The last day of the year is for good wishes and lucky grapes, but also for sport. As ever, the traditional Nose Race is being held on 31 December. You can find full information on the website cursadenassos.barcelona.
The run offers two distances, one of 5 km and another of 10 km. The first is specifically aimed at elite international athletes, who will be trying to break the two existing world records which were set last year. The second is an open event for everybody to take part in, setting off and finishing in C/ Selva de Mar.
Here at the .barcelona domain we’re working to help small shops and businesses in Barcelona go digital. From the end of May to mid-November we promoted the project “El meu comerç .barcelona”, where establishments were able to get a professional website with a .barcelona domain in a fast and simple free process.
The initiative meant that besides getting a new website, commercial establishments were able to link their digital identity with the city and form part of the .barcelona digital community.
“The digital environment is everywhere today, and for all ages”, notes Noelia Setó, the owner of noeliasllar.barcelona in the Sants neighbourhood. “I’ve got one because Victor, who’s about to turn four, sometimes says to me: ‘Mummy, search Google to see what Ladybug’s friend is called’, for instance. Amazing! So even if you’re a business with on-street premises, you need to move with the times and use all the resources which allow people to know about you and your product”.
As a society we’re experiencing a digital transformation. The arrival of the internet on our phones and in our homes means the way we consume and find information has changed, not just among the younger generations but even among people who are not digital natives.
A Google search is usually the first thing we do when we need something, as Noelia remarked. That’s also the case when we look for a shop or business, even in our own neighbourhood. “On the website, simple though it is, there’s valuable information about the business: where we are, the products we have, some images, opening times…all that means that people who don’t know me are comfortable enough to come and look around! Young or old, there are more and more ‘mature’ people gradually getting into the internet and the digital environment, and they surprise you!”, adds Noelia.
At lambicus.barcelona, an establishment specialising in Belgian beer and located in the neighbourhood of Sant Antoni, they were also clear on how having a website would give their business added value. “It helps bring us new customers, young and not-so-young. On the website we can tell people about the activities we have (tastings, presentations, festivals etc.) and the latest news. They can also contact us and it’s a quick way to know where our bar and shop are located”.
The last campaign for the project “El meu comerç .barcelona” saw fourteen commercial establishments in different Barcelona neighbourhoods sign up, all of which opted for a .barcelona domain. “Barcelona is a brand. It’s an identity. It nourishes collective activity. It makes you part of something. Puts you under its wing. So, everything linked to Barcelona is a plus for a business in the city. It’s like an exchange. We build all the values it conveys into Noelia’s llar.”
The application period for “El meu comerç .barcelona” is over for the moment. You can find more information about the project on the information page.
These are some of the websites created with the programme:
Now’s the time to renovate your home thanks to Europe’s Next Generation funds, with subsidies to reduce energy consumption and save on bills while improving the comfort and value of your home. The only requisites are to be a home owner and to use the funding to improve your home’s energy efficiency and make it more sustainable.
On the websiterehabilitaresestalviar.barcelona you’ll find full information on the four types of subsidies available, which can cover up to 80% of your investment:
Building renovation: subsidies for work on communal parts of buildings, whether individual homes or residential blocks, which achieve a saving of at least 30% on primary non-renewable energy consumption and 25% on the demand for heating and cooling.
Home renovation: subsidies for owners wishing to improve the energy efficiency of their home through measures such as replacement windows, insulation of façades, replacement of heating and cooling systems etc.
Drafting of building books and projects: subsidies for communities of home-owners for buildings constructed prior to the year 2000 who wish for a technical study with usage and maintenance instructions to lengthen the useful life of their building and avoid it falling into disrepair, as well as the development of technical projects for the complete renovation of buildings.
Renovation of neighbourhoods: subsidies for joint renovation projects with energy efficiency criteria for buildings included in the sphere of the Neighbourhood Plan.
This website with the .barcelona domain will also enable you to contact the Municipal Renovation Office to learn more about and apply for subsidies.
The Biennial of Thought closed out this first joint edition with Palma and Valencia having been very well received by the public, with well-attended sessions and a rich exchange of ideas in public space: the official programme included 67 activities and attracted over 20,000 people, with more than 200 speakers taking part.
The organisers for this third edition of this grand public forum were supported by an advisory committee made up of the writer and Hellenist Raül Garrigassait, the political scientist Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca, the sociologist Liliana Arroyo, the architects Núria Moliner and Josep Ferrando and the journalist Ángela Precht.
