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Suspended: was 'diary of a perfumer in training'

post #1 of 16
10/7/12 at 6:20am
Thread Starter 
Update:
Sorry, guys not gonna happen I asked my boss and he's totally against it Secrecy and proprietary information and all that jazz.
I will continue to participate in the discussions here of course, just need to keep any and all details about my work 'secret'. Another lesson in humility learned...

...
Yesterday I was asked if I have a blog or something along those lines where I share about my journey as a perfumer in training. In the past I did try that, but blogs just don't work for me, I tend to forget about them. I tried updating my FB/g+ page with info, but most of my friends and family members aren't interested in my talk of fragrance or fragrance materials.

So I was thinking, as this is the one place I come to read and often post on daily: how about I start a 'diary' here? Where I can post my thoughts on various aspects of my training, as far as my NDA allows me to.

I don't want it to be a blog on the main basenotes content, just for you, the peeps here that are really interested in a story from the inside of the industry.

Please lmk what you think?
Many thanks
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post #2 of 16
10/7/12 at 6:51am
I say, yes, make a thread. I would love, love, love to read it. I'm still dabbling with home perfumery ever since a group of us did a project here. We sampled raw ingredients (and passed them to each other in the mail) and commented on each ingredient in a thread. Search for it in the forum or on Google under Basenotes Note Identification Project. The dialogue carried on for 539 posts from May 2008 until June 2009. I cannot even begin to tell you how may hits it has received, but it certainly was gratifying to have such good readership. We really enjoyed doing it.

The only warning I have is this:
Keep everything on one thread. If you're tempted to break it into different threads, name them with the same main heading followed by a colon and then the subheading.
When our friend Profumo sent out samples of his lovely, natural fragrances from Italy, people who reviewed them created their own posts by different names, and it was hard to locate and consolidate the reviews for each perfume.
So, either make your posts on one thread like a diary, chronologically (like I did) or name each thread by the main heading and then a subheading. For example, My Perfumery Training: Classic Accords, My Perfumery Training: Weights and Measures.

BTW, is there a "follow" option for reading new posts? I don't have as much time as I used to to read the forum, and I'd like to receive notification when you start posting.
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post #3 of 16
10/7/12 at 7:08am
Thread Starter 
Thank you for your kind reply, purplebird! I did join the note identification project back in the day, it was really lovely to take part.

I also totally agree with keeping it to 1 thread only. My intention is not so much to make it into a free 'DIY perfume course' out of it, that would go totally against NDA, by rather describe some of the issues and interesting stuff I come across in my journey.

As far as 'following' goes, I thought one can still 'subscribe' to a thread and receive notifications when new posts appear? That's why a thread here made more sense to me than a blog (I always forget to read all my RSS feeds cos there are too many of them!).

Or I can make it a 'group', I made 1 on Chandler Burr's project and the notification feature still works fine for that option, not so much for threads anymore, for some reason...
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post #4 of 16
10/7/12 at 8:03pm
This sounds delightful to me. I would love to follow your thoughts on this!
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post #5 of 16
10/7/12 at 9:30pm
id read it
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post #6 of 16
10/7/12 at 11:47pm
Thread Starter 
Yay, the notification works!!! I'll open the thread here later and just write
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post #7 of 16
10/8/12 at 12:05am
Simply, yes totally. The reality compared to the fantasy we all have of how someone becomes a nose.
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post #8 of 16
10/8/12 at 8:34am
Yes, for sure! I always enjoyed Alex's posts when he was studying perfumery. He was very candid about things, and it was really remarkable to read what he was thinking. I hope that your NDA would give you at least that much freedom. The most important parts of what he was telling us were generally his personal thoughts and reactions.

Sounds great!
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post #9 of 16
10/8/12 at 9:33am
You are certainly involved in the sorts of things I'd be interested in hearing about, so ad my name to the list of those who would love to see you do this.
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post #10 of 16
10/8/12 at 9:45am
Thread Starter 
Sorry, guys not gonna happen I asked my boss and he's totally against it Secrecy and proprietary information and all that jazz.
I will continue to participate in the discussions here of course, just need to keep any and all details about my work 'secret'. Another lesson in humility learned...
Will update OT.
Again my apologies.
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post #11 of 16
10/8/12 at 10:08am
I wondered how much of all that might be considered....a little like the old guild system, where much of the knowledge is considered somewhat secret.

Dang, exactly the reason I was interested in hearing about it.
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post #12 of 16
10/8/12 at 12:51pm
Opening a blog on this topic somewhere could still be an option, if you just don't use your normal name or reveal details about your employer or easy ways to track back to your employer.

Also, it's hard to suggest what to do in the first place. Some people want to write a blog and have it actually be read and popular, but a vast majority of blogs are not actually read or a high traffic nexus of fans and info. Sometimes you have to just write it and enjoy the slow burn of word-of-mouth and searches on the topic leading to you. Other times, writing is just like the traditional diary where it's therapeutic just for the writer.

Anyway, I'm all about sharing information as much as possible, so I hope you get to do something or other that helps fulfill that.
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post #13 of 16
10/8/12 at 1:08pm
Thread Starter 
Ah, I'm just too damn honest and chicken shit to do anything against the law. Plus it would feel like an insult to this wonderful opportunity. Maybe someday when I'm ready to take the training-wheels off

Thank you for understanding.
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post #14 of 16
10/8/12 at 8:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Irina View Post

Ah, I'm just too damn honest and chicken shit to do anything against the law. Plus it would feel like an insult to this wonderful opportunity. Maybe someday when I'm ready to take the training-wheels off

Thank you for understanding.

Hey, no problem. I understand totally. Respecting the basics of the employment relationship is a good thing. A lot of industries are like that. One of the things I like about fragrance is that it is NOT my day job - so I can get into it fully and without having to think about how it might affect my employer.

It's good that you can still get online and talk about fragrance and art and such, like we're doing in the CB threads. That's actually pretty lenient on the part of your employer, so you should be thankful. I pretty much do not talk about core business AT ALL. I may have opinions about other stuff that's tangential (like basic science and IT), but I figure that if it's something that the suits have a public position on, vis-Ã*-vis the company, they don't need my opinion as a potential conflict. So it's nice to hear that a certain degree of anonymity is enough in your case.
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post #15 of 16
10/8/12 at 8:33pm
awwww that sucks but we all understand
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post #16 of 16
10/8/12 at 11:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redneck Perfumisto View Post

Hey, no problem. I understand totally. Respecting the basics of the employment relationship is a good thing. A lot of industries are like that. One of the things I like about fragrance is that it is NOT my day job - so I can get into it fully and without having to think about how it might affect my employer.

It's good that you can still get online and talk about fragrance and art and such, like we're doing in the CB threads. That's actually pretty lenient on the part of your employer, so you should be thankful. I pretty much do not talk about core business AT ALL. I may have opinions about other stuff that's tangential (like basic science and IT), but I figure that if it's something that the suits have a public position on, vis-Ã*-vis the company, they don't need my opinion as a potential conflict. So it's nice to hear that a certain degree of anonymity is enough in your case.

Indeed. I will need to tone it down a bit though. I'm grateful to have a mentor that's approachable enough to openly talk about these things and get some guidance in what's ok and what's not done. Will need to bite on my tongue more often that's all, which for me, it's a good thing
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Basenotes › Basenotes Forums › Fragrance Discussion › Fragrance Industry and General Fragrance Discussion › Suspended: was 'diary of a perfumer in training'