Unexpected outcome!

When we started our family site, Marbella Family Fun, the objective was to teach the children a new skill that should be very relevant in their adult life. We knew the project had some potential, but we did not know it would come so fast and so easily…

Today Marbella Family Fun is ranked by Alexa.com (a neutral site ranking popularity across the globe) as the 7,580th most popular website in Spain, and the 270,782th in the world (in the last month), out of many million websites. This is quite an achievement in a short time, and with no money spent! It shows how great our traffic has become and how fast it is growing. A big Thank You to our readers!

And that is only our English version. Our Spanish version, Marbella en Familia, is not far behind. We hope to have two sites in the top Alexa 100,000 very soon. This would be amazing for not knowing anything about the net and spending just one hour or two a day on the project!

This family initiative has also led to an unexpected outcome. I decided to share the experience with the people who could really benefit the most from this business model: individuals earning less than 1,500 euros a month. I calculated they are more than 700 million in the OECD countries (top 33 economies)! They are people struggling to make a living, unemployed, students, retirees… I believe most of them could achieve financial independence with a content site. It would only take some effort and discipline. This is not a miracle solution, but it does work over time. Do you know any better way to achieve financial independence?

I wrote a book called Here´s an ide@ explaining all this. It is being printed right now and will be available very shortly. You can find more information about it and this business model on a blog at Here´s an idea. Let me know what you think?

Learn Andalusian Spanish – you´ll have fun

Today I visited a local barbershop in the old Marbella. While he was cutting my hair, the barber was speaking to the next customer in line, apparently an old friend of his. They were talking (in Spanish) about computers and were trying to figure the meaning of some English words they sometimes encounter on the net. Soon, the talk moved to the use of spanglish and some typical Andalusian expressions. I thoroughly enjoyed the haircut and significantly improved my Andalusian comprehension.

I am posting below some expressions I heard, plus a couple of links (in Spanish) if you wish to laugh and enjoy la guasa de Andalusia:
- Estoy rebentao: I am tired
- el sangui: sandwich
- Yo soy llanito ahandred pesent: I am Gibraltarian one hundred percent
- Eres mas basto que un petisui de morcilla…: You are so stupid
- Tienes un norte encima: You are unaware of what is going on around you
- 80 Andalusian worlds
- Andalusian saying

Fun family project

As parents we are constantly searching for projects that we can all do as a family unit. These projects have to be fun, and if possible educational.

Our latest project is a lip-dub video about the fun activities a family can do while visiting Marbella. It took two weeks to produce, visiting many city landmarks, acting in public, filming in restaurants, renting a boat… The children learned a little about planning scenes, acting, repeating scenes (it is not always fun), thinking of new situations, matching the act to the music… For the editing, we enlisted the help of a senior high school student from Laude, who had already produced a lip-dub video.

The resulting video was launched today, on the day the Obama family landed in Marbella. Nice planning…

The solar sail and Bernard werber

Bernard Werber is a prolific contemporary French author. Whether he writes about the world of ants, a school for gods or travel through space, his novels are always entertaining and integrate an element of humanity, spirituality and science fiction.

In “the Butterfly of the Stars” published in 2006, he describes a solar vessel traveling through space. In an amazing development, the Japanese Space Agency just announced an experimental launch in orbit of a small satellite that will unfurl a 20m solar sail…

If you never read a book by Werber, grab one and make up your own mind. You probably won’t regret it. His books have been translated in many languages and you will not have any difficulty finding them in English.

Marbella Family inspiration for 2010

Amazing video. The last lecture…
Live your life. Have fun. Be a Tiger. Anything is possible in 2010!

Marbella Economy in 2009

So how bad is the economy in Marbella?

For a long time, Marbella enjoyed a privileged situation in Andalucia. In 2003, Marbella was the third municipality with the highest income per capita of Andalucia.  It had a growth rate superior to most capital cities of the province including Malaga, Jaen, Huelva and Almeria.  This favorable situation was due to an active service sector (60% of jobs) and strong commercial (20%) and construction activities (15%).  According to a 2008 study by the Junta de Andalucia, Marbella was the municipality with the best quality of life and social services.  Few were complaining…

So where are we now?  Here are some fresh statistics from the Junta de Andalucia:

- GDP of Andalucia decreased by 4% in Q2 2009 vs Q2 2008 (on par with Spain at -4,2%)

- Supermaket sales in Andalucia dropped 9.2% in July 2009 vs July 2008

- 31% less companies were created in July 2009 vs July 2008

- Andalucia industrial output dropped by 13% in July 2009 vs July 2008

- In July 2009, unemployment reached 25% (from 15% the year before)

- Hotel occupancy in the Costa del Sol was 83% in August 2009, or 3% less than the previous year.  Spanish tourism accounted for 60% of occupancy.

