2010.08.01: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 8 times between two buoys
2010.08.02: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 10 times between two buoys
2010.08.03: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 14 times between two buoys
2010.08.04: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 10 times between two buoys
2010.08.05: Walk for 20 minutes around Năvodari
Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 14 times between two buoys
2010.08.06: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 14 times between two buoys
2010.08.07: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 12 times between two buoys
2010.08.08: 30 minutes walks in Năvodari
2010.08.09: 30 minutes walks in Năvodari
one hour+ on a magnetic bycicle, 400+ calories
2010.08.10: 20 minutes walks in Năvodari
Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 10 times between two buoys
2010.08.11: No exercise
2010.08.12: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 12 times between two buoys
2010.08.13: Walk in Năvodari and Constanța for about 50 minutes
Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 14 times between two buoys
2010.08.14: 30 minutes walks in Năvodari
2010.08.15: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 16 times between two buoys
2010.08.16: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 16 times between two buoys; out of those 16, I did 12 rounds without any breaks
2010.08.17: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back; big waves, rough weather, almost no swimming, lots of fun though;
2010.08.18: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim about 10 times between two buoys; the thing is, the weather removed on buoy, so now I have a different criteria, different buoys; I must estimate the length, and it may be unprecise;
2010.08.19: Walk for 20 minutes in Năvodari and for about one hour in Constanța;
2010.08.20: Walk for 50 minutes to the seaside and back, swim 10 times between two buoys; the weather was much colder than the days before;
2010.08.21: No exercise
2010.08.22: No exercise
2010.08.23: No exercise
2010.08.24: 15 minutes walk in Năvodari
2010.08.25: 90 minutes walk in Năvodari
2010.08.26: 30 minutes walk Năvodari & Constanța
10 minutes walk in Bucharest
M Gara de Nord – M Victoriei – M Piața Sudului
2010.08.27: M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – 15 minutes walk – M Romană – M Piața Sudului
M Piața Sudului – M Victoriei – M Ștefan cel Mare – 10 minutes walk – M Ștefan cel Mare – M Victoriei – M Universitate – 30 minutes walk – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului
2010.08.28: 40 minutes walk around home; 30 minutes walk around home + foot-ball games for about 40 minutes;
2010.08.29: No exercise
2010.08.30: 15 minutes running;
50 minutes walk
M Piața Sudului – M Victoriei – 10 minutes walk – M Victoriei – M Piața Sudului
2010.08.31: M Piața Sudului – M Victoriei – 10 minutes walk – M Victoriei – M Romană – 40 minutes walk – tram – 20 minutes walk – M Ștefan cel Mare – M Victoriei – M Apărătorii Patriei – bus – M Apărătorii Patriei – M Piața Sudului

My new email address, hosted at Google‘s Gmail has a meaning similar to: “from SEO going to CEO”. A few details on this.

1. What’s the meaning of the name?

I had three hypotheses in mind:

a. I liked the consonance SEO (search engine optimization) – CEO (chief executive officer)

While not a very funny thing, while not originally my idea (see this SEO software – Web CEO), it’s still a quite nice name, a bit amusing;

b. My services are addressed generally to decision-taking persons (CEO’s)

So, in other words, I do SEO services, working for CEOs of companies;
And the problem with this is that it may be misinterpreted – I do SEO for the CEO themselves, instead of the company; yes, a little unwanted result;

c. It (sort of) describes what I do

I’m a SEO freelancer, and I own my own business (CEO);

d. Finally, easy to type and remember

Very important aspect – only 8 letters to type, nothing fancy or complicated;

2. (technical issues) Why Gmail servers? Why not hosting the web address at your own domain?

a. They never seem to fail

Let’s have it like this; according to the Wall Street Journal, at the end of 2009 – beginning of 2010, Gmail had “176 million unique visitors in December, according to comScore Inc.”; if there’s a failure, Gmail servers are down:
a. Something is not working everybody knows about it – I immediately know if my data is down;
b. Things will get fix (most likely) very fast – a matter of hours top;
Now, I can’t say the same thing about other types of hosting; so Gmail’s reliability is better than most;

b. Other tech users like it

In technical circles, such as that of the readers of Lifehacker, Gmail is the predominant choice;

c. I like it a lot

Yes, I’ve been using Gmail for a full five years and I’m very impressed with what they offer;

d. Why not Gmail on my own domain?

Yes, I could have setup to have Gmail on my own domain; I tend not to prefer this option, due to the simple fact that it just tends to make things even more worse: the time on which Gmail is not working (downtime) will be doubled by the downtime of my own server; too much fuss for a simple name;
Update: according to a friend who works as a System Administrator, I can have a solution for Google to completely handle my emails, so if my hosting is down, my email will still work; didn’t know about this, sorry;

3. Practical steps

a. You can still send me emails at any of my old email addresses on Gmail

Yes, Gmail has email forwarding, all the emails get to me; Yahoo! doesn’t, so I manually check those email addresses once a week (for the rare cases in which I get emails on Yahoo!);

b. Any of the email that I’ve switched with you is safely kept on my account

Rarely (if ever) do I delete an email; it’s all been archived.

