A. Going into the history of things

Last year, on 4^th of November, 2009, I took part to a workshop on theater with Maria-Francesca DOGARU. I wrote about that class on my blog. I went only for one session, due to some other class.

This year, starting from 18^th of April, 2010, until 24^th of June, 2010, I went again, and this time I didn’t miss a thing (I went to all of the meetings – we had some breaks).

What changed from one year to the other?
1. These two feelings completely disappeared; I got almost zero stress with this:

a. 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!

b. 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;

It’s either I got confronted with new situations or the new class participants made me feel better, can’t quite place this;

2. Now I have a brand new explanation for this feeling from last year:

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;

Now I explain this with (current) favorite quote, from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines movie:

Terminator: “Desire is irrelevant. I am a machine!“

I have a blog post in Romanian about this.

B. What happened at the courses (a class description)?

We did mostly exercises of improvisations:
- there’s a given situation on stage, new characters join the situation; now react!
- imagine a situation and act according to the other characters in the room;
- how would a … (insert human typology here) … react? Suppose you were that person; how does such a person speak / act?
- start a situation simply by knocking at the door in a certain way;
- how would you speak if you were … (another participant at the course)? How would that person answer questions? How would that person describe herself?
- you should pick an animal and borrow a few of its characteristics in a human behavior;
- speak in a non-existent foreign language;

We also did rehearsal and interpretation of texts from “Platero y yo” (Spanish for Platero and I) by Juan Ramón JIMÉNEZ; you can see my text here; it was one of the few memorization things I had to do in the past years (after my Master’s was over);

We had some memory exercises, yet I mostly forgot them all; on a serious note, they involved memorizing objects on a table, remembering what do other persons wear; we also had an exercise for memorizing a long string of texts;

We had some ice-breakers and energizers (like a game with Samurai);

C. I enjoyed it a lot; why is that?

- The very first thing I liked were the participants - nice people, funny, good all-around persons;
- The courses were Mondays; each Monday I would go to the class, have fun, and keep a good level of optimism and good spirits through the whole week;
- There are three types of events you can typically see in Bucharest:

• Conferences;
• Workshops;
• Training courses;

I go to a lot to conferences, yet I like more the workshops and even more the training courses; this class was similar to a training course, even if the focus was on experiential learning, rather than on formal learning; so the main structure of the class was very enjoyable to me;
- The atmosphere was very friendly and safe;
- I have been a part of these theatrical companies: “Studio 24″ (2 months), “Calandrinon” (5 months), “Toma Caragiu” (1 year); I have done a summer school on theater between July 7 and 13, 2003, and seen some rehearsals at “Podul”; and now I’ve done this theatrical class; I can say that I learned most things about theater at the summer school (a lot of information crammed in a few days), and yet I felt best at this current class from “A treia cafea”;
- I can’t think of anything negative about the class itself; very nice experiences; I shortened one trip just to be a part of a class; it was that good;
- I’ll end this blog post with a characterization of Maria-Francesca DOGARU, which relates to the current topic – the class itself;

D. Why I liked the presence of Maria-Francesca DOGARU at the workshop?

- Her skills as a facilitator were very good: good knowledge of theatrical procedures, attention to details, understanding of emotions, adaptive to situations, on time, friendly, helpful, innovative, positive thinker, she gives a lot of feed-back and empowers others; quite a list, huh?
- The thing that was most impressive to me was this: her care for the outside world; imagine this: you enter a wood; my care while passing through the wood would be getting on time; her care? “What would the wood think if I’m passing through it? How does the grass feel? What would the birds think about it?”; now, if she (probably) would care about the wood, grass, and birds, you can imagine that at the workshop she showed a lot of care for the participants; in fact, it was so much, that I can compare her, to some degree, to Carmen CUCUL; had the care for other persons matter on business issues, I would have written a message on this page; for now, it was just a personal human touch; it was so amazing seeing this much care for all the participants, the organizers, the hosts; everybody was involved in the ecosystem; and everyone was cared for; Nicolae STEINHARDT, in my favorite book of all times, “The Happiness Diary“, says this:

“Printre motivele pentru care Domnul se referă aşa des la ospeţe şi îmbie cu mese încărcate [...]: fiindcă numai la ospăţ se bucură omul de bucuria altuia, ba şi are nevoie de această bucurie: ospăţul e cu atit mai frumos şi mai izbutit cu cît toţi cei de faţă sunt mai veseli. Ospăţul este poate – în chip paradoxal – singurul loc în care bucuria celuilalt nu este pizmuită. Şi unde nu există concurenţă [...]: creşterea numărului comesenilor departe de a constitui o piedică, o primejdie, multiplică bucuria fiecăruia şi a tuturor. Dacă-i aşa, atunci ospăţul realizează condiţia paradisiacă: ea presupune în primul rînd capacitatea de a te bucura de bucuria altuia, de a o împărtăşi.”,

which would translate into:

“Among the reasons for which the Lord so often refers to feasts and invites to tempting tables [...]: because only at does the man enjoys the other person’s joy, and even needs this joy: the feast is even so much beautiful and successful as all those present are happier. Feast is perhaps – in paradoxical way – the place where the happiness of the other is not envied. And where there is no competition [...]: increasing the joy of mess is far from being an obstacle, a danger, it actually multiplies the joy of each and all. If so, then dinner makes the paradisiacal condition: it involves primarily the ability to enjoy the joy of another, to share it.”

and this is also how I felt the workshops – the bigger the joy in others, the greater the success of the training itself; so much for CSR (Corporate Social Responsiblity), which can now be TSR (Theatrical Social Responsibility); and this care for the others by Maria-Francesca DOGARU made the workshop feel, at least to me, a great experience;

__________________
Bottom line: one of the most pleasant activities in the past months, the workshop with Maria-Francesca DOGARU was a wonderful experience, which I hope I will repeat.

Two videos I’ve made at the event:

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

And photos (full-screen?):

Final tips: you can find out more about the Maastricht School of Management Romania if you want to check out their MBA program.

You can see my video and presentation at the event in a separate blog post.

Two videos:

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

And photos (see in full-screen):

Thank you Răzvan DABA, for a great event.

