Some funny things I’ve noticed about myself:
a. I filter information a lot and scan things quickly:
- There was this game in which you had to look carefully at another person, sitting half a meter away from you, then turn around, then look again at the person and notice what small changes that person did; I noticed zero things that were changed; My personal observations included only clothing and color, I didn’t notice the way the blouse was, the accessories (a wrist watch) and the way the hair was done;
b. I’m highly judgmental (and I filter information):
- Some person asked about a Zodiac Sign; The answer was completely irrelevant, I didn’t even hear it (it doesn’t matter what you answer to this, unless you prove some advanced knowledge of zodiacal signs, or you’re highly enthusiastic in your answer, you can pretty much answer anything); But the question itself was intriguing – Who would ask such a [place for non-flattering judgmental attribute] question?
- A person had to speak about herself; I can remember that: she was a mother of a 2 years old child (I respect that), she was 24 (being a mother at 22 is quite an achievement) and she was married (interesting status); That was it; That’s all I remembered; The asked Maria-Francesca DOGARU asked (as a memory exercise) a participant about the name of her child; Since this was an irrelevant piece of information (I’d never use it), I didn’t even try to remember it; Then they’ve asked me if I remember if she had pets; What? Who cares? Having pets tells me two things: some stuff on the social part (this is a plus), and some parts on the eco-friendly part (that is a minus); But still, they’re so much irrelevant, that it has zero importance; It seems there was this question from another participant and she answered; I didn’t hear the question, I didn’t hear the answer, and all-in-all, it was fine for me to do so; On the other hand, it’s hard for me to forget the three things she said (mother at 22, married); The other things are really irrelevant; Filtering is great!
c. I pay little attention to two things at the same time (and I filter information):
- There was this game when we were suppose to say things about the other participants; My focus was so high on trying to remember each person’s attribute, that I ignored all that there was around me;
d. I’m bad at coordinating things (and consider it fine):
- An exercise consisted in making a machine out of human movements; The machine mechanism had to work fine; At some point I had to make this decision: either see that my part of the mechanism worked fine (and I had this movement which implied both hands, a circle in the air, weird) or see what the others were doing; The first part involved making sure that the exercise went well, while the other option was my personal curiosity and development – how would others do their part of the mechanism? So I ignored the mechanism and watched others; Of course, I coordinated things poorly, but I did see what others have done;
- At the end of the day there was this exercise in which one had to listen to a story, answer to two types of questions (of personal life and of Mathematics) and do body movements in the same time; Scary;
- I’ve done 2 years+ of karate, some theater and some korfball; I’ve had really really big troubles with coordinating; I’m sure it’s a skill nice to have, but since: I’ll never drive a car, I don’t mind bumping into things, stepping on toes, hitting objects, and finally not catching objects thrown at me, I’m fine with this; It’s also not that easy to improve (I’ve tried);
e. If I focus, I’m pretty good with words (blogger?):
- Besides the fact that I didn’t listen to the story for 15 seconds and lost some elements of it, I was pretty good at continuing a story;
f. It’s more important how I say/do things than how they’re perceived:
- One exercise was the one with the crocodiles: all other three members in my team mimed the jaws of the crocodiles, continuously opening and closing (I won’t debate on the logic of this); Thus, from a distance, their crocodiles looked real; Me, on the other hand, considered that the head of the crocodile is a natural thing, it’s just the way it supposed to be and if I had to move something, that would be the feet;
g. I like to do things differently:
- On the complex machine out of body movements I tried to come with a different approach (which was rather difficult to coordinate for me); I didn’t like the idea of four crocodiles moving the same way; And I’m soooooooo fine with filtering unimportant elements;
h. I liked to see breaking the rules:
- Prior to the crocodiles game, another team did the same game; They didn’t talk to each other, they acted independently; Maria-Francesca DOGARU ignored this, and we talked as a team how to make things funnier and easier; Funny thing;
i. There’s something with my attention:
- I can focus on things really good, remember stuff, while I can be in the same room and hear nothing;
- If I think of something and the other person is speaking with me, I hear nothing;
j. There was this thing called reaction to surprise:
- Most of the participants in the room, whenever reacting to something new, got to laugh; Surprise! Laugh! My reaction was different; Surprise! Think about it! Stress goes high! Ignore stress! Manage your reaction! A bit afraid! Ignore fear! React!
- Yes, that’s a really simple mechanism; Put it simple, other people’s reaction was laughter, mine was fear (which I tried to control; I do this so well, that the answer to the question below was – “Fine”; I’m a bit afraid, but I’m fine with it; I feel a bit fear, but nevertheless we’re fine);
k. Finally, to answer the question in the title: “How I felt”?
- Generally I don’t ask this question; Instead, my question is more pragmatic, going into something like: What will I gain from this? What will I lose out of this? In the case of theater, the answers would be:
i. Plus: I’ll learn to focus more on other people (no matter how much irrelevant this may seem);
ii. Plus: It’s a great way to evaluate my current level of [place attribute here], compared other people;
iii. Neutral: It’s exciting (this isn’t good or bad, it’s just neutral);
iv. Minus: I could do other things in the same time;
- Going really into the feelings part, my mind goes like this to the question “How do I feel?”:
i. All the time the worst I get is “Fine”;
ii. From time to time I can be ecstatic, thrilled;
iii. Besides being fine, I’m bored a lot (but still fine);
iv. There’s never “Bad”, “Poorly”, “Sad”; If I feel that I’m losing time in there, I’d never return to theater; If, for one reason or another, I do come and participate to the following workshops on theater, I can’t (this is the word) feel anything but “Fine”;
v. If I were to describe the exact feeling I’ve got, that would be similar to “no peace” (I’ve got an ID in Romanian similar to “fără pace”); And yet fine with it;
vi. Was it pleasure? It was an excitement for which I answered with controlled fear, and was happy with it; In the same time I learned new things; The pleasure itself is out of the question;
(as you can see, answering “Fine” to the “How do I feel?” is a much rapid conclusion, so I’ll stick to it)

___________
Bottom line: I liked the workshop, I felt fine [place for emoticon], and I’ll sure take part to the next workshop; In fact I liked it so much, that it really put emphasis on me doing theater again (I’ll write a blog post soon on why this won’t be done that soon).

So:
1. Some images, some songs and some articles had some copyright issues; I won’t get into details, but I will mention that in order for one to play a song, put an image and present an article in a presentation, you have to have some copyright; You can’t just take data from the Internet and put it public; I’ve met this problem quite a few times at the event;
2. Sir John WHITMORE seemed to have had a few similar parts in his presentation with his presentation from Coaching ‘08;
3. For the Coaching ‘09 conference, the introductions made to the speakers seemed a little too short; I’d try to have some longer introductory speeches for the next year;
4. There were no carbonated soft drinks;
5. While doing spellchecking, I found errors in the English version of the schedule (e.g.: “perfomance consultants”, with no “r”);
6. There was no free Internet available at the hotel;
7. The schedule wasn’t kept to the last minute;
8. I’d wish that the presentations were already on the PCs when the presentation begun;
9. Some conferences didn’t involve the audience at all;
10. The location was not that central.

The presentation tried to answer these questions:

• How can you gain control of your financial life?
• What should you be asking before you invest in a fund?
• Do you know how much you need for retirement and how can you stretch the money at retirement?
• Do you ever wish you had an opportunity to take a personal finance course in high school or college?

What was the aim concerning the participants? To make them become better managers of their own money and time, through informed choices related to spending, saving, borrowing and investing. The course also tried to draw upon lessons learnt from the recent financial crisis and scandals to offer a refreshing approach on how we could re-strategize our existing investment plans.

What did I remember?
- Common sense is not really common;
- You should not postpone learning self control;
- It’s better to be your own financial planner;
- You should be paying attention on how exactly do you spend your money;
- It’s great to start an emergency fund;
- Compounding rate can work miracles;
- Investing can be low stress;
- Saving is all about self-control;
- Interest rate for credit card is very high;
- You shouldn’t keep more credit cards than you can keep track of;
- Can you imagine not spending money one whole day? Not eating at restaurants? Not using credit cards for some time?
- Suze ORMAN http://suzeorman.com/ is a personal finance expert;
- It’s easy to spend more than you wish when you pay with virtual money;
- Try to simplify your life;
- You should have explicit goals (they need to be expressed in a matter than can be converted into numbers);
- Try to plan for life changes and the unexpected;
- Insurance protects you from the unexpected;
- When chosing a fund manager, you should know some stuff about the track record;
- Funds are a long-term investment;
- Skepticism should trump over greed: when an investment seems to good to be true, it usually is;
- You shouldn’t keep more than 25% of your retirement assets in any one place;
- Quote by David BACH: “Your life should be interesting – your investments should be boring”;
- Saving is like dieting, it requires a change of habits;
- How much money do we have? It’s not how much we earn, it’s how much we spend; How much money you earn has almost no bearing on whether or not you can and will build wealth;
- It’s wise to have an emergency fund which should cover your expenses for 3-6 months;
- To reduce risks, we should diversify our investment portfolios and invest in different types of stocks; Portfolio diversification works because prices of different stocks do not move exactly together;
- Even banks collaps – do not have more than 25% of your total investable assets with one bank.

This is a message about a previous presentation of CEU Business School.

I made a few pictures:

And a picture by Oana POPESCU:

How did I feel? I liked it a lot, learned a few things. It was a warm atmosphere and I enjoyed the company of quality people.

A. Scott BARKLEY – What does it takes to be an entrepreneur

(LinkedIn)
See his presentation. I’ve made a video with him at the end (so this is not his presentation).

Some things he said at the event:
- If you go from a seminar with one thing learned well, then that time is well spent;
- Romanians are great and resiliant people; The future is bright;
- Success isn’t a magic bullet;

B. Chris SMITH

C. Viorel SPINU – It’s easy to build a start-up

(personal web site, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)
See his presentation. I’ve made a video with him.

What I remembered?
- Running a business is common sense;
- You should ask others: “Would you buy my products?”;
- Is your business in a competitive market? That’s great, this implies you are in a business that can actually sell products;
- It’s better to write things down, rather than just remembering things;
- It’s best to have a plan for the future, even if it’s not 100% accurate;
- You should convince yourself that your projections can be met;
- Rather than building the perfect product, you should do the simplest solution that actually works;
- If your procedures don’t allow you to put an idea online faster than 10 minutes, then something’s wrong;
- Some things to consider asking yourself every morning: What have you done yesterday? What will you do today? What stops you to reach your goals?

D. Larry YOUNG – Business Ethics

See his presentation. I’ve made a video with him.

Larry recommended two books as a necessary reading for every entrepreneur:

• The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization by John MAXWELL (in Romanian also);
• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan KIM and Renée MAUBORGNE;

Great things to know:
- Learning by distance is cheaper, more effective and easier than having to provide training services face-to-face;
- You should believe that you can make 1M (million) USD/EUR with your business;
- If you aim and shoot at nothing, you’re going to hit it every time;
- “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people” – quote by Theodore ROOSEVELT;
- You must tell the customer the truth;
- You must accept the consequences, even for your employees;

You can learn more about the event on the Fitzuica.ro web site (1 and 2). Also see Viorel SPINU’s message.

Story #1:

Two days ago, on 2009.10.13, I went to buy some natural supplements for a friend of mine. That specific supplement is only produced by one company in Romania. My friend went to two stores in Bucharest of that company, but didn’t find the product. Knowing I live not far (where “not far” is about 3 miles), I went to buy the products directly from the headquarters. On the map, things were clear – there was a street right perpendicular to the main road, it was at number 2, easy task, right?

Right … Well, I go there and no one knows where the street was supposed to be. I ask about four persons, I get mixed answers, finally I ask a person: “do you know about this street?” “Yes. Are you by foot or do you have a car?” “I’m a pedestrian” “Hop in, I’ll give you a ride”. And he did it. He gave me a 1.5 miles ride, he waited for me to buy the product in the car, and he drove me back to the city. I forgot to mention, the company I was buying the products from had the headquarters somewhere in a field. Stray dogs, bad weather (it was about to rain), poor roads, this was a mix which might have made it hard for me to reach my target. And yet this good man came from nowhere and helped me.

He was a person doing deliveries. I really like Cargus better now.

Story #2:

Following the event, I went to Piaţa Obor to buy stuff. Of course, I go to the place where peasants sell vegetables and fruits. I buy some cheap carrots and I don’t pay that much attention to the money. Now the surprise! The seller basically yells at me: “Hey mister, take all of your change!” (it was 2$ worth of money). Now I’m sure that he didn’t make a fortune by selling me 1 kilogram of carrots, but he did me a very nice gesture and returned my money. Nice.

Story #3:

Still in Obor, I go to buy some bread. There’s a bread factory right at Obor store with a selling point going right in the street. They claim to have traditional bread, with quality products. Still, their bread is a bit more expensive than the rest. And the prices are set so that by buying 1 kilogram you get a better value than buying 0.5. Also, they have quite a variety of breads. So I had a bit of a dilemma on what to buy, even if it was not the first time I bought bread from there. But the sellers were, this time too, nice with me, and helped with my choice and answered to my questions. And going home, I really really loved the bread.

