New Year's Traditions

The past week I write about Christmas traditions, this week I want to share some of our new year's activities. Which one of these you share?

In Mexico there are a lot of different activities we do as a tradition on our New Year's Eve celebration, some of them it's really fun to do in group, so seize this day to have some good time with your friends.

Tradition 1: Colorful underwear, you can use it red or yellow.... or whatever color you like. Some of them represent love (red), the yellow one means money. If you buy some and take them to the party you can have a really fun time with your friends taking some pictures with this underwear placed on top of your clothes. 

Tradition 2: Eat 12 grapes with the bells, this activity can be related to the next tradition that is to make some purposes. Each grape represents one purpose you have to finish at the end of the year. The funny thing here is try to eat each grape with each bell, because on the general no one can eat and finish it's grapes, the same as the purposes, we start with a lot of intentions but not finishing the purposes.

Tradition 3: Make some new year's purposes. Some of them usually include loose some weight, stop smoking, making some exercise. In my case I have make promises of all of them, some are really easy to finish, and my recommendation is to make a commitment on a few of them and finish them. One useful tip on this is to share your purposes with your friends, and this way you will be more committed to finish them.

Tradition 4: Make a toast. Take advantage of the party and be thankful to the things that happened on the past year, remember your family and friends, your trips, and also be thankful of your friends.

Tradition 6: Take out your luggage. The theory says that you should walk around the block if you want to have a pleasure trip on the year. If you want to make it VIP you have to introduce some money inside the suitcase. The fun thing here is to take the walk with your red or yellow underwear on top and having lots of fun with your friends. Yo have to be a little brave to do this activity.

Tradition 6: Fireworks. In Mexico all the social networks are trying to stop this activity because the pets have a bad time with this cracking sounds. Even though there are a lot of houses that throw fireworks and have fun with the younger ones.

I hope you have a very fun time with your family and friends. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015.

Season Traditions

Do you know some different holiday traditions that are held in different parts of the world?

Searching on the web, I found some of them that can be different on the way we traditionally live the Christmas in Mexico:

In Ukraine they decorate their trees with spider webs.

In Czech Republic, young Lady's throw their shoe above their shoulder and depending on its landing position they can predict if they will be marrying the next year or they have to wait a little more.

In Japan they celebrate eating KFC Chicken, all because at some time someone get confused with Colonel Sanders and Santa Claus images.

In Catalan, there is an image of the Caganer that is placed on the nativity scene as a prosperity and good luck charm for the next year.

In Guatemala they burn the devil, this tradition is also done in Mexico, but instead of doing it in Christmas we have this tradition on Easter and instead of the devil we use a Judah's image.

The variety of activities done to celebrate in different sites could be wide. I share with you a video with 20 different traditions that can be interesting to review if you want to go at some time to any of this places and have an idea on how they celebrate.

Adaptation Networking

Have you seen a customer service employee delivering at your car window?

An interesting event that happens when it comes to adaptation on the different circumstances that surround different places. At Mexico City parking spaces are few and expensive, the convenience stores do not have this facilities at most of their establishments. I miss living at a smaller city where this parking spaces were available at a 30 step walk.

In this big city, the space and the square meters are really important, so the managers have developed new service formulas to adapt to this situation. Innovation some may say. I have to tell you that a few days ago my son give me a call and ask me to buy for him 30 tamales to take to his posada (event party). It was 3:30pm and at that moment I haven't seen any tamales sold at the regular stores that I shop. In Monterrey tamales are sold at any supermarket and in some convenience stores too.

So the first thing I did was to ask a Mom that knew about this type of requests. The answers came fast, some of them lead me to different places where I can buy my tamales, but they remember me that it's better to ask for them with 2 or 3 days advance.

One of the mom's told me to go to a specialized store that has at least 12 different franchises. So I do my research in Internet, get the phone number and make a call. Jesus, store manager, answered and he explain me that he had the tamales, how to drive to the store and he offered that when I was near him I just "honk" and he will go out and deliver my request.

I had never lived a similar situation, and of course, when I was on my way to the tamale's store, I kept stuck on traffic and lost. This happens here a lot, but I take the phone and call Jesus again, as soon as he answered he gave me some new directions and get me to my way. He also told me that I should call him again when  I were near the Pizza Restaurant and he will gave me my tamales.

I still not catch his instructions, but I'm pretty obedient and when I was in front of the Pizzas Restaurant I call him again, I was at half a block from his store. He then told me turn on your flashers, then he asked about my SUV model and color and 2 seconds more he was at my window giving me the tamales, I do not have to get out of my car, neither wait for him. He also told me how to get back. This was an interesting experience.