My notes:

Cătălin ZAHARIA (MindMaster) – The HiPotential employee: measuring potential and success-factors based coaching

- The crisis is just another normality;
- We had different kind of “normal” in these times:

• 2001;
• 2007-2008;
• 2009-2010;

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” (Albert EINSTEIN)

- I our minds, we have these kinds of thoughts:

• Somatic (body / feelings) – little used in business;
• Cognitive (body / intellect);
• Field (relationship / system) – little used in business;

- What does COACH stand for?

• Centering – here, in me;
• Opening – to suggestions;
• Attending – with awareness – to external factors;
• Connecting – with others, cooperating, asking questions;
• Holding – sustain, stay in that state;

- Mentoring helps you get access to how managers think & act;
- Personality tests measure factors that are stable in time;
- In sales it’s good to have a good procedure when dealing with clients;
- Recommended reading: Gary HAMEL – “The Future of Management”;
- If you say “I’m a busy person”, this labels your behavior;
- The idea that anyone can substantially change is a bit naive;
- At a management level, it’s very important to have a good Learning Quotient (LQ);
- LQ can be analyzed;
- Change can be:

• Palliative – changing cigarettes with candies;
• Generative – changing mentalities;

Radu IONESCU (RDI) – Internal solutions for training & outsourcing

- The crisis leads the firms into coherent behavior;
- Personal insight: if someone talks to me, I’m more attentive than in a situation when someone talks to a group;

I’ve also taken some photos (see the slideshow in full-screen mode):

_____________
Bottom-line: a very well organized event, good speakers, lots of new ideas. The location was fine, there was Internet access, you could have bought books, very nice participant with whom to interact. Thank you Business Edu.

Rather unorthodox techniques:
a. Psychonautics;
b. Hallucinography;
c. Oneirocritics;
d. Sensory deprivation;

Other techniques:
a. Lucid dreaming;
b. Poeticity – creative capacity;
c. Shamanism;
d. Melotherapy.

Some notes:

What have I jotted down at the presentation of Professor Maury PEIPERL?

1. Focus of change:
- Innovation;
- Customer focus;
- Globalization;
- Social eveolution (including sustaining);
2. Culture at Apple – continuous innovation;
3. You can innovate also by giving choice, not necessarily by technological innovation (e.g. a device that shows energy level within a company to all employees);
4. Lego company has a website which allows you to create your own Lego game online and you can receive it at your home;
5. In the change management, the old definition:

a. Change is a vision which you which you achieve

has transformed into:

b. Change is all about adapting a vision;

7. Good visions are:
- Clean, concise, easily understood;
- Memorable;
- Exiting, inspiring;
- Challenging;
- Excellence-centred;
- Stable, but flexible;
8. Fun quote:

“We need a leader who is not afraid to dream incremental dreams”;

9. Change is always different;
10. The ten commandments of change (via):

“1. Analyze the organization and its need for change;
2. Create a shared vision and common direction;
3. Separate from the past;
4. Create a sense of urgency;
5. Support a strong leader role;
6. Line up political sponsorship;
7. Craft an implementation plan;
8. Develop enabling structures;
9. Communicate, involve people, and be honest;
10. Reinforce and institutionalize the change;”

10. Case studies:
a. Oticon – the Spaghetti organization; it had only projects, not real jobs; a person would be part of a project, instead of having a specific job;
b. IBM currently sells services, rather than PCs; big shift;
c. Music today sells virtual songs, rather than physical disks (vinyl, CDs);
d. Newspapers are read online, rather than in physical form;
11. People experiencing loss react emotionally (this is natural, it must be acknowledged and supported);
12. You should communicate change! Provide an open, constant stream of information on the change and encourage questions, even if you can’t answer all of them;
13. Change is painful, it hurts;
14. Message to a king:

Sire, the transition team is here, to chop off your head.

15. Major changes:
a. Book publishers sell a lot online;
b. Retilers are outsourcing a lot of their businesses;
c. Companies like Petrom, BCR have been bought by outside firms (not residing in Romania);
d. Most public employees in Greece & Romania go through a lot of changes right now;
16. Quote:

“Do what I say, not what I do”;

17. Old model for change:

(by Kurt LEWIN)
Current models:
a. Developmental change:

(improvement of current state)
b. Transitional change:

(implementation of a known new state; management of the interim transition state, over a controlled period of time)
c. Transformational change:

(emergence of a new state, unknown until it takes shape, out of the remains of the chaotic death of the old state);
18. Different approaches:
a. Management of change (re-active);
b. Management for change (pro-active);
c. Management as change (inter-active);
19. What is leadership?

“Leadership is support for learning” (B. SODERGREN)

20. When you learn, you prepare change.

What I liked about the speaker?

1. He had pauses in speech, which made him easy to be understood;
2. Very good body language (body position, gestures);
3. Excelent use of music (a hobby, and a very used one in his presentation);
4. He was funny;
5. Lots of case studies, including a personal case study in which he had to teach, for the very first time, an orchestra;
6. Very nice use of technology.

On the down side, I could not a lot of use of the word “but”, which tends to cancel previous affirmation (and yet I like it, also, so much!);

What I liked about the event organization by HR Club team?

1. Very friendly atmosphere;
2. The speakers and workshop moderators all got a small present;
3. Good use of technology (videos, presentation, lights, all went fine);
4. The schedule was kept well;
5. Lots of helping hands (a lot of organizing people);

What I woule improve?  I would like to see prior to the workshops the workshop speakers holding a small speech, so I know which of the four workshops to pick.

Photos from the event

(I will put these online in the days to follow)

_________
Bottom line: I consider that HR Club managed to do yet another great conference and I enjoyed the speech of Maury PEIPERL a lot. You can also check out my article in Romanian about the conference:
Care au fost concluziile workshopului de dezvoltare organizațională, Conferința de diseminare a proiectului “Parteneriat în sprijinul dezvoltării domeniului resurselor umane”, joi, 10 iunie 2010, hotel Pullman?

Some photos from the event (see full-screen):

Here is the presentation:

And in here you find the corresponding video:

You can download the presentation:
- in English: PPT, PPTX, PDF;
- in Romanian: PPT, PPTX, PDF;

What feed-back have I received and will look forward to apply?

• Watch out more for body language, especially avoid crossing arms;
• You should have a pause between ideas, leave people some time to process what you say;
• Avoid finishing with “This is my presentation”; pretty lame.

Ok. This is my blog post.