That’s about it.

What did I like?
1. The order of the presentations in the schedule was pretty much followed;
2. Unlike other events, Ramada Park was quite new in the world of event organizing in Bucharest (at least to me);
3. Speakers were fine;
4. Lots of drinks every day – at the conference table, in the lobby, at lunch;
5. At lunch, whenever a plate with food was empty, it was replaced; Good to know;
6. The cookies were good (so I’ve been told);
7. Lots of waiters to serve;
8. The food was fine;
9. There was a good idea with an event introduction and ending with the same team: Petra MULLER-DEMARY and Kirsten DIEROLF; Like in real coaching, the conference had a promise and a question (What do you expect from today from yourself?) and a final check-up (Did it really happen?);
10. The banners were unobtrusive;
11. The projectors and the flip-chart went fine; It may sound dull, but seeing a projector that does a good job and seeing a flip-chart that it’s just there is a plus;
12. There were pens and block notes on most chairs and tables, whether they were at the conference or at the seminars;
13. I got a lot of insights;
14. The organizers were friendly;
15. I got to know a lot of new people;
16. There was room for questions;
17. The breaks were long enough;
18. The event was well promoted;
19. I liked the structure of the conferences;
20. International speakers? Lovely! Lots of them? Great!

What would I do better? Tips for the organizers:
1. Rather than start the event at 10 AM and end it at 6 PM, and all day to be in a deep hurry, I’d much rather start it at 8 or 8:30 AM and end it at 6:30 PM; There’s no need for a hurry if you wish to hear great stuff;
2. Whenever I had to pick between taking part in just one of four simultaneous events, I had this problem – I didn’t know the trainers;
3. I think it would be best if a seminar was really a workshop (interactive, with demos, with role playing, with teams), rather than seminars; I’ve seen some seminars which had PowerPoint presentations, and I personally see a seminar in a different way; I’d much rather take part into an event that has workshops rather than presentations.

_____________
Bottom line: these were some of the best days I’ve spent at conferences, and clearly it was well spent time. Thank you, Business Edu.

See the event homepage and Twitter page (+1, +2).

Translation was provided by Babylon Consult.

1^st day of the event

Some pictures I’ve made for day 1:

Training Best Practice in 2009 – Decebal-Leonard MARIN, Corporate Dynamics International

(HR Vocational, Business Standard, LinkedIn, Facebook)

Presentation description: Best practices in training market of Romania for 2009.

Things I jotted down:
- The source of disappointment is not the reality itself, but the expectations which are not met;
- The right usage of the internal resources can be a good option;

How can we obtain maximum results from investing in training? – Christian PAULS, Trend Consult

(TrendConsult, LinkedIn)
Presentation description: Most of the cases for which people do not apply the know-how gained at trainings are not only caused by the participants, but also by the attitude organizations have towards learning. The presentation will bring forward the main barriers discovered by Trend Consult, which suppressed applying the things learned at trainings and also solutions that are easy to apply in any organization, in order to significantly increase the results gained by training.

Back to basics – Cristia MAKSUTOVICI, AxA Consulting

(Cariere online, Da afaceri, Training mania, LinkedIn, Facebook)
Presentation description: This is a seminar which wants to tackle with fun and dare a delicate thought: “What should we do during the crisis, as individuals, organizations or trainers?” This is a debate, a brainstorming, a discussion in which we should identify those actions that can lead to success, as managers or companies. Is it the time to cook refined or sophisticated like the French cuisine or is it the right time to reinvent the German cuisine, in which simple things are made excellent?

Good stuff:
- What matters for one’s success?
a. 10% one’s IQ (Intelligence Quotient);
b. 40% one’s EQ (Emotion Quotient);
c. 50% the context;
- In order to do the things that you like, you should cut the activities that don’t bring you value;
- You should focus on the important things – the more you make one thing more sophisticated, the more you lose focus;
- Your sellers should know:
a. How to ask;
b. How to listen;
- The more complicated a tools is, the more difficult it is to handle;
- You should prioritize tasks;
- Find your niche;

Talent versus work – discovering and unleashing potential – Adriana BOSCANICI, Trainart

(The Samurai, LinkedIn)
What makes a champion in any field become a champion? What makes him keep his place? It’s difficult to give short answers. Some of the most frequently mentioned elements by our responders are: strong will, talent and work. Are all these ingredients necessary? If so, in what proportions? This is a hard to answer question. So how can we manage in our organizations these champions, if we don’t know precisely what makes them champions? Thus, our presentation aims to help discover and fulfill our own potential.

BrainPerform – Upgrading Learning Potential – Stelian MARIAN, Human Capital Solutions

(LinkedIn, Business Standard, The Investor)
An innovative training and development approach that uses the latest research data in Behavioral Neuroscience. The program teaches the participants how to learn, gives access to know-how from famous institutes (Harvard, Stanford, Cornell University, etc.), ensures understanding of the way to customize training programs based on identifying common development needs, fulfills the potential of personal transformation and applies innovative techniques of personal development and optimization.

Lovely thoughts:
- At the base of the brain are neurons which are constantly activated;
- Interesting things: neuroeconomics, neuroscience (risky business also), neuroplasticity;
- As you activate more parts of the brain for a task, you get to do that task better;
- You should do a network of neurons in order to automate tasks;
- The brain is an information processor;
- In order to grow, even in a crisis, you need to:
a. Invest;
b. Do things differently;
You can hardly do anything by cutting costs;
- Successful leaders base their actions on ideas that sustain the project;
- Try to imagine yourself from the clients’ perspective;

Fitness + Mind = Neurobics – Ioana PIELESCU, Qipa Professional Development

(LinkedIn, Capital)
Just as fitness exists, neurobics too: fitness for the mind. This means that we can keep our mental agility. More than this, we can improve our mind performance. We have an open invitation to apply simple steps, that can be made even without an instructor: instruments to be used at home, useful information both on personal and professional aspects, ways to own development and of the subordinated teams, new things, interactivity and involvement.

What I remembered by writing down?
- You should avoid skipping breakfast;
- Too much food? That’s bad!
- Avoid smoking;
- Sugar is bad for your brain;
- Pollution has a lot of side effects;
- Sleep well;
- Don’t cover your head when sleeping;
- If you’re sick, don’t force yourself into thinking;
- Stimulate your thinking;
- Have a good working atmosphere (Cool boss);

2^nd day of the event

Some pictures I’ve made for day 2:

From organization culture towards profitability, via leadership and performance – Christian SCHOLTES, Hermes Advisors

(Calea Victoriei Foundation, Training mania, Ziarul Financiar, 3ner.ro)
The profitability of a company depends largely on the performance of its employees. This performance is determined by their competency and motivation. The competencies can be ensured via recruiting and training, and part of the motivation, the one which ensures the premises, but doesn’t certify performance, is related to the package of compensation and benefits.

Building versatility – Cristian NISTOREASA, Wilson Learning

(LinkedIn, Facebook)
In every organization there is a hidden diversity, that of the Social Styles. Is we can use the differences from the Social Styles, we can obtain a more efficient collaboration, productive relations and results in business. If we can recognize the work preferences of the others and we can adjust our own behavior, we can communicate more efficient and have the persuasive ability to influence others.

Breaking the myth of innovation – Urania CREMENE, Achieve Global

(ROI Institute, LinkedIn, Formare.info)
The economic environment, in a permanent change, requires a culture based on innovation. Without leaders that inspire methods, services, products and even new business models, no company can hope to attract the attention of the media, to surpass competition or to satisfy the needs of 21^st century clients.

What insights did I have?
- Organizations tend to have too many procedures;
- It’s good for a manager to allow others to be innovative;
- If you have a dedicated place for a whole department for coffee and smoking, it might generate some ideas;

Influencing – How to make others say “Yes” – Radu IONESCU, RDI

(Psihologia la locul de muncă, LinkedIn)
Sometime we don’t even think about influencing the people around us, we interact with them just as they are. Sometimes we would like to influence them, but we don’t know how. And when we wish to influence people, we are not sure how much can we do this. In the current workshop we could see how much people can be influenced.

Energy 8 – Radu IONESCU, RDI

Energy 8 supports change leaders in development teams, departments and organizations. The ENERGY8 workshop and tool facilitate fast and deep dialogue about complex organizational issues. Starting meaningful conversations focused on three basic questions:
a. What is our driving energy?
b. What drives our organization?
c. How can we further develop our organization?

What presentations I liked best?

From the first day, I greatly enjoyed the presentation about “BrainPerform – Upgrading Learning Potential”. Neurobiology, neuroeconomics, neuroscience, neuroplasticity? Information from scientific sources? Great content! One of the best presentations I’ve ever seen, regarding strictly the content.

From the second day, I really liked the presentation of Radu IONESCU – “Influencing – How to make others say “Yes”". Lots of interactions, good emotions, great insights. Totally loved it for the interactivity part.

What changed in me?

I basically decided I should do some work or study abroad for a few years. Things are trickier than that (I speak good English and some French, so there are just a few countries which would fit me), but it’s one thought I will consider.

See the event homepage, Twitter page (+1, +2),

The moderator of the event: Decebal-Leonard MARIN, Managing Partner of the training and consultancy company Corporate Dynamics International.
(HR Vocational, Business Standard, LinkedIn, Facebook)

Translation was provided by Babylon Consult.

Pictures I’ve made at the event:

Petra MULLER-DEMARY and Kirsten DIEROLF: Beginning with the end in mind!

(Coaching Network, Cut-e, LinkedIn) and (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter)
Conference presentation: Share your best practices and experience the solution focused way of beginning with the end in mind. We will explore the beginning of coaching sessions, goal setting and some tools – and you can try them out on yourself at the same time. Join us for our win-win-win!

Some ideas I jotted down:
- You should start with the end in mind;
- We have a program for personal development – “Journey of life”;
- You should align your personal objectives with company’s objectives;
- What is work-life balance? Are you not alive when you’re at work?
- To stop doing something is not a goal; You should rather have an alternative picture of the life you wish to have; (so, rather than saying “I wish to stop smoking”, rather say “I wish to live healthy”)
- In coaching we love the Future Perfect tense – we like to put the client into a situation in which the future is perfect;
- Types of questions in coaching:
a. Platform building: Who is a customer for what?
b. Solution talk: What would you like instead?
c. Goal behind the goal: So if you reach that goal, how would that be helpful in your daily life?
d. Future perfect: If everything is just like you want it to be, what would it be like?
e. Perspective change: Who would notice?
And how would they notice?

Peter SCHUTZ: SystemicGoals in Coaching. A Basis for Leadership and Change

(MindMaster, Formare.info, NLP Zentrum)
Conference presentation: All managers have to work with leadership, coaching and change. Very often the most well intentioned managers do not get good enough results, as the project plan is not systemically planned and/or executed. Professional NLP outcome coaching can assist in formulating and systemically executing realistic positive goals. The session will cover systemic NLP coaching, both in strategy and execution.

What are my notes for the presentation?
- One day a presenter came to a company; He was welcomed by some person, who asked him: “Do you have a PowerPoint or do you have something to say?”;
- Recommended reading for someone interested in becoming a coach at executive level: “The Economist“;
- Do you have questions? I prefer the stupid questions, since they’re easier to tackle;
- (joke) SAP comes from “Software Against People”;

Sir John WHITMORE, Performance Consultants: The Challenge of Global Leadership

(Performanceconsultants.com, Whitmore.ro, GROW model, Book, Award, Ihexcellence.org,
What I liked at his presentation?
- Rather than doing coaching with managers (by coaching them), you should consider teaching managers how to apply coaching techniques in their management style (so they themselves do coaching with their employees);
- The process of self-coaching is a valid one;
- Think of the qualities of someone in your childhood who always made you feel good (not a first degree relative); If you are a teacher or a manager, you should have the qualities of this person;
- Aim high; Whenever thinking of the things you should change in an organization, don’t go for a 5% improvement, for 10% improvement; Rather than this, aim for a 50% change within an organization;
- The crisis will get worse with time for the future generation;
- We teach knowledge in schools, we should teach wisdom;
- Recommended reading: “Denial and demise“;
- The main obstacle that stops one from doing things is fear;
- Coaching is all about practice; You should actually practice coaching, rather than read about it;
- It’s good that one works on its own personal development;
- Important in coaching:
a. Raising awareness;
b. Generating responsibility;
- In coaching, we’re barely at the beginning of understanding things;
- Why is coaching great? You give people choice and you have to give options to people;
- If you let people take decisions, then you’ve got a person who can make a decision;
- Ecology is all about building responsibility;
- The whole economic system is no longer valid, we need to reduce the global economy by 80%;
- In the last 80 years, 90% of the big animals in the world have disappeared;
- Denial is a disease;
- Think about the situation this way: if the ecologic problem was true, what would I do differently?
- EQ (Emotion Quotient) is the basis of knowledge; We need it to take good decisions;
- Our educational system is based on knowledge, not on wisdom;
- Coaching has grown a lot because it was required;
- There’s a need for coaching;
- There’s a tendency especially for men to put on a little act; You should be authentic;
- A seed programs the tree, while a microchip can’t program but a standard set of answers; Nature does it better than technology;
- All the qualities of new leaders are internal ones – they come from within;
- We’re pioneers in coaching;
- Any questions you may have, you have your answers within you;
- Coaching may be used for:
a. Planning / reviewing;
b. Delegation;
c. Problem solving;
d. Assessment / appraisals;
e. Relationship issues;
f. Personal development;
g. Learning new skills;
h. Team building;
i. Brief coaching;
j. Self coaching;
and more…
- A lot of people share these feelings for someone they appreciate – they feel:
a. Special;
b. Valued;
c. Confident;
d. (and have) Self-belief;
- In leadership jobs, EQ matters as much as 85% in having success; For regular jobs, the percent decreases to 66%;
- EQ is an attitude, a way of being;
- Coaching is a behavior, the practice of EQ;
- Coaching builds Awareness and Responsibility, while Instruction lowers it;
- Choice and success builds Self-Belief and confidence, while bland and criticism lowers it;
- For coaching you need to be able to do effective questioning and active listening;
- Vision needs to be:
a. Long term – for the future generations;
b. Broad – society and geographical;
c. Deep – reflective and purposeful;
d. Inclusive – interdependence and integral;
- What agilities do we need? Responsiveness, openness to change, being in the present, freedom from fear and innovative thinking;

Mihai POPA-RADU: Setting the Stage for Successful Change

(Capital, Cotidianul, LinkedIn, Profesii Online, Twitter)
Conference presentation: There are countless models, theories and studies on organizational change, however many such initiatives are doomed to fail even before they are started. In his presentation, Mihai will focus on the crucial role leaders have to play especially in this initial phase of preparing the organization for change, how essential is winning the people’s hearts and how this can be done.