On the websitebiennaldepensament.barcelona, which has so far received over 100,000 visits, you can see most of the sessions recorded from the programme and addressing topics such as the threats, limits and challenges for democracy, digital rights and the transformation of cities.
The Biennial started life in 2018, and although the second edition was held during the pandemic, it has made a firm place for itself on the city’s cultural agenda. In contrast to the 2020 edition, with advance bookings and online sessions, this year’s activities were open to all except for the Peripatetic Walks, where all available places were taken.
Music, tradition, street arts and plenty of festive fun are in store in the city from 23 to 26 September with La Mercè 2022. The festival regains a wholly face-to-face format, with no bookings required. At lamerce.barcelona you’ll find the full programme for a decentralised and diverse event offering hundreds of activities, with Rome as this year’s guest city.
Highlights in this year’s programme include:
The opening speech. Film director Carla Simón has marked a before and an after in Catalan film and will be giving the opening speech this year.
Popular culture. In addition to the traditional opening ceremony, there will be human towers meetings, music, dance and film linked to tradition. This year’s festival also sees the return of the Nit de la Vigília after an absence of three decades.
The music and fireworks spectacular. The show returns to Av.Reina Maria Cristina, with a display combining light, colour and sound, and blending Italian and Roman melodies with music from a feminist perspective, opera to mark the 175th anniversary of the Gran Teatre del Liceu and music against war around the world, in a finale packed with energy and optimism.
Concerts. Consecrated artists, new talent and new types of creation form part of the programme, which consists of three music sections: the BAM, Música Mercè and Acció Cultura Viva.
Street shows. The MAC street arts festival offers innovative projects and new technological formats, with genres as diverse as integrated dance, contemporary dance, urban dance, street theatre, installations, workshops, circus, games, puppets, music and clowning.
You can find full details on this eagerly awaited edition of La Mercè on the website lamerce.barcelona.
The poster for La Mercè 2022
The author of the poster, David de las Heras, has brought together three generations of Barcelona women, representing a Mercè which transcends the passing of time and brings traditional and artistic creation together in the same celebration, remembering its roots and reiterating the city’s commitment to justice and peace.
If you wish, you can pick up a copy of the poster while stocks last at the Sala Ciutat (C/ Ciutat, 2), or download it here.
We spoke to Laura Maeso from the marketing agency OOMKT. The company is a member of the Barcelona Digital Chamber and works for the digital transformation of businesses in the industrial and B2B sector in the Bages county and the province of Barcelona, helping companies to generate business through their digital channels.
A few months back the government announced the launch of the Kit Digital subsidies, offered by the EU as part of the Next Generation EU funds. The subsidies are designed to help with the digital transformation process for SMEs and the self-employed in our country, and to speed up this process.
As an agency promoting digitalisation, OOMKT opted for the domainagentkitdigital.barcelona to promote its services as an agency working with these subsidies.
Laura, tells us about the Kit Digital for those who are not familiar with it
The Kit Digital is a subsidy planpromoted by the Spanish government as part of the EU’s Next Generation funding. The main goal is to improve the digital maturity of SMEs and the self-employed in our country. More than 2.5 million companies are expected to benefit from this initiative. Subsides range from 2,000 to 12,000 euros and come in the form of a digital payment, which all companies with up to fifty workers will receive if they request it. The money can be used to implement a list of tech solutions, ranging from the creation of a website or e-commerce page to the implementation of software to optimise the management of all the company’s processes and clients, plus other solutions.
Which companies can benefit from it?
The government has separated companies into three large groups: those with 1 or 2 workers, which can apply for up to €2,000; those with 3 to 9 workers, which can apply for €6,000, and those with more than 10 workers, which can apply for up to €12,000.
Companies obtaining the subsidies must contract the solution they require from any of the 8,700 plus digitalisation agencies operating around the country.
Companies in Barcelona interested in further information can check out this linkabout the Kit Digital, where they will find detailed information.
How do you think the Kit Digital will help small businesses?
Without the slightest doubt, these subsidies will provide a big impetus for a large part of the business network in our country when it comes to digitalising their communication and sales channels.
I also think it will help them to improve their internal management processes, a factor which will boost things such as efficiency and production capacity. With society and the world where it is now, after more than two years of the pandemic, I think that companies need to clearly back the digital world in all senses, regardless of the sector we might be looking at. These subsidies are simply a helping hand to try and speed this process up, as there’s nothing that will stop it.
You mentioned that one of the tech solutions covered by the Kit Digital subsidies is the creation of a website or e-commerce platform. What other solutions are there for small businesses? What have they asked for the most so far?