The list of questions:
1. How do you define yourself? Who is Jim BAGNOLA?
2. What are your expectations before a training?
3. How do you feel after a training ends?
4. What’s the best feed-back you have ever received?
5. From your experience, what motivates people?
6. What do you do to become a better you? How do you improve yourself?
7. Who inspires you?
8. How does the perfect training look like?
9. What’s your solution to the economic crisis?
10. What’s the best attitude for me, as a participant at a training? What should I do at a training to make the most out of the training session?
11. How will your tomorrow be different than what today is? What will you do differently tomorrow?

In the interview, Jim BAGNOLA mentions this movie: “Chariots of Fire” (1981).

A. Jim BAGNOLA‘s training

What have I jotted down, as a good student?

- All the behavior your receive from kids, employees, peers is the behavior that we model, tolerate, reinforce;
- I liked this example:

(from the CEO to the employees, either criticism or empowerment flows; the CEO thus decides what the final customer will hear from the employees);
- The most important rule in Customer Service: the customer would not get treated any better than the employee has been treated (so you should treat your employee the same way you would want them to treat the customers);
- We are all managers of energy – we either

• energize OR
• de-energize others;

- Manager’s or leader’s job: turning talent into performance;
- You can’t coach talent, but you can coach both skills and knowledge;
- Some meetings should be held standing up (they would last less time);
- A lie detector detects both thoughts and emotions;
- Telling is not teaching; asking is teaching;
- Simplicity is really profound;
- You are responsible to pupils, not for pupils when you’re a teacher;
- You are able to control your own emotions;
- We treat employees equally by treating them differently;
- People fire themselves, you do not fire them;
- It’s great to practice meditation;
- The biggest causes of death:

1. heart disease;
2. cancer;

- Factors of stress:

1. Job dissatisfaction;
2. Lack of happiness;

- Factors for cancer:

1. Smoking;
2. Bad diet;

- Friday has the least number of deaths (“You think I’m gonna die before the week-end?”);
- Avoid using “But” or it’s equivalent – “However” -, instead use “and”; “but” negates all that it has been said before it;
- We all have different knowledge, each has its power;
- Some of the most powerful words out there – “I don’t know” (it’s so hard saying this);
- If you have 90 people in your company, you should use their intelligence and skills;
- If you listen to others, the others are listening to you;
- When you become perfect, you die (there’s nothing else to do anymore);
- While I’m perfect, my behavior can be improved;
- If you are a coach, you must be able to tell others how they can improve;
- Two principles on feed-back:

1. You should be honest on the improving side;
2. A person is a different thing from it’s behavior;

- YouTube fun: Jim BAGNOLA showed us this video during the training;
- You should treat the people in your company like they’re volunteers;
- A thing to think about: how to engage your employee’s minds?
- Soft skills are actually hard;
- Without consequences, coaching doesn’t work;
- Whenever holding a conversation, people are usually either firing or reloading (they say something or they prepare to say the next thing, rather than being active in the current conversation and paying attention to what the other party says); how to change this? It’s better to listen and reflect;
- For self-disclosure you should use personal examples (“I also tend to …”);
- Men would rather be right than happy;
- Regarding feed-back within a company – it’s better to give performance appraisals more often (let’s say, once a month) rather than rarely (yearly? No way!);

Some things Jim BAGNOLA says:

- “Does that make sense to everybody?” (if you don’t say a loud No to this, you’d have to agree);
- “Yes, it’s not true, it just looks like it’s true” (very cool way of disagreeing);
- “Let’s give him a hand” (encouraging);
- “It’s not about me, it’s about my behavior” (separating the person from the idea);

What I liked about Jim BAGNOLA?

- He adapts (at a certain situation, he almost started a question in which the persons present at the training should speak in small groups; well, a participant said loudly his personal example; at this point, he could either continue with working in small groups or ask other participants to give examples, adapting to the situation; he did the latter);
- He has an exercise which is his trademark (an exercise with hands, you can see it here);

And a question:

- “If I’d knew the answer, what would it be?” (coaching question to get an answer in an seemingly impossible situation);
- “How to become a professional human being” (now that’s a question!);

B. Florin TALPEȘ’s speech

What I’ve written at his speech?

- Book to read: “Employeescu” by Adina LUCA;
- Movie to see: “Glissando” (1985) by Mircea DANIELIUC;
- Reverse mentoring is a hot concept;
- When you ask a person what

• he wants – you get vague answers;
• he doesn’t want – you get precise answers;

- It’s a lot of “noise” in the background until you can find a model;
- Study to read: “Families Across Cultures. A 30-Nation Psychological Study”, Edited by James GEORGAS;
- In Romania the middle management is made predominantly by women;
- The new generation has this principles:

• Honesty;
• Need for a match between their personal values and the values of the organization;
• Listening to the other party;

- Generation X is not socially involved; when, after time passes, you have a good financial situation, you have the time for social involvement, togive back to the society;
- The harsh realities (mistakes, failures) can change a person;
- The modern learning is not made from the books anymore;
- The digital divide is mostly between rural and urban, rather than between different age groups;
- In Romania we are still learning about greed; it’s not a finished process; we don’t yet have a bad opinion about greed;

C. Multimedia

Photos from the event (see in full-screen):

Two videos I’ve made at the event:

Thanks goes to Jim BAGNOLA for a wonderful experience, Florin TALPEȘ for a good speech and to LEADERS Romania for a great event!

I especially like the workshop with Andy LOPATA, on how to build business advantages by connecting with powerful persons and creating a network of relationships.

Some thoughts:

• Establish some objectives whenever meeting new people;
• You should build a network of friends, people with whom you have a relationship;
• Avoid looking at people like they were companies; see them as real people;
• You can’t do a business on your own;
• You can learn from peopele with different businesses;
• It’s best to do networking with people that are already your clients;
• Networking is who knows you and what they say about you;
• When talinkg about yourself, also mention what differentiates you from the others (do VSP rather than USP);

And, finally, this quote:

“If you want to be successful for a year, grow grain.
If you want to be successful for ten years, grow trees.
If you want to be successful for a lifetime, grow people”
Old Chinese Proverb

Photos from the event (see in full-screen):

An article, more photos and two videos:

I learned new things on business strategy (you can find some notes on the conference here), and took some photos:

(see in full-screen)

Some notes:

• There are no true green products; any product does some ecological damage;
• You shouldn’t put more than 20% investment in communication of a CSR activity; 80% for actual implementation; communication can be very cheap and almost free;
• Any product can be recycled, it’s not a competitive advantage to say “this product is 100% recyclable”;
• Customers are smart;
• Customers have methods to establish if you really do eco actions; there are web sites to check this up;
• For a Facebook profile, it’s best to have a private passions (in which you may say about political views, sports that you do, niche bands) and public passions (things like ecology); in a business environment, it’s best to have a list of public passions;

Photos from the event:
(see in full-screen)

Pictures from the event (see in full-screen):

Video from the event:

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

Pictures from the event (see full-screen)

Videos from the event

What have I learned?

