It’s almost exactly a year since I announced the launch of Babel Guide – and now I’m finally back to say: The show must go on! Having called for participants, I am happy to have about ten people (from Czech
Republic and Slovakia) who have expressed their interest in becoming contributors. We’ll see how it turns out, but the plan is to push the tempo: at least one article a week. Allow me to reveal some details about the topics we want to cover in the near future.
To Do List (photo by M_AIPhotography)
Lukáš Kořínek – down with the e-mail mess!
There are couple of interviews I am working on. Lukáš Kořínek is the head of Prague-based social media agency Bubble. Not only has he made some catchy campaigns for interesting clients like Jameson and Heineken’s Czech beer brands (e.g. Starobrno), but his team has been working on a project called PostHeads, which aspires to become your very own social media office where you can plan activities and get rid of ineffective excel sheets and the flux of e-mails. I hope Lukáš will share some of his secret formulas for engagement.
Olena Sikorska – BMW CEE social curator
I am happy to introduce to our readers Lena Sikorska from iCrossing. Lena grew up in Ukraine, but moved to Jena where she was so convinced that the university should take social media seriously, she started a Facebook page herself and wrote a theses about social media usage for universities. Now her main client is BMW and she manages a region consisting of eleven countries, from Poland to Greece. What are the differences in between these countries? And what should you do to draw the attention of German professionals that look for contacts in CEE countries? Olena also writes in depths about russian social networks, a topic that should be intereting for many.
Jelena Jovanovic – Serbian Lady Pirate
Another lady among my interviewees is Jelena Jovanović aka @Miss_Cybernaut. Jelena started a blog for eTarget in Serbia which went on to become the first successful company blog to be written in a “personal” tone. She is a freelancer these days and an important figure in Pirate Party International too. Our interview has taken a lot of time, but I believe we are close to finishing it, so I’ll be able to cross this off my list. And I already know it’s gonna be really special.
Rachel Kanarowski – gray eminence of the czech fashion scene
Rachel Kanarowski came to the Czech Republic in 2003 as an au-pair, simply to see what it is like to live in Europe for a while. She ended up spending 10 years in the fashion business, later becoming a mentor and a friend to many aspiring fashion bloggers. How the Czech Republic changed over that period? Are fashion bloggers just a part of the social media hype or do they really matter more and more? Who should you follow if you want to get the latest trends? Rachel will also shed some light on a mobile app Fashion Scout Daily which she is about to launch.
Bertalan Meskó – medicine futurist
An international superstar in his field: Bertalan Meskó is a leading professional in the field of Health 2.0. With almost 30k followers worldwide he spreads the belief that patients and doctors should join forces within social media and become more active with the help of modern technologies. Berci is also responsible for several on-line projects and he started probably world’s first social media course for students of medicine, which later also evolved into on-line training.
Then there is a plan to write a cross-regional article that would cover all the best and most interesting information about a popular social media area: the foodies. Food bloggers are popular all around the world and our countries are no exceptions. What is their motivation? Can you make a living out of a successful foodblog? Is there any way for a newcomer to break through?
This topic will be covered by Petra Jelečková with a little help from the others in the team.
How do you work with Twitter locally when it thinks the Czech Republic doesn’t exist? Yes, it’s true – being in Prague you are located in Germany according to Twitter, and in Slovenia it’s Italy… This is better than the recent misunderstanding when quite a lot of people on Twitter mistook the Czech Republic for Chechnya, but still quite stupid. What is not really known outside of the country is that there is a local Twitter search engine and archive called Klaboseni.cz (which recently got a little brother in the form of Obrazeni.cz, the same tool for Instagram). Hungaria has got Yamm! – and other countries? We will find out for you.
So to sum up: there are even more ideas to be presented soon. Hope you will like it. Subscribe to RSS (RIP Google Reader, we will miss you!), become our fans on Facebook and follow @babelguide on Twitter. We hope you won’t be disappointed.