Book details - you can read a book review for more details.

I liked about the book:

• The use of examples, made it easy to understand;
• The good structure of information;
• The wide approach of subjects;
• The common sense of the author.

I remember from the book:

• Two patterns of thinking – in time and through time; the in time model is all about living the moment (advantages: you can focus on the task, you are emotionally involved; as drawback, you are frequently late and give the impression that punctuality is not important; also, you can take on too much work in the same time); the through time model is for the future, past, and back into the present (on a positive side: you are good with strategies and organization; on the negative side: you can leave the impression that you are not concerned about the current activity, and planning and punctuality can become more important than the action themselves);
• People like other people that are similar to them, so a good approach would be mimicking (“mirroring” is the actual term) their behavior; so, instead of focusing on interpreting the other person’s behavior (“why does it do that?” – avoid this thinking, it can lead to false thinking), you should just mirror their behavior; things to “copy”: the look (posture, position, movements, gestures while talking, breathing), voice (tone, speed, volume, inflections, rhythm), key words in language, value system (what they consider to be important), experience (common interests).

_________
Bottom line: “Brilliant NLP: What the Most Successful People Know, Say and Do” by Pat HUTCHINSON may be a good reading on NLP.

You can read the whole book online on Google Books, read a book review (and another one) or read the author’s blog.

Why I enjoyed the book?

• Easy to read (yes, this is a basic thing) – easy words, real life examples, good subject knowledge, short sentences;
• A wide range of situations described, very comprehensive;
• You could easily read only one chapter, skip others, come back to the book later on; easy to read sequentially;
• Very open minded book;
• Gave me insights;

Two parts I totally enjoyed:

Prosaic with Passion
Worried about your first words? Fear not, because 80 percent of your listener’s impression has nothing to do with your words anyway. Almost anything you say at first is fine. No matter how prosaic the text, an empathetic mood, a positive demeanor, and passionate delivery make you sound exciting.

Parroting
Never be left speechless again. Like a parrot, simply repeat the last few words your conversation partner says. That puts the ball right back in his or her court, and then all you need to do is listen.

To answer the question in the blog post title, you should read the book with ease.

So, if you want to read (what I consider to be) a good book on communication, read “How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships” by Leil LOWNDES.

Some things about the book. A quote from the web site of the book:

“In this book, I summarize more than 30 years of research on factors that can create a “perfect storm” which leads good people to engage in evil actions. This transformation of human character is what I call the “Lucifer Effect,” named after God’s favorite angel, Lucifer, who fell from grace and ultimately became Satan.

Rather than providing a religious analysis, however, I offer a psychological account of how ordinary people sometimes turn evil and commit unspeakable acts. As part of this account, The Lucifer Effect tells, for the first time, the full story behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, a now-classic study I conducted in 1971. In that study, normal college students were randomly assigned to play the role of guard or inmate for two weeks in a simulated prison, yet the guards quickly became so brutal that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days.”

So, it’s a book about an experiment at Stanford which showed how ordinary people can do terrible things.

To know more, you can read an interview with the book’s author about the book, read a book review, or another one, or see a video:

You can also see a much longer video on MIT’s web site. There’s even a video on TED.

Why is this devilish book so hot?

• You might hate me for this, but the book is ultimately about me and you; yes, ordinary people can do incredible bad deeds in certain conditions; the book is thus a mirror in one’s thoughts and actions; yet the final image is not that pleasing;
• Despite its length, it’s an engaging book, nice reading, loved to read it;
• The author’s style is nice, I enjoyed to read the book – contexts were used a lot (about the time when the experiment was held, about other situations of Lucifer effect taking place), not that complicated words, good signaling of psychology knowledge (you learn about other stuff in psychology, also).

I especially liked the “Ten Lessons from the Milgram Studies: Creating Evil Traps for Good People”; these are procedures in that seduced many ordinary citizens to engage in harmful behavior:

1. Prearranging some form of contractual obligation, verbal or written, to control the individual’s behavior in pseudo legal fashion;
2. Giving participants meaningful roles to play (“teacher,” “learner”) that carry with them previously learned positive values and automatically activate response scripts;
3. Presenting basic rules to be followed that seem to make sense before their actual use but can then be used arbitrarily and impersonally to justify mindless compliance;
4. Altering the semantics of the act, the actor, and the action (from “hurting victims” to “helping the experimenter,” punishing the former for the lofty goal of scientific discovery);
5. Creating opportunities for the diffusion of responsibility or abdication of responsibility for negative outcomes; others will be responsible, or the actor won’t be held liable;
6. Starting the path toward the ultimate evil act with a small, seemingly insignificant first step, the easy “foot in the door” that swings open subsequent greater compliance pressures, and leads down a slippery slope;
7. Having successively increasing steps on the pathway that are gradual, so that they are hardly noticeably different from one’s most recent prior action. “Just a little bit more.”;
8. Gradually changing the nature of the authority figure (the researcher, in Milgram’s study) from initially “just” and reasonable to “unjust” and demanding, even irrational;
9. Making the “exit costs” high and making the process of exiting difficult by allowing verbal dissent (which makes people feel better about themselves), while insisting on behavioral compliance;
10. Offering an ideology, or a big lie, to justify the use of any means to achieve the seemingly desirable, essential goal;

