Hangover and Magazine

Hangover.

That’s the word to define the mood of everyone involved in TEDx SP in the last few days. Everybody has that blurry look, that slow reaction, that dull expression, a half smile on the face. Geez. TEDx SP was super intense. 12 hours of excitement, new friends, an evident feeling that everything is possible, and that the world will start to change, the easy or the hard way. Of course, when the flood of ideasin our bloodstream stops, the body feels the abstinence.

To whoever went there, a hug. To whoever didn’t go,  a relief: there will always be a next year.

But time to go back to reality.

How is everybody doing?

Let me to introduce myself. I’m Denis Russo Burgierman, journalist, last week I said good-bye to Editora Abril in order to come to work for WebCitizen. From now on, I will visit this blog at least once a week.

My role at WebCitizen isn’t very clear yet. Some say I’m the Content Director. I don’t really like this name too much – I don’t think it is useful to separate content from channel, or content from form. In this new world, these things walk hand in hand. It doesn’t really matter what contains what – what’s important is the message, what matters is the information and what its user can do with it. I’d rather say then that I’m the Information Director. Besides being more elegant, it sounds like a secret agent thing. (The other day I met a guy who has a very cool project called Architecture for Humanity whose job in the company is “Chief Eternal Optimist”, for the acronym to be CEO. He thinks we should create more cool titles for our positions. It’s a first step to enjoy our job better).

Well, whoever attended TEDx São Paulo got a very big yellow magazine. That’s the first issue of Gotas, which was already born as one of the best yellow covered magazines in Brazil. (If you attended the event but didn’t get one, please let us know: some kits were distributed before the magazine came from the printer.) Gotas is Webcitizen’s magazine. To participate in the creation of this independent project was an amazing experience, which left me radiant and frightened, sometimes both simultaneously. Take a look at the cover below.

Transparency is like a trail in the woods on a sunny Sunday after lunch. Everybody is up to it, but nobody wants to start. (continues on page 4)

Pretty, right?

The issue is thematic, and the theme for the first issue is transparency. Number 2 comes in February, 2010. The theme will be “stop talking, it is time to do”. Take a look at the last page:

We’ve got an idea for Gotas issue 2, which will come in February of 2010. The theme we imagined was: “Stop talking, it is time to do”. Then we’d invent a magazine that does things, instead of only discussing them. We thought that, instead of simply filling pages, we could truly intervene in the things of the world out there, registering them and only then put them on the magazine. Did you like the idea? Do you want to participate? Do you have other ideas? Suggestions about where and how could we intervene? Ideas about what could we do it? How can a collaborative creative team, in a short time and with not much money, cause a real impact? Guesses, ideas, insults, suggestions, threats, comments are all welcome by email denis@webcitizen.com.br

The invitation is for this blog’s readers. Send us ideas, please. We want to create a historical issue, a magazine to make us proud, to make things that never have been done before in the world, to become a case study, to inspire people. Finally, we want a magazine to relieve us from the TEDx abstinence syndrome. Let’s get to work, guys?

Ah!

A little bird told me that the first TEDx SP lecture goes online today. And they will start rocking from the start.

A big hug,

Denis