- Default on bank loans to real estate professionals amounted to 8.2% in Q2 2009, 4 times more than last year!  However, only 4% more than in Q1 2009, sending a signal of stabilization…

Not a rosy picture, but we know that the situation all over the world is pretty grim.  At least in Marbella, many people have enjoyed a good ride, and the more cautious may have generated more wealth than in other parts of the country…

As an entrepreneur, what is particularly disheartening when you see a population with 25% unemployment, is that this conjuncture still offers many opportunities. However, most people continue looking for a job that currently does not exist and hardly try to switch their field of activity or start their own project. Naturally, it is not easy. There is some risk in pursuing new opportunities, you need much time and efforts, you may need to learn new skills, it may be unsettling…

The unemployed have the least to lose.  If nothing else, starting a project and remaining active gives hope, a sense of worth and most likely will generate a positive personal outcome.  Knowing that 60% of workers in Spain make 1,000 euros per month or less, it is not such a high target to achieve for any business venture. Pretty much any internet activity with a purpose will achieve this after a year or so. And no, you don´t need significant initial capital to start!

So why does Andalusia have such a high unemployment rate?  It all boils down to education and flawed policies.

The educational system is not in touch with the future our children will face.  The system makes little room for creativity and enterprising. It is still oriented towards a philosophy of ¨Study hard and you will have a great career¨ (read ¨Rich Dad, Poor dad¨by Robert Kiyosaki if you have not done so), while increasingly putting the accent on children´s efforts rather than their results.  Even when they are not trying that hard, we do not want to hurt their feelings…  Of course, building their confidence is important; of course, we have to give them a chance to find themselves; of course, each kid is unique and grows at a different pace…  but it seems the pendulum went too far.  The reality is that our children will be competing not with their peers locally, but with well-trained professionals from emerging countries willing to work for a lesser pay.  What will our children´s competitive advantage be?

Part of the answer lies in a comprehensive general culture, an understanding of the world and its people, entrepreneurial spirit and motivation. When an economy like Marbella´s lacks diversification, does not plan ahead in the good times and inadequately invests in the education of its youth, it risks running into very bad times….

Prepare your children for the future.

Marbella Family Fun is all about our children.  Sometimes it seems we do not have a life besides our kids…

They are certainly at the center of our life, and education is a topic we often think about.  We are trying to build a solid foundation for our children to become independent, happy young adults, confident and able to make sound decisions in line with their values.  The basic elements of this foundation that we can mostly control (for now!) are the example we give them in our daily behavior, the education they are getting at school, the exposure they get through after-school activities, travel and friends…

We also think about the professional world they will enter a few years from now. In the next twenty years, with the advent of robotics and computers able to perform most operational tasks, it is likely that the value-addition for humans will increasingly be associated with tasks so far difficult to automate, tasks that center around our humanity: creativity, communication or social skills, ethics.  Most people will have more than one activity at-a-time, essentially acting as permanent multi-tasking consultants.  In this technology-led world, where information is accessible by all and geography is less relevant, ´Western´ workers will increasingly find themselves competing with professionals from far away willing to work for a lesser pay.  The value of general culture, a global understanding of things combined with entrepreneurial skills, knowledge of information sources and operational resources, should be increasingly relevant.

If schools are preparing children for general culture and skills, they are currently not well adapted to teach communication technology, entrepreneurial skills or to enhance creativity. These skills are nowadays better learned outside schools through the social network of the children and their families.

In our daily Marbella life, we are trying to expose our children to some of these notions.   A while back we published an article about an example of activities that may help prepare your children for the future.  You can read it here.  It is the story of a fun family project to promote better knowledge of internet, offer unlimited learning opportunities and foster enhanced communication.

If that sounds too serious and you think ¨but what about letting kids being kids?¨,  the trick is as always to educate while making it fun…