1. What new things have I learned about solution focus in particular? (from A. to F.)

A. Good way of phrasing if-then-else situation for positive things (use of When): When it will be better, what will you do?
Bad way of phrasing if-then-else situation for positive things (use of If): If it will be better, what will you do?
Good way of phrasing if-then-else situation for negative things (use of If): If you do bad, what will happen?
Conclusion: use “When” instead of “If” most of the times, except for the times when you express negative things;

B. Let’s say we have this current situation:

One has to lose weight – for example, 20 Kg; he has already lost a few kilograms;
How does one look at the current situation? One solution is this:

, where you look at the future and you see that you have sooooo much to go from now;
Another solution (a better one perhaps?) would be this:

Where you look at what you’ve already accomplished; this should diminish the pressure and work on the good positive result;

C. Help others! It will do you good;

D. “In the beginning there was the deed” (quite a nice adaption, I should say); this would imply that words are formed after an action – idea based on the works of Ludwig WITTGENSTEIN;

E. There is no body-mind gap; it’s all just one thing;

F. High hope people tend to take small steps, not large at ones;

2. What new things have I noticed, that will help me in my work? (from A. to F.)

A. At a new project do a initial meeting with the stakeholders; so, let’s say you have a new project based on child care; you should meet with the providers of childcare, with parents; if time allows it, even meet with some children to receive their input also; but do stay in touch with all (or as many as possible from the) stakeholders;

B. Instead of using “learn” (with some negative connotations), use “get better at” (everyone wants to get better at something!);

C. Individual leaders can be formed based on one particular advantage; let’s say one is in a team and is better with words; that person could lead teams on making reports, conceiving slogans, checking for typos, etc.; it’s better that in a team each individual focus on what that individual does best;

D. Visit more foreign countries;

E. When you bring a chair into a room, after everyone entered and you would otherwise have to stand, it’s better to bring two, it never knows (this one is very practical, I must say);

F. When writing web site reviews, it’s better to write things that are useful to the receiver, rather than to yourself; put yourself in the other person’s shoes;

What have I liked best at the event? (from A. to F.)

First of all, this is a very solution focused question.

I liked:
A. The members of the Romanian team wore scarves, which made them easy to identify by the participants from other countries;

B. It was a very funny, gentle and relaxed atmosphere; so pleasant to participate in such community and groups;

C. The location was boy-oh-boy so nice! Very good!

D. Lots of fun at the karaoke part!

E. The dance by the children at Casa Doina restaurant was so cool;

F. In the last two days each trainer who held a workshop held a less-than-a-minute speech about the workshop about to be held; very good idea, great to know beforehand what’s the theme of the workshop, and have some idea on the atmosphere; very nice!

______________
Bottom line: very nice event, great participants, excellent speakers. I was lucky to take part to the event.

What have I learned in there?
1. It’s best that you know right from the start where you want to get with a speech; Have the ending in mind right from the start;
2. Some goals of a speech:
- to inform;
- to inspire;
- to influence others;
3. You have to set the objectives of the speech based on your audience;
4. It matters:
- What you say (for this you have to prepare);
- How you say it (experience helps on this);
5. Preparing is very important; Repeat your speech;
6. A speech should be concise;
7. It’s important to:
- tell a story;
- set an example;
- say a joke;
8. Don’t just give an idea, follow it up;
9. If you give examples and tell real-life stories, your message will be better retained;
10. After you put a rhetorical question, give some time for thinking about it;
11. Asking people is a powerful method – ask people to do things for you; Ask them to pay attention;
12. The structure of a speech:
a. Basis (the reason to listen to you);
b. Most important point (“I will now tell you this great thing …”);
c. Conclusion;
13. Split your speech into pieces and give them reasons to pay attention to the next part;
14. How to improve your speaking abilities? Whenever you have the chance to hold a speech, do it! You should become the person who always keeps on talking;
15. Feedback on my speech that day:
- avoid crossing hands, sitting on one leg, putting your hand to your mouth;
- talk with a slower pace;
- avoid saying problems in your speech (rather negative);
16. Final tips:
- quote the person who spoke before you;
- you can learn some things online, via Debate academy web site.

Photos (fullscreen):

Videos:

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

I got this insight: a vice is the sum of a need and a habit.

Some photos from the event (see fullscreen).

What was the training about?

The description meant to be read by politicians (read “not humans”), is something like this:

Overall aim is to train youth workers, youth leaders on being able to multiply human rights in the youth field emphasis on cultural diversity with active participation of young people using non formal methodology and cross community cooperation. To raise awareness and develop attitudes in connection with cultural diversity, to develop understanding and skills towards using non formal methods within human rights education in local, regional and international level. To focus on mainly respecting cultural diversity and cross community cooperation in all over Europe and more widen area. Cultural diversities are within lifestyles, traditions, histories, gender, education, minorities as traditional, sexual and new minorities, etc of young people. To build a human rights multiply network with youth leaders and youth workers who establish and implement human rights youth projects emphasis on cultural diversity in local and regional level and to cooperate together in international level.

In words that can be comprehended (gotta love this word!) by humans, I would summarize it like this:

• Around 20 participants from different countries, most of them in the Balkans (I remember countries such as Serbia, Slovakia, Montenegro, Poland, Germany, Romania, are some examples) got together to learn about cultural diversity;
• In a typical conference, the speakers come and feed the participants with information; Instead, this was a non-formal training, with both trainers (from Hungary) mostly just facilitating the exchange of information between participants (so case studies), helping participants work as teams (so interaction) and in the same time get new ideas with the information they already have within them (so providing insights).

So, we got 20 participants with more or less equal distribution between a few countries, who got to participate in a training about cultural diversity mostly via things they already knew.

How was the event organization?

My expectations from organizing such an event were:

• Basic (and not bad) food & shelter;
• Basic methods of communicating abroad (which is just a fancy wording for “Internet”);
• A space for the event and training materials;
• Keeping promises made prior of the training;
• Finding good trainers (evaluated below);
• Finding good participants (evaluated below);
• Most of the participants to have the required conditions above;

All my expectations were met.

