Up! Up! And away!

There are some benefits working for a large Silicon Valley company like Yahoo!, and interestingly sometimes these benefits become mortal enemies. Let me explain, last August the food became free on campus. This means breakfast, lunch and even dinner if you for some reason happen to still be around. Free food is obviously great. Who would complain?

Well, obviously the Swede will. Because the food being free is great, don't get me wrong, however there are things that you should have to pay for to reduce the temptation for over-consumption. Yes, I am talking about those devilishly attractive chocolate bars, soft drinks and potato chips. Yes, potato chips! For free! I simply don't have the integrity to say 'no'.  

Search Engine Optimization

Being on the same page is essential to be able to have meaningful communication. If this is not achieved, misunderstandings are very likely. An example you say? Lately at my place you hear frequently comments like 'how cute he is', or 'he looks so handome with that shirt', you know, comments that makes a man feel good about himself. However this is followed by 'time to change his diper' or 'he pooped himself', which most of the time means they are not talking about me.

The Guide to Success

Great achievements never came at a low cost. What might seem like an easy win, is really the fruit of hours of dedication, hard work and determination. Or if you prefer without the marketing jargong; trying, failing, hitting head against the wall, crying, pulling the hair, lots of alcohol to forget, then trying again.

As always when it comes to life lessons, let's turn to the source of truth, the Yoda of the kindergarten, the Dali Lama of San Francisco - Miss Cupcake. 

The Swedish Wallflower

People from the north of Sweden are renowned for 'not wasting words unnecessarily'. It could be that we are tight-fisted, it could be that the cold makes us unwilling to open our month unless it is very urgent; bear attacking you, out of beer, stuff like that. The result is however always the same; Swedes from the north drift very quickly away from the center of the attention.



This is why I find people who put themselves in the center of the attention willingly fascinating. Especially to perform. To put yourself through having all eyes looking at you seems like craziness to me. And trust me; it does not get more crazy than the Yahoo! Taiwan Chinese New Year party.

Sex in the City

We have all been there; pondering on which character on 'Sex in the City' you relate most to? In my case, Carrie is played by Sarah Jessica Parker, so it does not matter what she does as a character; cannot stand her. Samantha is way too confident, and Miranda way too cynical. So I guess I am Charlotte; straight A student, overly optimistic and a hopeless romantic. Charlotte it is. 

This is what I end up thinking getting off the bus in the Financial District in San Francisco, and going out in what for a second could be Wall street in New York; skyscrapers, yellow taxis, people in suits and the Starbucks coffee in their hand in that 'I'm very important going to an important place' walking pace. It is for some reason very 'Sex in the City'

It's a Free World

I have always been fascinated by the relationship people have to the word 'free'. Well, maybe not fascinated, but if I do not write something similar, the entire base for this blog entry alongside the interest you might have in reading it kind of looses weight, so just go with me, ok? 'Fascinated' it is. Maybe even 'intrigued', even though it is probably pushing it. 




Anyways, there are many things that are seen as purely ridiculous behavior, but standing in a line for an hour to get a free sample is not one of them. Independent of the size of the sample. And who doesn't love a 'buy one get one free' offer, because you get a free one. Wow! You did not pay for the first one, obviously, so you saved money.

Back in the Days

I have worked for Yahoo! for eight years now. I am amazed myself! Time do really fly. And time really knows how to tie the circle together. Just check out this: my wife had prepared a nice surprise for me this Saturday for my birthday celebration, that never seem to end (lucky me!), and it was not having my sister come on a surprise visit.

I decided to take my sister for a drink at the Top of the Mark, and later go for dinner at the Spanish restaurant La Lola. I now later realize I did not plan on this myself at all, my wife had managed to manipulate me into thinking I was planning so, but she was behind all of it. So when I come into the restaurant, there are a bunch of friends sitting waiting to have dinner, including my wife who had volunteered to take care of Miss Cupcake (she had the baby sitter come over). 

A Star has Been Born

It is no news that when you go on vacation, you disconnect from work. By definition, vacations is when you are not working, so why keep the information in your head, right? At the dentist the other day I was asked for my telephone number for example. Had been deleted from the hard drive. I had to look it up on the Internet.

So then it not weird that things like this happen when you come back to work: I get up as always on a work Monday, walk down to Van Ness and take the shuttle bus to the Yahoo! office in Sunnyvale. So far so good. I wake up as always at the same batch in the road just before the bus takes a turn and I wipe the drool off my face to get into the office. Nothing weird so far. The weird stuff happens when I get up the the second floor. 

我目前在台北

This picture is taken from a taxi running through the streets of Taipei in Taiwan. I am sitting in this taxi. Having one of those moments where you are not really sure if you are awake or not as everything seems a bit surreal. Last time that happend was in New York. I was doing an internship in Washington D.C and went up to New York for the 4th of July weekend to see a Japanese friend I had met in San Sebastian in Spain. We went to a party in Brooklyn with her boyfriend that was studying to be a jazz drummer. 

Wait. We still haven't reached the surreal part. The party was at a flat, and we went up on the rooftop where you could overlook the river and the entire New York skyline. I did not speak to anyone the entire night, I was just looking at the skyline thinking; am I really seeing this?!?

