Forget Milk

A week ago, to the day, I arrived back home in Bucharest.

It was a trip I won’t be forgetting. You see, a loving husband, a wonderful father, a top-notch grandfather and my best friend was taken from this family, unexpectedly.

I won’t be going into details here, but needless to say, its been a rough few months.

During my stay in the UK, I had sold CeeVee and the question I keep hearing is “what next Lee”

To be honest, I don’t know. I know we @ wilks have a couple of clients projects we are putting the final touches to, but after this I am not 100% sure.

I do see a future in eCommerce, I see a future in Content, and I can how combing the two will work. Thats one idea. I have others.

I just wanted to update you guys on where I am at, and to hopefully answer your “what next?” question.

Until the next time.

Rest In Peace Dad, I will miss you and love you always.

Below is a copy of the press release we sent out today regarding the sale of CeeVee.com to Lateral.

Bucharest, 14th of January 2010 Wilkins Lee Creative announces today that it has successfully completed the sell of CeeVee.com to Lateral Romania. Ceevee.com is a platform focused on developing an online tool that simplifies the building and maintaining of CVs/Resumes online.

CeeVee.com was launched on the local market just 6 months ago and experienced a huge growth ever since. Most recently, the CeeVee.com team has been working to keep up with the international demands.

Lee Wilkins, General Director Wilkins Lee Creative: “After many discussions with Lateral representatives focused on a future collaboration, we were impressed with the speed of their developments and their understanding of our business. Thus, what originally started as a partnership ended up as a buyout. Lateral Romania shares the same passion and drive that we have for Ceevee.com, but has a lot more resources on board and expertise in the job market. Wilkins Lee Creative will stay on board until the migration completes and will continue to offer advice going forward.”

Filip Chereches-Tosa, Partner at Lateral Romania: “We are delighted to bring Ceevee.com to our portfolio. The acquisition of CeeVee brings to the table the missing piece from our job related products. Ever since we started www.jobberbase.com and job-job.co.uk we felt we needed a compelling way to allow people to create and share CVs and offer this information to companies in a structured and machine-readable way. By means of this acquisition, CeeVee users have now access to targeted job offers and our partners and the open source community to many other services in a machine-readable format.”

About CeeVee:
CeeVee was founded in June 2008 in Bucharest and was focused on building an online tool that simplified the building and maintaining a CV/Resume online. In September 2008, CeeVee opened its door in private beta, its initial 600 users providing valued feedback and helping the site improvement. In July 2009, CeeVee opened its door in Public Beta – a simple platform that anyone can use, which connects companies to job-seekers and vice-versa.

About Wilkins Lee Creative
Wilkins Lee Creative is a design consultancy company focused on innovation and social media. The founder, Lee Wilkins, is an entrepreneur with experience in the online space for over 10 years. For more information, please visit: http://www.hellowilks.com

About Lateral Romania
Lateral Romania is a technology software provider with a significant interest in the job market, that currently owns: www.jobberbase.com (the largest open-source job board software), job aggregators: www.job-job.co.uk, www.jobjob.ro and www.jobber.ro (the largest IT specialist recruitment website in Romania). For more information, please visit: www.technologywithpassion.com

Contact person:
Mihnea Miculescu,
McCann PR
Email: mihnea_miculescu@mccanpr.ro
Tel: 021/ 23 23 727

Yep, you can go hit up We Hate Suits Dot Com and go directly to Wilks, my self-named (well, nicknamed) Agency.

We Hate Suits was going to be a small micro-campaign to launch the new Wilks. But I never really got around to it. The whole idea behind it was quite simple. We are an agency that gets shit done, on time! We chose our clients very carefully. We work with clients that don’t wear the black, blue or grey suits.

We work only with the clients who have the balls to make good shit happen for a ROI. We don’t want the toffy-nosed twats who understand shit about this business, but act like they are gods gift to the industry.

You’ve knocked on my door for a reason, fuck off, and leave me to do my job.

The same goes for those that expect me to wear a black, blue, grey suit. “I don’t do business with those that don’t wear a suit”. “Well fuck me, thats going to touch on your business for sure”

Whether I wear a suit or not, I still have the same meat and two veg (cock and balls), and the noodles upstairs inside my head still deliver the same creative shit that will make you a lot of money. I don’t need Nylon on my back telling me otherwise.

Period.

I am sitting here in my usual coffee shop. I won’t link bait to it. Not yet anyway.

I sit here most days, many hours, pondering on the future, brainstorming, and pondering some more. The more I ponder, the more I feel the urge to write. I want to write, I want to write the shit out of what I care about. I want people to know what I think, how I think, and to be honest, why the fuck I think it. After all, isn’t this what blogging is all about? Who knows?

What I do know is this, I have a bazillion things on my mind, and they tend to stay there, and I know I must write them down. Moleskines are pointless for me, I tend to bottle up my ideas and thoughts.

And so in my usual way, this is “another” inaugural post to announce some sort of comeback to the world of Blogging.

p.s. In case you give you shit, August 2004 was the month/year I started this blogging bullshit.

p.p.s I apologize for my poor grammar in advance.