Some thoughts on the presentation:
- There was this lovely song: Haddaway – Life;
- We are more likely not to lose a few things than win a lot of things;
- Greed is not good anymore; Change is good;
- More than this, we can even say that our only hope is change;
- In a company, the CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) need to change too;
- Whenever we face a decision, we’re part of it; We’re not external to it, we’re internalizing it;
- What is the word most associated with the lack of change? Fear!
- For change to happen, we need to have a clear answer to the question – “What’s in it for me?”;
- The change levers: the mind, the will and the emotions;
- Emotions put things in motion;
- Quote by Henri BERGSON: “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”;
- Quote by: Barack OBAMA: “Today we [will] begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.”;

John BAX: The duality principle of top down crisis management and bottom up coaching of creativity
(HR România, Wall Street, Capital)
Conference presentation: This interactive presentation is about coaching the process from REACTION to CREATION during crisis situations. Coaching as a leadership style focuses on stimulating and guiding self conduct within the organization. But in crisis situations like now, boards of organizations wish to increase their control. And they should. More attention is paid to cutting cost, postponing investments, making clients pay faster and paying suppliers later, ending temporary labor contracts and even dismissing people. On the one hand these actions show strong leadership, and the power to take unfavorable decisions. On the other hand they are defensive top-down decisions. The question rises, what the impact of these decisions is on the motivation of people working within the organization. Beside demotivation it may even create fear. Strong leadership is not only about taking unfavorable decisions during crisis situations, but also about creating trust that the organization is strong enough that it will survive. The same sense of urgency that makes boards decide to cut cost can be used as a driver to make people be more alert, to show initiative in expressing ideas and to take action in improving what they can influence for the good of the entire company. Strong leadership in crisis situation is about not only reacting, but also about creating. And coaching is the leadership style to support this process.

What have I learned at this presentation?
- While Wikipedia has a different approach on the “Chinese word for crisis” (basically saying that it’s most of the time misquoted), John BAX quoted a thing also said wrongly by president John F. KENNEDY, who said: “When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters – one represents danger and one represents opportunity.”;
- Coaching has to consider time (short term / long term?), interest (our own interest / others) and scope (simple / complex solution);
- The usual path is: short term, own interest and simple solution, but this doesn’t make it right;
- You need to have convincing skills;
- Idea to consider for a bank: focus on profit optimization, rather than profit maximization;
- We need brainstorming;
- If you take necessary actions which are accepted badly, you should look again at the process;

Yves RICHEZ – Remarkable Performance are effortless

(Business Edu, Success, Youman, Les secrets, Wall Street, Facebook, Personal web site)
Conference presentation: This year, coaching and scientific thought cooperate in order to provide the participants with a further guarantee regarding the effects produced by the first of them. Yves RICHEZ is participating in the Coaching Conference with a presentation which tries to answer the key-question of any manager searching for potential and performance:
a. What do we have to understand by potential?
b. To what extent is this potential a performance indicator?
c. How can we pass form the first to the second one?
d. How can we maintain performance?
e. How can we consider performance, otherwise than through its visible, therefore punctual effects?
f. What is a remarkable performance?
g. Why should we develop a new form of performance:
- The eco-performance;
- Besides the effect achieved by fashion?
- How does one try to survive in a defensive way?
a. Cutting costs;
b. Postponing investments;
c. Making clients pay faster;
d. Paying suppliers later;
e. Ending temporary labor contracts;
f. Dismissing people;
- Crisis management solutions – using the crisis as a trigger for structural improvement:
a. Coaching the grief process;
b. Reframing the crisis situation;
c. Empowering influencing capacities;
d. Stimulating creativity;
e. Co-drafting short- and midterm plans;
- The five stages of grief:
a. Denial;
b. Anger;
c. Bargaining;
d. Depression;
e. Acceptance;
- The main values for the near future:
a. Security;
b. Trust;
c. Connection;

One thought:
- According to traditions in China, a leader doesn’t ask anything from its people, he asks things from nature;

Petra MULLER-DEMARY and Kirsten DIEROLF: Ending with a beginning in mind!

Conference presentation: Share your best practices and experience the solution focused way of ending with a beginning in mind. We will explore second coaching sessions, ending coaching sessions with first small steps into a better future – and you can try out the tools at the same time. Join us for our win-win-win-and then some before you go on with the rest of your life!

What changed in my life?
Strangely enough, the coaching conference made me stop loving coaching as a system. I’ve done a Start and Intensive NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming ) Coaching program, which I loved. But going the next step, from knowing things on coaching, to actually becoming a practitioner – well, at least for now, my decision is not following this path. Coaching itself is good, I totally agree with it, I think that a lot of people should know the basic principles in coaching, it’s just that I don’t want to allocate resources to become a professional with it.

Quite a good insight this was! If you wish to look at things in a positive way, have it like this: I chose to allocate resources to other personal development options than doing professional coaching.

Since the recital was held inside a museum, I preferred not to make pictures. Here’s one from the organizers:

The event had interpretations of George ENESCU – Ballad, Béla BARTÓK – Six Romanian dances, Igor STRAVINSKI – Italian Suite and Maurice RAVEL – Sonata.

The recital comes to add to the exposition “Aspects of modernism – picture in Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, 1910-1940″.

Along with the concert, there were video projections of the work in the exposition, selected by the interprets to create a connection between the music and the paintings.

It was a very pleasant evening, I got to see Steven van GRONINGEN, president of Raiffeisen Bank Romania and meet some friends.

The seminar was part of the Business Startup project.

I also made some pictures at the event:

Some thoughts I jotted down:
- How to remember names? Associate a person’s name with an object;
- Whenever presenting yourself, you should emphasize the positive aspects, rather than the negative ones;
- If something fails to work, you should reinvent yourself;
- Any business has its risks;
- Nothing is for granted;
- You must accept the risk that a business may not work;

What were the participants’ expectations? Participants at the event wanted to receive some of these:
a. Find out new information;
b. Developing a business club;
c. Clarify ideas;
d. How to get from employee to employer;
e. Have fun;
f. How to do things in the business world;
g. How to better orient themselves;
h. How to start a business;
i. How to apply things they learn;
j. See some real examples;
k. Exchange ideas;
i. Have a better vision and perspective.

Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking; It implies innovation and accepting risks, requires resources and rapid changes.

Why would someone want to become an entrepreneur?
a. To become financially independent (get a profit);
b. Have no boss;
c. Really wanting to apply an idea;

An entrepreneur is independent, shows trust, and is persevering.

___________
Bottom line: The seminar looked promising for the entrepreneurs who are at the very start of their business.

I’ve told you about Coaching ‘09. What is more important, I’ve also told you about Training ‘08, which is the event that took place last year, organized by the same Business Edu. You can read in there why the previous event was a success. You’ll find the best presentation on this page.

But why might the current event be better?
1. Organizers asked for feed-back at previous events; You can only assume that applying the gathered feed-back will make current events even better;
2. The speakers include:
Andy SZEKELY – AS Training & Coaching
Cristia MAKSUTOVICI – AxA Consulting
Marius OPRIS – Ascendis
Mihai CURELEA – AchieveGlobal
Romeo CREŢU – HRD
Stelian MARIAN – HCS
I’ve seen live all these speakers and I can tell that, from what I’ve seen, these are some of the best speakers one can see live. They’re highly recommended by me;
3. The schedule of the event is divided into three parts, for both days:
a. A main conference;
b. Workshops;
c. Secondary conferences (Sales in the first day, and Human Resources for the second);
You can actually go see one of three events; You can pick the main conferences, or the secondary one, or a workshop; Plenty of choices! I like this a lot.

_________
Bottom line: This looks like a great event to take part to, and I recommend you to register as soon as possible.

What you might like?

a. The speakers
I’ve already written some things about Petra MULLER-DEMARY.

I’ve previously seen Sir John WHITMORE, Mihai POPA-RADU and Decebal-Leonard MARIN at various events.

My personal favorite from the list is Peter SCHUTZ, I can barely wait to see him.

b. The event organization itself
You can see three other messages written by regarding Business Edu events:
1. Why should you take part to the Business Edu Expo event these days?
2. What did I learn at Business-Edu Expo 2009, 2009.06.17-19?
3. What I insights I had at Training 08? (7-9 October 2008, Marriott Hotel)

You can look at those messages and draw conclusions for yourself. But, for my part, Business Edu does a great job at organizing events and you’ll miss a great opportunity if you don’t go to the event.

What’s next? You can choose to register for the event, or just find out more things on the Coaching ‘09 web site.

You can see some photos I made at the event:

And also I’ve made a video with Radu SPINEANU’s speech and with Eugen POTLOG’s.

Some ideas I wrote down:
- Who are the most important players in a transaction?
a. The provider (it offers a product);
b. The affiliate (he places an ad on his web site);
c. The user (buys from the provider by following the ad on the affiliate’s web site);
- eMag profit share – an affiliate marketing system;
- eMag comission is 3%;
- there are 30 days for one buyer to actually buy a product;
- all the products are in the store of the provider, so they can be bought with ease;
- having lots of banners on a web site does not guarantee multiplication of revenues with each added banner;
- you should consider a larger banner, rather than a lot of small banners;
- the quality of your web site traffic (who visits your web site) matters to the impact of the ads;
- rather than passively wait for visitors to click your banners, you should rather write blog posts related to the advertised products;
- webara.ro does a good job;
- SEM (Search Engine Marketing) works great with affiliate systems;

See Eugen POTLOG’s presentation.

See Radu SPINEANU’s presentation.

See other event coverage at refresh.ro (with interviews with the speakers), swamp, chestiuni.info, Sorin RUSI, concediază-ţi şeful, duveanu.

That’s it.

Click Planners has a Facebook group and a web site. Here are some photos at the event:

Participants included: Ionut MUNTEANU, Romeo SEMENIUC, Mihai ANDREI, Sorin DRAGHICI (and me).

What I learned?
a. Click Planners (mostly via Google AdWords) belong to a community;
b. There are some hard-to-learn acronyms in the industry;
c. A good event requires a good strategy.

Here’s a link to the presentation held by Ionuţ MUNTEANU.

You can see another follow up on Click Planners blog.

Note: Due to very large tables in this message, I strongly suggest you an alternative web page to read this blog post. Much easier to read this way!

This blog post has the following structure:
1. How to read this blog post?
2. Why am I biased in this evaluation?
3. Parallel reading: Facts versus Impression of facts on me
4. How can you contact Carmen CUCUL?

1. How to read this blog post?

Note: As the length of the scroll bars of the browser you use might also indicate you, this is yet another of my long blog posts.

I think it would be nice first of all to explain what corporate social responsibility is. I needed the explanation for myself too.

According to Wikipedia,

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) [...] is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. Ideally, CSR policy would function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business would monitor and ensure their adherence to law, ethical standards, and international norms. Business would embrace responsibility for the impact of their activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. Furthermore, business would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. Essentially, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit.

The practice of CSR is subject to much debate and criticism. Proponents argue that there is a strong business case for CSR, in that corporations benefit in multiple ways by operating with a perspective broader and longer than their own immediate, short-term profits. Critics argue that CSR distracts from the fundamental economic role of businesses; others argue that it is nothing more than superficial window-dressing; others argue that it is an attempt to pre-empt the role of governments as a watchdog over powerful multinational corporations.