Life Outside PowerPoint

I am sitting in Cleveland watching out for Family Guy characters, and no luck so far. Just a guy who is really into ice cream. He is on his second one, seems to be strawberry this time. 

I am not only seeing the end of travelling from North Carolina, but also seeing the end of the tunnel of presentation land. I survived somehow the internal event I organized at Yahoo!, and I managed to not get married again during pubCon Las Vegas. And to put the cherry on the top; the session on organic search at the Internet Summit went surprisingly well, I really enjoyed speaking and was not too intimidated by the 500 person strong audience. And I did not imagine anyone in their underwear.

Presenting with Presentations

I had an idea a couple of months ago. One of those things that just pop into your head and stays there for a while. Lingering to see what happens. I could have ignored it in that very instance. But I didn't. Instead I started asking around, and all of a sudden I realized that this idea had taken proportions that I did not expect. 





It also meant an insane amount of preparation; between getting funding, working on PowerPoint presentations, organizing speakers, deciding on what to wear, fixing travel arrangements, getting a conference room set-up with audio and video recording and working with the design team to get posters up. 

Incredi'boo'l blog post

It is a bit strange as most holidays in the US are events you hear about, but not practice yourself, at least not in my case. So we were beginners this time around, and we did our best to get in the holiday spirit (and I do not refer to buying a lot of stuff). So we did stuff ourself more than a turkey last Thanksgiving, and waved the stars and stripes during the 4th of July and yes, they make more sense when you are here.



Now the biggest one is coming up - Halloween! And I admit to not liking to get dressed up, but I cannot wait to get some Dracula teeth and say the magic words - 'trick or treat', and for it to make sense. I am so excited that when walking by the Yahoo! company store the other day, I could not help myself.

How to Stand Out

So lately I am lost between pie charts and bullet point lists. If it cannot be included in a slide with a twist, I am not interested. I am becoming quite the professional in presentation animation where pictures, tables and paragraphs fly in and out of the screen as if dancing the mambo. 

We are getting closer to the internal event I am preparing, which mainly can be seen by the Yahoo! campus being dressed in these wonderful posters:

Power Point Land

Lately it is all about conferences. Power points with bullet points. Lots of bullet points. Some graphs. Maybe throw in a pie chart or two just to lighten things up. 

I have been working the last month on organizing an internal conference about organic search at Yahoo! It was my idea, so when I realized how much work is actually involved between posters, making travelling arrangement, presentations and scheduling rooms, it was already too late. It has been a great experience though, and I am looking forward to what are sure to be three very intense days. I have been told that offering cookies or not is apparently the differentiator between complete failure or utter success. Chocolate chip?

The brands of Silicon Valley

I work for a company called Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, California. I started out in Madrid, Spain, and was relocated to the US about a year ago now. There are of course many differences working for the same American company in Europe and in the US, and the language is surprisingly not one of these as you can live perfectly in San Francisco and speak Spanish instead of English. However the food is a huge difference, and the clothes is another notable one. 

In Europe you get t-shirts and other company branded clothes, which ends up at home and you wear it on Sundays to clean the house, or give it to relatives and friends (thanks dad!). In the US, people wear their company branded gear everywhere! To work, to go shopping, I have even seen people in bars on a Friday with the company logo all over the place. 

'Music on the Green'

There are some perks to working at a large Internet company. There is a gym for employees (if you like to sweat, which I don't, but do it anyways), the other day we were invited to a Giants game (they lost, but we got beer), and today, at lunch, it was time for 'Music on the Green'. This is a live performance  (LA based Oh Darlings) on the main lawn at lunch time accompanied by a BBQ.

It is kind very nice to sit out having lunch, especially on sushi day, enjoy the sun and some live music. Best part of it - we got lollipops!

My Brain Wears Sunglasses as Well

Let's be honest, as a human being you want to be appreciated for your looks and for your brains. The looks have already been covered in the press (yes, I did include the word 'swoony' in my CV), so it was about time that the brains got some headlines as well. 

I work with something called 'Search Engine Optimization', which really comes down to trying to promote content in the organic search listings. You search for 'Brad Pitt' in Google, (admit it, we all do!) and it is my job to make sure the Yahoo! content appears as good as possible in that search listing. I know, makes no sense.

A day in the life

The big difference between being on holiday or actually living in a city is a bit blurry at first. You feel like a tourist because you are always looking up and around at things, having that child-like expression on your face when everything is new. You get nervous for every little thing as you haven't done it before; ¨how do you order take-away here?!?¨

But little by little the every-day life sneaks up on you, which is nice, embracing you in the comfort of routines, and this is my everyday routine in a short summary. (yes, I have bought myself an Iphone and I love the Instagram application where you can take photos and put filters on them to make it look like it is 1972.)

7:35 I wait for the number 5 bus at McAllister

7:50 I get in the queue for the Yahoo! shuttle bus in front of the Opera.

9:15: I get to the Yahoo! offices in Sunnyvale, building E

9:20 I sit down at my desk

9:21 I say good morning to my tiger