I’ll get into a few more details:
a. On the plus side:
- Food was always plenty;  In the morning we had Swedish Buffet (something like all-you-can-eat), at lunch for the first dish there was a bowl of soup from which you could eat as much as needed, the portions for the other dishes were always plenty (and more than that, actually); Statistically speaking, from a group with 20 persons who are served the same dish, there will always be a given percentage who won’t eat due to various reasons, so the food was more than plenty;
- The food was highly diverse; Although the Serbian food is based on meat (I can only assume so), in the 10 days we were in Palić (and around), the menus were different one from another; Breakfast was the same each morning, but the buffet contained plenty of options to choose from;
- (from my point of view) Food was most of the time at least average tasty, (rarely) great; This is a plus factor;
- Clean room, good bathrooms & all;
- Close-to-no-Internet; Why is it a good factor? It helped creating the kind of isolated atmosphere that can only lead to human interaction; To me, it was just the enough amount of Internet (close-to-none);
- The space for the event was cool (as in great, not cold), we even went outside from time to time; Materials were always plenty (even though at the end it was a bit tricky to find a classic pen); Flip chart, multi-colored papers, sticky notes, colored pencils, marker pens, scotch tape, projector, you name it – we had it all;
- Most promises made prior of the training were met;
- I could say that most of the participants had the conditions above;
b. On the side that contains items that can be improved:
- I don’t think that “healthy” was a criteria when establishing menus; Let’s take breakfast items:

• Healthy: milk, yogurt, apples, boiled eggs (each day?), tea;
• Mostly healthy: fried fish, coffee, semi-hard cheese, pickles (cucumbers);
• Mostly unhealthy: white bread, apricot jam, not-that-great-type-of cereals;
• Unhealthy: a lot of types meat products with grease, additives, preservatives (some of them were just “mostly” unhealthy, but we had something like fried grease – eeew! – and some types of salami and Bologna sausages), chocolate cream, sugar;

- Although to me it’s not a criteria, others complained on cold rooms (or even overheating), bugs, bad smells due to smoke;
- Not keeping the promise with Internet connection;

What was the bonus?
Above I’ve listed the things which I take into account when evaluating a training. But the organizers did extra stuff, and it was all great:
a. Organizing some exits out of Palić – got to visit both Palić and Subotica; Museums, zoo, transportation – all paid by the program;
b. (speaking of which) I could live in Palić with dinars worth of 2 Euros, so this came good;
c. The location of the training was well chosen; In an isolated place, reminded me of countryside images in Romania; Why great? Because this helped me focus on the training itself and not on the location;
d. I once needed a projector – it was solved; I needed Internet at 10 PM – solved; We had troubles find solutions in our group – provided with hints; The organizers were more than happy to help the participants with hints, solutions, help and resources whenever problems arrived; This felt so good! Great involvement;
e. In the last day of the event, we went home with some food for the train; This rarely ever happens;
f. Thanks go to the organizers for doing a great job;

How were the trainers?

First, I would like to put some emphasis on the role of a trainer in a non-formal education training: which is mostly to facilitate things. You’ll see below a suggestion for improvement on getting insights. This is a very hard to achieve goal, and I can say that the trainers did a very good job on facilitating the event. See below detailed explanation.

Plus:
- (one trainer specifically) Everything had a structure and it was well kept; If you imagine a well-organized non-formal education with some basic requirements (participants should speak, the environment should be safe, basic rules to be kept, focus on participants’ needs – read more about it here – Common European principles for validation of non-formal and informal learning); To put it simple, if you can imagine a project, the trainers made sure that all the rules of the project were kept; I had zero problems on this side; If you’d like to take just one thing from my review of the trainers, take this – everything was fine regarding non-formal education and training abilities of the trainers;
- (one trainer specifically) A lot of the comments were using smart emotions, I really enjoyed that; In a social norm, there can be a good social thing to say; One of the trainers did that marvelous;
- A lot of the questions were coaching-style questions – going into participants’ feelings, asking for personal opinions, requesting to find out others solutions, be it good or bad;
- Initiative was very much encouraged and appraised;
- The trainings were based on insights;
- Laughing was allowed;
- I really thought about this well: socialism has a lot to do with the state getting involved in people’s lives, almost controlling things, while capitalism has the state a lot less involved; I love capitalism and free markets, and liberalism; In the training course, whenever one person had an initiative, it was the sole role of that person to make sure that it went well; That was it – you say something, you are responsible for the idea; You start doing something, you’re sole owner of responsibility; It really bugged me at the training to see this, but it is actually a plus; How nice!

Things to be improved:
- I went to the training course with just two criteria for evaluation from the trainers’ part:
a. Getting insights;
b. Having fun (which is also partially insights, but also surprise);
I can say that at the training I had my fun, but the insight part was only partially fulfilled; I got not-that-great-of insights (not-as-expected) and not so many;
What’s the solution? Focus on smarter insights; That’s it;

(ta-da!) How were the participants?

- First of all, they were from different countries; Great, good, cool; Lots of interactions, different personalities, different cultures, and education, and ages; Great place to get new insights from people; Different people, different ideas; Just great;
- At a basic level, all people were kind and nice; I had a very good feeling all the time;
- It felt a bit strange that if 3 people were speaking the same language and I was the fourth not understanding this language, they would still use that incomprehensible (yeah, now it’s an even cooler word) language, even if I didn’t understand at all;

What insights did I get?