If you look carefully at this self-regulation of companies, you may notice the insert of some peculiar things into a business model – ethical standards (care for people and planet, not only for profit) and responsibility for the impact of their activities (we don’t look only at us, we also look at the environment). Ok, the ethical standards are there, the responsibility is there. The real question might be – why? Why would a business need such things?

If you look in the second paragraph, you notice that the very first criticism Wikipedia quotes is the distraction from the fundamental economic role of businesses. In other words, “Help us, don’t help others. Focus, people!”. It also says that by doing CSR, one might affect the role of governments (who needs CSR, when you have governments to care about?).

My blog post doesn’t answer the “Why?” question from a business perspective. I can’t say if CSR is a good thing (And for whom? For the person coordinating the CSR? For the company that person represents? For the customers? For the stakeholders? For the business partners? For the future generations? For the planet? For ethical standards?). CSR is a hard thing for me to understand. The “Why do CSR?” is a tricky question, and my blog post should be read with this in mind – I start with the assumption that CSR is neither worse nor better than other business model. If you like it, you decide if CSR is good or not.

Sure, I will have a very biased opinion on CSR on the “Impression of facts on me” section. But that’s a different thing. What this blog post is about is actually how well does Carmen CUCUL follow what I think are CSR best practices. You will see this in the section about facts. Interpret this blog post the way you like, the facts on the left column remain.

So, why the Interpretation thing? More than the facts, I’ll also have a parallel presentation with the “Impression of facts on me”. The reason I do this is because CSR actually cares about this – how would the actions of an organization member affect the lives of others. You’ll see how Carmen CUCUL’s actions made an impact on me. So, the logic is simple: Carmen CUCUL does CSR via HR Club, I’m affected, what do I think and feel about the CSR measures? This is on a separate column. Oh, and HR comes from “Human Resources”.

Please note that to me ethics and God are separated by a very thin line, and I’ll have a tendency to mix these, in my very own Impressions section, of course. Leaving facts aside.

The blog post is made such you can read only the facts, this is fine by me. The impression of the facts on me presents my opinion on how things developed on the facts side.

2. Why am I biased in this evaluation?
a. I’ve known Carmen CUCUL for a long time. I’ve been in Bucharest since 2001. In 2002, when I first entered into LEADERS Romania, an NGO dedicated to promoting leadership in Romania, Carmen CUCUL was just being interviewed. From 2002 until (about) 2005/2006, I’ve been a volunteer in that organization with Carmen CUCUL. After the NGO time ended, I took part in HR Club’s projects (Carmen CUCUL is Executive Director of HR Club since January 2006);
b. I’ve worked on projects lead by Carmen CUCUL more than once. In LEADERS Romania I worked under Carmen CUCUL’s supervision on Global Youth Service Days repeatedly. Afterward, I was hired by HR Club (see below);
c. I’ve been paid by an organization lead by Carmen CUCUL more than once. I did two research projects for HR Club – one in the summer of 2007, gathering materials for a CD for a conference, and another one in this very summer (the project ended on 31^st of August 2009. I looked for documents for the new HR portal);
d. In the summer of 2007 I took part, for free, to a summer school organized by HR Club. I found out about the summers school via an internal email sent to LEADERS Romania members. But this was only the start. After this, …
e. … I took part to quite a few conferences, seminars, workshops and presentations organized by HR Club, most of the times in exchange for giving a helping hand of some sort;
f. My hope is that I continue with points from a. to e. This should not be the end of it;

3. Parallel reading: Facts versus Impression of facts on me

4. How can you contact Carmen CUCUL?
On HR Club web site there’s a contact page (in English) with all the contact data. If you can’t get to the English version, and then to the Contact page, you can blame my poor review of the website.

A. Day 1

Some pictures:

Monica BRÂNDUŞESCU – event moderator
(HotNews.ro, Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter – protected)

George IVAŞCU – About the fear of being yourself
(Metropolis theater, Port.ro, Cinemagia)
- What’s the risk of technology? Solitude / alienation;
- I’m a failed physicist; My failure went into being an actor;
- life is like an electrocardiogram – it has lots of pulses, and, in the end, they’re the ones that matter most;
- a theory Alfred ADLER: man is born free;
- all our lives we find out about our limits – “You are not allowed to …”, “You shouldn’t …”, “You mustn’t …”;
- (a definition from a student of his) monologue is not what you say, but what you can’t hold within you anymore;
- Our focus should be on:
a. What? Why? – the subject, rather than on:
b. How? – the method for getting to the subject;
- strength comes from being you, rather than wearing masks;
- we are the fruits of our own thoughts;
- there few major events in your life;
- What is art? To enrich the beauty in yourself;
- love is not chemistry, it is alchemy, it transforms you; sure, there is some chemistry too, but you should focus on the alchemy;
- acting with power is a different thing than acting with force;
- E = m*c² in real life is translated into: m = our bodies; 1^st c = our heart; 2^nd c = our mind;
- (citation) actors are sculptors in snow;
- for one year he has seen classes from other teachers, only after this he taught;
- there are two ways to reference to the world:
a. Egocentric – everything is done from you;
b. Institution – you are an NGO into a capitalist world;
- all our lives we are children; we need stories; Pro TV won audiences because it told stories;
- I can’t give advices, I can only tell you that I do this or I don’t do this;
- Not having enough money? That’s good!
- today we try to build capitalism with communist tools;
- we have forgotten the meaning of words; we communicate with expressions;
- equilibrium is the key to harmony;
- any kind of excess leads to problems;
- I watch these on TV:
a. News;
b. Discovery channel, History Channel; I think their ratings are increasing;
- a current trend in Romania is soap opera – Why? Because it tells you a story (no comment on the quality of this);
- an actor has the ability of being a permanent child;
- there is no such thing as “You must do …”;
- invitation to Metropolis Theater;
- there are no ugly or beautiful persons; it’s all on how you imagine things; our imagination is very active;
- try to make fun of bad things to overcome obstacles;
- a role has, at its roots, a meaning of vocation / aim – these are more important;
- a character is a mask / a form;
- a person dies when no one speaks about him;
- Romanians still tend to buy, rather than invest;
- (quote) Follow your dream!

Irina WAGNER – The story of the passion for art transformed into a success brand: Wagner – beautiful arts and fairytales
(Wagner Arte, LinkedIn, Facebook)
- it’s great to be very good into your own field;
- although there is a general image we have about our client, the people that usually buy from our store are very different;
- there is little competition in our field;
- branding helped our business a lot;

Radu TUDORACHE- Investment into spirituality
(Montero, Money Express interview)
- I went to a College of Mathematics;
- “Each day we must be able to conquer the ideal” (Arsenie PAPACIOC);
- spirituality is something practical;
- personal development is done through other people;
- it’s impossible to change the population as a whole;
- there are four levels into someone’s life (like a pyramid):
a. Spiritual;
b. Rational;
c. Psychological;
d. Physical;
- on the physical level, there are:
a. fasting;
b. some form of prayers;
c. positions during the church services;
d. pilgrimages;
- Way of St. James is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain;
- on the psychological level:
a. Having a confessor:
i. as a partner in life;
ii. Giving psychological advices;
iii. Knowing the personal / family history;
b. integrating into community;
- there are some very good monasteries in the North of Oltenia: Frăsinei, Bistriţa, Dintr-un Lemn, Iezer, Pătrunsa;
- on a rational level:
a. reading the Church Fathers implies using the mind;
b. recommended reading: Mistagogia by Saint Maxim the Confessor;
c. Gregory the Dialogist has some very good writings: The Rule for Pastors;
- on the spiritual level:
a. Regular praying;
b. Praying whenever necessary;
c. The Seven Sacraments, around which life is centered;
d. Communion with the saints;

Monica TATOIU – Consistency – the enemy of failure
(Oriflame, CV , video interview on Capital)
- I always feel the need to provide examples to what I’m saying;
- when you make a choice, you also assume the responsibilities that derive from it, not only the rights;
- extra authority and rules are not a solution for a better society;
- you have to determine your competitive advantage;
- How can one do personal development?
a. Readings;
b. Being informed also about the fields that you don’t value as much;
- in life you don’t necessarily do the things that you like;
- life is hard;
- you can develop competency by working, not by studying things at school;
- the job for which you prepare in school is not really the job that you’ll end up doing;
- NGOs are launching pads for wise guys; NGOs do great in the US, not that good in Romania;
- you should first focus on your own development, only after this you should care about the persons around you;
- Five life principles:
a. Knowledge doesn’t mean information; the Internet is the biggest weapon through which the new generation is being brainwashed; knowledge is a state, while information is sequential;
b. You should be consistent in winning competencies;
c. You should have convergence – focus on one direction only;
d. Family is important; marriage is a bilateral partnership with rights and obligation and force majeure; The role of the family? To transmit to the new generations the values of the society that generated that family;
e. Belief in a spirit;
- next year, starting with January, the economy will be awful;
- Why should you work in a multinational company?
a. Very clear rules;
b. It is a very large organization;
c. There is a procedures’ manual;
d. There are financial reporting systems;
e. Flowcharts? Yes!
- if you join a certain system, you will learn very good procedures;
- there are bits & pieces you can only appreciate in a multinational company;
- in December 2009 the expenses for Christmas, the bad weather of the winter of 2009-2010 and the end of elections will cause large layoffs in the State system; Why? IMF (International Monetary Fund);
- recommended reading: “Ada or Ardor: a family chronicle” by Vladimir NABOKOV;
- recommended reading: “Clair de femme” by Romain GARY;

Delia BURNHAM – Authenticity and honesty – the secret to professional fulfillment
(CVO Recruitment, LinkedIn)
- I run CVO Recruitment Romania;
- we do specialized recruitment services;
- Why am I in Romania? I wanted to experience another culture;
- the CV (Curriculum Vitae) is not the only thing that matters;
- When you write a CV, you should take into account:
a. Relevancy to the job;
b. Write it correctly;
c. Think of it this way: “What does my CV says about me?”;
- Two types of CVs:
a. General CV;
b. A CV custom made for a job;
- the work experience itself is more important than volunteering;
- Romanian hasn’t yet seen the worst part of the crisis;
- How can you find out things about a company prior to getting hired in there:
a. Ask the recruiting company;
b. Talk to present day employers within the company;
c. Search the Net;
d. Ask some friends (with caution, due to the fact that they’ll emphasis only certain aspects);
e. Read / search the press (but filter the information well);
f. (my suggestion) DespreFirme.com;
- at the interview, top questions should include clarification on the job itself;
- a thing that matters a lot is what you want for yourself;
- unforgivable errors: orthography errors in official documents (not only CVs);
- What’s the process of hiring someone?
a. Long list of candidates;
b. CV filtering;
c. Phone interviews;
d. Face-to-face interviews;
e. Short list for clients;
f. Company interviews (from one to five);
- interviews are crucial to the selection process;
- ideally, employers wouldn’t need to pose trick questions, they are to be avoided;
- you should study things for your own pleasure, but you should pick with great care the value of the things you learn;
- about Master Degrees, think about it this way:
a. Do they bring real value?
b. Is it only a diploma?
- if you wish to get a job to McKinsey Europe, you’d better have an MBA;
- still, there are jobs with flexible approaches;
- what you mostly need in a CV: good job performance;
- rather than doing an MBA, you should consider reading books; still, if you find an MBA with good value – you should take classes at that MBA;
- more important than the knowledge is what you can prove you can do;
- the approach theory – work experience is different now in Romania, but in time this will change;
- recruiting managers may not have the time to see hundred of applications; Reason for this:
a. It’s a crisis, little time for recruiting;
b. A lot of employees randomly apply to a lot of jobs; (and there is a correlation between a. and b.)
- It’s very appropriate to have a direct approach:
a. You should contact the companies;
b. Contact employers on social networks;
c. Directly contact the recruiters – HR (human resources) managers;
d. For a small company, you could even contact the general manager;
- some major multinational companies may have rigid procedures into recruiting;
- there are also companies that don’t appreciate the direct approach;
- Regarding asking for a salary at the interview:
a. Try to be as informed as possible about the salary range for your position;
b. If there is a new field and you don’t know the salaries, you should tell the truth: “I don’t know how much to ask”;
- There are differences between:
a. Large multinational companies (they generally have salary ranges);
b. Small companies (very flexible, but you will have problems asking for salaries much higher than those of the rest of the team);
- if, at an interview, you have a physical problem (you feel sick), you should state that and maybe ask for a second interview;
- it’s important to have a relaxed attitude at an interview;
- it’s great to know yourself – what you like about life, what you do with passion, what you’re good at;
- You’re a company, a freelancer, an artist? That’s fine! Just be authentic; (very difficult to do)
- 75% of the time at work you should be happy;

