What do you do? I write press-releases

For 20 years of my life I wrote press-releases. Well, many times I also wrote content for websites, magazines, intranets, whatever the boss asked me to write. Ended up that I never became the boss. Writing in Portuguese was easy and natural, I do it better than most of people, and does not cost me much. If I have time to research, even better. Otherwise we just connect words that make sense, and it was called content. Empty content nowadays that bots can analyses the quality of content! In the new age of bots, I’m proud to say I am used to be a old style productive content maker. And I don’t use Chat GPT – but you should!

Nowadays you input the information for your release in two sentences and upload the images, the press release should come ready. As 1980’s baby, I am the last generation that does not domain ALL tools… I don’t do even the design. The world has changed and for me, Journalism is made now in my second language. I learned English during 1h Tuesdays and Thursdays’ afternoon classes, after school, from my 7 to 14 years old. Actually, my mom says that my second language is German, that I used to speak with them from 0-5 and now is forgotten inside my brain. And now I know the reason I didn’t want to keep speaking German – was the language mom and dad were using to fight, so I would not understand. Very smart, couple! As a rebel kid, I need to go and learn German now. It’s time. German, and French and Italian, since they’ll will be easy.

What I came here to say is that anyone can write a release in any language, and use the format that is the same worldwide. Start with the most important information that is also in the title, explaining what is this about, then you bring the support reasons why this is so important, and don’t forget to explain who is the company and what does it do so well in the first paragraph. From here, if written as it should, you’ll need a quote from at least one speaker, some data from the agency/association with authority, and some comparison to another country or state or same situation or person. Finish with the boiler with the company’s highlights and you have your press release!

Used to take a day to send a release by fax to the newspapers in 1998… I was the intern doing that task most of my day for Persona Communications, a PR agency in fashion, in Sao Paulo. We had the best stylists by that time! And nowadays you press one button to send to thousands of channels at the same time. Thanks, technology. The intern in 1998 was not the best use of time to learn about the job.

Public Relations is marketing dressed on a pseudo Journalist costume. I wish I was an investigate or medical Journalist, but what I have experience in is to take care of the brand’s image, what people are talking about the brand, reputation and all that non-tangible invisible bullshit that has the huge visible impact. Everything you do a lot, you become good at. Nowadays I’m learning how to talk to old people on the phone. Yeah. Immigration sucks.

I was never asked to write a press release in English, but I’m up to that. Would be good to improve my English, but as soon as I have 3 thousand dollars available hanging in my bank account, and I can feel safe again, I am going to Hawaii!! And I will keep my basic English going on, since simplicity has its charm.

Sobre viajar…

Este é um post que peguei emprestado do Richard Field, um cara que conheci no hostel de Izmir, na Turquia, e está na estrada com Félix – sua moto – da Inglaterra ao Cáucaso. 

Mantive exatamente como ele escreveu, em inglês, e traduz bem alguns sentimentos e percepções que tive nesses 7 meses de rolê.

Thanks, Richard! And keep walking!!! 

“A couple of friends mentioned the journey I’m on at the moment. One in particular was looking forward to a journey of her own. Another might be contemplating something similar. I wrote down some remarks in response as a facebook’ comment’, but I thought I’d share them here instead for anyone else who has a yen to disappear into the wild blue yonder. The advice is simple, and in one sense, trivial: just do it. 

For a few people that means little more than  tying their shoelaces and setting off.  For others it is a long and involved process of planning, and advance reading, and anticipating in detail all the possible pitfalls they may encounter on the way.  And, of course, there are a thousand other possible approaches in between.  All these different approaches, though, are only expressions of individual personality, ways people have of negotiating their inner needs and getting themselves on the road.  The essential thing is to decide to do it.  After that, everything else follows.  As experienced adventurers told me when I first started thinking about my own journey, it doesn’t take any special qualities, and it doesn’t take any special courage.  Step out into the world,  and the world will come to greet you.  It is as simple as that.

Setting out on ‘A Big Trip’ is, I think,  like being born.  Once you appear in the world, you are pretty well committed to dealing with whatever comes your way.  You don’t have a lot of choice in the matter.  It is the same with setting off on a journey.  The issues you have to deal with may be a little different, perhaps a little less familiar, but they are not that different, and you deal with them one at a time, just as you do when living your life at home.  Chances are that you will get caught up in  some of them, and time will pass without your even noticing it.   The only difference between being born and setting out on a journey is  that setting out on a journey is something you choose to do.  That means the only additional courage you need is to to choose to do it, to put yourself on the starting grid and then begin walking/riding/driving in which ever direction you want to go. 

Something that I thought I knew, but am only now beginning to learn deeply in my gut is that on any adventure you undertake, you take yourself with you, so your journey is always your own.  It doesn’t come out of a magazine or another traveller’s description of their round the world adventure.  Doing it doesn’t turn you into a completely new person or into someone else you admire who has set out before you.  A journey like this will undoubtedly change you – as any experience will – but all that means is that you become another, and in all likelyhood, a better version of yourself.  Travel seems to knock the hard edges off people.

A time comes – and with me, it has taken months – when the journey ceases to become a thing in itself, something separate that you are ‘doing’.  In time you start living your own ordinary life again, the life that is and has always been inside you.  The only difference is that you are now living it somewhere else and under different circumstances.  

