Have you ever used food to retrieve memories?

My friend Gina has just contributed to a book that brought together Filipino expatriates reminiscing about their favourite dishes.

The authors of “A Taste of Home – Pinoy Expats and Food Memories” believe that it is “the kitchen that generates the warmest thoughts of home..”.

I love the part about Gina’s childhood in the US:

“two cans of Chef Boyardee…
It brought back everything about growing up in suburban America in the 1960s: the wobbly formica kitchen table, the cheap plastic paint sets ordered with coupons cut out of the top of Kellogs Frosted Flakes cartons…”

In Italy, the two main Christmas desserts are Pandoro and Panettone.

Pandoro comes from Verona where I grew up. On my last visit home, a friend gave me a fresh Pandoro that I brought with me to London.

I opened the bag and…for a second I was back there… in my beloved school, Istituto Agli Angeli, with its enormous park.

I must have been about 5. I felt the texture of my lunch book under my fingers. I even felt the sticky spots where I used to spill the peach juice that would come in little bottles…

I opened my eyes and the memory was gone.

All of the sudden, it was 2008… I was standing in the middle of a kitchen in West London holding the gateway to my childhood.

When I worked as a journalist, I used to hate press conferences.

All you usually got was the party line. If you wanted real news that would give an edge to your article, you had the corner the person at the end…and sometimes risk to be thrown out of a window.

It happened to me at the press conference of a Czech bank…it was a beautiful summer day in Prague and the CEO and I were standing next to a window. He happened not to like my question.

But watching this video has restored my faith in press conferences. Seeing George Bush dodging the shoe…was real action.

This is what I would call a real press conference.

“What did you learn this year?”

I braved the pre-Xmas crowds on Saturday – after spending most of the week in bed with the flu – and ventured into the center to have lunch near Trafalgar Square.

My co-author Yang-May asked the question that had strangely been on my mind for most of the day.

In 2008, large part of my energy went into writing our book. What amazed me is the rhythm that sets in after you have been writing for a while. It’s like music. Is it the soul of the book taking hold of you? I don’t know. But I have certainly learned that once you start creating something, your “creation” begins to carry you and you have to let go and follow.

So – to answer Yang-May’s question – was the lesson of 2008 “let go and follow the energy”?

It certainly felt that way during the summer, while I was watching my mum breathing through a machine in a hospital in Venice. Her accident has been another source of lessons from 2008.

I have already written about the strange experience of communicating with her effectively without words. To this, I would add the experience of listening to the energy of the moment that gave me the firm conviction that mother would pull through.

After lunch, I immersed myself in Xmas shopping. I floated around Floris on Jermyn Street…. I love the place. It looks right out of the 1930s.

I chose a present for mother, gave it to the shop attendant and looked at myself in the enormous old mirror. Under a purple hat, my eyes were filling up with tears. I was probably the only customer that day who seemed to be getting emotional over body lotion…

I felt like opening my mouth and explaining… but all of the sudden, the world felt so perfect.

I managed a large smile from my still somewhat sickly face, grabbed my parcel and stepped outside into the rainy London evening…. feeling extremely happy.

Until recently the female economy was the Holy Grail of the business world.

Not any longer.

More and more organisations are coming out with studies demonstrating the cost of untapped female talent.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has just released a video on Closing the Gender Gap.

It features academics, politicians and business leaders sharing their views on the future of the female economy. Haifa Al Kaylani, Chairman of the Arab International Women’s Forum, a network I belong to, is one of them.

All agree that the gender issue is a business issue. Closing the gender gap would result in 9% GDP growth in the countries of the European Monetary Union, 8% in the US and 16% in Japan. Growth in the BRIC countries would be even higher.

I love the story one of the interviewees told about the female president of Iceland, who -eight years into office - was travelling around the country and discovered that children under eight thought only a woman could be president. This is what we call “power of the mirror”.

Photo: thanks to shirtstats.com

I know it is silly and juvenile….but I can’t resist it.

I am talking about the Love Guru.

May be it is because I really like Mike Myers.

Or it might be my cold. I have been spending the past few days under layers of blankets trying to shake it off.

So, last night I watched it again…for the 5th time!