In 1963, the social philosopher Hannah Arendt published what was to become a classic, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil“; a quote from that book, quoted by Philip ZIMBARDO:

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied… that this new type of criminal… commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or feel that he is doing wrong.

Finally, I really liked the text which showed real-life examples of heroes.

As a conclusion, I liked “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” by Philip ZIMBARDO quite a lot.

You can read an interview with the book’s author or read a book review.

So, what’s to remember?

You can have a pretty good idea on what the presentation is about by looking at these slides:

The most important part, to me, of the book, was the pyramid, with five levels; from below, the levels are:
1. Absence of Trust (Invulnerability)
2. Fear of Conflict (Artificial Harmony)
3. Lack of Commitment (Ambiguity)
4. Avoidance of Accountability (Low Standards)
5. Inattention to Results (Status and Ego)

These are the biggest problems to forming a team.

In the book you’ll find solutions to overcome the problems.

What I liked about the book?

• It’s all written as a story; characters, stories, history, relations, dialogue, biographies; they’re all in there;
• It’s easy to read, no fancy words, no complicated things;
• It’s easy to spot who is doing things the right way and who isn’t in the book;
• In the entire book you get a very clear and detailed explanation on how to apply the pyramid model;
• The non-verbal cues you get from the characters are impressive;
• Very good writing style, nice to read.

So, I recommend this book as a good reading and for a nice understanding on what the problems of the teams are. To read more: “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable” by Patrick LENCIONI.

In Romania there are a lot of options to travel by train. We have very old trains (slow train, cheap, stops in every station, not that clean, the air may be too warm or too cold very often), newer (faster train, more modern, much more clean, doesn’t stop in small stations, better air conditioning), fast train (very fast – in theory, I’ll get back to this -, expensive, stops rarely, clean – for Romanian standards, not for “as it should be”, close to perfect air temperature), and express (intercity) train (very modern, stops very rarely, expensive and, except for perhaps the toilets, pretty clean, close to perfect air temperature).

Now the descriptions above are the theory. In practice, when you have to pick between the trains, you have to factor these also:
a. A lot of poor Romanians pick cheap trains, and if you do this, you tend to have people with low income as partners in the train compartment;
b. Especially in the summertime, due to the heat, trains, even the fast ones, are forced to have speed limitations; for long distance travels, you should expect to be late; why doesn’t the SNCFR (Romanian Railways – Căile Ferate Române) announce that the travel will take 6 hours, instead of 5? I’m only guessing here, and I think that because if they announce 6 hours, even if they, sometime, can make the trip in 5 hours, they have to slow down to make it in 6; so, if in one week they have 10 trips, and out of those 9 take 5 hours and one takes 6 hours, they will announce that the train will take 5 hours and be late one time; had they announced that all the 10 trips will take 6 hours, then they will be forced to make the trip longer for the other 9 trips; why is that? Imagine you’re in a Lehliu station, between Constanta and Bucharest; the train, according to the schedule, will take 6 hours; you come to Lehliu station at the specified time, only to find that the train was earlier and you’ve missed it; this really can’t happen; you can be late, but not earlier.

As a side note, there’s a story from this summer with a train trip been late 9 hours for an expected 9 hours trip. So it took about 100% percent more time for that distance.

OK, so now you have an overall image on what are train options in Romania.

I like to travel by the slow trains, old, cheap, stopping in every station; why?

A. The rational reasons:

a. It doesn’t make much of a difference in time consumed: it takes around four hours from Bucharest to Constanza with the faster trains (little differences between one class of trains to another for the fast trains) and less than four hours from Constanza to Bucharest for the same trains (yes, a bit weird – different time, depending on your direction of traveling);
Now, with the slow trains it’s more than 5 hours;
Therefore, the increase in time is about 25-30 percent for the slow trains;
I tend to read on the trains, I read books almost only on the trains, so to me spending 5.5 hours on a slow train and reading is a good investment; I don’t care if it 4 or more than 5 – I read more and that’s it;
b. It’s cheaper: the decrease in cost is 40-55 percent for the slow trains; yes, the difference in budget for the trips is more consistent than the time spent (because other factors are counted – train condition, cleanliness); for people who don’t mind bribing, it’s even cheaper;
c. For me, the differences of cleanliness make little difference; I travel to Constanta by bus, from Bucharest station home by metro, and I can’t say there is a huge difference in the cleanliness of the chairs themselves; yes, it’s not that clean, but it’s not total trash either;
d. Better air condition – be it hot or cold outside, the more expensive trains have better traveling conditions.
e. You get to live off the beaten track; to break routine, most people would prefer going in a expensive holiday; I would much rather pick a slower train for the same reason; totally out of the modern life of Bucharest;
f. There’s a picturesque (perhaps false) idea that old, slow and out-of-this age has something romantic in it.

