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.

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?

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

(see in full-screen)

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’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:

Speakers at the event were: Jim BAGNOLA (LinkedIn profile, Facebook profile) Senior Partner, The Leadership Group and Marius GHENEA, Presedinte, PCfun.ro & FIT Distribution. I’ve written a blog post about Jim BANGOLA in here:
Jim BAGNOLA – the best trainer I’ve seen.

I’ve made three videos at the event:
Jim BAGNOLA – About teams – part 1

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

Jim BAGNOLA – About teams – part 2

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

Marius GHENEA – Team efficiency

Vezi mai multe video din Evenimente

And quite a few pictures:

It was a very nice event, congratulations LEADERS Romania team and many thanks to speakers.

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

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

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

B. Chris SMITH

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

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

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

D. Larry YOUNG – Business Ethics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A. Day 1

Some pictures:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

B. Day 2

Some pictures:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

C. Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pictures I’ve made at the event:

What did I learn at the conference?

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

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

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

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

BuddyPress – a social network in a box;

bbPress – forums in WP style;

Backpress – management of software projects (web based);

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other readings

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

About the event itself – feed-back to the organizers

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

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

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

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

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

Some pictures:

A. Pictures

First of all, here are some pictures I’ve made at the event:

There are even three YouTube videos at the conference (in English): 1, 2, 3.

B. What did I learn?

Some ideas I jotted down:
a. (a conclusion of another person) When will computers reach human-level intelligence? We’re five years away and always will be;

b. Regarding one of Charles DARWIN‘s trips:
Charles DARWIN noted that Galápagos tortoise that lived on different island had different evolution; One could tell which turtoise came from which island with precision; They evolved differently;

c. According to the Tree of life, all animals come from the same origin;

d. A typical logic for believers:
i. “X” looks designed;
ii. I can’t think of how “X” was designed naturally;
iii. Therefore, “X” was designed supernaturally;
This is known as “God of the gaps”;
Example: People can’t imagine how the pyramids were made; This leads into thinking they have been done by aliens;

e. Quote:

This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

-Isaac NEWTON;

f. The fate of all mysteries: they get “filled” eventually;

g. Two explanations for life:
i. Supernatural designed (from Top to Bottom);
ii. Natural designed (from Bottom to Up);

h. (funny, I might add) Psychoanalysis is just as effective as doing nothing (this argument also had some scientific proofs);
Talking to a friend or relative is best;

C. Extra readings

If you want to know more about the conference or Michael SHERMER himself, you can see:
(English)
a. Wikipedia entry;
b. Personal homepage;
c. A magazine he founded and runs;
d. Personal thoughts on Twitter;

(Romanian)
a. (Romanian, with English videos) An article on HotNews.ro;
b. (Romanian) An online discussion on HotNews.ro;
c. (Romanian) Conference review;

D. Personal opinion on the conference

Now for my thoughts on this. In a typical society, if my conviction is to be a vegetarian, I could go to a conference on the advantages of eating meat without raising an eyebrow – “Why are you here?”. In the orthodox world, things are more complicated. Do a search on [thou shall not read heretic books] (Romanian) and you’ll get to strong arguments (such as this – Romanian) not to ever read anything that would affect your belief. It’s basically a sin.

Things are that simple – don’t go. But I complicated things, and I went to the conference. To me, sins are:
a. Sins not to be done; Avoid as possible;
b. Sins that are really sins, but I still do them;
c. Sins that are considered by others to be seen, not by me, I do them.
I confess all of them, erase the table.

The conference went into c. Lucky (what a strange word for an Orthodox) for me, in Orthodoxy there are more than the laws, there are interpretations. Sometimes they clearly oppose, and you (or at least me) can:
a. Pick the one that you favor if there are two;
b. If you happen to find out an opinion that you like, stop reading;
c. If you happen to find out an opinion that you don’t like, keep searching until you find an opposite one, then apply a. scenario.
That’s a bit funny to think. In this case, I once read/heard that you can read heretic books if you are more advanced into Orthodoxy/read some things. I can’t apply this logic without getting into the “being proud” problem, but at least I’ve switched sins. Phew, that was though.