There’s quite a variety of tech solutions on offer. From the creation of a new website to SEO of all content on an existing website, which is what we specialise in.
For instance, companies can also request a strategy for social media to enhance their online reputation, boost their community and increase their sales.
Another solution which our agency believes will be very successful is the installation of management software for internal processes, which will improve the efficiency and control of all business processes relating to production or operational matters.
Similarly, the optimisation of client management and invoicing is another key factor for any company’s operations, and the Kit Digital includes the installation of a CRM, none other than a programme designed to digitalise and automate this process.
Another type of technology which is playing an important role is business intelligence, as it helps to improve decision-making and reduces errors through the use of artificial intelligence to analyse data. The Kit Digital also offers companies the possibility of implementing software of this nature. These are the most commonly requested solutions among our clients.
Where a company wishes to create a website, what do you think they should bear in mind when choosing their domain?
It depends what they want to achieve with their site. In our sector, a domain can be chosen by brand, by company name, or by a product or service, if the idea is to use SEO to position the domain and the company’s products and services on Google.
In your case, you opted for a website with a .barcelona domain. Why did you choose .barcelona?We did it for local SEO. We were looking for companies in Barcelona interested in requesting these subsidies, and the domain agentkitdigital.barcelona was available. We found it a very interesting option for achieving our goals, and that’s why we chose it.
The Fair Tourism BCN campaign is back this summer to raise awareness among locals and visitors alike relating to the harm caused by this illegal activity. The website, with its .barcelona domain, enables users to check if a specific building has flats without tourist licences, notify the City Council and help combat the phenomenon, as well as clear up any queries.
The flat search on fairtourism.barcelona makes it easy to check if there are illegal tourist lets in a particular building in the city. Users simply fill in the fields with the address, and if it doesn’t appear in the database it means that any tourist let in the building is unlicensed. The site also allows users to notify the City Council if they believe there is an illegal tourist flat operating in a building.
The site for the Fair Tourism BCN campaign also includes a questions and answers section to clear up any doubts over what constitutes a tourist let, what conditions legal tourist lets must satisfy or what happens if an unlicensed flat is reported when there are people staying there.
Towards sustainable and respectful tourism
Barcelona has a wide array of tourist accommodation so that all visitors can enjoy the city as if they were just another city resident. Yet for visitors to benefit from their experience while respecting local people in the city, they also need to steer clear of any type of tourism which allows illegal flats to flourish in the city.
Over 2,300 tourist flats have been closed down since the shock plan to tackle illegal tourist accommodation was introduced in July 2016. Besides fines, a team of over a hundred inspectors and spotters continue to work to confirm that flats do not resume their activity, to detect new unlicensed accommodation and pursue organised networks managing more than one flat.
In parallel, work is ongoing with the holiday rental platforms through the joint working group which already included Homeaway, Booking, TripAdvisor, Rentalia, Apartur and Airbnb.
Minsk is a graphic design studio which started life eight years ago. The studio has evolved over time, its members have recycled their knowledge, and little by little Minsk has become specialised in audio-visual projects using video, animated graphics and digital design. With the creation of the domain minsk.barcelona the studio has been able to link its website with its values and those of its clients. We spoke to Pere Gómez Gavaldà, a member of Minsk, about design and the .barcelona domain.
What sets you aside from other graphic design and audio-visual studios?
Even though we’re a small studio (there are five of us), the thing that specifically sets us aside is that we are multi-disciplinary and flexible, meaning we can take on all types of projects with the advantages of working with a small studio, offering personalised service and dealing with clients directly.
How important is it for a company in the graphic design sector to have a website?
In our case it’s essential, as precisely one of the services we offer is the design and layout of websites, so we need a website which meets the expectations of what we offer our clients.
Of course, it also acts as a showcase where we can publish our outstanding projects and create our own discourse (you can get the idea if you read the texts on the website). That said, and as people know, when you get on with things your own website sometimes ends up at the back of the queue, and admittedly we often don’t have the site as up-to-date as we’d like to.
How do clients relate to you when they discover you through your website? What differences are there when dealing with them personally?
In our case the website tends to be a tool we direct clients towards when they want to see examples of what we do, as the site features some of our most notable projects. We’ve also got clients who contact us for the first time because they’ve found our website (the truth is that without being experts in SEO, we’ve got it well positioned), and with these clients the advantage is that they’ve actually seen what we do and they’ve actively contacted us, meaning part of the work is already done.