- I made a separate blog post on humor;
- Another blog post on leading;
- I should take more initiative;
- There was an exercise in which we had to form teams to solve different tasks; Some tasks required the entire group to be present; I told my idea: solve the common tasks first as a group, and then focus on the solitary tasks; After doing one group task as a group, the group then divided and ignored the other group tasks; It proved to be the best solution; Having the entire group present while solving a group task (so let’s say that 20 people sit and have to fill-in a form as a group) is a much worse solution then one person going to each of the 20 persons and filling data individually; I must say that stating the rules of the game for the entire group would have been better; But the main point is – doing a collective task with the whole group would have taken too long it was best that my idea wasn’t followed;
- In primary school, I liked to tell to teachers what the others did wrong; To me there were two sides of the story – the wrongdoers and the teachers; Even though it got me into trouble, I was doing the “right” thing by telling on others; Time passed and by secondary school and finally college it wasn’t a clear line anymore – who was right? What was the truth? My colleagues? The teachers? I didn’t know anymore; At this training I got the insight that “the trainer is not always right”;
- I also got the insight that geopolitical issues don’t interest me (I didn’t even know where Transnistria was), not to mention the different translation in Slavic languages of a word; Yes, word origins and current interpretation of a word based on its original meaning is nice; On the other hand, saying [insert whatever word here] in any other language than English, Romanian and perhaps French is of little interest to me; Why it doesn’t interest me? First of all, it’s hard to remember, and second of all, I’ll barely ever use these words;
- I should learn French (after 16 years of learning French at school, I’m still a beginner – though an advanced one, whichever this may mean – in writing in French);
- More initiative from my part is needed; (what a passive way of saying things)
- (surprise?) I have a bad memory: I couldn’t immediately tell the second stanza of the national anthem of Romania; I remembered it soon afterward, but even then couldn’t tell if I was right or not; And the participant’s names … Oh, boy! To me, is hard enough remember familiar names in Romanian; Give me names in a different language and I’m in memory hell; In the last day of the training I couldn’t remember a participant’s name even after hard thinking;
- I should do some more sports to recover from the extra eating;
- I am pretty much insensible to cold or hot – sometimes I’m not cold when it’s cold and not hot when it’s hot;
- Whenever I hear about Serbia nowadays, I have a different referential system than a few weeks ago; “Serbia” means something new to me;
- Most of the languages the participants spoke shared some words due to Slavic background; So, to my surprise, people with languages with Slavic influence can learn each others’ language quite easily; When this very algorithm was applied to Latin languages, it was clear that I should focus on Latin languages (French, Spanish, Italian, are just examples);
- I found out about attempts (such as this) to create an unified Slavic language;
- Breda and Olivian, one of the trainers told me, are both common names in Portuguese; Surprising!
- To me jokes are just jokes; I’ve made a (very small) joke on a country’s language, it was considered as potentially offensive, since no participants of speakers of that language were present;
- The one information that stuck in my head was the difference between:

• Stereotypes – just (negative) patterns we have about other people with similar characteristics (race, ethnicity, religion, skin color, etc.);
• Prejudice – the patterns above + applying some emotions to them; So not only do we spot patterns, but we also have feelings on those patterns (usually negative ones);
• Discrimination – patterns + emotions + acting on them; This means putting ideas + emotions into practice;

- Oh, it was also this one: present clients are more profitable than old ones;

How did the things around training reflect within me?

When someone asks me how the training was, my options are:
a. Explain in one sentence: “The training itself was fine, the trainers did a very good job, and I enjoyed the company of participants”;
b. Develop the sentence via some thinking explained above;
c. Put my soul on the table.

Yes, it’s that kind of a moment now – putting my soul on the table. You see, what you saw above is not actually my feelings on the training, it is actually what I think would interest others – so, if you’re interested in the event organization, the participants, and the trainers, you can get an answer from my part, I will detail anything. And in most cases, that’s enough.

But this is my blog and I want to put my soul right on the table. (a bad or not so much thing?) How did the events at the training reflect on me?

Well, I met these Polish persons … oh, but we’ll get there. First, some explanations.

I’m an Orthodox. My thinking and actions are based on three criteria:
a. Believe in God; To me, the word “believe” is much better replaced by “know as a fact, although I can’t demonstrate to others”; So, this is pretty much covered;
b. Do good deeds to others (and not sin);
c. (in order to improve on a. and b.) Do self-development; (which involves body, mind and feelings/emotions)

So, at this training, my purpose was mostly c. (develop my mind and be better at handling emotions), while also keeping an eye open for body (did some exercises and walking) and doing good deeds.

Regarding feelings & emotions, I prefer a quote from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines movie:

Terminator: “Desire is irrelevant. I am a machine!“

For most things around me, I don’t have feelings, I think about them. If you ask me what impresses me in this life, it’s a list (in descending order of importance):
a. Extraordinary persons in my life;
b. Close relatives;
c. Close friends;

And from the list above, a. is most important to me. Let’s dissect (yeah!) a.:
a. First of all, there are two types of extraordinary persons in my life – one type which can also have the same effect on you (I call them business persons) and one type which I think only influenced me and is not a feeling as transmissible (I call them extraordinary everyday persons);
b. Second of all, there are extraordinary persons in my life (which are on the list) and some less-than-extraordinary (but still great) persons that impress me;

Can you see some of these persons? Sure you can! I made a list of most business persons that impressed me, be them extraordinary or less-than-extraordinary. You can find the list here.

The list is not complete. There are some business persons not on the list (I couldn’t get approval to write on my blog about everyone), and, of course, there are the everyday persons (be them extraordinary or less-than-extraordinary).

The extraordinary persons in my life are one of the few things in this life to which the Terminator quote doesn’t apply.

I think my life is simple. Above you have found most of my life philosophy, explained in a few words.

Now let’s get back to the training course. You see, in there, I was (so incredibly) lucky to meet three persons at the training course:
a. If I were to summarize Person A‘s philosophy (as I perceived it), I would do it like this: “A quest for beauty”; Beauty in everything: photography, faces, animals, happiness, architecture, even a morale built up on beauty and joy;
b. Person B had a behavior similar with Don Quixote (of which Nicolae STEINHARDT thought so well); To summarize it in more comprehensible terms, I’d say: “Follow your thoughts/emotions/values, despite social norms”; It takes courage to do this;
c. Person C had actually two things: first of all a general knowledge of (right about) everything, doubled by a very down-to-earth common-sense; People tend to call this combination as wisdom (I remember you that the participants’ age at such a training course must be less than 30);

Now that you know this, I want to tell you two more things about getting on my list of extraordinary or less-than-extraordinary persons:
a.  It has nothing with the personal relation between me and the persons on the lists (I won’t detail anymore, but some persons on the extraordinary persons list would avoid me in a typical situation);
b. It has nothing to do with my set of values; My judgment (which is far from perfect, but it’s mine) is solely based on this criteria: personal success (despite some factors) within the persons’ value system; I’ll detail this aspect to all of the persons above:

