Doing some research for a conference that I will be giving next week, I came across the "first designed Bed & Breakfast" of Buenos Aires, situated in the heart of Palermo Viejo, a neighborhood with a lot of history that has become more and more trendy and now is know as "Palermo SoHo". What makes the place more interesting is the fact that it was originally a convent, built on a property donated by a French noblewoman to the Santo Domingo Church. It opened at the end of the XIX century and... Read Full Story

Since I moved to the US, I have been visiting my native country (Argentina) at least once a year. I am a die-hard "porteña" -as people from Buenos Aires are known- and I enjoy this city no matter what. Yeah, it can be messy and chaotic but that is what I like about it. It is the perfect ground for creativity and creativity has in fact flourish, in part thanks to the crisis we had in 2001. Some days ago, I found this stencil near my old neighborhood. I can't express in words how I felt when... Read Full Story

I love the irreverent humor of Sarah Silverman. I live in Florida and I am not really a big fan of the place, but she has a good argument to visit the Sunshine State and your grandparents! If you have part of your family in FL and want to become "a schlepper" just visit the siteand join others! Via Read Full Story

Today, if you were in Buenos Aires around the obelisk very early in the morning, you would have noticed something strange over the most traditional and recognized monument of this city. It was a message delivered by Greenpeace with their usual way of communicating: guerilla action! This time the issue was contamination: the message was in fact a fake "prize" awarded to the city for dumping ( Read Full Story

Today is the first debate between the candidates. It seems like the perfect time to share this video from TED where psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most, trying to explain "The real difference Read Full Story

If you believe that you have an idea that can help many many lives, Google invites you to submit the idea to them and who knows?..., it may become a real project! How is that? Simple. As part of the celebration of Google's 10th birthday, yesterday was launched the "Project 10 to the 100th". There are few rules involved and Google have committed $10 million to fund up to five finalists. Aimed to Read Full Story

During our really short visit to Uruguay I came across some stencils in the streets of Montevideo (Uruguay's capital) that caught my eye. They were relatively small and most of them were located in the same wall (the exception is the "Glasgow" graffiti that you can see here). We were just three days in Montevideo, so of course I wasn't able to see all the city in such short time. We stayed around downtown and the old city mostly, spending our Sunday at the Tristan Narvaja fair, a street fair... Read Full Story

When visiting Uruguay, I was gladly surprised by the "cancer warning" displayed by the Marlboro brand in their tobacco packs. It seems that finally someone decided that the warning should be really visible -but more important so-, that it can be done applying some nice design to it! Ok, I have to confess that some of my friends find the whole thing a bit creepy..., so maybe not everyone will appreciate the design as I do. But thanks to my extensive traveling (and my many, many years as a... Read Full Story

Apparently, the ads portraying Seinfeld and Gates trying to "connect" with real people will not be aired anymore. There is a lot of discussion out there about the reasons, if the ads performed poorly or if it was the idea from the beginning to get the attention with these ads to switch to a complete different direction later. Now, from a strategy standpoint the ads are at least... really weird. I mean -don't get me wrong-, I love to see Seinfeld and Gates making clowns of themselves showing... Read Full Story

Many years ago, visiting some friends in Nigeria (they were working at the Argentine Embassy there) I was impressed by the simplicity and beauty of a wooden "piece of art" that my friends had at their house. But when I asked what it was representing exactly, I find out that it was in fact an outdoor ad... (kind of). It was a relatively old sign for a hair salon, that my friends bought at a local market. At the time, I took a picture of it and as it tends to happen -at least to me- I lost the... Read Full Story