I’ve been re-reading the articles in my blog since its beginning, and that is a very good way to reflect on my life from 2014 up to now. I’ve lived in and traveled to many places. I was involved in many adventures, thoughts and projects. I do not regret anything. I had a wonderful time […]
Before I started practicing meditation, I would never have thought that I could sit for two hours per day “doing nothing.” I was hyperactive, working from dawn to dusk like mad, connected to the Internet at all time. When could I find two hours of my precious time to stop all activity? Impossible. But one day, almost burnt out, I decided to do something for myself and I applied to sit in a 10-day Vipassana course. Not an easy decision. But probably the best one I have ever taken.
“And the winner is… KaoData!” Among 2 other nominees, Iron Mountain Data Centers and GlobeNet, this leading data center UK company won the Excellence in Corporate Social Responsability Award at the 16th Datacloud Awards Ceremony happening in Monaco last June 4th. Invited by the organizer of the event, Broadgroup, Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) had the […]
It was with mix feelings of anxiety and excitement that I left Pau to Mozambique on March 22nd. I knew it was going to be an intense mission but I also knew it was going to be a tremendous life experience. One week after the deployment of the first members of Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) […]
Networking is not only for entrepreneurs. It can also be for humanitarians! The proof is the Humanitarian Network & Partnership Week (HNPW), a one-week event, where humanitarian networks and partnerships hold their annual consultations. As member of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) was invited to […]
This year’s Global Carrier Awards was my first opportunity to talk on behalf of Télécoms Sans Frontières in front of a major audience: more than 400 members of the telecommunication community. This ceremony takes place during Capacity Europe; the largest carrier event in the continent that brings together more than 650 companies of the voice […]
At TSF all staff members, from ICT specialists to accountants, have to experience the field at least once. It is one of the requirements when one gets hired: “You must be ready to integrate TSF’s emergency teams abroad and carry out missions in the context of humanitarian crises.” As Head of Communication and International Relations, I […]
During his talk at WordCamp Europe 2018, Noel Tock, from Human Mades, well highlighted that “one click install or access to cPanel dashboard are not enough anymore.” In 2019, if they want to survive, hosting providers have to reinvent themselves and offer “fully integrated solutions” or what we also call “DXP, Digital Experience Platforms”. This […]
I first heard about Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) during hurricane Irma back in September of 2017. On the news, members of its team, ready to go, were carrying huge boxes of telecommunication equipment. At this point, I had no idea that these people were going to become my colleagues one day, but I started dreaming […]
One can master a skill, but transfer or explain it to somebody else is not always easy. To ensure that its personnel his providing the best knowledge transfer, the MSF France and MSF Switzerland learning units jointly organize, twice a year, a “training of trainers” (ToT). Before, they used to do these trainings at their […]
Creating e-learning material is made very easy with softwares like tt performance suite. In February, I attended, with some of my MSF colleagues working with me on Symphony*, a 4-day TTS workshop at the headquarter of MSF Spain. The training covered the admin part (overall configuration, user roles and preferences, document types, workflows etc.) and […]
“Happiness Manager.” That’s my new unofficial title at the office! And I am quite proud of it. In fact, I started working for Medecins Sans Frontieres - Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in October but I was hired as “internal communication officer”, which is my official title. MSF embarked on a global HRIS project of design, […]
As far as I know the only WordPress “Female” Meetup that exists is in Berlin and has started only a few months ago. I attended one in July without really thinking about the meaning of the word “Female” in the title. To me it was just another Meetup, like many I have attended this year […]
I think I was born a “nomad.” I have always liked to explore new places and to challenge myself in new environments. At the age of 20, I left France to Spain with one suitcase and ended up spending eight years there. Then, curious to discover something new, I took my suitcase again and moved […]
At my parents house, in the garage, there was this beautiful red bicycle that nobody had used for years. At 18, when I moved out to rent a small studio on my own in Paris, I took this bike with me. I was a young student, living alone for first time, so thrilled to finally […]
