


  1. Here’s something else that I need to write about: newsletters I subscribe to, podcasts I listen to, music platforms I use (and their different purposes.) 
  2. Another post I need to write. 

Once More With Feelings, GoPro Edition

Having recently purchased a GoPro to help me with my Vlogs, I was waiting to use the exciting new Quik Desktop, the laptop-friendly version of a french-made iOS app to help streamline the entire editing process.

Turns out it was already available, but needed to be found on the support pages of the GoPro website. (It wasn’t on the main page when I looked 10 days ago.)

image%2fpng

Long story short, I’ve finally found, downloaded, and installed it, and I’m excited to give it a try!

 

[]

#FML: I could have met Jack Bauer today!

TL;DR: I could have met Jack Bauer today.

So… I live in Cannes, on the beautiful French Riviera.

It’s actually the biggest city in France for B2B business deals.

They have these glorious international conventions all year long.

This week, it’s MIPCOM 2016, dedicated to content & entertainment (including content creators, movie & TV studios, etc.)

One of the talks today was with Kiefer Sutherland, in the Grand Auditorium of the Palais des Festivals (where the Cannes Film Festival happens.)

[youtube=youtu.be/hWWw2K91R…]

Today I Learnt: I could have met Jack Bauer (aka Kiefer Sutherland) in town today.

 

Incoming Transmission #1

This post marks an attempt to publish more personal & regular articles. Let’s see if I manage to write more frequently.

It’s Monday here. Just like any other time during the week, I woke up, and started my day with coffee and catching up on a TV show. Most Mondays, it’s a broadcast of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, from the night before.

[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch

After this start, I usually walk up the stairs in this lovely duplex apartment, to take a shower, which usually gives me time to listen to some music and clear my thoughts for the day.

Then, it’s finally time to get to work. While I catch up on emails and other planning & notifications, I tend to listen to Monocle’s The Globalist 

1, to catch up on global news, away from a crazy 24h news cycle.

At the moment, I’m actually quite worried about the humanitarian crisis in Syria, but also about the prospect of the upcoming Second Cold War - which sounds like something out of a Marvel comic book but is actually a real prospect. And these two issues are actually tied together.

2

[mixcloud www.mixcloud.com/the-globa… width=100% height=120 hide_cover=1 light=1]

 

This week, I’ll be taking some of my client work in a different direction, and I’m excited to test new things to get better results on their behalf.

It’s always interesting to start with business goals and then look at what you can achieve at the current point in time, given the things that you can do, and the stuff that needs to be put on the side until you get the right assets and moving parts.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of this post.

 


  1.  Someone remind me to write a blog post about Monocle some time in the future! 
  2.  If you’re unfamiliar with it, please read up on this via The Guardian, which I consider a reliable source of information. 

Print’s not dead – it’s regenerating — One Man & His Blog

It’s rare that I pick up a printed book or newspaper these days. But I’m buying more magazines than I ever have – they’re just better and more expensive.

There’s nothing else I need to add here — My own experience closely ressembles' Adam’s. And to go one layer deeper[^1], Offscreen Magazine, the one used in Adam’s first photo here, is actually the magazine that kickstarted my obsession for indie magazines, back in 2012.[^2]

[via Print’s not dead – it’s regenerating — One Man & His Blog]


[^1] Inception - “We need to go deeper” meme

[^2] Note to self: Write a post about my favourite indie magazines.

TibzLetter - Ready for Halloween 2016?

Every couple of weeks, I share personal updates to my subscribers over email. Here’s the latest issue of my “TibzLetter”.


Hey everyone!

It’s been about 3 weeks since my last newsletter. How’s it going?

Before we begin, here’s some relaxing music for you to listen to, while you’re reading this:

[mixcloud www.mixcloud.com/tibz/tibz… width=100% height=60 hide_cover=1 mini=1 light=1 autoplay=1]

 

It is Friday, October 14th at the time of writing. A lot has been happening, outside of work, and I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.

On today’s TibzLetter:

Work

But let’s talk about work first: until my Parisian trip (November 2nd-10th — see you there?), I’m trying to focus on doing a lot of work and billing my clients accordingly, so that I can take it easy (easier?) by the time we get to the end of the year…

Some days are a bit hectic, I have to say, balancing some time between two clients on tasks & projects that both have certain level of urgency. But some other days, like today, are a bit quieter and allow me to breathe in a little.