In was a summers day back in June 2008. It was a HOT summer. I am talking 40+ degrees Celsius. Too hot for me.

I was still getting over the failure of MyKinda. It was a difficult time for me. MyKinda was my baby so to speak. I watched it grow, and ultimately I watched it fail. Tough times indeed, but a super educational experience.

So, I had begun to brainstorm some other niche, small, and simple web services that complimented the web as it is today, a noisy and segmented mess. I had watch the decline of the economy, the lose of jobs, and began to think how the likes of Monster and LinkedIn, and local players like eJobs and Best Jobs, can thrive in such an economy, especially as it was only going to get worse. Which it did.

Then it hit me. “We need a simple, painless, and free online resume service for the masses. We need a super sexy UI, and a product so simple that even my grandma can use”

Thus, CeeVee was born. It took me a wee little while to come up with a Brand that would convey a message. The message was what we do. CV/Resume = CeeVee. A few thousands of €’s later (cost of acquiring the .com) and only one meeting with my team, a private beta product was ready in September 2008. We privately launch this beta in .RO, and we instantly saw our numbers grow. We received tones of feedback. TONS!

We took the feedback, made some changes, and here we are today. At the time of writing this we’ve crossed the 1,600 resume mark. This no doubt has lots to do with you guys, the love you’ve sent us. Along with Techcrunch, CSSMania, KillerStartup and CSSwow to name but a few articles.

CeeVee has even been referred to as “the LinkedIn of Romania.” Whatever the case may be, we’re going to be around for a long time still, and continue to grow CeeVee.

I would also like to send out a special thanks to the team who has made this all possible, without you guys, I wouldn’t be writing this article!

So, what do you guys think of CeeVee?

As mentioned in my post last week, we headed to Rosia Montana to find out more about the town, research the area, and see how we can get involved in preserving the history of one of the oldest, if not the oldest, town in Romania.

As we arrived, at what I’ll call the entry point to Rosia Montana (see pic above), I was amazed by how different it looked compared to other local villages.

Until you’ve been through Romania, you don’t really get the “feel” of a Romanian village, but this one, was different.

I was immediately struck by its beauty, and not just because of the white flakes that smothered it, but by the visual history that could be seen within.

Stephanie from the Save Rosia Montana campaign had kindly given me the number for Andrei Gruber. Upon our arrival Andrei had greeted us at his newly opened Hostel called La Gruber. 

We quickly got talking to Andrei regarding the area, the history, and the present moment. We were then joined by his girlfriend whom politely made us a warm cup of coffee. I was very curious as to what has been happening so I asked plenty of questions regarding the youth generation, education (they have 3 schools), the general feeling within the community, their ideas about the future, and of course, what would they like their next project to be? I was like a kid in a toy store, I was that excited.

La Gruber was privately funded by local community members. 

Surprisingly enough, they have no connectivity in Rosia Montana. For the past year, Romtelecom has said the area is not worth their investment. I instantly cried aloud with my thoughts on this, of course. These people would and do strive on being connected with the ‘outside world’. 

Andrei had then offered to take us downtown, and up to one of 8 lakes in the town itself. EIGHT!

We had walked for about 15mins and the history was truely amazing, buildings dating back to 1933 and even earlier. Most of which had been bought by the Rosia Montana Gold Corporation awaiting demolition.

We returned back into town to go to the Museum. We had managed to get the guide to take us to into the mines themselves. After walking down 30m in stairs, we arrived at the original Roman mines, which were built manually in the year 131. 

2,000 years ago these mines were dug, by hand. Quite simple you think? Nope, these mines go down 12 more levels, and up another 4 and continue for at least 24km (15ish miles). These are the ones that are actually known about. What we found amazing was the fact the tunnels and mines were built with the utmost precision, even if 2,000 years ago. They reside at the perfect width and height to get the maximum space without them collapsing. 

We saw the crystals, we saw the iron, we saw the gold. We saw THE ONLY ROMAN MINE IN THE WORLD. This is the history right here and now. This is where Unesco WHC needs to step up. Nowhere in the world can you visit original mines and tunnels belonging to the Roman’s with original inscriptions on the walls.

Upon leaving the mines and later saying our goodbyes to our superb host, we got thinking. 

The mines cannot be used further as its a 10RON – 13RON ratio on incoming/outgoing. 

Clearly, the only way to preserve this beautiful, and historic town is Tourism. The Minister of Tourism needs to step up to the plate and be counted for. The thermal waters below Bucharest are irrelevant. Project our heritage, project our history, and help to bring pride back to this country, instead of trying to sell it of like its nothing to us, to some Canadian corporation greedy for money and gold, and willing to stop at nothing until it gets it. (for those that aren’t aware, the use of Cyanide is banned in Europe, and under European Laws too)

With tourism, you create jobs. Jobs for the youngsters. The RMGC’s plan for the next 16years of excavation would only create 350 jobs. Tourism can create this is just one year. The tourist potential is the gold mine. (pardon the pun!)

We fully support the efforts of Rosia Montana and its people, and will continue in our efforts to ensure its preserved.