Now writing in public about the conference is a bit more complicated. Now I don’t only hear things, I also speak about them. Tricky. Last night, I asked my spiritual father about this, and said I should write it down, but also mention my opinions on the subject (which I didn’t intend to do in the first place).

So, here goes.

A very first observation is this: when there’s a conference on Dalles Conference Room about Orthodoxy, with some monks and priests and orthodox thinkers, I usually can’t see anything. The room (very large, I think there are more than two times more chairs than at the Faculty of Philosophy Titu Maiorescu amphitheater) is crammed with people. There is a balcony. Crammed. There are rooms between the chairs, behind the chairs, between the chairs and speakers’ desk. Crammed. I went two or three times to basically stay outside, could see barely anything, hear almost nothing. That’s how many people go in there. At Michael SHERMER you could get plenty of seats, and while the announcement required prior registration via email, I don’t see that as a too much problem.

Now the question comes – where are all the Orthodox people? There was a public conference from a much known scientist talking about God. The conference was clearly better advertised in the media (at least from my point of view), the speaker was an very good authority on the subject. In this time of year there are not that many public conferences. It was a Wednesday evening, a time similar to the Dalles conferences. So where was everybody? Perhaps they didn’t like the date (9.9.9. is a funny number).

So, now for my views:
a. The science part doesn’t really matter to me; You have proofs the Earth is billion years old? Good for you; You have problems with a, b, c, d, e (whatever) episode in the Bible, you can prove with a big accuracy it didn’t and couldn’t have happened? Great; This has nothing to do with the way in which I believe in God; If tomorrow, one proves to me with high accuracy that a lot of the facts in the Bible aren’t there, it doesn’t matter; It’s all fine; Prove what you want, the Bible to me is an ethical thing, not a miracle of multiplying the five loaves and the two fish to an X number; That’s not about it; It’s not about dinosaurs, Noah’s arch, dividing the Red Sea, or whatever; The dilemma that dinosaurs exists or not has nothing to do with the 10 commandments (oh, and the fact that they were written in stone by God – or not? – is also not a criteria; Prove whatever you wish to, Orthodoxy, to me, it’s not about things, it’s about ethics);

b. What if I cared about the a. things? What then? It’s a quite simple and amusing solution; We start with the assumption that miracles happen even today; Would God do anything to reduce your faith in Him? Probably not; Would the devil do? Well, perhaps; So I can, theoretically, see all the scientific proofs as devil’s work; You found a skeleton? It was planted; That DNA thing? The devil does miracles; And so on; This could be an easy escape hatch; I know, it sounds a bit silly; But as said, it doesn’t matter to me; And we’re on miracle land; Anything could happen;

c. There were some parts at the conference about Orthodoxy in schools; How do I view things? Is religion in school a bad thing? I don’t know; Is religion in school a good thing? I don’t know; Ask me to vote on the subject and I won’t vote; Force me to vote via mandatory voting and I’d vote for science-teaching, rather than religion-teaching (but it’s not the case nowadays – I’m not forced into this); Why my belief?
Things are simple: to me God exists; I’ve “proven” it to me; Let’s say you are near me; What can I say to you about God? I can say to you, if you ask me on the subject, that I believe God exists; And … that’s about it; I can’t tell you to believe in Him, I have no real evidence to convince you; All I know is that to me it exists and, when confronted, I will tell you that; I can’t really transmit why I believe in God to another one; It’s me;
Luckily (yes, that word again!), there is a book on politeness I’ve read while in high school which clearly states that religion, politics and personal health problems are to be considered taboos, and not tackled in public; Phew! I don’t have to talk about religion in public, the best approach is to go around things;
Now to get from here to putting religion in schools; As said, I can’t tell if God exists. Can others? Ok, let them make religion mandatory; Can others tell that God has nothing to do with schooling? Ok, let them take religion out of schools; I prefer not to have an opinion on this – do whatever you please; A system in which religion is mandatory in schools or a system in which religion is forbidden in schools are all fine to me; I will adhere neither to an NGO that wants religion in schools, nor to another one that wants it out of schools; If forced to have an opinion, I would take religion out of schooling system;
On a personal note, it was at this conference that I found out that in the United States there are no national or even federal laws on religion in schools, each school has a parents committee that establish what should the children learn; This is a solution to which Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI adheres, and if were to chose on the matters, I’d vote for it too; Yes, that’s my vote;

d. To me the conference was spiritually fulfilling; Fun, easy to understand, smart; Did I mention fun? I found out great things.

