That’s what Cathay Pacific is currently doing with its new campaign: “Meet the team that goes an extra mile”.

The Asian airline has interviewed about 100 of its ethnically diverse staff and their short biographies are available on its site.

Nothing new about that… I can hear you say. Corporations have used employees again and again to portray their values and reach out to customers.

However, the tone of Cathay’s ads is different. Gone is the glitzy glamour usually associated with airline advertising. The photos of Cathay’s employees are like a series of snapshots into their private lives. The tone is candid and refreshing.

Take, for example, Irene Concepcion from the Philippines. In her profile, she writes about standing up to her father who didn’t want her to become a flight attendant. She is portrayed in the lotus pose wearing her yoga outfit.

The spirit of “Meet the team that goes an extra mile” reminds me of the tone used by Asian bloggers. Social media in this part of the world often serve as an outlet for discussing topics that are not openly talked about in society.

Time with its invasive personality ends up dominating my thoughts and many of the things I do.

I can’t open a drawer in my old bedroom without stumbling into an object whose life has been sucked dry by the passing of time… Take an old bottle of perfume… its content lost its soul long ago and no longer brings back memories from my last year in high school… 

The day I arrived, an old friend called. We had not talked in 27 years. After hearing my voice and a few minutes on the phone, she said she was overwhelmed… it had been too long and she needed… more time.

I had had enough… That’s when I decided to look for something that would help me tame time.

So I drove to Verona to visit my 102-year-old grandmother… who, I figured, might know one thing or two about keeping time at bay. I asked her if she could give me my grandfather’s watch, one he used to wear over 40 years ago.

May be I have fallen for the endless series of Swiss watch ads that embrace me every time I land at Geneva airport…

May be I am a sucker for their tag lines…  But something in me desperately wants to believe that my grandfather’s watch was built for the generations to come.

At the jewellery shop where I took it to be polished, they told me that normally watches of this brand last for 100 years.

Who knows… I might have finally found a way to bridge time!

I have been following their evolution ever since I left Prague in the mid-1990s.

That’s why I was delighted to see an article in the weekend magazine of Hospodarske Noviny about children with disabilities… a topic which used to be taboo in Czech society… an ugly hangover from the previous regime and its tacky iconography of proletarian heroes with perfect bodies.

Unfortunately, my delight did not last for very long…

My jaw dropped as soon as I began reading the subheading:”…Jaké to je, když se do normální rodiny narodí někdo nenormální (What happens, when someone not normal is born to a normal family).

I couldn’t believe the language. The fact that it is still being used is a slap in the face of people like my friend Milena Černà, who since the fall of the Berlin Wall has been campaigning for the acceptance of the rights of disabled children and adults.

Milena manages Vybor dobrè vůle, a foundation originally set up by Olga Havlova (Vaclav Havel’s first wife) and has been doing heroic work for the integration of the disadvantaged.

The article I read is a sign that something is moving… but we are clearly not there yet.

May be we should drop the word “normal” altogether…

I can highly recommend “The Four Walls of My Freedom”, a book in which Donna Thomson offers us a new perspective on being human… one that goes beyond “normality”.

The findings of the European Communicator Monitor 2010 will come as no surprise to you then.

The majority (72%) of comms professionals in Europe believe that their function has become more important since the recession.

However… only 22% have been able to increase their resources. 37% have lost compared to other functions.

What is it that business leaders still don’t understand about communications? What do we need to do to educate them?

The communication departments that have fared best are those with strong focus on supporting organisational goals  (for example engaging employees).

68% of the respondents believe websites and intranets are important tools for addressing different publics (compared to 59% in 09). But less than 1/3 of the organisations have already introduced social media. Open dialogue without control and the ease of spreading information are still perceived as threats.

And yes… in case you were wondering. . The glass ceiling in comms still exists. The average salary of women is still lower than those of their male colleagues… on every hierarchical level.

I am talking about my father joining Facebook and commenting on my posts.

Over the weekend, he and a former high-school friend of mine were congratulating me on an article I wrote… and this is so surreal.

Interacting with my family and old friends in the same space as we used to do 27 years ago (before I left Italy) is just so strange.

It feels like continuing the conversations we were having every time my father would pick me up from school… on hot June days… before we would all part for the glorious Italian summer.

Is someone out there studying the space-time dimension of Facebook?

This social networking site is certainly doing something to the psyche of people like me… who, after being gone for years, all of a sudden, are invited to sit again at a table they thought no longer existed.

