'Scrooge' Teacher Reined In Over Santa Gaffe

                 

The teacher had to apologise after claiming Santa was not real

3:55pm UK, Sunday December 04, 2011

A New York teacher has apologised after telling her class of seven and eight-year-olds there was no such thing as Santa Claus.

Leatrice Ann Eng, 58, called each of the students' parents with a yuletide mea culpa for her gaffe.

Ms Eng was in the middle of a lesson about the North Pole on Tuesday when one of her students pointed out that was where Santa Claus lives.

The teacher replied that not only was there no Santa but it was their mums and dads who left their presents under the tree.

The comment outraged parents who branded her a "real-life Scrooge".

"It's sad. She was wrong," said Irene Hoffman, a mother of three children at George W. Miller Elementary School in Nanuet, New York.

"This whole thing is being blown out of proportion. I think we should focus on our children's education and just move on."

http://news.sky.com/home/strange-news/article/16123515

               Do we have the right to tell a child Santa Claus is a legend? Honestly, I don’t really care about. My 7 year-old sister still believes in this and I don’t feel the right to break her imagination about all this “Christmas magic” thing. What I care more about is all this concept of Christmas and how it became important, even essential for companies. Christmas : a nice old man with a white beard or a real profitable business ?

                To understand this phenomenon, we have to come back to the early 1800s with St Nicholas, formerly bishop of Myra (an old city of actual Turkey), imagined by Washington Irving as an Elfin Dutch burgher with a clay pipe who comes down chimneys to bring gifts to people. After lots of poems, and all kind of portrays, he became Santa Claus, icon of Christmas consumerism, largely popularized by Coca Cola ads. This history has its importance.

                Indeed, today French people spend around 500 euros for Christmas gifts, and they seem really cheap because English people can spend around twice more to celebrate Christmas! Lots of companies wait for Christmas to increase their sales around 10 times compared to another month of the year. And people, even during economic crisis context seem to stop looking “sad” news about failures of European economy and try to be happy by buying and offering gifts to their family and friends.

                Christmas became so important that even a teacher has to apologize for telling the truth to children, is it for Christmas Magic or for Christmas Business? The only thing I know is that we are December 5^th and I am part of the 70% of people who still don’t have any gifts to offer, and certainly 50% of people who don’t have any idea of what I can offer to my girlfriend. Any ideas?

Matthieu Demey

Jeanlain beer – A family story from Northern France

In 1922, Felix Duyck settled a brewery near Valenciennes named Jeanlain. The passion of brewering the beer has been transmitted by his dad Léon who created a first brewery in Flanders.

Felix created the champagne bottle because he would like to recycle empty champagne bottles to enable the Jeanlain beer to be consumed at home.
Raymond Duyck, the great grandson of Léon, took over the family business. 

Since 2002, he has led an active development strategy in the brewery undertaking investments in new equipment meeting market requirements in term of quality.

In 2005, Robert launched the Jeanlain Blonde demonstrating the Brasserie Duyck’s expertise to offer clients its values, authenticity and modernity.

To achieve the market’s needs and meet the increasing demand, the 40 employees of the Duyck’s brewery started a new unit for packaging the beer in metal cans.

The secret of the Jeanlain beer is the top fermentation which takes five days, during which the yeast transforms the sugar in the wort into alcohol and produces carbonic acid. After this period the beer is left to rest in the vat for four weeks. 

From the beginning, hard work, know-how and love for tradition have been the qualities on which the renown of the Brasserie Duyck has been built. After more than a century of brewing, owing the high demand for the Jeanlain and people who would already come from far to taste the beer, Jeanlain is one of the best Northern beer in the world and this beer is French.

When would you want to taste a Jeanlain? Quentin 

Success Story

HELSINKI | Wed Nov 2, 2011 10:10am EDT

(Reuters) - Mobile gaming firm Rovio said on Wednesday its hit game Angry Birds had reached a record 500 million downloads in less than two years since its launch.

"It's more than any game ever before," Rovio's marketing chief Peter Vesterbacka told a conference in Helsinki.

Unlike most mobile-game crazes, Angry Birds -- in which players use a slingshot to attack pigs who steal the birds' eggs -- has stayed at the top of the charts since it was launched for Apple's iPhone on Dec 11, 2009.

Vesterbacka said the company's next aim was to reach one billion fans globally, on devices including mobile phones and computers.

The gaming company is expanding the brand across traditional merchandising, to items such as toys and baby products, and is taking the birds to the big screen with film studios.

Earlier this year, Rovio raised $42 million from venture capital firms in an investment co-led by Accel Partners, which previously backed Facebook and Baidu, and Skype founder Niklas Zennstroem's venture capital firm Atomico Ventures.

Rovio was founded in 2003 after three students including Niklas Hed -- CEO Mikael Hed's cousin and now Rovio's COO -- won a game-development competition sponsored by Nokia Oyj and Hewlett-Packard CO. It changed its name from Relude in 2005.

(Reporting By Tarmo Virki; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/02/us-rovio-idUSTRE7A137Q20111102

Over all the users of smart phones all around the world, who never heard about the game and application Angry Bird? This article from Reuters.com describes the success story of Rovio, creator of the game.  I must confess I am part of the 500 millions downloaders, as a student this can be a good way to spend some time. However, this success is not the only one, more and more companies begin to considerate this kind of new market created by the increase of Smartphone (AppStore, Android among others). Shazam, Deezer, Facebook, Google + are some few examples of them.  Even the Church launched their own application.