On the other hand, on a more expensive train (besides the better cleaning) I would have:
a. People offering extra-services – to me they’re irrelevant, I don’t buy things in train, but they do matter to others;
b. The chance to borrow something to read from the participants of the journey – magazines, newspapers; the travelers are more “elite”, focused on reading, so you can read cool stuff;
c. (if you care for this sort of thing) People which seem to be more elegant, distinguish, and all-in-all clean.

Also, please note that in a slow train seeing people drinking alcohol or eating sunflower seeds (yes, spiting involved) is not uncommon.

B. The irrational reason (but, oh, so important)

The most important reason: the people traveling by the slow trains are great.

Whenever I talk with someone about slow trains, the human factors comes up – you get:
a. People who talk too much with pretty much anyone (it’s much much easier to start a conversation in such a train; this can be annoying);
b. Sometimes dirty, often time poorly dressed, with very non-fashion hand bags, with some bad habits (eating seeds, cursing, drinking alcohol, putting music too loud, not paying the fee for the train, and instead of appealing to bribe, not keeping the place clean), sometimes smelly;
c. The overall factor of travelling with someone who is poor, in a lower class, when you can do better with a bit more expensive ticket.

OK, so now you know why others don’t like travelling by slow trains.

Now for my reasoning to the above statement:
a. I don’t mind people talking in the compartment, it’s often time very pleasant to hear a conversation; sometimes I take part to, others I merely listen; it’s very interesting, most of the times;
b. I really don’t care about other people’s behavior; sure, you would prefer everybody to be stylish, and clean, and with good manners, education and financial status; but I can live with you for 5 hours as my companion quite easily;
c. The status factor (“I don’t travel with the poor”) doesn’t inspire me.

And now for the reasons that I like so much the slow trains:
a. I get to listen to very active conversations – people have much less inhibitions in such a train; you get a big variety of human behavior, right in front of you; think of Roma people – talkative, sometimes arguing, oftentimes laughing, high spirits; sure, you won’t listen to high culture conversations, but the overall expression of human spirit is there; lovely thing to watch;
b. People are much more opened when communicating – in my last trip a woman was from the same village with the President of Romania; it’s incredible what kind of things she said about the President; lovely thing to hear, mixed thoughts, live emotions and very open affirmations; I was once in a compartment with a religious person from a minority cult; that person was more than opened to speak about his religion; sure, in a tight atmosphere this would have been sanctioned (“How can you talk about religion in public?”), but in that environment it fitted well;
c. I get to have good conversations – in a faster train the conversation is almost always blank; rarely do people speak, even more rarely everyone takes part in the conversation; in a slow train things get moving much more often and I had some nice conversation with various people; sure, from time to time you may start to wonder – “Why do I speak with this uneducated person?” -, but all-in-all it’s a nice experience;
d. You get to share food – I was once in a compartment with only one person; we talked for hours (literally) and at some time that person (he was from the countryside) brought up some food (he had some very unhealthy and yet so very tasty meat products made in his own house) and invited me to join him; I politely refused, and he very much impolitely insisted that I join him; that’s life! Ignore formality, come join me and take part to my lunch;
e. You have a very good idea on what the people are thinking; I live in Bucharest – concrete, walls, metro, lot of artificial things; people earn above the national average and the society lives to other standards than those in more rural areas; traveling by a slow train allows me to get a glimpse on what the “real” Romania (with most of the population) is like;
f. I feel at ease; sometimes it’s a bit strange to be in a compartment and take out a book; sometimes you look funny with two big bags; perhaps my t-shirt doesn’t look good after all this travel; you get the idea; put this feelings and thoughts in a fast train and they’re very much alive; switch the atmosphere to a slow train and you feel at home – you can’t feel bad because the others aren’t looking much better either; you feel at peace with yourself (I won’t say if this is a good thing, or a bad thing – since it may prevent improvements -, but the feeling is there);
g. I get to met awesome people – you may ask yourself “How is that possible?”; first of all, in order for me to determine if someone is awesome or not, I mostly need to hear that person say something (or se it doing something); in a fast train people don’t do much; in a slow train, things are quite opposite – a lot of things happen; the second reason comes from my perception vision of what’s an awesome person; as said before in articles from my top people list, I like the people behavior that breaks a pattern (in a positive way); so, if we take Cabiria for example, she breaks the pattern of a hard life in her own unique special way; now, if you start from a high standards way (you live in the upper class, are smart and good looking, have a good job), it may be harder to do something out of the ordinary; if you have low life conditions (according to society’s standards), it may be easier to show yourself worthy of a better dignity; I’ll explain this with two examples of people I’ve met in the train.