Can I count on your support with me?

tags: rosia+montana / corna+valley / gold+corp / romania / romanian+history / gold / save+rosia+montana

Update: Moments ago, I just received a call from Ms Stephanie Roth, the driving force behind Save Rosia Montana. She thanked me for my support in this post, with my response being, “there is plenty more where that came from”. Also, one of our commenters pointed out that Mine Your Own Business tells the other side of the story. This was 100% funded by the Rosia Montana Gold Corp. Therefore, its a one sided story from RMGC and goes to prove their ignorance. 

After my article a few weeks back “History of Romania – Help Please” I came across a PBS Wide Angel Piece on Gold Futures - The Future of a Romanian Mining Town.

I was aware on a smaller scale of a Canadian corporations gold digging ploy through the father-in-laws land being one of those excavated.

But I was certainly not prepared for I was fortunate enough to have seen last night. Rosia Montana, the oldest village in Romania is being torn apart by greed. The unhealthy kind of greed, literally. They’ll use cyanide to excavate. 

That and Corna Valley. 

Now, you might be thinking, who gives a shit. But what lies beneath these villages is 300 tons of Gold. Or to put its another way in monetary value, €250,000,000+ (yes, million) worth of gold. Not to mention the 1,600 tons of silver. 

So, not only is Romania the richest country in terms of natural reserves of water, gas, oil, and now gold, but it is always the richest in terms of history. Beneath these villages are inscriptions from the Roman’s dictating the earliest Roman Law.

To put it in more simple terms, we are one of the richest countries, across most levels, in the European Union. 

I urge you to check out Save Rosia Montana and spread the word.

We are heading to Rosia Montana this week, to see how we can get involved, help preserve history, create sustainable futures, and make history.

Are you in?

(below is a Vimeo embedded player of the PBS piece (55mins in length). You can download the documentary here)

 
PBS – Gold Futures – Rosia Montana from Lee Wilkins on Vimeo.

tags: rosia+montana / corna+valley / gold+corp / romania / romanian+history / gold / save+rosia+montana

image source: Marius R

Friday & Saturday saw us take a quick trip to Mangalia, Romania for an event organized by the Minister of Tourism, Romania. ANAT She had failed to show for the event, go figure, but nonetheless I jumped on the opportunity to take some snaps! 

I have uploaded some pictures to my Flickr Account whilst there.

tags: mangalia / mangalia+romania / romania

Overnight @danberte pings me an IM with a link to Eat Me Daily’s post on Saturday Night Live’s Virgin Whoopers Parody.

I have embedded the movie below:

(link to video): Saturday Night Live’s Whopper/Romania Parody

As EMD rightly pointed out “this is not particularly flattering for Romania”. And by god this is true. 

Unfortunately this is how the Global Media portrays us. We are thieves, we are poor, we are hungry, and sometimes we get the infamous “do you have the internet there?”

So, is this who we are? Are we thieves? Are we the beggers on the streets on major-european cities? Are we the football hooligans? Are we the poor, whom haven’t seen a Hamburger before?

Fuck no, this is a minority.

Makes you think?

Yesterday, for me, was an interesting day. Skipping all the mundane tasks, I’ll be skipping straight to the point of this post. (which is not a rant, but more an observation)

I received a telephone call from my bank manager for Wilkins Lee. She had informed me that on the 21st January the Government had initiated a block/request on my company accounts for 25,000 RON (approx €6k).

This is for TVA owed to the Government. Your probably thinking right now, “yes, normal”

But this is where is gets a whole lot more interesting.

Over the past fiscal year the company had moved locations from Sector 1 to Sector 2, back to Sector 1. Based on these moves we were required to submit our monthly statements to the Financial Administration in these 2 sectors. Because of this moving around, they were unable to keep a track on the TVA/Accountancy.

Our original accountant had quoted a TVA Payable return of around 9,000 RON. But my new accountant had said this was wrong and the TVA owed to the State was actually near on 3,000 RON. We are in the process of closing our last fiscal year.

Ok I thought, the fee is between 3-9k RON. Fair, needs to be paid. Lets close the fiscal year.

However, the Government has kinda skipped the gun a little, and has pretty much made up a number. 

For me, it seems logical that we can amend this. But no. We can’t.

The process works like so; should I actually owe, lets say 3k RON, I am not entitled to proceed with retaining the 22,000 RON left over. Nope. This will actually become a credit on my account for proceeding Fiscal years to come.

Which made wonder, what if the Romanian Government was in the shit, with no capital to hand. All they’ll need to do is block 25,000 RON from each company in Romania, and offset the forthcoming years when the time is near.

And we, the law abiding, tax paying, businesses of Romania can do nothing about it. Well, actually we can, but the Auditors are governmental agencies, so we can safely foresee more issues.

It goes deeper now. All over the news in Romania we see a massive crisis. The €/RON is hanging around the 4.30 mark, prices are on the up, jobs loses too. 

I am looking and researching this more as I type, but, one bad mistake is leading to another, and we are in a viscous circle which is spiraling out of control.

It needs to Stop and it needs to Stop Now. Lets fix this.