Festival and blog awards

The Festival of Social Sciences starts today at the University of Warwick campus. I am supposed to be the official blogger and twitterer for the festival but unfortunately my wife is still stuck in Berlin and I have to take care of my son as he doesn't have nursery today.

So I have come up with an arrangement - they send me pics and info and I post them up from here. Hope it works out.

If you are on Twitter, you can follow the festival twitter page @socscifestival

Moving on, I have recently received some blog awards:

The first one is from John Harris (Bokjae)

Another one is from good friend Nana.

Thanks a lot guys. I really appreciate it.

Naomi Klein wins the inaugural Warwick Prize for Writing

Attended the inaugural Warwick Prize for Writing ceremony yesterday evening. It was a small affair compared to other award ceremonies I have attended but I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the panellists.

The setting for the ceremony was Mead hall in the Warwick Arts Centre surrounded by some wacky art.





Naomi Klien won the £50,000 award for her controversial book 'The Shock Doctrine'.


The Shock Doctrine


Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick's Professor Nigel Thrift addressing the audience

In this book, Naomi argues against the well accepted free market policies as given by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics. She also talks about a group of people who profit when disasters occurs around the World, whom she refers to as "the shock doctors".


Naomi accepting the prize


Naomi posing for the cameras

I am really proud to have been involved in the initial judging panels. It was really a tough process considering the theme this year was "complexity" and the fact that it was cross-disciplinary open to substantial pieces of writing in the English language and in any genre or form. This includes translations from other languages.

Selecting the winner for this year went through several rounds and the longlist of 20 titles came out in December last year. The list was finally whittled down to a short-list of six international titles.

Was slightly surprised because both the cover design and the title on the Amazon.com site is slightly different from the one I have. It costs £9.99 at the University book store but I got it at a special price of only £7.99 and I had it autographed by the author as well.

You can now get this International bestseller from Amazon.com

High achiever wife

Last night I bundled up the kids and picked up my wife from Pool Meadow bus station in Coventry City Centre. She was coming back from a conference in London. This was her first ever since she started her PhD two years ago and I was delighted when I learnt that she received a "Promising paper" award at the conference. It's such a big deal because some of the top marketing gurus from all around the World were at the conference as well.

I am really happy for her and am wondering whether I can achieve something like that in the near future as well. Unlike me, my wife is a perfectionist. She refused to go to a conference until she was sure it was near perfect and she's still not happy with it. I am more of a relaxed last minute person and during my first year, presented my half baked paper at a doctoral conference. We are like Yin and Yang. However, I think we both need to come to a balance - with myself taking it more seriously and she - relaxing a bit.

Do any of you have a high achieving partner?

Vote for Adam Ok

My tech blog Adam OK Dot Net has been nominated as the bbest geek blog for the Blogger's Choice Awards. Please check it out and vote for me if you like the blog. The voting ends on October 1st.



Thanks.

Datuk Nicol David

A few years back I wrote a blog post "Datuk Nicol", calling for reigning world woman's squash champion Nicol David to be awarded a Datukship. However, I never thought that it would become a reality considering her age, etc. etc.

Well today, I learnt that she was awarded the Darjah Setia Pangkuan Negeri (DSPN) award which carries the title Datuk, by the Penang state government. Only 25 years old, she is the state's youngest Datuk.


Photo from "Nicol David Online".

Congratulations Nicol. You deserve it.

I won an award

I recently received an award from Emila but totally forgot about it. It's called the "I Love You This Much Award!"



In her words:

I think it’s a good idea to spread some love and to remind us that love is all around!

It's quite an honour to receive this award from someone as creative as Emila. Thanks.

I am a NAFASG Certified Partner

Learnt that I have been named as a ‘NAFASG CERTIFIED PARTNER’.


Thanks a lot guys.

Am I the hottest daddy blogger

I am in running for the Hottest Daddy Blogger on the Blogger's Choice Awards.

It is perfectly clear that I won't be able to break into the top 10 (unless there's some miracle). However, was quite pleased to find that till date I have received 16 votes (when I last checked) and in the top 20.

What most people don't know is that my blog is also self nominated for the "Best Marketing Blog" as well as for the "Best Blog About Blogging"

If you like my blog, please vote for me.







Tags: Blogger's choice awards hottest daddy blogger

Hottest daddy blogger

I have been nominated for the Blogger's choice awards "Hottest daddy blogger".



Vote for me.