Week 1

I am now working on building a delivery management system in MS Access and I have to admit I am a little rusty. I think I need help from Warren who will be getting an email soon.
Also working on:
1. Ads on the site and google adsense integration (Nancy is helping)
2. Site layout design changes
3. Email intake and sending
4. Calendar
5. SMS system to push messages (but needs funding)
6. Making every staff member more efficient
7. Business plan to organize the investment opportunity in Verdade (Dusty is helping me!)
8. Transparent Government Spending Micro-site, google with Url. (Ben if he is interested...)

Also on my to do list is figure out how to call the US. I've got a cell phone number: 84-389-1298 but all of the options are in Portuguesh and the thing T9's when I text.

Entregador (part 2)

I learned that Mozambicans are really patient.




Paulino is in this video and I think by the end he got my sense of humor. I got A LOT of weird looks delivering papers to the various businesses and people on the street. I think my fly was down or something.

Entregador

I played Maputo paper boy today and went out with one of the 50 delivery people that distribute 50,000 papers in a city with very poor urban planning. A lot of the delivery spots were down random dirt roads a lots, fortunately Paulino (my jefe for the day) was like a walking google maps. I would put him on par with Ben with and Iphone.

I didn't completely understand the spreadsheet project when I started because the whole thing wasn't shown to me. On day 2 I realized they had created an entire ZIP code system (found this out when I couldn't cross reference with google) that integrates population density. Unfortunately they built the data structures in print friendly formats in excel :( So I had some fun fixing it and then messing up some of the labels for the distribution (see video if it loads...)

The experience was incredible. We were walking celebrities that people recognized and loved. To deliver 5 Verdade papers to a building we would have to carry 8-10 because everyone would ask/beg for them.

Brooklyn East

Get the feeling that I am a long way from home, so I am nicknaming Mozambique: Brooklyn East.

Here is my first car ride through Brooklyn East on the way to Verdade. I worked on cleaning tons of addresses in excel so they can do a mail merge that will save them days on mail distribution every week. Like most tech the hard part isn't figuring it out/coding it is teaching others how to use it.

One Piece

Just got greated right from the plane and had no problem getting my VISA. Adierto took me over to the paper where I met some of the staff that were getting ready to bring the paper to print today. Nice office with air conditioning, which is definitely needed...

There is no shortage of things that I can work on - mail lists, data organization, site design/layout , staff training. I think one of the harder parts will be getting to know + working with the staff and not having them hate me. It must be annoying to have someone given to you from your boss and worse to be expected to listen to them.


Having a hard time uploading some pics and video but I'll figure it out soon.
It is really beautiful here and smells the exact opposite of New Jersey.

Verdade

Just woke up pretty confused on a bench in the airport thinking I was in DC. I fell asleep listening to the inauguration podcast from This American Life - really great. For the first time in 8 years I feel like I can go abroad and not be embarrassed about the actions of our president. Obama is actually a top keyword for traffic for a lot of their online papers...

I realized that I haven't posted the site yet: http://www.verdade.co.mz/

Please let me know any thoughts you have design, content or other that you have. I think most of my time will be spent on helping internal IT systems become more efficient. But at the very least you are going to seem some video on this thing.

On the plane

My plan was to have all my stuff in packed in carryon luggage. I made the size requirement but not the weight - just missed it by about 7 pounds.

30 short hours and Ill be there. Maybe next time I will pay a bit more attention to the layovers. If anyone wants something from heathro let me know, I'll have 6 hours to shop.

Ben if you're reading this please get that rss display going for the projects.

Megan, thanks for downloading the most recent gossip girl. Omfg.

On the plane

My plan was to have all my stuff in packed in carryon luggage. I made the size requirement but not the weight - just missed it by about 7 pounds.

30 short hours and Ill be there. Maybe next time I will pay a bit more attention to the layovers. If anyone wants something from heathro let me know, I'll have 6 hours to shop.

Ben if you're reading this please get that rss display going for the projects.

Megan, thanks for downloading the most recent gossip girl. Omfg.

Inauguration day 2009

Got to attend the Huffington Post party at the Newseum last night. To say people were excited to count down the last days of Bush would be an understatement. The Mall was being locked down with gates at every major entrance and fences with those military and black hummers on most corners. People were already starting to setup when I left at 1:30a, that's dedication...

I won't starve to death

Got this note from Erik (my host and owner of Verdade). He's got a good sense of humor.

FROM ERIK

"We are ready for you and waiting... I´m ccíng Tina, the new assistant. She´s handling logistics to make sure you can sleep and don´t starve to death ah ah ah ...


I´m also cc´ing aderito caldeira, the deputy director of the newspaper, and the real brains and strenght behind it all. ...because it´s in the newspaper where they really need your help and so are eager to have you go and sort out all technology problems that prevent them from being more efficient. He´ll be your primary host... We´ve talked a bit and identified a few things that are problematic and that maybe you could help (most of it are related to database creation and management, from customers and clients to our destribution, etc... Mostly is done on excell spreadsheets, etc... I´m sure that once you are here you´ll also see plenty you can helps us with)... "

Little worried about fixing "all technology problems".

Malaria!

Got some malaria drugs and other super anti-biotic. My insurance doesn't believe in covering malaria pills, but they said they'd be happy to cover me after I get it...

Preparation...

About a week away form leaving, have all my shots and medicine. Finally got around to setting up the blog to keep everyone up to date.