Right now, it is almost half past midnight.  I’m typing this in a corner of my tiny room in a hostel in Tbilisi with bunches of grapes hanging down outside the window and the lights of buildings shining down on me from the top of the gorge opposite. A steep, winding alleyway lined with timbered houses passes my window.  The alley connects with little lanes that lead down towards Tbilisi’s Freedom Square and then on down through the Old Town to the river.  There, by the river, those lanes connect with roads that run the length of Tbilisi before heading out for other Georgian towns and for the world beyond. 

It sounds romantic.  It is romantic.  (I think so!)  But at the same time it is also just me tapping away at a keyboard here as I often do at home in the evening, setting down my thoughts, and daydreaming about what I am going to have for breakfast in the morning, or what things I will need to do before I go out an enjoy myself later in the afternoon.” 

Richard Field

100 dias de rolê!

Anteontem completei 100 dias de rolê. Tô no 9o país e vou dormir no 30o lugar diferente hoje. Até aqui foram 23 camas, 5 sofás excelentes em Couchsurfing, 2 noites dormindo em barco e 3 em barraca. Ainda não dormi nenhuma noite na rua. E teve umas noites que só dormi de dia.

O que interessa é que nunca fui tão livre e consciente de mim. 

Lembro das 3 semanas em Paris no luxo e conforto com minha grande amiga, e de como eu mudei meu olhar sobre as coisas e as pessoas de lá pra cá. Os primeiros dias você ainda pensa com cabeça de turista e está muito conectado à vida que largou onde supostamente mora. Depois de algumas semanas, começa a desenvolver uma nova atitude, o olhar de viajante, se reconectando com quem você é, sem todos os rótulos que os outros te deram, sem as vontades e os gostoso que eram dos outros. É só você e o mundo. E você pode fazer literalmente o que quiser. 

Da França dei start no rolê com 9 dias na Bélgica de total empolgação e à base da melhor cerveja do mundo, seguidos de 5 dias do melhor baseado do mundo na Holanda. Depois, 24 na Deutschland, onde fica, é claro, a melhor cidade do mundo. Berlin. Tive um turbilhão de emoções na longa estada de 28 dias na Turquia, estudei, aprendi e fortaleci muitas ideias, principalmente aquelas que envolvem machismo e religião. Também vi lugares e conheci pessoas incríveis na seca terra turca. Aproveitei pra relaxar da tensão nas belas praias do Chipre por uma semana de sol e calor. Passei 5 dias na Hungria, enfim, o leste europeu, que era o plano inicial, encontrei amigos e me deliciei com Budapest. Vibrei com a verde Eslovênia ontem e anteontem, e assim completaram-se meus 100 dias de rolê. Tenho anotado cada centavo gasto, mas tenho preguiça de parar pra somar. (Depois desta frase, perdi 40 minutos de sono e somei: foram 2790 euros, 2170 liras turcas, 52800 florins húngaros em 100 dias de rolê. Já torrei uns 13 mil reais nos melhores dias da minha vida. Ah, podia fazer tanta coisa com essa grana, né?! Mas o dinheiro é meu, ganhei com meu trabalho e é isso que eu quero fazer com ele. A ideia é daqui pra frente gastar cada vez menos, indo pra países onde o dinheiro rende. Como agora que estou na Croácia. Mas por enquanto tenho uma amiga (e um carro) pros próximos dias e temos um roteiro corrido a cumprir. E também é interessante ter companhia por uns dias.

E sim, digo de novo que cansa viajar, mas cansa muito menos do que trabalhar 12 horas por dia na rotina estressante paulistana. 

Hoje sei bem o que não quero mais da vida. Tem gente que não liga de trabalhar 12 meses pra ter 1 de férias. Tem quem ache que é alguém, ou alguma coisa diferente, porque tem um cargo A numa empresa B, e dá o sangue pra manter ricos os que já são ricos. E acha bonito. E assim, sentados no carro ou no escritório, passam 30 anos. Tem outro tipo de gente que nem pensa nisso, acorda, trabalha, dorme e paga conta. Acha que a vida é só isso. Tem filho e continua na roda do ramster, agora porque tem o filho e precisa pagar ainda mais contas. Segue sendo engrenagem sem se questionar. E tem os artistas, os únicos que são felizes. Tipo de gente que eu gosto de ter por perto.

Viajar o mundo é algo que sempre quis fazer, e achei que nunca ia poder. Porque também sempre tive que trabalhar pra pagar as contas. Mas a demissão de um emprego que eu não aguentava mais me deu essa oportunidade. Agradeço novamente a Santa Tedesco, a mulher que me empregou e me demitiu. Alguns amigos disseram que querem um dia poder viajar assim também. E o segredo é “você já pode”. Basta sair da zona de conforto, quebrar a estabilidade doentia da rotina, escolher o ponto inicial e comprar a passagem. 

Nada de novo acontece quando você não faz nada de novo. Simples assim. 

Sinto falta do pilates, do meu gato, de alguns amigos, do namorado e da família, mas não to com saudade de casa e da vida sobre a qual tinha o total controle. Não tenho saudade do meu carro. Nem de São Paulo, uma das piores cidades pra se morar no mundo. 

E cada vez que olho o mapa mundi pra escolher o próximo destino tenho a sensação de que preciso de mais tempo porque tem muitos lugares incríveis nesse planeta que eu faço questão de pisar ainda nessa vida. E nessa hora, a única vontade que tenho é de estender o rolê. 

Que venham os próximos 100 dias!!!