Daniela FUGARU-KAMMRATH – Be your dream!
(121.ro, Radio Lynx, Green Report interview, LinkedIn)
- what motivates you in life?
- a lot of the questions that seem to have no answer, in reality they do have an answer, we’re just afraid to express it;
- These are permanent questions:
a. Who are you really?
b. What do you want to do?
- A SWOT analysis for a personal brand:
a. Helps you see yourself in the mirror;
b. Makes you see the details of yourself, to know yourself better;
- it’s important to analyze yourself, to know what you wish for;
- it’s hard being authentic – ask your best friend for feed-back (he knows he won’t jeopardize your friendship by telling the truth);
- Cinderella had a personal coach;
- we are more scared of speaking in public than we are of death;
- a brand (iPod) is more than a product (generic mp3 player);
- if you build a certain image, you attract certain persons to you;
- any construction, with time, becomes a brand;
- the people around you see you as a brand;
- it’s very important to choose what you know consolidates you as a brand;
- when you make a choice (not decision, choice has a motive) stop making that choice again and again – this is madness;
- a choice defines you as a person;
- it’s important to know you tried;
- recommended reading: “Blue Ocean strategy” by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne;
- you can defy the system when:
a. You know who you are;
b. You trust yourself;
- money stops you from making choices and makes you pick a certain road in life;
- money is one mean by which you can get where you want to get;

B. Day 2

Some pictures:

Florin GLINŢA and Anda MARIAN – Career decision: emotional choice or fulfilling your own potential
(Talentgate.ro, blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ziarul Financiar)
- great place to find a career profile – Talentgate.ro;
- career is strongly related to motivation;

Alexandru CIOCHIA – Is your dream effective?
(Radio Lynx, LinkedIn, blog, Facebook)
- people help you, you can receive a lot of support;

Andrei POPESCU – We and the community!
(HotNews.ro)
- when you want to do something with your life, you are not alone;

Doina RUŞTI – The right decision
(website, Wikipedia, Librarie.net, Ziarul Financiar)
- most people come to conferences to speak, not only to listen;
- when you make a decision, there are a lot of factors (communication, diversity, things to be done) that influence that decision; Therefore, the society around you makes that decision;
- recommended reading: “Les chemins de la persuasion: le mode d’influence des media et de la publicite sur les comportements” – Jean-Noel KAPFERER;
- right now you have the option to place yourself right on the line between two fields, you can postpone the final decision for later on;
- good school: College of Anthropology;
- good school: College of Language (a mix between Mathematics and Letters);
- There are specializations that allow you to:
a. Get rid of society’s prejudices;
b. Take into account these prejudices;
- you should take a decision based on your talent; Any human being has this talent;
- in our genetic pool there are things that someone is gifted to do;
- there are things which you do well, even if you don’t like them that much;
- Based on your talent:
a. Decisions are being built;
b. Your future life is being built;
- if you are successful in one field, and you switch to any other field, you can apply the learned skills from the first field;
- great people in one field only do the thing at which they are professionals;
- What’s important to find out? The small thing, very pragmatic, abilities you can use in your future job; example: being an expert at chopping vegetables, both with speed ant patience; this mix can be easily be transferred into writing books; after finding those small things, you can apply those abilities in other fields;
- When do you take a good decision? When you have a problem;
- in theater you can make all the possible experiments; I recommend this education of emotions, if you have communication difficulties;
- if you look for a solution to a problem, it doesn’t even matter if you succeed right from the start; experimenting in great!
- try to experiment first of all;
- don’t wait for someone to notice you, you should take action;
- any decision you take, it’s a good one;
- a decision implies diversity;
- decisions require a major talent and they are contexts that mean you can take into account prejudices;
- Decisions take into account:
a. Knowing yourself;
b. Knowing the future;
- the most important decision is related to the future job;
- decisions are related to a plan; (make one)
- being persistent is the most dreadful enemy of someone who picks his path in life;
- persistence kills the beautiful essence of life;
- by being persistent, nothing of what you do until the end gives you satisfaction;
- you don’t have to be persistent if you’re not good enough;
- symbols are connected to the education (you can’t be connected to a symbolic area to which you have never been connected to);
- all of the symbols come from education;
- there is a basic character in you, no matter how much you try to model yourself; there are native predispositions;
- when you take a decision, each time you know you’ve either taken a good or a bad decision;
- Constantin BRÂNCUŞI said (of his master) that he was a tree in the shadow of which no grass would grow;
- you shouldn’t remain in one activity in which you are even 10% unhappy;
- the only decision/thing that matters in life – having no master; (entrepreneur)
- you should get jobs in as many workplaces as possible;
- learn as much as you can;
- the way in which a job system works within a company – same for all companies;
- you should do a lot of things, in order to learn what you can do very well;

Lia PERJOVSCHI – Free talk around the vocational theme subject
(News in Gândul, 9AM, ICR)
- How do you choose two colors? Generally speaking:
a. The first option is a cultural one;
b. The second option is a personal one;
- it’s good to have two career plans – A and B; optimal would mean having them from A to Z;
- when you accumulate information, you have multiple options;
- art is a great option, if you wish to avoid having rules;
- nothing is easy in life;
- what comes easy in life has a price – you are losing yourself;
- if nothing is easy, you should at least do something you like, it will make it appear easier;
- people don’t have bad intentions, but they can be very little interested in you;
- it is important to be a fighter until the end; equally important is to change yourself constantly;
- you should have an overview of the world you live in;
- It is important:
a. Where do you live;
b. What happens;
c. To know yourself;
- learning never stops;
- each person is important;
- children live in an environment without masks, relaxed, like a pleasant game;
- In order to have a fresh mind, you need:
a. A lot of thinking;
b. Action; (and some equilibrium between the two)
- if you are calm and equilibrated, everything seems to make some sounds around you;
- a mistake in the educational system – we learn rules that are not valid;
- you can do art in lots of ways:
a. Painting / sculpting / etc. – yourself;
b. Buying and selling art;
c. Making theories (writing about art);
d. Organizing events (expositions for example);
- at a very big art exposition, a cook brought a creation – he was an artist;
- I don’t believe in:
a. Bloody revolutions;
b. Provocation of the masses; (even if it is for a good cause, it involves manipulation, and I hate this; I only appreciate the people that think);
- I want to do something? I do some searching! (and from this a career might evolve) From searching, research ma result; From this you can write a book;
- while I was a teenager, I wanted to change the world;
- if something doesn’t work, you should leave it aside;
- our mind has formed some basic patterns while we were teenagers;
- if you are curious enough, you will find answers;
- Monica BRÂNDUŞESCU: if you do your job with a clear conscience, if you give 100%, you will find allies;
- we are forced, for ourselves, to give what we can from ourselves;
- we never lose the information we learn from life;
- (quote) “In the next life I would like to be a rock, so that I will be calmer”;
- we know little not only about the Universe, but also about the small stuff;

Alexandru CIUCU – The influence of family tradition in choosing the career
(Website, Wall Street interview, Facebook)
- There have always been these two things in my life:
a. Costumes;
b. APACA (in Romanian Atelierele Publice Autonome de Confecţii ale Armatei; English – Public autonom ateliers for confections of the army);
- If you work with your relatives, you know:
a. They are very unlikely to steal from you;
b. Even if they do steal from you, you are not sorry about this;
- a downside of mixing family with business – when you come from a club at 2 AM, and the next day you are not fresh at work at 8 AM, some problems might appear;
- in any business you do, you should check if:
a. People understand what needs to be done;
b. Things work great by themselves;
- in taxis as a business, in Romania, beating is often a motivation (you will get beaten if you do some bad things);
- in one business of mine I had this problem: I couldn’t control all the taxis;
- in 1997 there was no Romanian brand regarding costumes;
- in the business world it’s great to have a brand name;
- those who buy a product and assimilate a brand gather experiences (positive, hopefully);
- Samric is one of our business with good and not-so-expensive clothing;
- as a personal observation, generally speaking the things for which you work a lot and have a good quality are cheaper;
- Why are we a good brand?
a. It’s a niche brand;
b. We are one of the few who do clothing by order;
c. Good PR (Public Relations);
- business lesson: you do best what you know to do well;
- a brand must always have the same quality; it’s a very bad business if you do things sometimes excellent, and sometimes poorly
- when your clothing is presented at a fashion presentation, you must come either with something extraordinary, or with something innovative (colors, matching accessories);
- custom made classical costumes have the great advantage of details;
- I’m very interested into people liking what I do;
- I prefer people to see me as a friend, not necessarily see me on a pedestal;

Sandra ECOBESCU – How to chose a vocation with your soul and how to do your job as good as possible with your mind?
(yes, finally a long title!) (Evenimentul Zilei and RRI interviews)
- For the major choice in life and career, you should pick with your soul, not:
a. Think too much on it;
b. Follow the family’s tradition;
c. Be guided by the financial aspects of the decision;
d. Go with career patterns;
- Why is the Faculty of Letters beautiful?
a. There are interesting and smart people as students and teachers;
b. A lot of opportunities arise;
- in Greece, half the time there were strikes;
- Why do people working in multinational companies spend money? Because they don’t have time for themselves and they wish to compensate somehow;
- if you do work for a few years into a corporation, you learn how the world functions;
- in big companies you learn mechanisms that you can apply in your own company;
- we have not been thought to discover talents (parents & schools don’t help either);
- one of the biggest qualities a man can have – common sense and politeness;
- joy is a real thing; Happiness? Not that sure it exits;
- Monica BRÂNDUŞESCU: passion is contagious;
- if you are under a lot of stress, you need new things;
- No stress? You need little things;

Cătălin MITULESCU – creativity and involvement in cinema production
(Wikipedia, Mediafax interview, CV, IMDb)
- I had a lot of jobs until now;
- it’s important to have various experiences, to try new things, but you also need the relaxation to be able to give up;
- you can have the adventure to try all sort of new things;
- What is a film-maker? It is a person who likes:
a. To tell a story;
b. To see the reaction of the people around him to his stories;
c. Listening stories is also fine;
- What is a producer? Someone who:
a. Listens to a story / reads a story / sees someone telling a story / reads a book / sees a story on the street and …
b. Wants to share the story with others;
- there are many roles in a filming team, you can do a lot of things;
- What is being superficial? To think about this;
- I dislike culture of a certain level, seeing things from above;
- no one from the new wave of directors would have existed without the Cannes Festival, even if it can be a bit superficial;
- I had great satisfactions from:
a. Going from script writer to director;
b. Events as a director;
- in the fashion industry you can enter a sort of prison as a model;
- maneaua is a phenomenon strictly related to creating things (and then selling them);
- sometimes manele singers are authentic;
- listening to a few songs doesn’t transform you into a listener of that kind of music; (doesn’t give you a label)
- my job can get you closer to the things that interest you;
- I like knowing, seeing challenges and problems;
- filming is often mixed with life – you don’t really know the exact boundaries;
- I don’t have a TV and don’t like TVs;
- the first movies you make (no matter if you make them as a director or as a producer), stick to your head;
- in the past it was very easy to meet with someone and see a movie; nowadays, problems arise – “I don’t like that movie, let’s not watch it”;
- I liked best producing the Ryna (2005) movie;
- Romanian audience is very demanding:
a. They feel when you are not natural;
b. They feel when you are exaggerating things;
- in the end, a movie is a show;
- you have to like movies in order to make them;
- with time, people tend to think in patterns, a sort of sclerosis, a lot of clichés;
- there are some people who wish for lesser pessimistic movies about Romania;
- There are two things when doing a movie:
a. What I say? (the story is important)
b. How I say it? (the method of saying this) – nowadays, this approach is more important;
- you can have many stories, but you have to have the ability to transmit them;
- It can happen to you:
a. Have no inspiration at all (blank mind);
b. Have contradictory ideas (think of the two opposite scenarios; which one to choose?);
- in order to create something, you have to help your mind with a concrete thing around you;
- there were some film makers in Romania who had problems with the sound and image in some Romanian movies;

Mihai IORDACHE – Life as a journey
(Punctulzero, Pathzero, Facebook)
- in some Asian countries, you can talk from man to man, or from man to a family; talking from one man to one woman is tricky;
- generally speaking, there are cases in which a woman can’t talk with a man who is not a 1^st degree relative;
- we should have no hobbies, in everything that we do we should have the same passion as a hobby;
- There should be a congruency, as a whole, between:
a. Myself, as a human being;
b. Thoughts;
c. Words;
d. Actions;
(going from c. to d. is mostly shaped by education; The rest? More complicated)

C. Thoughts

What have other written about the event?
See messages by: Mihail MUŞAT, Cătălina MURARIU, AEGEE Bucureşti, Florin GLINŢA.

What speakers I liked best?
1. George IVAŞCU – great use of case studies, examples; and, my oh my, so entertaining;
2. Doina RUŞTI – the way in which she played with ideas, the way in which she thought about the world – oh, so great;
3. Alexandru CIUCU – I like him; he’s funny;
(honorable mention): Mihai IORDACHE – for perfect use of you-re-not-here-only-to-listen-you-re-here-to-get-involved techniques;
If you look at the list above, you see that George IVAŞCU did a lot of theater, Doina RUŞTI and Mihai IORDACHE only for some time, while Alexandru CIUCU once dreamed about being an actor; oh, that’s too much for me to bear, I must see what’s so cool about being an actor; Theatrical (amateur) companies of Romania, here I come!

