Creativity exercise by @ccruz

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The joy ofwindow

shopping #NOTBy Claudia Cruz aka @ccruz

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In the process of doing this exercise I realized…• How confined to my home office I was

• How the violence in my home country Guatemala has really affected me

• How much I avoid going out and when I do I only go to heavily secured malls

• How I never think of walking or using public transportation even when the closest mall is really close to my home-office

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1322the registered homicides in Guatemala city from Jan 1st to

Oct 10th.

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174Average monthly homicides in the past 9

months.

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5Average daily homicides in

the past 9 months.

4 out of

every 5

are gunfire incidents.

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How come so many gunfire incidents?

Many are related to cellphone thefts.

30Cellphone thefts per hour, in average, ocurred during November-December 2011 and January 2012 according to the Monitoring and Support Office for

Public Safety February 2012.

It can happen while you are in traffic or at a stop light.

All my friends know at least one person who has lost his/her phone this way.

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So, what started as a cool window shopping trip…

became an exercise to confront fears I didn’t

know I had…

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First stopOffice Supplies

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Drag picture to placeholder or click icon to add

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Second stopDepartment Store

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Third stopFabric Store

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Fourth stopBakery

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Fifth stopToy Store

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Sixth stopClothes Store

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Going undercoverNotice something odd about my pictures?

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Odd facts

Naturally all my selected stores where in a mall.

In almost every Guatemalan mall is prohibited to take pictures of stores (front, inside, etc.) for safety reasons.

So I had to go “undercover” to take my pictures, that is why the angles are odd, some are out of focus and in general are not very good pictures.

I took my son with me so I could pretend I was taking a picture of him, which is allowed.

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The findingsOverview of all the stores I visited

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Open and invitingFive out of 6 of the places I visited had their doors open

and seemed pretty inviting.

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All bright, open, tallIn general I tend to look for brighter and open places, with

palettes that always have white and fresh colors.

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Quiet placesMostly the places I visited were quiet. In a couple of

places fans caused some noise.

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Fresh and harmonious

The places I visited were neither cold nor hot, they mostly felt fresh and the music was pretty harmonious and at an

acceptable volume.

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Crowded merchandise

My stores were packed with products mostly at eye level organized by function, with easy to find prices. Most didn’t have

sales and none had free samples.

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Drawn by smellsMost of the stores I visited smelled…like paper, cotton,

brand new things and recently baked bread. And I enjoyed it.

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A+ customer serviceIn 4 out of 6 stores it only took 5 minutes to have someone ask me what I needed or was looking for. They all sounded natural,

not as if following a sales pitch.

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24 year old saleswoman

The profile of the average salesperson I encountered would be a woman around 24 years old who wears uniform and matches the

image of the store.

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Things I saw firstPaper stacks, Christmas decorations, towels, Halloween pastry,

Barbie dolls and women’s apparel.

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Least accesible: back and above

Electronics Jewelry

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30 year old shopperThe average customer likes to touch the products and seems to be a woman around 30 years old. Half of the customers seemed to be browsing and the

other half seemed to have a mission. Hence, the first didn’t really buy anything and the latter did. Overall, they tended to stay no longer than half

an hour in each store.

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Sources

Icons, graphics, picturesStock.xchng

Flickr/|| UggBoy♥UggGirl || PHOTO || WORLD || TRAVEL ||

Flickr/ElyceFeliz

Flickr/wajakemek | rashdanothman

Flickr/Alasam

Flickr/Wonderlane

Flickr/Wokka

Flickr/el3enawe ( وبحمده الله ( سبحان

Crime datahttp://bit.ly/Q5r2nC /Prensa Libre

http://www.unavidaesunavida.org