Oh, and looking backwards, there was really nothing at the conference that affected my belief. It wasn’t a sin at all. Yes.

Day 1
Pictures at the event:

Videos from day 1: Vasile PAUN, Titi Zen clown.

What did I learn?
1. You should become aware of the heights you can fly to;
2. Questions to put to yourself:
a. Who are you?
b. Do you know the signs that show you the path?
c. What do I choose to be?
3. “To choose” – the biggest conviction one can have;
4. It takes from 21 to 28 days to transform an action into a habbit;
5. You should start with physical habits, they are easier to reinforce;
6. We are now living in a material area; We should switch from:
a. “To have” – material state;
b. “To do”- do something for a.; and again switch to:
c. “To be” – happiness;
Going from c. to a. might be the wise choice;
7. Target: manage to focus only on breathing for 49 minutes;
8. Two people who say the same thing:
a. One is happy and fulfilled;
b. The other is unsatisfied;
9. A person best learns from sufference and wise;
10. I am inferior to nobody else, and nobody else is inferior to me;

But the speaker of the day was, to me, a clown – Titi Zen clown, as he calls himself. He was the special guest of the first day. Here’s what I liked so much about him:
1. He said this – When you find out who you are, you can redefine yourself constantly;
2. He had the courage to break the rules:
a. Social norms – Besides dressing atypically, he said tough things, he argued; Besides making people laugh, he put himself into awkward situations; He always left me the impression that if one needs a bit of an impulse to do one thing, he could have done it easily; He could have gone in the scene, even if no one else did this;
b. Behavior norms – He ate an apple from a decorative basket of fruits (those could have been unwashed fruits; He still ate the apple); He said on one table with the risk of falling.

I liked Titi Zen clown a lot, and do hope I’ll see him again sometimes.

Day 2
Pictures from day 2:

Videos from day 2:
Vasile PAUN #1, Vasile PAUN #2, Elena IGNAT #1, Elena IGNAT #2, Elena IGNAT #3.

What did I learn?
1. The path for change: You find out something new, you believe in it, you apply it;
2. You should accept everything the way it is;
3. There are three types of intelligence:
a. Physical;
b. Mental;
c. Emotional;
3. You should know your emotions and you should feel the emotions of the person you talk to;

Elena IGNAT (Razara):
1. How can you become a victim when you have with you information from all the Universe?
2. If you wish to, you can become the center of the Universe in one second;
3. One person can change nations;
4. Being surprised gives one an increased conscience; Being angry lowers the conscience;

From day 2, I liked Elena IGNAT’s ability to speak. She had lots of passion, good enthusiasm and she provided the room with energy.

Event organization – Regarding the event itself, I can say:
1. It was lots of fun, we got to dance, there were some exercises, and all-in-all a joyful atmosphere;
2. Part of the fun was that some things went so wrong (bad organization – poor sound, poor speakers – beginner singers for example), that we, from time to time, laughed at them; That wasn’t that good; For example, one singer (we had those, yes), had a piece of paper with the lyrics; All-in-all I learned just a few things in there;
__________________
Bottom line: lots of fun event, with little things to learn with the brain.

The sessions were moderated (with quite a few interventions) by Bobby VOICU.

Here’s a photo with the bus:

Credits for the picture: Adrian CIUBOTARU.

Presentations:
1. Cristina CHIPURICI and Bobby VOICU – How to be successful with a niche blog in Romania?