The first example is the example of a head of a family somewhere at the countryside in Romania. He seemed to be around 30. He had a wife and a baby (a little girl). What was out of the ordinary?
a. He gained few money at his job (a smaller salary than that of people with Faculty in Romania); very few money; his wife was keeping the household and taking care of the baby, so no money from here; they had some help from their parents (not much); in spite of his small salary, he was working hard, doing intense labor work (preparing bread and pastry), for long hours (working 12 hours, then 24 hours break, which meant that sometime he was working all day, while at other times he was working all night); no Saturdays or Sundays free; work and work again; before Romanian holidays, even more work; he wasn’t complaining neither for his small money, nor for the work conditions;
b. They had a lot of animals in the household; very very large number of animals; more work from this part also;
c. The family loved to raise pigeons for their beauty; they didn’t eat them or sell them; no, they raised them for their beauty; they had more than 40 families; inspiring, isn’t it? Also, they offered to give, for no charge, pigeons to be set free at events in Bucharest to some other traveler.

It’s easy to look at such a person (and family) and see their problem; it’s easy to say (and thus judge them harshly) that:
a. They didn’t speak very correct grammar – and yet, in spite of this, he got a job;
b. They didn’t eat very healthy – but they lived a better quality life than a lot of Romanians;
c. They didn’t earn a lot of money – and yet, in spite of this, he said he was doing expensive improvements on the house, from that very small salary.

Wonderful family to see, very good companions.

On my last trip from Constanza to Bucharest I met another person – a lady; what was so great about her?
a. It was emotional that she had a daughter and a little niece and, because they didn’t come to see her all summer, she was going to them instead;
b. She used to work as a primary school teacher – so she invested her time and energy to educate kids;
c. According to her, the financial crisis brought to the financial status of the family to worst times ever;
d. Her husband was working (and thus commuting) in Bucharest as a security agent, and he hasn’t been paid in the last 5 months; afraid that he won’t ever get his money, he still worked there;
e. Very talkative, open and positive thinker – she saw the good in any situation, she hoped for the better, she tried not to paint the reality in black;
f. A lot of problems due to some Romani people neighboring her village – they stole them a lot of things; she was still not looking dark on the situation;
g. Good observation skills, very involved in the conversation;
h. In the road from the station, in the bus, she let an older person take her place (no one else offered to do the same thing as her);
i. Very funny person.

Sure, you can look at her and see only that:
a. She was cursing from time to time (not too aggressively, but still);
b. She liked to talk about people from behind;
c. She wasn’t speaking very correctly.

Yet, all-in-all, she was a very nice human being, despite having a life more difficult than that of a lot of people.

So, you travel in a slow train, reading, with some people with not-that-great manners, in not very good thermal conditions, and you enjoy the other participant’s presence. What could be better than this?

A video from the event:

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

Photos I’ve taken (see in full-screen):

Poster.

The sun is burning all day long. But you have lived in Năvodari for a long time and patiently wait for the evening to come. It’s almost five in the evening and you get ready to go to the beach. You take with you a pair of glasses, a tea-shirt, some pants, a hat and sneakers. Nothing else. No ID, no towel, no key, no phone. The sun is getting milder, you can enjoy it now.

You get out of the house. Between you and the sea there’s just a bridge, with few persons travelling over it. You walk, and run some, and walk again. Running is good, so is walking. In 15 minutes you’re by the seaside. Very fast you get naked, and directly jump into the sea. You get a little cold and wait for the sun to take the water off of you. This makes you feel even colder. Now you jump again in the sea. Great! After the little cold feeling at the beginning, you enjoy the water now, as it seems to be actually hot. You knew the trick from your father and are enjoying to keep on doing it.

After a full day of sun, the water is warm, while the sun is just fine. Sometimes I swim with swimming glasses, sometimes without. Today is without.

You set the first marker – an orange buoy. You start swimming. Soon you get to second marker – another orange buoy. For the next hour you keep on making rounds and rounds and swim a lot between the two buoys. Sometimes you take a break, and you keep on swimming.

You can think of things, it’s just you and the sea, the swimming is peaceful and you can relax and let your mind swim free through the oceans of thought.

You close your eyes. The water covers you all, it’s everywhere, and it surrounds you. You exhale thoroughly and breathe in some air.

You open your eyes and force yourself to look underwater with your eyes wide open.

And swimming is a part of you and you swim and swim again.

You get out of the water, and start departing. In just a minute you’re dry enough to get dressed, you do this and walk towards home. And on the way home you think of “Gattaca“, mainly the scene with the swimming.