I have already seen it 4 times on transatlantic flights (at this point, you might be starting to doubt my sanity …I have been taking a lot of cold medicine…).

I love Mike Myers’s humour…

Check out his imitation of Bollywood. It works against the cold blues.

I was watching Ariana Huffington on The Daily Show last night.

She was presenting her new book “The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging”.

I was listening along and enjoying the show until…horror… she mentioned it… the A-word.

She was talking about the advantages of blogging and said that a blog works for her because she can hide her Greek accent behind it and express herself much better.

Can you believe it?!?

It was so sad.

Ariana Huffington has such a beautiful accent that makes listening to her fascinating… Why would she need to hide it?

When will Diversity finally come of age and include accents???

Photo: thanks to wired.com

Queen Rania of Jordan has launched her own channel on YouTube to help project a more truthful view of women in the Middle East and to fight stereotypes.

A lot is changing for women in the Arab World.

Eighty per cent of new hires in the United Arab Emirates are women.

More and more wealth in the Gulf is being managed by women. No wonder, international banks are after them and continue to open special branches geared to women’s needs.

Is multidimensional multimedia the future of communication?

I heard last month in Toronto that we are experiencing a sea change in human behaviour. Communicators and marketing people have to capture people’s intentions not just their attention.

The lesson comes from South Korea where SK Telecom has partnered with WaveMarket, a provider of location-based services, to offer “Cool Guy/ Girl within 100M”.

Mobile phone subscribers are notified when a fellow user with matching profile is nearby. SK Telecom is capturing two intentions (making phone calls and dating) with one device.

Another example is Hershey which offers customers who buy its bubble gum the chance to win a sing-it-yourself, karaoke-style ringtone.

This captures the intentions of people who want to chew gum and sing karaoke (probably not at the same time…).

What makes this phenomenon so exciting is that there are countless combinations out there which can be used to capture intentions with communications. Any ideas?

Photo: thanks to joedale.typepad.com

I was never sure of the meaning of the expression “comfort zone”.

Having lived abroad for most of my life, it is a concept I never liked to dwell much upon.

But last week, I heard a great definition.

Someone was saying that, if you leave home to go and live in another country, you don’t leave your comfort zone, you enlarge it.

I love it!

So, I began thinking about my “comfort zone” and all the factors that, over the years, have made me realise just how much I have enlarged it.

Here are some:

• Having different homes. One where I grew up (Italy), one where I live (London) and one where my spirit feels most comfortable (Prague).

• A large extended family made up of all my friends in London and other parts of the world. Being with them always gives me a sense of home.

• The dizziness I feel when walking through London. I have finally accepted it! It is like a dance. The dizzier you feel, the closer you come to feeling at home in this never-ending city.

• My love-hate relationship with airports and planes. I hate airline food…. but I love being on a plane at night over the ocean… It is like being looked after by a giant cosmic force.

Photo: thanks to experiencefestival.com

We have done it!

Yang-May and I have finished our book on international communications and sent it on to the publisher, Kogan Page.

I felt slightly dizzy after leaving my local post office in West London. I watched the Royal Mail guy pick up the big red bag with our manuscript in it.

Funny, I though, such an important step and he will never know the role he got to play in our lives. Somehow… for a brief moment… I wanted to give him a hug!

I am still feeling slightly bewildered….

What amazes me is that, earlier this year, after a couple of months of writing, the book began to take on a life of its own.

It was kind of writing itself, as a friend of mine said. It developed its own dynamic…and soon enough it was taking me on paths I never though I would explore (we got content from so many countries, including Brazil, Bangladesh, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the Philippines)

In brief, here are the main points we make in the book:

• New communications practices are being developed by emerging economies and their multinationals. They will soon dominate our way of working.
• Technology and social media are creating new on-line cultures and new audiences for communicators.
• Social business is challenging the collective thinking and changing the way business operates. It needs communicators to spread its message on a global scale.

We have a long list of acknowledgements in the book and we are so grateful to all the people who have advised and supported us.

To this, I would like to add a big Thank You to all the friends who were there for me during the summer, during those long “unsocial” weeks I spent locked up in front of my computer.

Same as with the postman….I want to give you all a big hug!

Photo: thanks to dailymail.co.uk