What I took home?
(besides a nice diploma and a hard-anchored into reality symbolic gift)
i. George IVAŞCU said this
“the focus should be on:
a. What? Why? – the subject, rather than on:
b. How? – the method for getting to the subject;”
What I understood from this – focus also on How?, not only on What?; I think the “how?” idea is not as developed on me; yes, you’re right, he said exactly the opposite;
ii. Monica TATOIU said: “in life you don’t necessarily do the things that you like”, and this translates into “avoid eating sweets”;
iii. Doina RUŞTI said: “in theater you can make all the possible experiments; I recommend this education of emotions, if you have communication difficulties;”
I intend to follow her advice;

Some final thoughts on the conference
1. Some speakers were wonderful, some speakers were great; No speaker was bad;
2. I learned a lot both from the content (the ideas that were flying in the air) and from the atmosphere (the way in which things were said);
3. Networking? I had the pleasure of meeting very nice, interesting and kind people;
4. Speakers went home with a small gift; I’ve only seen such a behavior at a HR Club conference;
5. The usual stuff (promoting the conference, catering, schedule keeping, having a good location, asking for feedback afterward, providing a follow-up, creating an online community with the participants) went also fine.

____________
Bottom line: one of the best two-days conference I’ve ever seen.

Some ideas I took home:
- How can Internet Regulation be implemented? Via an Internet Passport for individuals and Accreditation for businesses;
- There should be an Internet Government with an Internet police (international one);
- Also, a transparent Internet-money system should be in place;
- Users & Business education? A must!
- Advantages of an Internet Government:
a. Stop spam, botnets, DDoS attacks;
b. Stop illegal content;
c. Stop Internet fraud;
d. Stop organized crime and terrorists from using Internet for communication;
- Criminals would need a dedicated prison for online crimes;
- For this future to become common practice, a lot of years would have to pass;
- Organized crime is profitable, easy to do and low risk;
- Criminals have no physical contact with the victims;
- Modern OS are flexible and insecure;
- There are gaps in legislation for organized crime on Internet;
- There are problems with victims not reporting the crimes;
- You are in US, and robbed by a person in the African country; How do you solve this?
- Having a secure OS would imply lesser products and services for that OS;

Extra readings in English – see this “Ziarul Financiar” news.
Extra readings in Romanian: Here’s another conference review. And here are some thoughts with Bogdan DUMITRU from BitDefender. Also some news from “Ziarul Financiar”. At the event I’ve met Mihai IRINEL.

This is a video I made at the event. But you should also see the official video.

Pictures I’ve made at the event:

What did I learn at the conference?

Note: WP = WordPress; CMS = content management system;
Most of the links lead to Romanian pages, sorry about that;

Day 1 (see the pictures I made for day 1)

Nikolay BACHIYSKI: News about WP
(video I made) (see his presentation online)
- words to describe WP: power, freedom, confusion, income, ladies, gentlemen;
- WP is more of a cultural thing, rather than a software thing;
- WP project started due to sharing;
- WP has a GPL (General Public License);
- sharing has become an integral part of WP community;
- there was a community pressure on WP;
- everyone can make a piece of software, but it is the sharing of contributors that gives WP power;
- Wordcamps are an excellent method of sharing knowledge;
- through sharing, even if you give some of your time away, you will learn more things; you may even give yourself a bigger gift than to others;

On WP MU:
- MU = Multi User;
- for blog hosting
- totally open source;

BuddyPress – a social network in a box;

bbPress – forums in WP style;

Backpress – management of software projects (web based);

P2 – when you write something on the blog, it appears in real time (instant blogging);

WP 2.9:
- will allow moving to trash (instead of instant and permanent deleting);
- in the future:
a. better documentation (hand books);
b. photo albums;
c. will try to be a good framework for more development of features;

Lorand MINYO: Hosting for blogs
(video I made) (and another video) (see his presentation online)
- Orădeanul (the blogger from Oradea) should have held this presentation;
- Webfactor hosts a lot of blogs, even some from Top 10 ZeList;
- WP is of great help to hosting providers;
- Cabral shared his user and password in public;
- a lot of people hacked his blog;
- WP is scalable;
- are there problems with updating WP? Solution: the hosting provider should do the update;
- for very popular bloggers there are problems on things such as: hacking, flooding (database interrogations);
- one year ago, less than 1% of web sites used WP as a CMS, now it’s about 40%; most surprisingly – this applies not only to individuals, but to companies (using WP as a CMS);
- what do bloggers want: uptime, performance, scalability, low costs; yes, all four in the same time would be great;
- you shouldn’t use poor plugins;
- you should update WP CMS as soon as possible;
- avoid using WP hacks;
- types of hosting:
a. shared hosting;
b. VPS;
c. dedicated hosting;
- caching data? Perfect solution;

Alexandru NEGREA: How to choose a WP theme?
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (see the author’s thoughts on the event)
- there are a few types of themes:
a. Free themes;
b. Paid themes, but with author rights (links in footer, for example);
c. Paid themes, made exclusively for one blog (no links in footer) – not recommended if you don’t blog professionally;
- for the free themes:
a. there is not a readme.txt (how do I change a picture in the theme?);
b. free themes? Not recommended by Alexandru NEGREA;
c. You usually can’t find a perfect theme;
- today’s free themes are not really that good (design, programming, support);
- premium themes with author rights (links in footer) are an excellent option for users;
- recommended web site: ElegantThemes.com;
- any blogger should have a PayPal account;
- TemplateMonster.com has great options for buying themes: unique themes (expensive) and generic themes (much cheaper);
- the classical WP theme has no appeal;
- do you have a niche blog? You need a clear visual identity;
- own a personal blog? Your blog needs personality / identity;
- a paid theme has a better structure of information;
- green and orange, used for communication purposes, are very effective colors; (they suggest a call-to-action)
- SmashingMagazine.com – great place to look for themes;
- on a side note, don’t search on Google, it tends to provide results which lack value added; Solution? Search on Twitter;
- Alex BUGA sold his blog theme to a museum; the best WP theme in Romania?
- it’s perfectly fine to start designing a theme from the default theme;
- there is a WP plugin that makes a WP theme look great on mobile phones, also;

Andrei ROŞCA: Team blogging
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (his own blog post on the presentation)
- you should take community very seriously;
- team blogs and niche blogs may be more valuable than a personal weblog;
- this is a great world (nice blogs and Web 2.0 are based on this) – but all these require a community:
a. open society;
b. unrestricted access to knowledge;
c. unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance;
- in order to make money from blogging, you have to have good quality publishing;
- it will be very hard to make money from a blog if you’re alone;
- there is a book exchange initiated by BookBlog in a lot of counties;
- from many perspectives, an online business is similar to an offline one;
- what would the value of BookBlog be? A blog with a similar content, with no team, with no board, could cost from 80,000 EUR;
- the price for a paid book review on BookBlog is 80 RON (this is the amount authors receive);
- types of incomes for BookBlog:
a. advertorials;
b. RSS advertising;
c. banners;
d. paid book reviews;
- (gotta love this) efficiency means doing things with a good result (good performance), while efficacy means doing the right things;
- you shouldn’t tell your team about money; it’s all about goals, and values, and dreams and future;
- it’s great to have offline meetings for online teams; you can’t force people to be friends, you can only provide a context;

Cristina ANDREI: SEO vs. Copywriting
(see her presentation online)
- normally, you shouldn’t have to pick between SEO or copywriting, they should coexist;
- copywriting is a persuasive text (used not only for banners and ads) that should convince readers to read the text (i.) and forward it (ii.);
- in the Romanian blogosphere there are some misconceptions:
a. Keyword stuffing (in titles, meta description, h1, ALT, link title) is fine;
b. Link exchange;
c. SPAM comments;
- you should comment on blogs with relevant ideas, rather than spamming with comments;
- how to promote a blog post? Twitter, ProBlogger, FTW;
- recommended plugin: All in One SEO pack;

Costin COCIOABĂ: Niche blogs
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (thoughts on this)
- journalists, TV stars, singers, even responsibility actions – they are the ones with the most traffic on ZeList;
- magazine styles WP themes – make a blog similar to a big publisher;
- a niche blog can attract the right audience;
- when you have a blog, you’re actually a publisher;
- in Romania there are not good niche blogs: auto, finance, etc.;
- tips on making money out of a blog: RSS advertising and affiliate marketing;
- if you want to become a successful publisher, you have to be informed;
- niche blogging require permanent testing;
- there was no plan behind refresh.ro;
- main communication theme for refersh.ro – objective communication;
- you should use tags on your blog – mostly for people and actions;
- motivations based on money are not that important;

Day 2 (see the pictures I made for day 2)

WP Themes
Pavel CIORICI
(video I made) (see his presentation online)
- I can’t work 10 hours a day for a theme, so in two weeks time I can do a WP theme for scratch;
- there is an open forum with help for themes; We answer 2-3 times per day to the topics;
- the reason our themes are bought is mostly customer support, but also the unique design (the theme won’t be common on other web sites) and functionality;
- IE (Internet Explorer) 6 has some rendering problems with themes;
- we offer 25% commission to our affiliates; there are 300+ other blogs that mention our new themes; the affiliate system is very good for us;

Alexandru NEGREA
(video I made) (see the author’s thoughts on the event)
- it’s a great thing to be able to live out of selling themes;
- freelancing may be a good method of doing things;

Răzvan TÎRBOACĂ
(video I made) (author thoughts)
- Strategic web site needed a CMS;
- we tested Drupal, Joomla! and WP as CMS; WP was best;
- the main requirement was ease of use to non-technical users; this should also be the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of WP in front of other CMS;
- clients need specific solutions from WP, and this is the thing you should sell;
- WP is free and it’s not fair to ask for money for it; Instead, custom services are great;
- you should sell WP as a CMS, rather than as a blog;
- case studies are great solution when selling something;
- you should use tags a lot;
- web site architecture should be incorporated into design, rather than programming;
- a web 2.0 approach – using tools from other providers;
- rather than selling WP installing (done easily), you should sell custom themes and programming;
- put some emphasis on hosting and security;
- when asked for supplemental security, you should require an extra payment and provide hosting with firewall, for example;
- on a side note, it may be fine to start a company in Cyprus, due to fiscal laws in that state;

WP Development & Plugins
Cristi BURCĂ
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (thoughts)
- taxonomy is a way of classifying things (both blog posts and blog pages); it refers to making some compartments for easy finding of information later on;
- in WP there are two types of predefined taxonomies: categories and tags;
- in WP you can have multiple set of tags;
- for advanced use of WP as CMS you can use advanced taxonomies; there are plugins dedicated to that;
- the permalinks look great on taxonomies;
- taxonomies are nicely stored in WP database;

Dan ŞTEFANCU
(video I made) (idea 1 , idea 2)
- custom fields are not that complicated;
- custom fields are neither tags nor categories;
- instead they are additional fields used for adding extra information;
- for a real estate web site, you can add custom fields with information about each property;
- you can adapt the WP dashboard to use your very own custom fields;
- custom fields are easy to use, a lot of them can be added to any post, they are store in a personalized way, they can be shown everywhere (even in feeds);

Alex MIHĂILEANU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (his own message on the blog)
- you should give your themes an easy design and coding;
- coding things in a good manner right from the start means less work later on;
- less plugins? Great! Lesser server load;
- Piticu has a slow server due to a widget in the sidebar;
- you can edit the plugins to get only the code you need it;
- WP is so easy, anyone could learn how to use it;

Ciprian TURCU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (blog message)
- WP recently hit 50 million downloads recently;
- WP is an extraordinary environment for designing web sites;
- if you have knowledge with PHP, MySQL, CSS, HTML, you will have an easy life with WP;
- when designing plugins, there are ways to call already written functions (hooks) for a lot of things;
- there are a lot of plugins only compatible with early versions of WP – this is a problem, but also an opportunity (you can do an updated version of an old plugin);
- when working at a plugin, you should take into account name functions – giving original names for functions (FTest48Original3name), rather than generic ones (FunctionName) would help prevent compatibility problems;
- there might be version problems with other plugins or with WP;
- a lot of plugins might encounter problems with design – there are differences in the CSS of the blogs, sidebar width, things of this sort;
- there is little feed-back to plugins – why someone uses a plugin? It’s not that easy to register at WP, creating an account, posting a question; you can’t post anonymous comments and feed-back;

Călin DON: WP MU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (see more about Călin DON) (see a blog post on this)
- initial server configuration (1+ year old) held 10 active blogs: 196 MB RAM, Apache server, PHP Fast CGI configured;
- current configuration includes 1.2 GB of RAM, nginx, PHP FPM;
- the current configuration requires few RAM (8 MB of RAM can process 1.000 queries);
- some requests can be processed via a caching system;
- you can send files in accelerated method (they are sent automated by the web server);
- PHP FPM (PHP’s Fascia) works as an application server (you can separate the web server from WP); it allows running process with different rights (per blog for instance);
- we try to fully use the system resources of the server;
- recommended plugin: WP Super Cache; you can run up to 30 times more requests from the server;
- we also use APC;
- we started the blogging platform as one made for our friends; when the user count become too large, we installed WP MU;
- our current version, we have a svn-core (for WP installation), svn-plugins (WP plugins), svn-mu-plugins (plugins specific for WP MU), svn-themes (the themes users can pick);