When I was a kid, I was envious of people that spoke other languages. I wanted to understand and talk to them. I was particularly mad at my father. A Spanish immigrant, he married a French woman, my mom. Unfortunately, he did not teach me his language and we all spoke French at home. So, […]
That’s the title of an email I received when I still was in Thailand, doing my #WCAsiaRoadTrip. Yonit Tzuk, Chief Blogger at million eyez, was inviting me to join her team in Tel Aviv and attend TBEX International 2017, the largest conference and networking event for travel bloggers, online travel journalists, new media content creators, […]
Before, I proudly used to think, “who better than I can illustrate my writings?” So all the photos on my blog were actually mine, usually taken with my iPhone. And it worked out great. People loved it. But recently, I ran into million eyez, a photo gallery plugin unlike any other. The difference between million […]
I started blogging a little bit by accident. I was a student and one of my class midterm projects was to create a blog. I got so excited about this project that I not only passed the class with an A but I carried on writing my blog even after I graduated! Looking back, I […]
Every year, my mom used to send me to my grandparents’ house, in the south of France, where I would spend my entire summers. For a small kid like me, born in the Parisian suburbs, this was like going to heaven. The small village, of only 200 inhabitants, was a giant playground. I still see […]
I am in transit. Sitting in a vast, crowded and noisy hall of an airport. Doesn’t really matter which airport, it could be anywhere, the feeling would be the same. I am not really hungry, however I can’t stop snacking. More than satisfying my stomach, it’s just a way to kill time. What time is […]
I rarely visit libraries to borrow books, but I often frequent them. I am a “Digital Nomad.” I travel the world, while working remotely. I have no fixed base, no office. In every place I go, the local library becomes my office. While my fellows nomads meet at coffee shops or co-working spaces, I spend […]
Very often, users of IAMSocial, my WordPress Theme, contact me. I always answer to their emails, trying to understand what is their issue. Is it something they are doing wrong? Is it something that my theme is missing? Is it a bug? One day, an email particularly caught my attention; it was from somebody with […]
I went to WordCamps as volunteer, as contributor and as simple attendee. What I never did, is to attend as speaker. Last weekend, at WordCamp Toronto, I was close! With thecplab, I was the communication assistant of one of them: Florian Gottschall. Florian, and the Vinubis team, recently released a plugin , WP Video Editor, that […]
Being a member of the WordPress community is a great way to travel the world and make great connections. While in Vienna, volunteering for the WordCamp Europe Communication Team, I met with the CEO of Vinubis, Florian Gottschall and his business partner Miriam Selzle. All started with a normal conversation about business, at the WCEUBall, […]
Wherever they go, Digital Nomads look for coworking places where they can bring their laptop and sit for hours while working remotely for their clients from all over the world, and eventually, make good connections. I just spent two months in Paris and that’s basically what I did everyday. As soon as I arrived, back […]
“So you were the one with the pink computer?” realized one of the WordCamp fellows I hung out with in the streets of Vienna on Sunday night… Indeed, if you attended the WordCamp Europe, last weekend, chances are that you saw me running around, taking pics with an iPad or seated somewhere between two conference […]
I have never been to Vienna. I know its fame for classical music and empirical architecture. But what most attracts me there, is its popularity for international congress and conventions. Thus, when I heard that the WordCamp Europe 2016 will be hosted in the MuseumsQuartier of the Austrian capital, I did not think twice. I […]
Eight years in Spain, five in New York - Oops, sorry: Brooklyn - Lately, my nomad’s heart has been longing for a new place to be. After looking all over the map, I finally thought “Why not just go back home?” Paris, my hometown, is becoming THE European tech hub every entrepreneur wants to be […]
My friends sometimes call me “Social Butterfly:” One day I’m here, the day after, I’m somewhere else. I don’t know if this is good or bad, but what I know is that when I’m here, I enjoy every second of the experience. That’s what I did for over four months at the Brooklyn Chamber of […]
After BedStuy, AirbnBrooklyn hits Bushwick, Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Join the upcoming meetup, organized by Explore Brooklyn, Airbnb and the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with One Brooklyn and the Greenpoint Chamber.