Life on the French Riviera

The weather has been really nice here, up until October 2nd. I managed to beat my self-imposed challenge of wearing shorts every day of the month of September.

Since then, it’s been a bit grey-er and a bit cold-er. And as I type these lines, we’ve just had about 36 hours of straight up rain and storm. It’s nice though: I swapped continuous small bits of rain 3 times a week for a much warmer, nicer weather where, in turns, you get 2-3 days of intense rainstorm.

Preparing a trip to Paris

I’ll be in Paris next month. (Or did I mention that already?) Well, I’ve already got a few activities planned out, amongst which one exhibition and two concerts:

Which leads me to…

Halloween

Halloween is in about 2 weeks, and I’ll be travelling to see my family and relatives when it happens, so I decided to start early this year: this means finally watching these classic late 1970’s to early 1990’s horror movies from the Master himself.

On my watchlist so far, I’ve got:

And as a non-Carpenter-related bonus:

If you have any other suggestions, I’d be happy to hear it: leave me a comment below!


That’s is for me this week. I had a lot to talk about, but I’ve saved some for next week!

Take care all of you, and have a great weekend!



 

—Tibz

[Coming Soon] Back in Paris

Hey everyone,

Just taking a quick moment on this beautiful monday morning to let you know that I'll be in Paris between November 2-10th. And I'd love to meet up with readers of the blog, as well as friends and just about anyone else, hence this announcement.

My plan during the week is to work, go out, have fun, attend a concert or two, and make the most of what the city has to offer. So hit me up, ahead of time and let's get together!

In between other things, I'd like to check out:

For the rest, we'll see once we get there, won't we?

🌶🔥🍶

Just gonna leave this here for Friday…

“How Sriracha is Made” — aka how the rooster sauce goes from chili plant to finished product

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch

…and another one, because I’m posting this on my lunch break:

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch

Vlog 13: 2 days and a sweet treat...

 

youtube.com/watch

As the fall settles in, here’s a short vlog, summing up two days, working and going out.

Do you guys prefer shorter vlogs like this one?

Vlog 011-012: The GoPro Edition

With upcoming projects and travels coming soon, I’ve decided to invest in slightly better gear for my nomadic aspiration. TL;DR: I’ve bought the new GoPro Hero 5 Black to help me record memories on the go, without the need to always have my bulky (bulkier) camera with me in my bag.

Here’s a quick comparison and test between the GoPro and the Sony Nex-5N I’ve been using until now…

youtu.be/VgU-tSbxA…

 

And now for the real test:

www.youtube.com/watch

What do you think? Me? I’m pretty stoked about this!

Music Love & Beats | Vol 2: “Letting Go”

I had some feelings. So I took the time to publish a mix about it.

[mixcloud www.mixcloud.com/tibz/love… width=100% height=400 light=1]

Tracklist:

Vlog 010 - The End of the Summer

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch

It took me a while to get this one out, and I’m still thinking about ways to improve the recording, editing, and publishing process — finding a faster/simpler workflow.

Anyways, please enjoy “the end of the summer” !

It took me a while to get this one out, and I’m still thinking about ways to improve the recording, editing, and publishing process — finding a faster/simpler workflow.

Anyways, please enjoy “the end of the summer” !

Vlog 009 - Hiking, and a Short Summer Trip to Paris

Summer on the French Riviera, Hiking, and a short trip to Paris…

youtu.be/Hf8K3HBfD…

 

Vlog 008 - Living Well's The Best Revenge

I finally took the time to publish a new Vlog!

youtu.be/w8TZENdv5…

After the attack in Nice, it’s been really good to enjoy live, go out, and spend some quality time with friends! Thanks to all those wonderful friends that have been around during this period!