- A blogger documents about an event, contacts media partners and does exclusivities – just like a journalist;
- Monden.info was sold for the highest sum for such a transaction in Romania: 40,000 Euros;
- Bobby VOICU intervention: You should become the main source for news if you’re a niche blog; Come with your own news!
- Bobby VOICU intervention: If you only talk about money, ask a lot of money (He currently asks for 1,000 Euros for an ad or blog post on his blog);
- Bobby VOICU intervention: We have tried not to optimize Monden.info for Google, but rather to create a community (at least at the beginning);
- Bobby VOICU intervention: The bloggers in Bucharest also have the handicap of location – they don’t live in New York either.

2. Laurentiu BALABAN: Hosting for your blog: what to take into account when making the decision?

- For the very first year of your blogging experience, in most cases you don’t need more than 500 Megabytes of server space and 10 Gigabytes of yearly traffic;
- Rule: You shouldn’t pay for unlimited space and unlimited traffic;
- There are some Terms of Service (ToS) that rarely are read and contain some tough restrains: you shouldn’t use more than 10% of the RAM of the server, have more than 10 to 15 SQL connections (useful to know for bloggers);
- Some hosting services don’t allow multimedia files;
- Rarely does one realize how important the technical support is until there are some problems;
- The huge majority of the clients will never use more than the offered space (so they will not reach space quota);
- You should do a full weekly back-up and a basic daily back-up;
- The following plugins are great for more than 1,000 daily visitors:
a. WP Super Cache;
b. DB Cache;
c. eAccelerator;
- Basic rule to follow regarding hosting: don’t keep all the eggs in one basket;
- It’s not all that bad do have your web site down for a day, or two; But losing a week’s worth of data is devastating;
- You can safely ask the hosting provider for a testing account;
- One or two problems with hosting provider can be solved, but if you have more than one – that’s a problem;
- Server location is of minor importance, due to Google Webmasters Tools.

3. Tudor GALOS: Communication between bloggers and corporate persons: do’s and don’ts

- You can see Tudor GALOS’s presentation on SlideShare, or you can download it as PPT or PDF.
The functions of a PR department: Media Relations, Crisis Management, Employee Communications, Online Communications, Special Events, Community Relations, Reputation Management, Product/Brand Communication, Marketing, Public Affairs/Goverment Relations, Annual/Quarterly Reports, Product/Brand Advertising Marketing, Issues Advertising, Cause-related Marketing, Financial/Investor Relations, Monitoring Blogs, Writing Blogs, Blog Relations;
- You should measure the Return of Investment for a campaign;
- Blogging can be used as a revenge method;
- Bloggers should not sell themselves cheaply;
- Bloggers should predict the negative opinions and address them;
- Use promotional strategies for a blog;
- The corporate persons should learn and read about the bloggers;
- To bloggers: Make friends within corporations, more than setting a formal connection.

4. Alexandru NEGREA: What plugins should you use on your blog and why?

- People expect to find the Search function in the upper right corner of a blog; Like it or not, you should put it in there too;
- The sidebar should be shorter in length than the content itself;
- Consider this: an average user will mostly read a mouse scroll’s worth of content; So you shouldn’t put a lot of content, that requires lots of content;
- An advertisement should be as narrow as possible; It can be wide in lateral (468×60 is a good size), but it should be narrow on vertical size;
- You can consider placing a blogroll only on the homepage, not on the individual pages;
- Place a picture in the sidebar;
- Consider having an “About” page, with picture also;
- Affiliate marketing should be:
a. Relevant to your blog main theme;
b. Accompanied by relevant blog posts (write about the products / company / fields for which you have affiliate banners);
- Recommendation for:
a. Sidebar: Recent articles and comments, Archive, Categories;
b. Footer: Tag cloud, blogroll, Top commentators, Copyright.

5. Vali PETCU – How to evaluate the price for selling blog advertising?

- Don’t settle with the very first price offered;
- The people who wish to have an ad on your blog have money;
Tudor GALOS intervention: The marketing budget is, most of the time, already set (at the beginning of the year, semester, trimester); Use this and try to get a bigger part of the pie;
- Consider getting more than money – Products, Competitions;
- If the marketer is really interested with you, he will return to you;
- You should start asking for money when you can ask 50 Euros for a 125×125 banner per month;
- Your daily traffic should better be more than 1,000 unique daily visitors.