• Person A: My personal quest for beauty has ended; I have the list of extraordinary persons and, as I detailed on a previous post, I can’t see anything better than this; I’ve already seen beauty; In an atypical analogy, you can think of the situation just like in football championships; Sometimes, a few games between a championship ends, the winner of the championship is already known; How does the champion team plays? It has already won, every victory from now on is for the fun of it; You don’t actually need it, but you like to play the game; Another atypical analogy – it’s also like a game of gymnastics: when X gets a perfect 10 at one time, even if it repeats the same performance years after, it can only equal the past given grade; You can’t out-beat a perfect 10; This is me – I’ve already found perfect beauty (the list of extraordinary people), and every new sensation can (at most) reach the level of previous ones; Besides that list, most life is, to me, like one of a machine – no sensation;
• Person B: There are three things to analyze:
  • The reasoning/values/emotions that drive a Quixotic behavior;
  • The act of just being Quixote in a typical world;
  • The acts that define one as Quixote;
  • (conclusions of the three points above – I am mostly impressed by the idea itself – being Quixote in a typical world; Other than that, this is not the subject of this analysis)
• Person C: It’s hard for me to identify with a person with either very good knowledge of everything (due to some memory & attention problems) or with the common sense (common sense is, to my appreciation of the values of person C, the right way of doing things, but I much rather prefer the always-thinking-never-conforming method of person B, even if it can be interpreted most of the time as “wrong” – by the way, by which criteria? Who establishes the “right” way of deciding Quixote behaviors?); Also, to me personally the need to know more things is, as explained above, solely to be a better Christian; That’s it.

Two of the persons above made it to the less-than-extraordinary list (a longer list), while one person made it to the short list of extraordinary persons.

I tend to have a poor memory. It’s fine. But I think that maybe, just maybe, it would be very hard for me to ever forget a person who made it to the short list. I take this always with me and I’m always happy remembering past times. How do I interpret the actions? I like this funny saying: “Lying is not in Krystal’s vocabulary. Truth forms itself around whatever Krystal says.” (source) It can be adapted to the way I feel about the extraordinary persons – truth forms itself around what they say.

What do I do with the list? In most of the cases, the logic is clear: never discriminate anyone, I can’t offer anything more to any of these persons than to anyone else. But there is this parable – The Parable of the Talents. Interpreted, it says that I must invest my actions into profitable results. My actions must be efficient (a blog on this perhaps?), so I must pick wisely. To keep things simple, whenever volunteering, I tend to pick efficient results. And top persons on my list have favorable spots.

What’s next?

a. I’ve met all these three persons at an international training; I’m now very interested into seeing things like this again (and again); So, I’ll apply to more international trainings;
b. There were about 20 participants at the training, with 4 of them being from Poland; Since three of the Polish participants were so impressive (Persons A, B, C), I am highly biased via Polish people (in a good way); At international trainings I’ll (hopefully) get to see more Polish people and see if my bias is justified or not; Right now, using just the current data, I’m considering knowing more about Poland; If the bias proves to be true, I might even move to Poland;
c. Two of the persons (A, B or C) share an organization which organizes youth exchanges; I’m very interested in that;

If you ask me now, after reading all this, the question in the sub-chapter – “How did the things around training reflect within me?”, my simplified answer is this: I’ve met one extraordinary person and two less-than-extraordinary (but still great). Thus, a very productive training.

Conclusions, anyone?

I loved the training, met great people, the training was very properly organized, the trainers were as fine as expected and (now you know it) it made a big impact on me.

What are my notes at the event?
- Oftentimes, management implies a sort of control;
- What is a complex system? Something that can’t be defined;
- Business gurus claim to bring you success overnight, but this rarely ever happens;
- Entropy – how much does a system change in time;
- In complexity there are a lot of opportunities;
- Success & rewards are coming when the risk is high;
- Complexity in societies is due to humans, rather than machines;
- Humans are doing mistakes, the sooner we accept this, the sooner we will be able to correct them;
- Customers are at the core of the management system;
- You can imagine management to be like this:

(source of image and license)
It is a spiral, a dynamic system, always evolving & developing & changing;
- Management today is always evolving;
- TQM (Total Quality Management) involves leadership, it should be TQL (Total Quality Leadership);
- When you say something to someone, you influence them;
- How to create trust?

• Take the blame;
• Share the credit;
• Pitch in and help (give the general guidelines support, but don’t involve);
• Be consistent;
• Be honest and fair to the people (if you reward someone, give the same reward when someone else does a similar thing);

- You should give & receive feed-back;
- Learning without feed-back is not learning;
- Steps within an organization:

• Step 1: Self-knowledge (evaluation);
• Step 2: Self-discipline (organization);
• Step 3: Self-sacrifice (resolving);

- You should quiet the voice in the head that says “I can’t do it!”;
- When you say “manager”, typically you mean “middle manager”;
- Managers should have micro-leadership skills;

That’s it, very nice event, I liked it a lot.

You can read a few other notes at Emanuel GRIGORAȘ and Florin GLINȚA.

I liked “The importance of volunteering in the business environment” with Sotiris KARAGIOZIDIS (LinkedIn) a lot and here are a few notes.

What did I learn in there?
1. People are getting hired for their skills, and fired for their character?
2. One should stretch itself to reach its highest potential;
3. Speak more if you want to leave an impression on someone;
4. It’s best to put questions at the interview, rather than stay quiet;

Here are some pictures I’ve made at the event:

Nice event in there.

The event was organized by the Civic Association of Romanian Orthodox Youngsters – Asociatia Civica a Tinerilor Ortodocsi Romani (A.C.T.O.R.) – and the Education and Youngster Activities Department of the Bucharest Archbishopric (Sectorul Învățământ și Activități cu Tineretul al Arhiepiscopiei Bucureștilor).

The event took place at the Palace Hall (Sala Palatului).

The interpreters were “Balada Bucovinei” group, Doina LAVRIC, Valeria PETER-PREDESCU, Elisabeta TICUTA and priest Marius-Ciprian POP.

Performers at the event:
- Group of performers of Romanian Patriarchate (Grupul de Psalti ai Patriarhiei Romane) – conductor protopsalter Mihail BUCA – Romania;
- Art Masters of Orthodox music (Maestrii Artei Muzicale Psaltice) – conducator Achilleus G. CHALDAEAKES – Greece;
- Gerontissa Mariam SKORDA from the Assumption of the Virgin monastery (Manastirea Adormirea Maicii Domnului) from Evia island – Greece;
- Divna LJUBOJEVIC and “Melodi” Choir – Serbia;
- Men’s Choir of the Byzantine Church Music Publishing House “Holy Mountain” (Corul Barbatesc de Muzica Bisericeasca Bizantina al Editurii “Sfantul Munte”) – Russia.