Vlog 007: The Mountains in the Summer

Family Weekend Getaway in the Mountains

youtu.be/_Z49bMpov…

Vlog 006: Summer Street Food Festival

This weekend summed up in 4 words: Friends, Festival, Food, Football!

youtu.be/yHDDPUMyF…

More videos and adventures on my Youtube Channel

Vlog 005: A visit to the Exotic Gardens of Eze

We went to Eze this past sunday. It’s a charming medieval village on the French Riviera. Its unique Exotic Gardens sit on top of the Mediterranean Sea.

youtu.be/Zu7C98cEC…

Vlog 004: Brexit Explained

My personal take on the big Brexit decision… I was heartbroken that day!

youtu.be/96kNJLHtn…

Vlog 003: Summer Life on the French Riviera

Concerts, Friends, Work, Life and more!

youtu.be/a880C4D4p…

Reflecting on my first year as a Freelancer

This past year has been a wild ride, to say the least. In May last year, I finished working for Realmac and started working as a contractor for a low-key B2B SaaS company.

Officially, I’m working like an employee, working the whole week on behalf of this one of a kind small business. They’ve been around since 1991, as old as I am, which is something to celebrate in this fast industry. And they cater to a very specific niche: offering a desktop software licensing & analytics solution for ISVs (independent software developers).

I’ve learnt a lot in this past year, and in the past few months, I’ve even managed to find the time and discipline to take on more client work and work on new projects.

projects

As a contractor, my #1 problem is: What happens if Primary Client is unhappy about my work? The answer is simple: I will need to find a new opportunity very very fast. Of course, living in Western Europe, there’s always plan Z: being unemployed for a couple of months until I figure things out, but I’m proud to have avoided any form of unemployment so far and would like to keep it that way.

To try and bypass this, I’m trying to save a little bit of money every month, as a safety net. At this point in time, let me tell you that the net is not nearly as comfortable as I’d hope it would be. Then again, I don’t think one would ever be satisfied about the size of a financial safety net.

Thankfully, I already have a few things going for me: I don’t have any debt, I’m able to pay my bills, and I’m slowly trying to get more money and experience from side-projects, missions, and other client work.

But this is not enough: I won’t always be in good health, or working for this client. And as someone who’s very pragmatic, I know that if I continue working as a freelancer, there likely will be some hard times where I won’t have either work OR an income. Thankfully, this is a risk I’ve acknowledged from Day One and I’m working on a generic roadmap, setting things up to try and avoid the downfall of freelancing.

Processed with VSCOcam with lv02 preset

So, at the time of writing this article, here are my short, mid-, and long-term plans:

Short term:

I’m continuing to work for the B2B company. It provides me with a lot of responsibilities, and I’m still learning a lot. It pays me moderately well, enough to afford to pay the rent and bills.

Mid-term:

I want to take on more client work. I’ve come to realise that for sole-traders such as myself, there’s a wealth of opportunities offering marketing services to smaller companies. The hard part is landing those early gigs.

Originally, I was thinking about working with local businesses: they clearly don’t have the money to afford a new website designed by a marketing agency, and they don’t have the time to spend on marketing campaign, social media, ads, SEO and all of these different topics. But maybe I could handle it for them, for a smaller fee. However, I’ve come to realise that most of the time, they aren’t willing to spend the money on those services, even at a discount compared to industry standards. And most of them are looking for an old-school “webmaster” to manage everything for them. My goal was to teach them how to manage their ecommerce websites or social media presence, not make a commitment for months (or worse, years to come.) It didn’t work out for me, but I have other things I can find and do.

In the short term, I have found some new clients that require my services, for completely different things that I handle day-to-day with the Primary Client. This helps me diversify my income, which is the single biggest threat to my existing working life.

Oh, and if you need some help with your website, marketing, or customers support, get in touch!

img_6759

Long-term:

That’s a very good question.

I’m trying to build an audience for my podcast, and I’d like that to start making a little bit of money on the side. It doesn’t have to be my full-time job, but I love having and sharing these conversation for the Digital Digest podcast, and I love hearing what people think about these interviews. My dream would be to have a financial complement, at the very least, if not relying on podcasting as a business.

I know it’s a long shot, but with patience, continued efforts, and good content, I’m confident that I can make it. It just might take a couple of years, and I’m OK with that: I knew it coming in, and, as Josh Long would say: “for every overnight success, there’s 10 years behind that.” I’m hoping that learning from the best helps me accelerate my learning process and avoid a few mistakes along the way.

For the rest, I really like the freedom that comes by being a location-independent freelancer. And I truly think that the what has been the hardest part so far, is now behind me: finding new clients and projects to work on. For the rest, I’m hoping to follow in the footsteps of my other independent friends (like Adam, Greg, Axelle and Paul) and trust that my passion, reputation, network and current gigs are enough to help me find some new work in the future.