Now my suggestions

a) If you do not have the parking spaces availability, look for different ways to give your customers service experiences less stressful, give them a taxi, have different alternatives or in as in this case make the "auto" delivery.

b) Organize with your customers the possibility to make their orders by Internet or by phone and then review the different options of delivery. 

c) Have fun in the process, Jesus helped me a lot with my driving directions and also give me some tips on the places I was lost.

Attitude

Stop being who you are and start being who you should be (Robert Kiyosaki)

Season events

Is the beginning of December and I'm really excited about the many networking activities that I'm going to get soon. How about you?

Is Christmas season and we can have one or all of the following cases:

1. Annual closure
2. December parties
3. Christmas Break

Particularly in Mexico happens the event called Guadalupe-Reyes Marathon that concurs with this time of the year. It begins on December 12th when Guadalupe Virgin festivity is held and ends by January 6th when the Wise Men celebration also is held.

In the meanwhile there is the 9 day celebration of the Posadas that start on December 16th. Then Christmas Eve and Christmas day (December 24th and 25th). We don't forget about our fools day that is on December 28th and then December 31st New Year's Eve with its January 1st New Year Day.

We end our Party Marathon on January 6th. This is a hard job for people that like to meet and greet with friends and family.

This event also has job implications because the companies seize this opportunity to finish the year's activities, plan for next year strategies and enjoy with employees the achievements. So be prepared to celebrate with friends and acquaintances, we are at the perfect time and moment to do it.

Network Use

Do you know how to use social network? Have you experiencie with the most common and what are they for?

Fernando Mol, this blog editor and my friend, send me the next thoughts that I want to share with you:

" I was invited to an event and the organizers put me in charge of the social network, they insisted that it has to have a lot of publicity over there, but neither of them has a Twitter account and their use of Facebook was only to family pictures exchange.

Young people, use the social network in a natural way, they are a little bit irresponsible, on their use, but they are really familiar to them.

I believe you have to share a tip for non-users. Tell your audience which are the ones recommended for professional use. What about the information you share on them and what you can find there. Personally I use frequently: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Reddit, Youtube, Vimeo, Pinterest and Linkedin.

Twitter is the most popular among executive levels, but is not that intuitive and people didn't find use of it and left it behind. Facebook is seen as a family network in Mexico and a lot of people use it for fun, not to make business. Instagram is for young people, and the older people can't imagine that Youtube or Vimeo are social networks. If you say Pinterest, you may get a "Bless you" answer. A lot of people has a Linked In account, because someone told them "You should have one", but after opening that account thay never reviewed it again.

Here my advice for the social network use:

Twitter is important because of 2 scenarios, first you can get information on what is going on for an especific theme, for example the stock exchange, sport results, or in a city you can know about traffic information, weather among other things. The second scenario is about your own material production, by this mean you can self promote the information you want and engrose the information about your own interests.

The now famous # (hashtag) that you may observe on the social network, was generated on Twitter, it helps to search for tendencies, and in this blog's case you can find us when you write #networking, you may find some other authors writing about the same thing.

Fernando Mol says: "Before you speak about Facebook, I will recommend using Twitter, but empasizing on the news information and people of interest, you may learn how to use hashtags, that are the main characteristics on this network. The people may use Twitter as if it was a Facebook account, following only their friends, and that may be not as interesting as following famous people's accounts: Bill Gates (@BillGates), Richard Branson (@richardbranson), Deepak Chopra (@DeepakShopra) and Maria Popova (@brainpicker) are some examples."

Facebook (an account for sure you have)... will gave you the opportunity to review different business scenarios, I have a lot of invitation to events from this social network, some of my friends make promotion on their products and services, and you may have restauant reservations or different opinions from the service. This blog, is related to a Facebook page and has more visits from this network that from the Blog per se.

Instagram is a lighter version of Facebook, but you may modify your pictures, integrating special effects that may lead you to perform as a professional, you may share them with # and review what other people is doing at some point. I haven't seen a lot of people above 40 using this network, but I have met a lot of youngsters, that are photograph amateurs using this resource to improve their selfies.

I'm going to skip Youtube, Vimeo, Reddit and Pinterest to write about them on another Blog post, I think this networks deserve special information, and because its a little bit harder to understand them. So lets go to Linked In.

This is a business social network, please be aware of this, it doesn't matter your age, postition, if you are not well prepared to do business, do not use this network. You have to be able to promote yourself as a professional searching for business opportunities, if you are a housewife, I don't recommend to make a profile, unless you have a business proposition. Please don't ask for cooking recepies, news about entertainment or publish information not related to business. This social network is perfect to have an approach to different companies, job search, providing services, meeting professional groups.

The social networks present enormous possiblitites, and the younger generations have some more interactional elements, gave yourself some time to perform with some experience and use them carefully, in the next 10 years you will be reviewing this networks as a megatendency.