More about the event and the event poster.

Videos I’ve made at the event (no embedding, since they’re 13 clips):

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 01

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 02

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 03

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 04

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 05

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 06

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 07

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 08

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 09

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 10

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 11

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 12

2008.05.29 Concert international de muzica bizantina “Bucuria Invierii” – clip 13

The event was organized by the Civic Association of Romanian Orthodox Youngsters – Asociatia Civica a Tinerilor Ortodocsi Romani (A.C.T.O.R.) – and the Education and Youngster Activities Department of the Bucharest Archbishopric (Sectorul Învățământ și Activități cu Tineretul al Arhiepiscopiei Bucureștilor).

The event took place at the Palace Hall (Sala Palatului).

The interpreters were “Balada Bucovinei” group, Doina LAVRIC, Valeria PETER-PREDESCU, Elisabeta TICUTA and priest Marius-Ciprian POP.

More about the event and the event poster.

Videos I’ve made at the event (no embedding, since they’re 13 clips):

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 01

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 02

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 03

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 04

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 05

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 06

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 07

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 08

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 09

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 10

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 11

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 12

2008.05.12 Concert de colinde si cantari pascale “Hristos a Inviat!” – clip 13

You can see pictures made by the organizers, check out the agenda, see the list of speakers and see the most important things about the event.

Bellow you’ll find pictures made by me at the event, both in day 1 and in the second day.

Day 1

Photos made by me in day 1:

Day 2

Photos made by me for day 2:

Here are some presentations I saw at the event:

Cătălin BOGDAN – Oracle presentation:

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Ionuț BOLDIZSAR – Aligning to security controls imposed by ISO 27001 with open source technologies:

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Andrei SAVU – Building a business on Open Source:

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Răzvan DEACONESCU – Bash – Beyond the basics – Advanced Bash functionalities:

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Mircea MITU – Sysadmin Worst Practices – interactive session:

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I also took some pictures at the event:

You can also see the record of the entire day at VideoMax.ro.

Here are the recordings:

Bogdan ȘERBĂNESCU held an interactive presentation about Transactional analysis:

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Olivian BREDA – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in the business environment:

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Daniel BICHIȘ spoke about Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP):

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And some pictures with slides from the presentation:

Adrian GEORGESCU – About the book “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships” – John GRAY

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A very nice event, thanks goes to Răzvan DABA!

These are some pictures made by me at the event:

And a small video with Distinto Quartet:

What did I like at the event?
1. It was pure beauty;
2. I had lots of fun;
3. The overall feeling was very warm, like in a big family.

I liked it a lot.

Here are some pictures I took:

Here’s the presentation for download. It’s also embeddable:

Presentation content:

A. Situational Knowledge;
B. Capability Knowledge;
C. People Skills;
D. Selling Skills;

- You should be fluent in a foreign language;

A. Situational Knowledge

- You should learn you client, know about him;
- You’d better match situational with the buyer;
- AIDA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_%28marketing%29
* A – Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer;
* I – Interest: raise customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in traditional advertising);
* D – Desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs;
* A – Action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing;
- If we are already talking about a product, we are either in A or I phase;
- Attention: listen to me, qualify me (qualify your prospect) – is it bothering you that I’m balding?
- If I have a pain, I will listen to you;

B. Capability Knowledge

- I never lie – don’t ever say you are capable of doing something if in reality you aren’t;
- Find a match;

C. People Skills;

- People buy from people (as opposed to buying from organizations);
- Sincerity => Competence => Trust;
- You should empower your buyer;
- You should create a vision;

D. Selling Skills

- “Solution” is buyer’s vision;
- Completing a sale is about moving the buyer to visualize future satisfaction with the bias of our product service in mind;
- People take action only when there is a pain;
- Latent need – ignorance (unaware that a better solution exists);
- Rationalization – tried to solve the problem before and was unsuccessful;
- If pain (need) exists, the seller can create vision;

- Latest needs – latent pain;
- Buyer is either in ignorance or in rationalization (bad prior experience, accept any bad decision as a good one);
- “You need a way to …, don’t you?” – if you say this, you will take the control from the client;
- Share the vision prior to the selling process;
- You should give your client a hope;
- A sales problem – you need to not tell your client about the features;
- If you start talking about feature, any feature invites an objection;
- Instead of selling constructively (starting from a need), people sell destructively (they start from what they have);
- Typical wording “Because of …, you can …”;

Levels of need/pain:
a. Reference pain (story);
b. Build the vision;
c. Give the solution;

- The client must remain in control;
- Diagnose before you prescribe – Don’t every say “You need …” from the start;
- Don’t be impatient – if you know everything, you are impatient to sell;
- All the times be sincere;
- Power buys from power;
- I’m buying from someone who is in control;

Words to avoid:
a. Might;
b. Possible;
c. We might be able to …;
d. Perhaps;

Phases of buying:
a. Define needs;
b. Evaluate alternatives;
c. Risk evaluation & action;

- Before being different than a competitor, try to at least be at his level;
- Don’t close the deal before it’s closeable.

Two pictures at the event made by Oliver OLSON, who also made a CEU Business School presentation:

Here is the presentation:

Here are a few notes I’ve made:
- A button such as “Empty shopping cart”:
a. Is not looked for by the clients;
b. Tends to complicate things;
c. Can have catastrophic results;
- If a person in a photo seems to be looking at something in the web site, the visitors of the web site tend to look at where does that person look;
- It’s better to have form labels above the input fields, rather than in the left of them;
- The length of the form is an important factor in deciding whether to fill in the form or not; Forms with less fields to fill in tend to be filled in more;
- You should double check the email form and the password form;
- If posible, postpone filling out forms completely;
- When creating a web site, you may want to not force people to create an account;
- Avoid having two-columns forms;
- At the checkout phase, it’s best to have a clear procedure listed (do the receiver need to sign for receiving the goods? At what times must I be at home when receiving the goods? etc.);
- It’s better to have multiple steps in a form, rather than a single step;
- Simple thing: it’s better to test something than not to test something;

And some pictures I took:

Others took pictures also.

You can see other reviews of the event in here: mobile-news.ro #1, mobile-news.ro #2, w2.ro, zf.ro, romanialibera.ro.