And there you have it, a not-so-certain 5-year plan that could change today or tomorrow. Times are a-changin', hey?

Vlog 002: Rainy Weekend and Epic Coffee Fail

The second of my irregular vlogs brings the tale of a lazy rainy weekend, and some misadventures around town.

youtu.be/pdsabNrGf…

Allez Les Bleus —Something is in the air!

About 18 years ago, something incredible happened in France. It was in between the months of June and July 1998. Our team won the FIFA World Cup. Two years later, during the Euro, France won again, being the time ever that a team would win both titles back to back.

During this time, I was 7-9 then, you could really feel the excitement of young kids in school. This coincided with the time that we moved from the suburbs of Paris to the South of France. But nearly a thousand kilometres apart, the excitement was just as strong. The love that our people developed for the sport, the national team, and the local clubs was incredible. During that time period, our champions had given us so much hope, so much joy, and for a time, we felt on top of the world.

Ask anyone in France what Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” song represent to them, and if they were born before 1994, it’s likely that they’ll tell you about the ’98 World Cup.

youtu.be/nIvVXz-qE…

I felt the same type of reaction amongst my peers, but on a lower scale, back in 2007 when France hosted the Rugby World Cup. On a lower scale still, as Football is still the dominant sport here in France, by far. But since 2007, more and more people have started to follow rugby, partially as an attraction to the sport, and partly as a reaction to the bad culture that has been around football too.

See, when a rugbyman gets pushed down, he goes back up immediately. When football players hit the ground, they tend to dive and look for a foul, possibly a yellow or red card against the person who touched them. For a lot of people, myself included, this has become unbearable. The corruption around the sport, the ego of some of the massively overpaid superstars, the lack of humility, it all started feeling dishonest for me, and that’s why I’ve only kept in touch with big international competitions.

But this year, something is in the air, something I haven’t felt since 1998. This year, France is hosting the 2016 UEFA tournament, the “European Cup”. The team has slowly been renewed since 2014, with a lot of fresh blood, exciting talented players, and a new coach. And despite some controversies around the team and the staff, there remains an excitement in the air.

I haven’t felt this excited about football since 1998. I haven’t felt so proud and hopeful about this new French team in many years. And I hope that we win this competition, but even if we don’t, I hope that this team delivers and that they give it all that they’ve got.

It’s hard to host a competition and be on the opening match. No matter the discipline, there’s an immeasurable amount of pressure on the local team to win the first game, and to continue getting better, stronger, and to some extent, our 2-1 victory over Romania has been a huge relief.

But the most important, whether we win this year or not, is that this team learns to work well together. Because we can’t wait another 18 years to inspire our youth and our people. Allez Les Bleus, on est tous avec vous!

#Fiersdetrebleus

Vlog 001: Scary Football

Officially the first video in a series of …I guess you could call it irregular Vlogs?

youtu.be/gLPZWEa8m…

"The End of the Apple Man"

Katie Notopoulos for BuzzFeed:

"For women, safety while walking down the street is something we think about pretty much daily, most times we leave the house."

What I found most impressive during the keynote, behind feature updates and announcements, was Apple’s true commitment to diversity.

Between a very diverse keynote (4 women on stage, 3 people of color, and the incredible Bozoma St John - whom everyone is asking to see in upcoming keynotes), and features dedicated to security and to users with disabilities, it feels clear to me that no other company really tries to help their end-users who happen to be outside of the stereotypical Silicon Valley White Man.

Image courtesy of Wired

Digital Digest | Eamonn Carey - Season 01 Episode 05

A chat with Eamonn Carey, Entrepreneur in Residence at Techstars. We discuss startups, technology hubs around the world, VC funding, The Bubble™… And what the hell is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence anyway?!

https://simplecast.com/e/36876?style=large

About Eamonn

Show notes

 


Digital Digest

Subscribe to the Digital Digest podcast via:

Also available on:

Finally, if you’d like to help:

[]

Amazing Chill Vol. 01

I’ve been meaning to do a bit more on the music front, so here’s a very special something I’ve cooked up overnight: a relaxing mix I’ve pulled out of some old Soundcloud favourites!

[mixcloud www.mixcloud.com/tibz/tibz… width=100% height=300 light=1]

 

Tracklist: