What was it that  made an attempt to celebrate diversity turn parochial?

I went to see Gay Icons last week-end  and left the National Portrait Gallery feeling both puzzled and disappointed.

The exhibition was put together by ten selectors, including Billie Jean King and Elton John, who were asked to name six people - who may or may not be gay - “whom they personally regard as inspirational, or an icon for them”.
Gay Icons missed a great opportunity to celebrate prominent figures for their roles as advocates of gay rights. Instead, some of the people selected appear to have been chosen only for personal reasons. Awareness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic gets only a few brief mentions.

The exhibition also lacks diversity in terms of nationality. Most of the people in it are either British or American. How sad!

Here is a list of people who were totally ignored but ought to have been part of the exhibition in terms of what they represent as gay icons:

- Greek poet Constantine Cavafy
- German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder
- Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka
- Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar
- Greek soprano Maria Callas
- American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe
- Italian film directors Pier Paolo Pasolini and Luchino Visconti
- US movie star Rock Hudson
- English novelist E.M. Forster
- American author Gore Vidal

I had been dreading going back to the beach ever since my mother nearly drowned in the sea last summer.

I didn’t know what to expect.

However, my encounter with the ocean at La Serena,  Chile was far from traumatic.

I have never experienced anything like it…

This powerful body of water has its own personality. It is unlike any other sea I have ever been at.

You feel this mighty presence all around you.

And just in case you forgot, La Serena has a system of tsunami alerts. You feel the ocean alive next to you. Like a giant lung, it breaths energy into the surrounding nature.

Is it a benign presence? How can this mesmerising beauty have the cruelty of producing the periodic tsunamis the people of La Serena are so afraid of?

I was pondering over this question in my hotel room before falling asleep, when an earthquake shook my bed.

Was that the answer? Is nature too powerful to subject itself to the laws of good and bad?

After all, the sea gave me back my mum. I should stop asking questions.

Barak Obama has really done it for us communicators.

I am talking about his social media campaign. In Europe these days, everybody wants it and everybody wants to be like him.

The interactive web was there before and change had started happening a long time ago. The enormous favour Obama has done to us is to awaken public consciousness to these new tools.

This was the subject of a talk I attended last night.

Obama’s wisdom has been to realise that the world had changed and to go for it.

Through his MyBarakObama.com site, he gave supporters the tools to take ownership of their part of the campaign. 27,000 groups were created on the site. These organised 50,000 events in the last 3 weeks of the campaign (100,000 were organised in total). Control of these events was left to the organisers and their communities.

The Obama campaign was present on YouTube with 14,500 hours. This corresponds to £ 32 million worth of TV spots!

People will be studying the social media side of the Obama phenomenon for many years to come.

But, the most interesting lesson for us communicators is the sense of connection that Obama was able to create through his online presence. This is what we have to able to create in our work.

We have to generate so much passion around an issue that people will want to spend several un-paid hours of their week to comment on it.

I heard something else last night that got me thinking: “where people hung out yesterday is not where they are going to hang out tomorrow”. It’s all part of the acceleration we are going through and it’s all so exciting.

I just finished listening to President Obama’s magnificent inauguration speech.

And yes… I did cry when he came to the part about being the son of a man who might not have been served in a restaurant 60 years ago.

I thought of the books by Maya Angelou I read.

I thought of all the people who were ever at the receiving end of a racist remark. Being from Southern Europe, I have had my fair share over the years …of course, nothing to compare to what Dr Angelou described… but you can kind of relate to the pain and anger.

I loved the part of Obama’s speech about the world growing smaller and humanity revealing itself (communicators are experiencing this every day through the interactive web).

And I was really relieved by his message of inclusiveness to the Muslim world.

I will remember the prayer spoken at the end of the ceremony. A prayer for “the community of all nations, not just our nation”.

America is becoming again the place I used to love.

It is all about personal branding.

Barack Obama has offered the position of US Surgeon General to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and chief medical correspondent for CNN.

This shows how important it is, these days, to turn your particular way of practicing your profession into a brand.

On top of hosting CNN’s weekend program “House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta”, Dr. Gupta has had appearances on CBS Evening News and writes columns for Time magazine. In 2007, he published a book on the search for immortality.

As you can see from this clip of the Daily Show, Dr. Gupta’s appointment is already making waves and entering pop culture.

The US Surgeon General is the country’s doctor, a face people will need to trust and listen to. Dr. Gupta comes with a loyal public. No wonder Obama went for him.

Have you ever used food to retrieve memories?

My friend Gina has just contributed to a book that brought together Filipino expatriates reminiscing about their favourite dishes.

The authors of “A Taste of Home – Pinoy Expats and Food Memories” believe that it is “the kitchen that generates the warmest thoughts of home..”.

I love the part about Gina’s childhood in the US:

“two cans of Chef Boyardee…
It brought back everything about growing up in suburban America in the 1960s: the wobbly formica kitchen table, the cheap plastic paint sets ordered with coupons cut out of the top of Kellogs Frosted Flakes cartons…”

In Italy, the two main Christmas desserts are Pandoro and Panettone.

Pandoro comes from Verona where I grew up. On my last visit home, a friend gave me a fresh Pandoro that I brought with me to London.

I opened the bag and…for a second I was back there… in my beloved school, Istituto Agli Angeli, with its enormous park.

I must have been about 5. I felt the texture of my lunch book under my fingers. I even felt the sticky spots where I used to spill the peach juice that would come in little bottles…

I opened my eyes and the memory was gone.

All of the sudden, it was 2008… I was standing in the middle of a kitchen in West London holding the gateway to my childhood.

“What did you learn this year?”

I braved the pre-Xmas crowds on Saturday – after spending most of the week in bed with the flu – and ventured into the center to have lunch near Trafalgar Square.

My co-author Yang-May asked the question that had strangely been on my mind for most of the day.

In 2008, large part of my energy went into writing our book. What amazed me is the rhythm that sets in after you have been writing for a while. It’s like music. Is it the soul of the book taking hold of you? I don’t know. But I have certainly learned that once you start creating something, your “creation” begins to carry you and you have to let go and follow.

So – to answer Yang-May’s question – was the lesson of 2008 “let go and follow the energy”?

It certainly felt that way during the summer, while I was watching my mum breathing through a machine in a hospital in Venice. Her accident has been another source of lessons from 2008.

I have already written about the strange experience of communicating with her effectively without words. To this, I would add the experience of listening to the energy of the moment that gave me the firm conviction that mother would pull through.

After lunch, I immersed myself in Xmas shopping. I floated around Floris on Jermyn Street…. I love the place. It looks right out of the 1930s.

I chose a present for mother, gave it to the shop attendant and looked at myself in the enormous old mirror. Under a purple hat, my eyes were filling up with tears. I was probably the only customer that day who seemed to be getting emotional over body lotion…

I felt like opening my mouth and explaining… but all of the sudden, the world felt so perfect.

I managed a large smile from my still somewhat sickly face, grabbed my parcel and stepped outside into the rainy London evening…. feeling extremely happy.

I get excited when my friends win awards.

So I went along last night, to the Shine Awards that are given to women for their achievements in “Talent Management in Travel Tourism and Hospitality”.

My friend and colleague Gina McAdam won the award for outstanding mentor. She was up against tough competition and she got it!

Gina has been mentoring Alex Kopitsis, Regional Training Manager with the Hilton Group.

I am very fortunate to be working with Gina (holding the award in the photo, next to Diane Morris). She has the ability to convince you and win you over in the most gentle way.

And I loved the keynote speaker last night: Liz Jackson MBE of Great Guns Marketing.

What an inspiring woman! Liz went blind the very same week she set up her business offering telemarketing to blue chips. She now runs 7 offices around the UK with a staff of over 100.

Her motto is: If you say that you can or you can’t, you are always right!

My mother left the hospital on Saturday, three months after her accident.

While she was recovering in her hospital bed, I travelled to San Francisco, Denver, Moscow and Toronto.

Incredible.. how far your physical body can be from the place where your heart and feelings keep going back to.

I looked out of the window during my flight to Toronto the other week.

The sun had already set over Northern Europe. We were flying towards North America and the light. I kept seeing this glow in front of the plane. Next to me were the moon and the stars.

I tuned into British Airways’ meditation channel and listened to monks chanting. I thought of all the friends who have helped me during this difficult time.

It is as if all their love, thoughts and prayers had come together in the evening sky forming a translucent web. I could almost touch it.

I am enormously grateful to them.

On Saturday, after dialling our home number in Italy and speaking to mother, I lit a cinnamon candle, listened to Messiah by Haendel and opened the window… for the Christmas time to finally enter my life.

I have thought long and hard…

What makes listening to Annette Verschuren such an unforgettable experience?

It is probably her energy.

The president of The Home Depot for Canada and Asia is so inspiring… like a breath of fresh air.

She doesn’t project the traditional corporate gloom you get sometimes at conferences.

She has made it in a sector like the home improvement industry that, only 13 years ago, had no women leaders.

Annette believes that the leader of the future will have to inspire and include people. This is her secret. That’s where the energy comes from.

And there is more.

Annette grew up on a farm. She spoke at the annual conference of The International Alliance for Women in Toronto this week about the award she was given as the best cow milker.

That was it! I was hooked. I love cows. They give me a sense of home. My grandma used to have cows.

I was also impressed about Annette’s work in China.

The Home Depot has been in the country since 2007. It is the rising middle class that makes this market so interesting. It is estimated that 150 million Chinese will move into the middle class in the next few years.

China is the country of “do it for me” rather than “do it yourself”. Cheap labour makes it possible. So, The Home Depot has adopted a different strategy from the one it uses in the West. It has been focusing on the decorating business and has introduced paint centres into its stores.

Annette runs the business like “an orchestra conductor”. The result is a music the corporate world would need to hear more often.