According to me, it proves one important thing: new kind of companies appear and can win a lot of money thanks to new technologies and the development of Internet and Smartphone use. During my internship in the USA, I met two examples of this new trend: one person who wanted to create a kind of game as application for Iphone, and another one who wins money just by posting some articles and links on his Twitter. Thanks to his great number of followers, some companies were paying him just to put some ads.

Is it a good way to earn its living? It’s hard to tell, but obviously as a CEO of a company you now have to use Twitter, create an app, be on Facebook and spread the name of your brand. Rovio, created by three students is an example of success story you can have thanks to these new concepts.

Now I just hope you won’t think I’m always playing to Angry Birds during your class.

Matthieu Demey

Joachim Poylo CEO of ADEN Services

I have worked for ADEN Services for a year in Vietnam and I am going to explain how the company has been created and developped by Joachim Poylo.

After few years worked at Sodexo, Joachim decided to launch his own company taking the same B to B services concept as Sodexo but to adapt to Asia.
Delivering foodservice, facilities management including cleaning, maintenance, security and remote site management for factories and offices.

The first contract has been signed like following: “When I offered him to handle the canteen for his staff as well as the room cleaning, he stood up from his chair and asked me if I felt like taking his seat” ADEN Services founder recalls. A few days later the overwhelmed Sofitel Director calls Joachim back and signs with him a catering contract which was the first one for the young entrepreneur’s newly created company. 

In 1997 ADEN Services was born in Asia.
ADEN Services is a 100% foreign owned multi-services provider registered in Hong Kong, headquartered in Shanghai. 

After 14 years of work, Joachim Poylo manages 14,000 employees stretches across over 850 sites on three continents (Asia, Africa, Middle East), displayed in 13 countries. To conclude, ADEN Services is a leader in facilities management and has big clients like L’oreal, PUMA, CMA CGM...


Quentin Stubbe

Sony Pictures is reportedly close to acquiring the rights to a biopic of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died last week

Hollywood website Deadline claims the studio behind Oscar-nominated film The Social Network will pay a seven-figure sum for the feature rights to the authorised biography of Mr Jobs.

The book - simply entitled Steve Jobs - is written by former Time Magazine managing editor Walter Isaacson.

Its release is being rushed forward to October 24 - a month earlier than scheduled - following Mr Jobs' death from pancreatic cancer last week aged 56.

The biography has already hit number one on Amazon's bestseller list from pre-orders alone.

It is based on over 40 interviews with the Apple co-founder as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, competitors and colleagues.

Mr Jobs apparently asked for no control over the book and encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly.

Isaacson has previously written bestselling biographies of Albert Einstein, Henry Kissinger and Benjamin Franklin.

Mark Gordon, who has worked on films such as Speed and Saving Private Ryan, will produce the movie version for Sony.

It will be the first film to tell Mr Jobs' story on the big screen although a TV docudrama, Pirates Of Silicon Valley, was broadcast in 1999, starring ER's Noah Wyle as Jobs.

http://news.sky.com/home/showbiz-news/article/16086206

One week after the death of Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple, we didn’t stop hearing from this big event in the Business World, first because of the charisma of Jobs, and also because of the importance of Apple in Multimedia. That’s why I chose this article, found on Skynews, which tells us that Sony Pictures just bought the rights of Steve Jobs’ biography in aim to make a movie of it. Indeed, most part of people uses at least one Apple product, and to me, it is rare to consider a person as important as a brand itself.

When you see reactions on news, and moreover on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, you can tell how people have been affected by the death of Steve Jobs. So, when I read this article about a project of movie based on the life of Steve Jobs, I think we all know even before seeing the trailer, that it will be a success, not just for Sony Pictures but also for Apple.

I also think that this is typically an American idea and concept to take advantage from people who have such a success story like Steve Jobs, and who reflects in a good way the American Dream, always important to American people.

Nobody can tell if the death of Steve Jobs will affect the turnover of Apple, but there is no doubt that they will never find another person to embody the products of the brand as well as Steve Jobs did. Him and Steve Wozniak were at the beginning of Apple, but it’s hard to say that his death will be the end of such a giant as Apple.

Matthieu Demey

279 words

The Saigon Bar Hopping

How I created The Saigon Bar Hopping

When I arrived in Vietnam I did not know anybody and I would like to discover many cultures, many nationalities with different backgrounds. It was my goal and my first priority.

After one month in Vietnam I met a German named Florian and after few beers we both decided to launch an international networking event.
The concept was easy: extend your social network drinking beers and discovering the city of Ho Chi Minh.

Every Friday, it was in average 25 to 30 people who joined the Saigon Bar Hopping. 2/3 were foreigners and 1/3 were Vietnamese. The concept was to drink 5 local beers in 5 different local pubs that we (Flo and Quentin) have defined before, negociating the prices with the bartenders.

Each Friday it was organized in a different district in order to discover all the areas of this big city.

In only 6 months 200 different persons (tourists and expats) came and enjoyed this event. It was a big success and the beginning of a long success story which is going to be organized by some of the shareolders and friends.

The Saigon Bar Hopping is waiting for you on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/saigon.barhopping

Guidelines for Bar-hopping

1) Meetup time: 8:30pm every Friday
2) Pay 100.000 Dong
3) You get 5 local beers at 5 different, local locations
4) Time for one drink: 40min
5) Time between each location: 5min
6) Transportation between locations: walk
7) Practise your english for free (if necessary:-) )
8) Extend your social network!

Quentin Stubbe