Reconnecting with my high-school friends has been like being washed by a wave of emotions. It’s like having my little private group of cheerleaders. The other day before giving a speech, I closed by eyes and thought of my friend Paola, who used to be my best friend back then and who wrote on my wall that she had always known I would do great things (whatever those might be…).

May be what’s happening to me is just one of the many examples behind the success of Facebook, which has now grown to 500 million users worldwide (up from 200 million 15 months ago).

70% of them are outside the United States. While the number of users in the US doubled in 09 (to 123 million), it more than quadrupled in Germany (to 19 million).

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg expects the company to reach one billion users. It is the stories behind this figure that I long to hear some day.

I love this verse by the 13th century Persian poet Rumi.

I came across it the first time in a catalogue I bought in Berlin at an exhibition of Shirin Neshat’s art.

This Iranian director has a unique way of portraying women in her country.

I just went to see her latest movie, Women without Men. It portrays the lives of five Iranian women against the backdrop of the American and British-backed coup that brought down Prime Minister Mossadegh and reinstalled the Shah in 1953.

The photography is superb. My favourite part is the story of the prostitute Zarin. The sequence showing her in a hamam, buried in a frantic effort to scrub away destiny from her anorexic body is a masterpiece. 

Women without Men is unsettling in a unique way. And so intriguing.

And I don’t mean because I am hanging out in ritzy bars. I have been working far too hard for that…

I have been following recently the various media sagas and their side-dramas.

General McChrystal spinning out of control and turning Rolling Stone Magazine into a household name….

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico becoming a regular feature of my beloved Daily Show with Jon Stewart while inspiring one of the most hilarious YouTube videos I have ever seen…

And yes… I feel trendy because, in the same week, I had an editor upset me… for the first time in many years.

What do you do when, together with the edits, you are sent a long email with a lecture in journalism?

No, you don’t mention that the person writing the email has far fewer springs on their back than you do…. No, you don’t embark on a litany of all the newspapers and other media you have written for in the past 18 years…

All this runs counter to your meditation practice.

So, I just went into the kitchen, played a CD with my mantras, chanted for 10 minutes…

And I cooled down. It worked. That… and venting on my blog, which, as you know, I don’t usually do.

So thanks for listening to me this time.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There were times in my life when I should have listened to my father…

But after watching this video, I am so glad I didn’t…

He taught me English and always insisted that I speak it with a British accent. He was horrified when, after spending several weeks in the US, I started saying “somebody” instead of “someone”.

That’s why I almost fell off the chair watching Democratic Congressman Weiner say that you cannot believe anyone from BP who talks with a British accent…

May be it’s because it’s June. When I was growing up in Italy, June was the month when school would end and it would soon get too hot to think…

Or may be it is because the 5th anniversary of my move to London is coming up…

This city and I have a very intimate way of getting along. I have written before about the sheer anonymity London sometimes projects. Like a cold, unforgiving wind. The secret is to stay in the moment… long enough until you become stronger than this sensation.

London is like my British friends whom I love so much. Strong emotions don’t come natural to this city, but you can always rely on its reassuring presence. It can endure anything and it will go on for ever.

Sometimes I wonder just how local I have become, if at all…
I still detest the rain… so no hope there. However, I catch myself saying the word “lovely” a lot … and I am for ever apologizing…
You would agree… these must be clear signs.

The former mountaineer and founder of the Central Asian Institute (CAI) has dedicated his life to building schools and promoting education in the most remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Since 1993, CAI has established 131 schools serving more than 58,000 students, most of them girls.
Before embarking on a project, Greg works with the local communities, including their tribal and religious leaders, to gain their friendship and to make sure that their hopes and expectations are respected.

He writes in his new book Stones into Schools: “When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it’s amazing what you can learn.”

This sentence is the best lesson in cross-cultural communication I have ever come across.

Greg and his colleagues have built schools in some of the most troubled regions of Afghanistan like the Wakhan Corridor and the notorious Kunar and Nuristan.
They believe in the Afghans’ hunger for peace after 30 years of war. They want to support their dream of educating their children.

More and more people are waking up to the importance of Greg’s message. I was delighted to read that his previous book Three Cups of  Tea, has been made required reading for all officers enrolled in counterinsurgency courses at the Pentagon.

There is something special about Greg. And again…  something I can’t describe.
Stones into Schools is a journey into the realm of hope. I keep it on my desk now…. will some of Greg’s incredible ability to bond with people in the darkest places rub off on me…?

I spent an entire evening reading this book that took me back to Central Asia.

That night I went to sleep with a deep sense of peace. As long as there are people like Greg around, I know the world is in safe hands.