At the end of the day, you look back and think: I love swimming!

You can see a few pictures I’ve taken (also in full-screen):

What are my thoughts on the trip?
a. I could clearly see the starts at night which made me think on the pollution the cities, be them large or small, have;
b. Despite being at the countryside, there were barely any fruits; in the city life, you go to the market and you can buy, no matter the time of the year, from a quite considerable variety of fruits; go to the countryside and the variety greatly diminishes to the fruits available in that specific time of the year;
c. Bugs everywhere; if you’re in the city and you kill a bug, you know at least you won’t meet that bug in your apartment; on the countryside, killing bugs is pointless; there are just to many of them, and they seem to be everywhere; your deed doesn’t do a thing;
d. If something needs to be fixed, you need to fix it; no calling anyone, no asking for help; you’re on your own;
e. While in Năvodari there is hardly anything for me to enjoy outside my home, at the countryside there’s literally nothing you can do; long live the big cities!
f. In Bucharest, if it rains you get an umbrella and that’s it; raining in the countryside implies much more thing – difficult transportation, nothing to do around the house, poor television reception; walking in the rain is no pleasure!
g. “Eco” is the thing; everyone, whether they know it or not, lives in an ecological environment; lots of emphasis on this;
h. The relation with divinity is much closer than anywhere else – a lot of people go to church, they dress very nice for the event of the week – going to church -, a lot of people fast, there are a lot of ceremonies involving the Church and God;
i. People, comparing to their incomes and comparing to the number of participants at the church, are much more likely to bring food to give away at church than in any other place in the city that I’ve seen;
j. It was interesting to see the little war with mobile networks signal – sometimes you got a very weak signal, sometimes a bit better, and sometimes none whatsoever.

I liked the trip a lot, it helped me disconnect.

The situation described here implies that you have a HTML page, a table that only changes its data (so it doesn’t change table header or anything else in the page, just the numbers inside the table) and you need to make a lot of changes fast.

Sure, the easy option would be saving the file in Microsoft Excel software, and dealing with the way it looks afterwards. Or just a copy & paste from Excel to a CMS (Content Management System).

Say we have this file.

Unfortunately, whether you do copy & paste from Excel or you save as HTML, the result is this.

As you can see, a lot specifications and numbers, which make the tables difficult to manipulate:
<td align=”right”>1</td>
<tr height=”21″>
<td width=”47″>Losses</td>

Saving the file in Excel as HTML doesn’t yield any better results.

The code looks even uglier:
<tr height=20 style=’height:15.0pt’>
<td height=20 style=’height:15.0pt’></td>
<td>Game A</td>
<td align=right>2</td>
<td align=right>1</td>
<td align=right>1</td>
<td align=right>3</td>
<td align=right>0</td>
<td align=right>4</td>
</tr>

What to do?

One solution would be taking the code and using a solution to strip the unnecessary code (a HTML editor, a search & replace macro in Word, etc.).

The solution below is different: I will take the data in Excel, place it in Word, run a macro, and get a valid code.

The very first thing to do is open up this file. You should either allow macros to run if you’re on Microsoft Office 2007, or set the proper security level to allow macros (Tools => Options => Security => Macro Security will work for 2003 version).

Then you should copy the macros that are attached to the file to your local computer. How to do that?

In Word 2003: Tools => Macro => Macros => Organizer
In Word 2007: View => Macros => View macros => Organizer

Here you copy from left to right:

That’s it, now you have macros in your Word software.

(optional) You can assign an icon to the toolbar for fast launch of the macro you’ve just copied. For this, click the drop-down option in the ribbon, and select More commands (for Office 2007):

Or right-click a toolbar and select “Customize toolbars”;

For Office 2007, see below:

and just copy from left to right and assign an icon;

For Office 2003, you go to Commands, then macros, and via drag & drop, you drag the macro to the toolbar, rename it and give it an icon.

Details here.

So, after the macro has been installed, see the solution:
1. Select the table in Microsoft Excel and Copy;

2. In Microsoft Word either do Paste (a small arrow underneath the button) => Paste Special in Microsoft Word 2007 or Edit => Paste Special … in earlier versions; Ctrl + Alt + V also works just fine;

Select Unformatted text, Ok;

3. Launch the macro via either the toolbar button or View => Macros => View macros => Select “Replace_table” => Run (for Office 2007) or Tools => Macros => Macro => Select the macro => Run (for Office 2003);

4. Copy the code into the CMS.

The code will look like this:

And this is how I would make a code based on an Excel file.