We expected about around 60 guests. We got even more! So many business owners and Airbnb hosts that they could barely fit into this amazing place that is bed-vyne brew. Last night, Explore Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and Airbnb organized the first AirbnBrooklyn meetup. The purpose of this event was to “connect local […]
One of the first thing I do when I open my eyes at the morning is to grab my iPad and check my emails. This morning I received THE email I have been waiting for so long: IAMSocial has been approved! That means that you can now download it from the official WordPress Theme Directory. […]
If you have read the first post of my last adventure you know that I am back at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce not to work on Go Digital but to kick off a new project involving Airbnb. However, Go Digital ran a “get your business on the map” workshop yesterday, to which I voluntary […]
Certain equations are not particular only for their function. They are particular for the simple and poetic truth they contain. thecplab equation is one of them. For a long time, my teammate and I have been trying hard to solve it. Over ten years of experiments with Colectivo Piloto have led us to this pretty […]
I was so thrilled, last Thursday, to take the elevator up to the 27th floor of one of downtown Brooklyn’s skyscrapers. For those you follow my adventures since last year, you might know that this is where the Brooklyn of Chamber of Commerce (BCC) has its headquarter. Yet, you might also know that I already […]
After submitting IAMSocial to the WordPress Directory in August, I finally heard back from the Review Team last week. As I expected, my theme was not approved to go live right away and my reviewer sent me a long list of issues to be fixed. After working hard on them, I resubmitted IAMSocial, now 1.0.2. […]
Last year I was in the audience. I remember listening to the speakers with excitement and admiration. I was about to start one of the most interesting adventure of my life: CUNY Service Corps! Today I was on the stage! Sharing with the 3rd cohort of students my experience working for the Brooklyn Chamber of […]
After Mazzat Restaurant and Carroll Gardens Diner, Carroll Garden Association is the third business in Columbia Waterfront that I have helped with its website. However, it is the first ever, to go live with my WordPress theme IAMSocial. In fact, if you remember this post, they were my first testers. Thanks to their feedback my […]
When I was a kid my parents used to send me to summer camps where I was always having great time discovering all kinds of news things and making a lot of new friends. Last weekend felt exactly like a summer camp to me; from July 16 to 19, the NYC Camp was held at […]
One of the first place I visited upon my arrival to New York was the United Nations Headquarters. I still remember the feeling I had when I contemplated in real life the famous building built by Le Corbusier that I saw so many times in pictures before. At the entrance, the flags of all member […]
“The Cloud…” Such a trendy concept these days. In fact, this is just another word for “The Internet” and Colectivo Piloto already was on it. But the news is that I just migrated its website - and others of my websites, hosted on my traditional shared server - to a “Cloud Server.” The difference: I […]
Today there are TLD (Internet top-level domains) for almost everything. Depending on where you’re from, what you do or what you like, you’ll find THE domain name extension that will enhance your identity and make it easier for your visitors to find your site and understand its purposes. Now, stop reading and look at my […]
Six months ago I published this post. It was the beginning of a great adventure that ended up today with our last meeting at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce presenting the Go Digital report. Yes, that’s it. The 288 hours that the CUNY Service Corps program allows me to work have come to […]
I like to think of my website and my blog as two complementary platforms to give my visitors insights not only on my work, but also on my personality. In the Oxford Dictionary, “complementarity” is defined as follow: “The concept that two contrasted theories, such as the wave and particle theories of light, may be […]
I gave Foundation Zurb a chance when starting #IAMSocial. Not really convinced, I switched back to Bootstrap and LESS. A duo, I have been using for many projects now, including this blog. This semester, I am taking MMP460 and our first project is to work on our portfolio. The requirements: use WordPress along with Foundation […]
Carroll Garden Association is a non-profit organization “Providing Housing, Economic Revitalization, Outreach, and Advocacy to the Residents of Southwest Brooklyn.” I met with its staff participating with Mazzat Restaurant at the 6th Annual Columbia Waterfront Fall Festival which the organization promotes each year in September. Since then, they have been helping me and Go digital! […]
32, is the total number of small businesses “getting online” since The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce started Go digital! this past September. With 2015 around the corner, I am happy to announce that next year, the Go digital! Team, which I am proud to be part of, will team up with Google to “enroll at […]
“Primavera de los Realizadores” started as a static HTML & CSS website for my MMP 240 class final project. It turns out it is now a dynamic web app using Express, running on a Parse cloud server and also my final project for another of my MMP class: 310. Using a BaaS such as Parse […]
About two years ago I decided to dig into Bootstrap. It took me some efforts at the beginning but with time and practice I got used to its column grid system standards, its powerful UI components and its LESS based structure. Always willing to try out new techniques, I was excited when our professor introduced […]