Even so, personal treatment for a small studio like ours gives added value, and once we get a mail from a client who contacts us via the website we try to get together or call them to be able to speak to them directly, as that’s what enables us to work in a more agile and personalised way.
Why did you choose a .barcelona domain?
One of the main reasons for changing the domain is that although the .es domain is shorter, we felt that as a brand we preferred the idea of linking our company to Barcelona, which ultimately is our city and has an international reputation we wanted to link to our company.
What differences did you notice in the everyday activity of the company after launching the website minsk.barcelona?
Most of all, the fact of linking the brand to new values which are much closer to us, our values and those of our clients. It mainly helped us to avoid misunderstandings. We opted for a change in strategy and communications, leaving behind Minsk Disseny (our commercial name up until that point) and becoming Minsk.barcelona. On the one hand, because design is now just a small part of our work, and on the other, because we wanted to link our main name (Minsk, the capital of Belorussia and the imaginary world we associated our brand with) to Barcelona (our real city, with values which we sincerely identify with much more at present).
As a graphic design company, what do you get out of linking yourselves with the city of Barcelona?
A lot. Barcelona has long been associated with design in general (not just graphic). It was important for us to be able to link these ideas. In addition, the contraposition between Minsk and Barcelona also helped us create a friendly word combination which has been useful for playing with the dissociation we usually use as a communication value in our branding.
How much clout does the name of Barcelona have in the world of graphic design and audio-visuals?
A lot. I think on an international level people continue to see Barcelona as the national leader when it comes to design. The same applies with audio-visuals, although here it’s more spread out.
A safe mobility campaign has been launched with the aim of improving safety for all citizens when getting around. On the websitemobilitat.barcelona you’ll findvisual and easy-to-understand information on the regulations for getting about in the city on foot, by car, moped or electric scooter.
Over 90% of those sustaining serious injuries in road accidents are motorcyclists, pedestrians, cyclists and people riding electric scooters. That’s why we all need to be familiar with the regulations, so that we can get about the city safely and comfortably and reach our 2050 goal of zero road deaths and zero injuries with lifelong consequences.
Now it’s much easier for us to get around thanks to this campaign, which you can find on the website mobilitat.barcelona. The site explains everything which is permitted or prohibited when circulating in Barcelona, and includes recommendations for when you travel by car, van or lorry, by motorbike, electric scooter, bike or on foot.
You can also find other useful tools for getting around the city safely. For instance, real-time information on mobility incidents and disruptions to traffic or the search feature to find spaces for cyclists and pedestrians, where you simply indicate your location to find out about bike lanes, traffic-calmed streets and widened pavements available to you.
Another key feature is the ‘Getting there’ route planner, which calculates the best way to get from one point to another in the city. All you need to do is specify where you are and where you want to get to, and the tool displays different options on foot, by bike, by private vehicle and public transport. The website mobilitat.barcelona also keeps you up to date with all the latest news in this sphere and more information on the Urban Mobility Plan, to achieve safer, healthier and more sustainable mobility.
L’Orgullosa gets Barcelona celebrating between now and the end of June, in an event whichalso conveys a message. As a pioneering city and a leader in LGBTI struggles, theprogramme has been put together with the intention of bringing the reality of LGBTIgroups closer to everybody in Barcelona. The programme can be found on the website orgullosa.barcelona.
Various city museums such as the MACBA, the MNAC, the Picasso Museum and the Maritime Museum are offering activities to reflect on LGBTI matters through different visions of their collections, guided tours and other specific projects. Elsewhere, city libraries and community centres are organising workshops, exhibitions, book presentations, talks, theatre shows and film screenings to give visibility to the plurality of visions of this collective. A series of round tables is also planned at the Barcelona LGBTI Centre on 30 June, to rethink museums from a queer point of view.
L’Orgullosa culminates with a grand musical gala for everybody, to be held at the Olympic Ring in Montjuïc on 28 June and featuring a line-up which will have everybody dancing, travelling and defending LGBTI rights.
An explosion of colour and symbolism
The poster for L’Orgullosa was created by the illustrator Javier Navarro, better known as El Dios de los Tres, with text by Javier Alcaraz. The design is full of LGBTI motifs and references to Barcelona, such as the cat sculpture in El Raval, one of the freshest and most effervescent of the city’s queer spots.
If you would like a hard copy of the poster, get along to the Sala Ciutat, at Carrer de la Ciutat, 2, or download it in digital format from the website orgullosa.barcelona.