2010.06.01: No exercises
2010.06.02: Tram to Liberty Center, 10 minutes walk, Tram to Unirii, M Unirii – M Victoriei – M Obor – walk for 90 minutes – M Romană – M Unirii – walk for 10 minutes – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.03: M Piața Sudului – M Victoriei – M Obor – walk for 10 minutes – M Obor – M Dristor – M Titan – walk for 20 minutes – M Titan – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.04: M Piața Sudului – M Romană – walk for 20 minutes – M Romană – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.05: 20 minutes walk
2010.06.06: M Piața Sudului – M Apărătorii Patriei – 15 minutes walk – M Apărătorii Patriei – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.07: No exercises
2010.06.08: M Piața Sudului – M Victoriei – M Ștefan cel Mare – tram to Băneasa (it would have been easier had I taken the tram from M Aurel Vlaicu) – tram back to Ștefan cel Mare – walk for 30 minutes – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.09: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – M Eroilor – 50 minutes walk – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.10: M Piața Sudului – M Aviatorilor – 60 minutes walk – M Aviatorilor – M piața Sudului
2010.06.11: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – 40 minutes walk – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.12: M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – 10 minutes walk – by car a lot – M 1 Mai – M Basarab – M Victoriei – M Universitate – 10 minutes walk – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.13: walk 20 minutes
2010.06.14: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – bus – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.15: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – walk 15 minutes – M Victoriei – walk for 40 minutes – M Romană – M Piața Sudului
walk for 15 minutes
2010.06.16: M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – walk for 25 minutes – M Unirii – M Titan – walk for 20 minutes – M Titan – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului
walk for 15 minutes
2010.06.17: M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – walk for 90 minutes – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.18: walk for 15 minutes
2010.06.19: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – by bus – walk for 200 minutes – back with the bus to M Unirii – walk for 20 minutes
2010.06.20: walk for 25 minutes
M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – M Lujerului – walk for 20 minutes – M Lujerului – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.21: no exercises
2010.06.22: M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – walk for 5 minutes – go by car – walk for 10 minutes – M Romană – M Piața Sudului
2010.06.23: M Piața Sudului – M Aviatorilor – walk for 30 minutes – M Aviatorilor – M Universitate – walk for 75 minutes – by car to Piața Sudului
2010.06.24: M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – walk for 40 minutes – M Universitate – M Romană – by bus until Ion-Luca CARAGIALE bus station – walk for 25 minutes – M Victoriei – M Unirii – M Timpuri noi – walk for 40 minutes until home
2010.06.25: No exercises
2010.06.26: No exercises
2010.06.27: 15 minutes walk
2010.06.28: M Piața Sudului – M Victoriei – M Gara de Nord – train – bus – 10 minutes walk
2010.06.29: 30 minutes walk
2010.06.30: No exercises

Why reread? To me it was not that easy to read a book in English with economic terms, so the first time I’ve read it (years ago), it didn’t left much o an impression. Now I’m back with a graduated faculty in Economics and some English readings and I’ve read it just fine. I actually appreciated the style.

What I liked about the book?
a. The style was straightforward, lots of active verbs, easy to comprehend sentences;
b. Logical structure;
c. Lots of case studies;
d. Filled with applicability;
e. Good ideas;

Two quotes I liked a lot:

C = M + D – A
Corruption (C) equals monopoly power (M) plus discretion by officials (D) minus accountability (A).
If someone has monopoly power over a good or service and has discretion to decide whether someone gets that good or service or how much a person receives, and there is no accountability whereby others can see what that person is deciding, then we will tend to find corruption. This is true whether we are in the public sector or the private, whether we are in a poor country or a rich one, whether we are in Beira or Berlin or Beirut.

How might one develop a strategy for preventing corruption in a specific setting?
1. Understanding corrupt systems, which requires analytical tools;
2. Diagnosing how specific corrupt systems now work in a particular system
3. Overcoming political and bureaucratic resistance, and garnering support;
4. Crafting a sequenced plan of action to heal corrupted systems, rupture a culture of cynicism, build political momentum, and transform city government.

You can read the whole book online here and download it here.

A nice read, I’d say

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.

Poster.

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.

The presentation

You can download the presentation: PPT, PPTX, PDF.

The video

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

The presentation outline (with italics you’ll see my annotations):

How do YOU do it?

Contents

A. Why there are no magical solutions?

B. The hardware
PC vs. smartphone
PC vs. laptop
- An article on How to Ergonomically Set Up Your Laptop as a Desktop;
Monitor
- Why wide screen? See this article – Benefits Of Widescreen Computer Monitors;
- Article – Tips & Tweaks: Two Monitors Are Way Better Than One;
Keyboard
- The standard keyboard I like;
Camera & microphone
Chair
- You may want to read this article: What is an “ergonomic” chair?

C. The habits
Multi tasking
- You can read Multitasking May Not Mean Higher Productivity;
Reading email
- See the Inbox Zero video;
Typing
- I use touch typing;
Learning shortcuts
- Windows XP keyboard shortcuts;
Learning software options
- You can read my tutorial (in Romanian) on installing Windows XP Service Pack 3; a lot of software options in there;
Turning off distractions
Running less programs
Running more programs
- I mentioned Rescue Time;
- I talked about Last.fm Scrobbler;

D. The knowledge
Reading:

• Lifehacker;
• Getting Things Done;
• Zen Habits;

Research everything:

• how to search - see this search; also, I plan a big article on this subject on Get SEO ideas in a few months;
• how to research - search like this;
• how to breathe better – Google search;
• how to be more attentive – Google it;
• how to type – search;

Contact

Any other ideas?