Managers blogs
Mircea SCĂRLĂTESCU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (thoughts 1 & thoughts 2)
- in 2006 I started reading some blogs I liked; I liked Zoso’s blog; I had only a few posts;
- in 2007 I started writing more for the business area;
- June 1^st 2007 gives the first link from Orlando NICOARA;
- on August 1^st 2007 I got on a first fight with Zoso;
- today I have a big influence, and not that great traffic;
- I earned no money from blogging;
- personal branding might be a very good reason to start a blog; it’s one good reason to start a blog;
- most of the money in blogging will come from the networking starting from the blogging;
- it’s very cheap to get press coverage via a blog that has a good readership;
- you can easily be taken into account by important players in the online world;
- blogs can make relations between humans more personal;
- competition will also take a look on your blog;

Bogdan Theodor OLTEANU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (blog post)
- why blog?
a. experimenting social media
b. know online people;
c. learn communication techniques;
d. an extend pool for recruiting;
- in PR (Public Relations) it is important to have a good team;
- choosing WP as a blogging platform was the decision of an IT person;
- via social media you can transmit information about the company team, team culture and managing style;
- thousand of potential employees have social media accounts; you can see a person’s behavior online;
- in five years time, PR might move online;
- there is no such thing as total sincerity, neither online nor offline;
- if you are realist, you realize there are masks that people wear;
- especially multinational companies use social media, mostly due to an overall direction given by mother companies;

Radu GEORGESCU
(video I made)
- Adriana IORDAN said that there are things to be said on a blog; they belong neither in a personal blog, nor in a company blog;
- in Romania it would be useful to have a community of IP (Intellectual Property);
- IP is a business with exponential growth, compared to the invested resources;
- in software development, internet dot com portals, social media – after an initial investment, it is very easy to grow;
- in Romania there are three examples of successful companies which are frequently provided: BitDefender, Softpedia, GeCad; but the list is much longer;
- online advertising in Romania? It had a premature death, perhaps it even didn’t start;
- ideally, you should find another way of monetizing the blog, rather than by advertising;
- blog to read: Marriott on the Move – Bill Marriott’s Blog;

Company blogs
Silviu TOMA
(video I made)
- you can’t really tell what would be people’s reaction prior to launching a blog;
- a good approach to negative comments would be solving the presented issues;
- it would be useful for a whole team to be present on a company blog;
- campaign – “Write something so that you will receive a book”; main idea – promote Nemira’s values; the campaign helped raising awareness of the blog; in 3 months a community of both commentators and bloggers was created;
- prior to starting a blog, you should create a good atmosphere in the company regarding blogging itself;

Daniela DUMITRICĂ
- Paralela 45 worked hard for a new blog;

Adriana IORDAN
(video I made)
- how can you attract with your marketing campaigns the trust of some companies? Tricky question; Another one: how can you promote the implementation of an IT solution in a company?
- Avangate offers software vendors an eCommerce platform;
- GECAD ePayment is an online payment solution;
- on the international market there was a lot of competition;
- how to promote a business solution? Become an expert in your niche; the expertise of someone can be easily spotted;
- we did some SEO for keywords;
- our focus was content marketing;
- we identified online communities that could help promoting our business;
- after a good online presence, we found good ideas about some blog articles to create;
- cool blog: MyAdobe; Also Balsamiq Blog;

Other readings

About this event others have written:
Dupa bloguri, Ziua Constanta, Mihai IRINEL, Cod Rosu, Chinezu, Auras MIHAI, Lamaie, Sorin RUSI (+1), me, w2 (+1), Stiri IT, Marius TUDOSE, Razvan CRANGANU.
Also, see the Twitter page of the event and a Twitter hashtag.

About the event itself – feed-back to the organizers

What I liked about the event?
Wordcamp Romania had good speakers, nice room for the event, plenty of participants.

What would I do better next year?
Longer days, better presentation systems.

Who were the top speakers?
1. I liked a lot Adriana IORDAN’s speech; Imagine hearing a person talking on SEO (search engine optimization) using white hat techniques, natural growth, all that on a large company; With results, a good case study, funny speech; About this speech – content (of the speech) was king;
2. I also like Costin COCIOABĂ’s speech; Funny, straight to the point, with key facts and real life examples; Very entertaining, he went for some raise of hands; About this speech – a lot of courage;
3. 3^rd place is shared equally by Radu GEORGESCU, with good good and valuable information, and Andrei ROŞCA, with a very pleasant to see speech and in the same time good content.

Would I recommend you to participate next year?
Yes, Wordcamp Romania was a very nice event overall.

Blog post structure:
A. Introduction
B. Interview:
1. Please tell me a few things about you, as a team
2. What is your role in the moderators’ team? If you were to present your activity for the Romstudyabroad Yahoo! group as a tutorial to a complete stranger of Internet, how would you do it? What do you do in a typical day of working for the Yahoo! group?
3. How does it feel to do your work for Romstudyabroad day after day?
4. What drives you to volunteer your spare time, in order to help people that most of the time you know nothing about and you’ll most likely never see in person?
5. What was the most rewarding experience you ever had as a moderator?
6. Why should Romanians study abroad? What’s so good about this experience?
7. What would top five tips you’d give to someone interested in studying abroad?
8. Let’s say I’m an investor and I wish to buy the group. How would you react?
9. How would you make a business presentation of the Yahoo! group?
10. How could others make your work easier? How could you be helped in your work?
C. Conclusions

A. Introduction

Romstudyabroad  is a Yahoo! group which currently has almost 9.000 members (this means that most of them receive the group messages in their inboxes). I personally know no other Yahoo! Group in Romania with more members. I don’t exclude this possibility, but I personally (Olivian BREDA) know of no other larger group.

In the past five years, the average number of monthly messages was 460 (in 2009, until this month), 376 (for 2008), 311 (in 2007), 452 (for 2006), and 511 (in 2005). Divide these numbers by 30 days, and you will see that, on average, in the past five years, at least 10 messages have been sent on the group each day. Each day, including Saturdays and Sundays. Some of these messages came from the group members (and these had to be moderated), and some came from the moderators themselves (and these had to be formatted). Managing so many messages is enormous work!

Also, see below what “moderating” implies on this group. Typically, “moderating” means approving or rejecting messages, and sometimes banning members. On Romstudyabroad, it implies: editing messages (a lot of them wrongly formatted), editing the subject line (needed due to lack of care), and sending individualized rejection messages (so that you know why your message was rejected). And, of course, it also implies banning members.

In addition, gathering information for the group is a titanic effort. There are dozens of Yahoo! groups and online resources that are continuously monitored by the moderators.

And the team – to manage a team of 6 people which collaborate efficiently – now that’s a result! The 6 people are all located in different continents/countries. As far as I know, the moderators only know one another online.

Tell me how many Yahoo! groups you know that have a web site created especially for the mailing list.

One issue with the interview below that I acknowledge is that I don’t ask about the negative side of story. I don’t ask about the repetitive nature of the work, about “flame wars” (where spirits get inflated) launched on mailing lists, about hate mail and spam, and the precious time spent online for the well functioning of the group. Although I stayed away from these questions, you, the reader of this material, should retain one attribute about the moderators’ work – it is hard work.

From my experience with other mailing lists, when I have to choose between (i.) spending my time doing things I really love and thus limiting my presence on mailing lists, and (ii.) spending more time surfing the Yahoo! groups, I typically go for the first option. Thus, over time, my activity on mailing lists has shrunk considerably. And if I could pass on to others some of my moderating duties, I would gladly do so. But things are as simple as that: very few are willing to contribute their time and efforts for the good of people you have only met in a virtual world.

I won’t delve further on that as for to me it is emotionally difficult to become attached to a virtual community. I thus I admire the moderators of Romstudyabroad for their efforts and accomplishments.

B. Interview:

1. Please tell me a few things about you, as a team

Romstudyabroad is a six-person project: three moderators who administer the group (Bogdan, Camelia, and Raluca) and three group members who help out by posting information (Cristina, Laura, and Silvia). All of us have studied or are currently studying abroad.

2. What is your role in the moderators’ team? If you were to present your activity for the Romstudyabroad Yahoo! group as a tutorial to a complete stranger of Internet, how would you do it? What do you do in a typical day of working for the Yahoo! group?

Bogdan: I am the most inexperienced member of the moderating team. I only take part in those decisions that are relatively easy to take, for instance approving answers to threads already started, and approving new members. I also take part in the team decision-making process, and in promoting the group, if and when I have the time. The Romstudyabroad formula is a very common-sense and time-tested one, and that’s why I always have to ask for my colleagues’ opinion when it comes to dealing with more complex problems (i.e., opening up new threads, or the best way to calm down tensions between group members, etc.).

Camelia: I have been a Romstudyabroad moderator for 5 years now. When I joined, back in 2003, I used to send info to the group about summer schools, student conferences, advice on the application process, and my own views on the quality of some study programs abroad. About one year later, the group’s owners asked me if I wanted to join their team. I was sort of hooked on the group, so I immediately said YES. Back then, like now, Romstudyabroad was by far the best managed Yahoogroup I had seen. As a member, you only receive relevant information, and you have access to huge archives of Files, Links, Contact Lists, and Messages that are easily accessible with keyword searches. Furthermore, you never have worry about receiving countless reminders or spam.

Briefly, Romstudyabroad is a forum hosting relevant information about studying abroad, both by browsing announcements, as well as by taking part in discussions and interacting with other group members. Anyone who is thinking about studying abroad, or who has already done so and wishes to share their experience, can benefit from subscribing to our group.

Raluca: I am the oldest moderator of the team, both in terms of how long I have been with the group (6 years) and in terms of age. I was a group member from the beginning when there were less than 100 of us. We did not dream at that point that this initiative would be so successful. I became a moderator when we passed the 200 member limit and the group founder felt that some help was necessary. Under my very eyes the group has grown fifty times over its initial size, and at each step of the way, we had to reinvent our roles in parallel with redefining the group concept.

Nowadays, I am not as active, at least when it comes to the most visible aspects of our activity, such as finding and disseminating information, answering to members’ questions, keeping in touch with external collaborators and approving new members (though it is true, I do use from time to time the “ban” button ;). My work is rather that of a consultant, a supervisor and a crisis-cell member, partly because of the growing age gap with the average Romstudyabroad member.

A day on Romstudyabroad… Even if I am no longer involved in all the moderating activities, I review all the messages sent to us and all pending memberships. From time to time I give my piece of mind about some of them. I read and select some information on scholarships and academic jobs abroad and forward it to the group. I try to stay informed about the changing landscape of educational opportunities for Romanian citizens, even if this is no longer an area of personal interest. I exchange a lot of messages with the other moderators on administrative issues and “when disaster strikes” I intervene immediately to contain the damage. I work a lot “behind the scenes:” formulating disclaimers, setting up forwarding rules and messages that are sent out automatically once per week, at subscription or when leaving the group, and staying in touch with our external collaborators.

3. How does it feel to do your work for Romstudyabroad day after day?

Bogdan: It’s definitely extremely interesting work. Internally, as a new moderator, my main concern is keeping in with the line my colleagues have set to ensure uniformity in the group’s content. We on Romstudyabroad always seek to avoid needlessly throwing information at our members’ inboxes, and that’s why it always comes down to deciding which information is potentially useful to a sufficient number of group members. The messages that pass this test are not too much of a headache, unlike those messages which I have to reject for one reason or another. Most times we seek to give a reasonable reason for the rejection, and to offer as many leads as possible that can help the user in the hunt for information, if the question we have to reject is one we come across frequently. Also, if a user happens to post information we find interesting but not exactly on-topic as far as Romstudyabroad is concerned, we usually direct them to other forums that would welcome their contribution; sometimes we even redirect rejected Romstudyabroad messages to other groups ourselves.

Camelia: Working as a moderator has never been boring, although sometimes things can get a little frustrating. Most of our work concerns sorting messages, deciding which to publish and which to reject; writing back to those whose messages are rejected explaining the reasons for rejection––typically the messages are off-topic or the subject has already been discussed on the group. To the best of our ability we give suggestions where to look for answers, how to search the message archive, or where to look in our Files or Links collections. Finally, we edit the subject line before publishing messages. We insist on informative subject lines because these can help filter individual messages using Gmail or Yahoo! Mail labels. We also advertise our group on a fairly frequent basis, for instance by posting information about us on other Yahoogroups. Finally, we initiate and maintain contacts with many other Yahoogroup moderators with whom we have cross-posting agreements.

Raluca: This work brings me a lot of satisfaction, even if recently I have grown somehow frustrated with my inability to do more–mainly because I am now in another age group, at a different stage in my professional career, and have other personal interests.

4. What drives you to volunteer your spare time, in order to help people that most of the time you know nothing about and you’ll most likely never see in person?

