Archive Page 19

Drive2Live wrap-up – driving course with Maslulim and Alfa Romeo

‘Can you put a price on your life?’ was the first question Gidi, our driving instructor asked, when we sat for the 1st half of our Drive2Live driving course last Friday. So, can you put a price on your life?
Obviously the answer is no – ‘there’s no price tag, life is priceless’, was the answer everyone gave.

Gidi continued: ‘So, in a quick show of hands, how many of you would have paid $100 for this course, had it not been sponsored this morning by us and Alfa Romeo?’ You can imagine how many hands were raised.

With that in mind, we kicked off a 4 hour driving course. This was not my first driving course – couple of years back, when I rode a Kawasaki Ninja ZX6R, I took an advanced driving course, a 2-day session in a closed circuit and open roads. Drive2Live added to what I already knew (or thought I did), especially concerning my driving habits, and broke some strong convictions I had about cars – like breaking distance, seating position, eye contact and most important – awareness. During the theoretical portion of the 4 hour course, we broke some mis-conceptions about driving, watched live footage of car accidents and learned how each of us can make a change.

Drive2Live was organized by Noam Sigal and myself, sponsored by Maslulim which provided the course and staff and Alfa Romeo Israel which provided 3 test cars – MiTo 1.4 Turbo, 159 2.2 JTS and 159 3.2 Q4 JTS. 12 prominent bloggers were invited to participate in the event and raise awareness to the importance of driving skills acquired at Maslulim. Responses to the course were amazing, for the Alfa part obviously, but more for the education part – some bloggers even decided to do the last exercise, controlled spin while braking on a wet surface, with their private cars.

A facebook event was created for the benefit of sharing all the content we created – pictures, videos, blog posts, responses and more. Feel free to browse through the material and RSVP – we’re planning on holding similar events in the future, that will raise awareness to road safety and the human factor.

Thank you for participating, see you next time !

CardioLOG Usage Reports for SharePoint – Overview

The deck below is an overview presentation, 8 slides, providing you the info you need about Intlock and CardioLOG. It outlines what is CardioLOG, why CardioLOG is different, who are our customers and who are we.

During 2009 we were pleased to welcome VHA, Molson Coors Brewery, IMF, REN, SunCorp and many more to our customer base, and our plan for 2010 is already underway. We’ve joined forces with several Microsoft integrators, like NEOVAS is Turkey, and are working constantly at improving CardioLOG with new reports and features, based on feedback we receive from our customers.

As we near the end of 2009, I would like to thank you for choosing CardioLOG as your SharePoint analytics solution, and looking forward to working with you in 2010.

Drive2Live with Alfa Romeo and Maslulim

It’s coming up, 6 days and counting.
When most people will be celebrating Christmas, I will join 11 other bloggers from Israel, to a first of a kind ‘Advanced Driving Course for Bloggers‘ – a joint initiative of Noam Sigal and myself.

The idea to this first automotive social media activity in Israel came to mind after the successful cooperation with the Alfa Romeo folks here in Israel, that resulted in 2 test drives – MiTo and 159. I’ve received lots of props for making this happen, and thought why not bring more people into the action, and making it around an important cause, like fighting road fatalities.

[Graph: number of people killed on the road, 1994-2006. Source: Wikipedia]

During its 61 years, Israel has lost 30,467 people in fatal road accidents. That’s more than the number of people that died during all of Israel’s wars. In 2006 the Israeli Government decided that the number of people killed on the road will decrease by 6% each year – for 2009 the top barrier is 375 (as of Dec. 17th we’re at 335).

To organize this life saving activity, Noam and I teamed up with Maslulim, a non-profit advanced driving school led by Reem Samuel, and Alfa Romeo Israel, and invited 10 prominent bloggers to attend ‘Round 1’ of the course and spread the word to their readers and followers. The goal of this activity is double:

  • Improve the driving skills of Israeli drivers (bloggers included of course)
  • Raise awareness to Maslulim courses, which are open to everyone at a symbolic fee, and proved to reduce the risk of being involved in a car accident.

Our drivers will undergo a 3.5 hours course, that will educate them on car safety, handling, driving positions, emergency breaking, avoiding obstacles and more. The practical portion of the course will be done with Alfa Romeo MiTo 1.4 Turbo and Alfa Romeo 159 2.2 JTS.
So, allow me to introduce our drivers:
Tally Netzer
Gal Granov
Ram Bracha
Alon Schwarts
Olivier Amar
Yaki Beja
Ilil Ben Shalom
Maya Shoval
Shira Abel
Dvir Reznik

The course will take place coming Friday, the 25th, at Maslulim training ground in Rosh Ha’yain. You’re welcome to follow our drivers as they share posts, pictures and videos, and hashtag drive2live on twitter.

Power to the people – social media tracker

Universal McCann‘s ‘Power to the People‘ survey is now in its 4th year, or better yet – Wave 4. Every year UM researchers go deep behind the hype of social media to reveal the dramatic changes in the way consumers are using the internet to create and share their thoughts, pictures and videos. Wave 4 was conducted between 11/2008 and 03/2009 covering some 22,000 users from 38 countries, in what is considered the largest global analysis of social media usage.

Highlights:

  • total estimated number of global active internet audience (16-54) is 625 million
  • mobile internet users has reached 125 million
  • 71.1% have visited a friend’s social network page
  • 33% of social networkers have uploaded a video to their profile
  • 62.5% created a social network profile
  • China has 111 million social network profiles, USA 57.8 million, Korea 11.9 million, Japan 10.2 million, UK 12.1 million

In short – the first (actually 4th) inside look into how social media and the internet have changed the way we behave. Must read, for marketer, consumer, business executive, anyone.

You can watch the results of that survey over at UM Wave 4 website – using a very cool visualization graph to see the changes in the past 4 years. Another option is to review the 40 pages PDF, available at Business Exchange.

Nokia E72 spotted in Israel

The phone I’ve been waiting for has arrived.
Today at Globes Conference (thanks Dori and Eliav for setting me up with an invite) I got this innocent coupon from Nokia Israel, inviting attendees to stop by the booth, join OVI and get a chance to win a Nokia E72. Needless to say that was my first stop. And I pretty much stayed at the Nokia booth for a good portion of the day, playing with the E72.

[photo from GSMArena.com]

First off, it’s a sexy phone, in dark blue, with an executive look and feel. The central nav-button got an upgrade, with an optical navigation, similar to the Blackberry – an interesting addition that takes some getting used to. But I like it. The E72 has some large shoes to fill – its predecessor, the E71, is considered a huge success, and was crowned The Best Smartphone in Israel, twice. The E72 boosts roughly the same features as the E71, with 2 important upgrades: a decent camera (5MP, Auto-focus, Flash) and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Another major improvement, which I noticed later, is under the hood – a powerful ARM 11 Processor, running at 600MHz – impressive. Finally someone is paying attention to what I say

Hopefully the guys over at Nokia Israel will do me a solid and let me have it for an official review. Been waiting for it since June, think I deserve it.. You know what, on second thought – just let me win it in the lottery, for Hanukah/Christmas – whatever works for you.. 😉

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Mobile & Media Consultant. I help startup companies launch products to the consumer market. Reach out: dvir.reznik [at] gmail.com
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This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.