On 19^th of June I went to Stelea, Cetățuia, Nămăiești and Slănic Orthodox monasteries for a pilgrimage organized by Monica BRÂNDUȘESCU. See the poster of the pilgrimage.

Below you’ll find some photos I took and two videos that I’ve made.

2010.06.19 Orthodox monasteries – Stelea, Cetatuia, Namaiesti si Slanic (see in full-screen)

2010.06.19 St. James Catholic church in Câmpulung (see in full-screen)

2010.06.19 Photos with small animals (see in full-screen)

2010.06.19 Flowers at a pilgrimage (see in full-screen)

2010.06.19 Landscapes in Romania (see in full-screen)

Two videos that I’ve made:

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!

1. First step – download IrfanView (you can also get the plugins, but for the current operation you only need IrfanView);
2. Install it in your computer (be careful not to install also Google Toolbar); when installing, you don’t need to associate IrfanView with images (so, you may have IrfanView installed, but you don’t need to open images with it if you don’t like this);
3. Start the program;
4. File => Batch Conversion / Rename;
5. Browse your folder with picture;
6. Either select some photos and hit Add or hit Add all to add all the pictures for batch processing;
7. Work as => Batch conversion;
8. Output format => I generally prefer JPG, and go to options and set the quality to 80;
9. Check “Use advanced options (for bulk resize …);
10. Advanced; Set one or both sides to Width 604 and Height 480; Check both Preserve aspect ratio and Use resample function; Ok;
11. Output directory for result file => In this I put some folder for output of the pictures;

You can see all the settings I’ve made here:

I hope you’ll find resizing photos easier now.

2010.05.01: Walk 15 minutes at Pîrjol, walk 40 minutes in Neamț county, bicycle for 5 minutes

2010.05.02: Walk 15 minutes at Pîrjol

2010.05.03: M Obor – M Piața Sudului – walk 15 minutes – M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – walk 30 minutes – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.04: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – M Titan – walk 30 minutes – M Titan – M Timpuri noi – walk 40 minutes – M Timpuri noi – M Unirii – M Universitate – walk 10 minutes – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.05: magnetic bycicle – 39min, 15.32km, 349kcal

2010.05.06: M Piața Sudului – M Aviatorilor – walk 100 minutes – M Victoriei – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.07: M Piața Sudului – M Aviatorilor – walk 50 minutes – by car 2 minutes – walk 45 minutes – M Aviatorilor – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.08: M Piața Sudului – M Aviatorilor – walk 60 minutes – M Aviatorilor – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.09: walk 10 minutes

2010.05.10: Jogging for 15 minutes
M Piața Sudului – M Victoriei – M Ștefan cel Mare – walk 30 minutes – M Ștefan cel Mare – M Victoriei – M Universitate – walk 30 minutes – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.11: No exercises

2010.05.12: Jogging for 15 minutes
M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – walk 5 minutes – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.13: Run for 15 minutes while doing this:
M Piața Sudului – M Aviatorilor – walk for 35 minutes – M Aviatorilor – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.14: M Piața Sudului – M Romană – walk for 10 minutes – M Romană – M Universitate – bodybuilding for 70 minutes – walk for 30 minutes – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.15: M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – walk for 10 minutes – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.16: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – walk for 10 minutes – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.17: M Piața Sudului – M Victoriei – walk for 20 minutes – M Victoriei – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.18: No exercises

2010.05.19: M Piața Sudului – M Aviatorilor – walk & run for 35 minutes – M Aviatorilor – M Romană – walk for 10 minutes – M Romană – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.20: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – M Titan – walk for 25 minutes – M Titan – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului
M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – M Timpuri Noi – walk for 20 minutes – M Timpuri Noi – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.21: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – walk for 40 minutes – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.22: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – walk for 15 minutes – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.23: walk for 20 minutes

2010.05.24: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – M Eroilor – walk for 10 minutes – M Eroilor – M Unirii – walk & run for 60 minutes – M Unirii – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.25: M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – walk for 30 minutes – M Unirii – M Romană – walk for 15 minutes – M Romană – M Universitate – walk for 10 minutes – M Universitate – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.26: M Piața Sudului – M Universitate – walk for 40 minutes – M Unirii -  M Romană – walk for 15 minutes – M Romană – M Piața Sudului

2010.05.27: M Piața Sudului – M Unirii – walk for 30 minutes – tram home

2010.05.28: no exercises

2010.05.29: no exercises

2010.05.30: walk for 45 minutes

2010.05.31: no exercises

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)