Bogdan: As we always speak in the name of the Romstudyabroad team, our work on the group is somewhat similar to being part of a secret society, where no one from the outside knows your identity. I think of this as an extraordinary advantage, because unlike all other projects in my professional life, my work here derives me no visibility whatsoever. My satisfaction comes precisely from the group working the way it’s supposed to, as well as from the moderators’ presence being felt to the least extent possible by the 9,000 members. And if we’re talking members, it’s fun to look at the numbers every few days; I’m always excited by the fact that this informational flow to which I bring my own contribution reaches so many people who have actively chosen to receive a not-at-all-insignificant number of Romstudyabroad emails in their inboxes.

Camelia: This is a good question, and I do not really have an answer. There is no particular reason why I volunteer to do this work: I simply enjoy the thought that someone out there benefits from our group, be it by receiving interesting information about studying abroad, or by not having their inbox filled with Yahoogroup spam.

Raluca: Mainly because I have received help myself when I needed it. I also think we can only contribute to general growth and personal development by helping one another. I got the first kick from learning about various educational opportunities for which Romanian citizens were eligible, but which did not materialize because Romanians lacked access to that information.

5. What was the most rewarding experience you ever had as a moderator?

Bogdan: Once again my lacking experience prevents me from giving a truly edifying example. As a Romstudyabroad member since 2003 I have had nonetheless a good number of experiences from which I have gained a whole lot. After getting into college, I have personally advised around ten or so persons who have found my address and on the group, and I sought to steer and guide them as much as possible on the path to studying abroad.

Camelia: I would like to give a very concrete example here. Some 4-5 years ago I sent to the group some suggestions and advice on how to approach the admission process at master’s programs in some European schools. Competition for admission at the top schools is quite fierce. (Some programs receive 10-40 applications per spot.) A Romstudyabroad member was interested in applying to one of these programs, so she emailed me with additional questions. Over the course of about one year we continued our conversations and she kept me informed of how things were going. She actually followed my advice–now I’m not being too modest ;)–but I have to say that this year she got her master’s degree from a top European economics school. I am very proud of her and glad that Romstudyabroad facilitated this contact.

Raluca: Very hard choice. We frequently receive “Thank you” messages that simply make us blush. All of these messages are unique and extremely rewarding.

6. Why should Romanians study abroad? What’s so good about this experience?

Bogdan: In addition to the possibilities of getting to know other cultures, of traveling and so on, there are also the advantages of working in a modern academic environment, one that has better resources than its Romanian counterpart.

Camelia: Whether to study abroad is a personal choice that depends on many factors: personal interests, personal drive, the willingness to travel and to be away from family, whether one already has a family of their own, the family’s willingness to be apart or to move to a new place, and so on. Typically there are better educational opportunities abroad when it comes to graduate studies. I am of the view that–to make it worthwhile–graduate school should be pursued at well-known research universities abroad.

Raluca: Romanians can no longer afford to live in isolation. While studying abroad, one has the opportunity to learn about successes and failures of other educational systems, to become more tolerant and open-minded, to see that things can be done and/or interpreted differently, and to create social networks which can help later on in one’s professional career.

7. What would top five tips you’d give to someone interested in studying abroad?

Bogdan:

a. Persistence is what matters most here. Very few people receive a scholarship because they got lucky.
b. Choose your priorities wisely. What matters in Romania may have very little bearing abroad and vice-versa. For instance, many Romanian students choose or are forced to work full-time jobs during college, damaging their grades in the process. While in Romania a barely passing grade is oftentimes seen as sufficient in college, in many other educational systems such a grade does not constitute a good recommendation for a more advanced degree.
c. Motivation matters. If you want a scholarship solely because you feel like bumming around other countries, then your chances are pretty weak. You have to know what you want to get out of an educational program to be successful.
d. Be flexible in your options. A quality educational experience is not restricted to Harvard, Yale or Princeton. You risk a whole lot by adopting an all-or-nothing strategy in any admissions process.
e. Adapting to a new culture is hard but not impossible. Especially if you do not have any experience of living abroad you may find that a lot of things are different and start missing Romania, especially in the first months after you leave. It’s a normal thing to go through, but you have to keep a positive attitude towards the new culture and avoid making value judgments during your adjustment period.

Camelia: Never give up, be patient, choose your study program carefully (quality matters!), prepare your applications carefully, and make the best of all the time you have on your hands!

8. Let’s say I’m an investor and I wish to buy the group. How would you react?

Bogdan: As far as I’m concerned this group cannot be for sale (otherwise we would stray away from the entire volunteering idea). Maybe a partnership could work though :) I believe Romstudyabroad is an extremely successful group. Not only do we have an impressing number of members who receive as many as hundreds of messages every week, but our group is one of the few truly professional Romanian e-mail discussion lists. Romstudyabroad discussions are exclusively on-topic, and that is why Romstudyabroad fulfills its mission. And unlike other discussion groups Romstudyabroad undoubtedly changes the life of many through the information the group disseminates.

Camelia: If we were to receive financing for our group, the money could usefully be employed to advertise Romstudyabroad, to make it better known among Romanian students. I would like us to have a permanent team of representatives in Romania and our own stand at university and job fairs. Looking forward, we could establish contacts with universities and have them send their announcements directly to our membership.

Raluca: I am afraid my feeling is that the group does not need a financial investment, but one in time and experience. We need dedicated people who want to invest their time and their knowledge in this project.

9. How would you make a business presentation of the Yahoo! group?

Romstudyabroad–arguably the largest Romanian language Yahoogroup–was founded in 2002. Since 2003, it has grown 18 times, with the number of members rising from 500 at end-2003 to 9,000 in September 2009. As of 2006, we have roughly 1,500 new subscribers every year, and we post some 10-12 messages per day on average. Despite the large volume of information circulated on our group, our members prefer to have the information delivered as Individual Messages rather than Daily Digests. Our announcements about study programs and scholarships, conferences, summer schools, etc. make up about 60 percent of all messages posted on the group, while discussions between the group’s members account for the rest.

Our highest growth rates in terms of membership and messages were recorded in 2005, when we clarified our group’s concept, set up posting and forwarding rules, became more selective and focused about which information was appropriate for posting. That year, we also started a large-scale advertising campaign including, among others, our participation in the Romanian International University Fair (RIUF), articles in large circulation newspapers such as Adevarul and Capital, and posts about Romstudyabroad on other online fora. Whenever possible, we renew our advertising activities, and we often benefit from our group members’ volunteering to assist us in these efforts.

10. How could others make your work easier? How could you be helped in your work?

Bogdan: My work is not really that complicated, so I do not see the need for any direct help. If members would better understand the way in which we format messages and that they have to do their homework prior to posting a question, this would definitely make our lives easier. But moderating the list is not a terribly hard thing overall, not even in the current situation.

Camelia: Yes, our members would make our life easier if they

– did not send off-topic messages;
– wrote meaningful subject messages–and every time you send a question, please write “Intrebare:” at the beginning of the subject message;
– filled out the short university and scholarship questionnaires they receive when joining the group–this helps our Contact lists grow!;
– were more proactive in sharing information about summer schools, conferences, study programs, and scholarships; and
– shared–out of their own initiative!–more of their experiences studying abroad.

Raluca: Oh yes… If we stopped receiving off-topic or irrelevant messages and requests for personalized advice… if more of our group members did not think about Romstudyabroad participation as a public good on which to “free-ride,” but rather as a forum where we “bring and share” our experiences… and if there were no technical problems with Yahoo!…

C. Conclusions

Conclusions to be drawn are simple: an united team, a tremendous work and very good results. For a Romanian version of this interview, you can see Fiieficient.com.

For details about the Yahoo! group, I invite you to Romstudyabroad home page.

Short bio: Kenneth STURDIVANT is a US citizen with over twenty years of hands-on international business experience. He spent most of his carrier with Coca-Cola where he started in 1982 as Group Operations Services Manager for Coca-Cola Europe, Africa & Asia, gradually advancing to the position of Deputy General Manager, Vice President – Sales & Operations for the Coca-Cola Korea Bottling Company. His managed multiple franchises, acquisitions and mergers, day-to-day sales operations for a $500 million annual operating budget, $100 million annual capital budget, approximately 6,500 employees and industrial relations. After retiring in 2002, he now spends his time consulting on management operations, lecturing on business operations, and playing golf.

Some pictures at the event:

And this is a video I made at the event.

Some notes I took:- you should be impatient with normality;
- a learning environment is an environment where you share knowledge;
- computers changed a lot of things in the industry;
- everybody wants to advertise their ideas as innovation;
- three paradigms:
a. Change is good;
b. Business needs change;
c. People don’t like change;
- if one gives away responsibility, this doesn’t imply also giving away authority; you have to take authority on your own; how? You build this over time; small successes lead to this;
- “control” (a word applicable during the 1970s and 1980s) is a bad word; “mentoring,” “coaching,” and “motivation” are good, more modern words;
- rules don’t mean “control;”
- a thing about the future: you will never be safe; from now on we will live in a form of continuous change;
- one will give you as much responsibility as you can take, but you have to take authority on your own;
- logistics imply flow of information; information is power and money;
- procurement is difficult to outsource, since it’s too much related to cash flow;
- “customer service” (old school) => “customer care” (new school);
- acronym: “SC Focus” = “Supply Chain Focus”;
- squeezing the SC means compressing time; when doing so, one expects the same or better quality;
- a justifiable technology is the one worth investing the money into;
- change is going to impact your job;
- every day, when reading the paper, you know something new is going to happen;
- if a thing doesn’t add value to your business and it’s difficult to handle, then you should outsource it;
- you cannot predict the stability of the country;
- Chinese and Spanish are good languages to learn; Indian? Maybe;

I particularly liked this idea: if one gives away responsibility, this doesn’t imply also giving away authority. You have to take authority on your own. How? You build this over time. Small successes lead to this. Very smart thought, made me think a lot. Extrapolating things, I conclude that in order to lead, you have to be a bit pushy. If you want to change something, you will disturb things a little. One will give you as much responsibility as you can take, but you have to take authority on your own. Great words!

_________
Bottom line: this was my first MBA Master Class with the CEU Business School. It was engaging, lots of things to learn, good insights, the audience was fine and a great place for networking. Thanks

A few notes:
- Contemporary gnosis is the synthesis of knowing the past;
- Samael Aun WEOR studied the past thoroughly.

Some pictures:

Small book description from Amazon:

Using simple language, real-life examples, graphs and checklists, this book explains how to view your organization and customers in a new light and deliver the exceptional customer service you need in order to differentiate your business from those of your competitors. In this revised edition – which includes a new chapter on e-service – Chris Daffy provides practical advice and examples from Europe, the US and elsewhere on service strategies and techniques to make you famous for your service.

The author has a personal web site.

Now, the review. There are two things which I look whenever I read a book:
a. What the book says;
b. How the book says what it says.

So, what’s there so nice about this book?
A. What the book says:
a. The things I read most on the book were common sense; You can get the same feeling whenever you read some instructions on, let’s say, how to open a door; You already know the process, you do it in your own way, but it’s still comforting to read; Still, you can get new information just from things like this – imagine reading on how to open the door with your elbow; Anyone can do this, but it gets you thinking; The book does a similar thing – it tells you thing you already knew, but you still learn from this;
b. Besides the general truths, known by everyone, the book also gives you some twists; Since you get those twists without ever expecting it, they’re even more pleasant to read; Example: “the need for customer obsession”; You would expect from a book like this to tell you about customer care; But obsession? The author first explains this into a small sentence: “The only way to embed customer service into the culture of a business is through management-led obsession.”; Another twist: “Customers are the business”; (the word are is actually in italics)
c. The thing you’ll get most in your mind are nice structures – Patterns of behavior; “How should I act whenever I meet this situation?”; The book won’t give you a direct answer to any question, but by presenting some basic structures to think about, you’ll take better decisions.

B. How the book says what it says:
a. Case studies – I love this; Not only does the book give you a general affirmation, it presents a real example for this;
b. Bullet lists – This makes text so much easy to read;
c. Three types of text formatting: specific fonts for titles, while for the normal text there are bold, italic and normal text;
d. Logical argumentation – The author likes to play with you; He first tells you something, and then continues to make an argumentation based on that; You have to like this;
e. Essential things put on a list – Synthetic, all the information in one place;
f. Recap – The chapter ends? Why not do a recap? Great idea;
g. Questionnaires and check-lists – This is the closest one could ever get to the atmosphere in a seminar or workshop; You do-it-yourself – check boxes, fill-in data, test results;
h. Graphs – Whenever needed, you’ll find them there;
i. Style – The author is funny and polite; You’ll relax by reading his book.

What conclusions to draw from here? You can read the book as a politeness code – it’s all about behavior and interactions between humans. Sure, it’s a business model, but the applications are there for you to learn and apply. The things the book says to you are not really shockingly new, but they will create you a framework in which to apply real-life situations. And the style of the book, the way in which it is written, allowed even me (I get very easily distracted from the text itself of a reading) to read the book easily.

A recommended book by me. Make a gift to you and get it.