As web designers and developers, we tend to take our design for granted and we expect the user to get it right away. But, what’s obvious to us, might not be as obvious to a person who sees our website for first time and has no idea what it’s all about. Last week, I had […]
The challenge of creating a WordPress theme is to not only make it look good on the frontend, but also to provide users with features in the backend that allow them to easily customize their website without having to touch the code. WordPress makes it easy for us, web developers, to extend the admin to […]
2004-2014. I could not believe it myself: it’s been ten years that Pablo Herrera and I co-founded Colectivo Piloto. To celebrate, we launched the new website we so hardly worked on all summer long. Maybe you already read some of the posts of this project on this blog. We want to thank all the people […]
The midterms are over. Yet, it is time to focus on the finals. Actually, I already know the requirements for my MMP 350 class: create a WordPress theme. This is a new step for me and my experience working with this CMS. Indeed, I have already created customized WordPress templates, coded for my owns projects, […]
Just like I expected: the next assignment for my MMP 240 is to code a responsive navigation bar. Based on this article, I am due to state my opinion regarding the different responsive techniques commonly used and to try to apply one of them to my project: Primavera de los Realizadores. As I already mentioned, […]
I feel like my semester started yesterday, yet it is already time for midterms. My previous post actually talked about the midterm due for my MMP 350 class. This one is about the midterm due for my MMP 240 class. The project is still the same: Primavera de los Realizadores, and the approach still is […]
This is a “1.0 launch” because I still have a lot to do. But, that’s it. I am live! Remember this post? Well, this is reality now. And you are reading it. It is actually one of my midterm projects due this Friday for my MMP 350 class. So I am giving up on the […]
The Go digital! team is definitely ready and eager to go out there and reach out to businesses. Last week we went to Sheepshead Bay with Luc from The Chamber on the Go and observed how he was approaching business owners to inform them about his program and have them filling the survey. This survey […]
Almost two weeks from our first meeting at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and I already have the feeling that this is going to be a great experience. This upcoming Monday, we will have our first bi-weekly meeting with our supervisor Quintana and we want to show her that we are ready to “go out […]
Since my last MMP 240 assignment, I have been thinking a lot about the “mobile first” concept. Why not applying this concept to my blog? As I mentioned in this post, since I have been using bootstrap 3, I have been coding my CSS from a mobile first perspective, however, I am still designing my […]
From the 27th floor of 335 Adams St, Downtown Brooklyn, I had the privilege today to meet with the full Go! Digital team and get briefed on the project by Quintana, our supervisor.
The final project for my MMP 240 class is to create a website for a show-conference type event. Because I like to apply what I do in class to real life projects, I automatically thought of the project the Colectivo Piloto wants to organize in Spring: “La Primavera de los Realizadores“. The first assignment, due […]
Indeed, pink is my favorite color, and I want you all to know it. But I also want you all to read my posts. yet, I am not sure how much of them you’ll actually read entirely if I use white fonts over a pink background.
A lot of writing this week for my MMP 240 class. After being asked to state my opinion on the use of font units in CSS, I had to do some research and paint a picture of the mobile internet landscape. First of all, if we talk about “mobile internet” we talk about 3G and […]
For my MMP 240 class, I was asked to states my opinion regarding different techniques and trends for font sizing: would I use px, %, em or rem units or what do I think of certain techniques like resetting to 10px via the 62.5% CSS declaration? Well, definitively, I think ems units are the unit […]
…and had a new idea: isabellegarcia.com will be the domain for my portfolio and aicragellebasi.com the one for my blog. Here’s a quick flow of the new set up: The portfolio site will stay the same for now. I will just add a link to my blog. The blog site will be my final […]
It’s been just a week since Pablo and I decided to re-think the homepage of the soon to come new web page of the Colectivo Piloto. Yet, the progress is already taking a nice turn out. Pablo has been working on cool cinematographs and we have been running a few tests. It is looking good, […]
Nice crowd at BMCC today for the CUNY Service Corps Kick Off. So proud to be one of them. Till May 2015, starting this month, I’ll be a CUNY Corps for the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. With a team of 4 others Corps Members from colleges like City Tech or Queens College, I’ll be […]
Maybe it is not a bad idea to take advantage of my MMP 350 class to also work on my own portfolio. I am always working on other projects and tend to leave my own stuff for later… “I’ll do this when I have time”. But here’s the thing: I NEVER HAVE TIME!
So let’s do this.
The Colectivo Piloto is a non-profit organization I co-founded in 2004 when I was living in Spain. Today, the Colectivo is trying to get more projects in the United States. Particularly New York. This is why, I have been working on the new website all summer long. I want to get it out there asap! […]