What impressed me the most at the workshop?
1. I was stunned by Vali PETCU‘s ability to get himself into trouble by saying what he felt like; Sure, take away impolite words and impolite interruptions, and you have little things left, but still – his ability to speak so that it gives you the impression that he wants to create not friends but foes was, to me, amazing; I might start reading his blog just for that;
2. Bobby VOICU has a great way to give feed-back; Lots of things to learn from that;
3. Daniel DAMIAN (Dany) was a very polite person.

A list with the participants at the event:
Bobby Voicu (main organizer), Daniel Damian, Lilisor, Varadinum, Vlad Gidea, Adrian Mihnea, Stefan Hurezan, Paul Ircosan, Alexandra Groza, Razvan Antonescu, Sebastian Mazilu, Ovidiu Purdea, Cristian Buzlea, David, Voicu Potronita, Simona Cuibus, Mihai Muncus-Nagy, Alina Blaga, Dan Ille, George Staicu, Alexei Ciprian, Andrei Monciu, Madalina Blaga, Daniela Stoica (jurnalist), Raluca, Elena, Roxana, Pyuric, Sorin, Gabi, Bluarto, Olivian, Buddha, Adrian Ciubotaru, Tudor Galos, Laurentiu, Zoso.

The event was sponsored by Green Pixel, Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft, who sponsored my very own participation.

18th of June:
A. How do we approach learning in 2009? Mihai CURELEA – Achieve Global
Some photos I made:

What ideas I took home?
- It is very good to do management of performance, which is a different thing to evaluating performance;
- There are three steps to approach learning:
a. Integrate HR process;
b. Cost control;
c. Rethink the learning programs;
- The management of performance implies:
a. A standard of performance;
b. People must understand very well the process;
c. Follow the performance – it can fluctuate;
- The cost / advantages analysis implies:
a. Aligning to the business objectives;
b. Analyzing and monitoring the costs;
(both of the above are done to determine the value of each initiative)
- There are three types of companies:
a. Those that make things happen;
b. Those that wait for things to just happen;
c. Those that ask why did the things just happened;
- Learning is a pragmatic process;

B. Games – Facilitators of imagination, introspection and communication; OH cards of association – Iulia SARA – Active Labs
Lots of fun, and involvement of the audience, I felt good participating;
Some pictures, only with the speaker, even if the audience was involved, I respect their right for privacy:

If you want to see the presentation of OH cards of association, you can see it in here: OH cards of association.

C. Change management and projects – Simona BONGHEZ – Roland Gareis Consulting
I took some pictures in there also:


19th of June:
A. Magnetique Marketing – Bruce BENNETT, Rom Biz Conect
Images at the event, if you want to see the speaker:

Thoughts that rushed on me:
- We want to go from a pest to a welcomed guest;
- You can’t push anyone into sales;
- It doesn’t matter what business you’re in;
- MBA acronm comes, for some, from “Massive Bank Account”;
- You need to have a:
a. USP – Unique Selling Proposition (why should I do business with you);
b. VSP – Value Selling Proposition (what added value you can bring me, as a customer);
c. Risk Reversal – you can give a money back guarantee;
d. Direct offer & call to action – Offer a bonus; Buy now, get something free;
e. Offer proof – what others say about you is much more persuasive than you say about yourself;
- You need the right tools:
a. Geographic;
b. Geo-demographic;
c. (if B2B) Geo-industry demographic;
d. Affinity;
e. Clientele;
f. Psychographic;
- Every media can be powerful;
- You need to create marketing systems that are:
a. Repeatable;
b. Predictable;
c. Controllable;
- Budget your market;

B. Interpreting the story of “The brave little taylor” – Good salespersons make 7 sales from one hit – Eugen DRAGOMIR – Codecs
This is Eugen DRAGOMIR:

What did I hear from what he said?
- Quality comes from standardization;
- Performance comes from continuous improvement of the standards;
- Standards are applied to each level of an organization;
- The organization gives to the seller some standards (input data);
- The seller gives to the organization information regarding the activity (feed-back data);
- The organization should measure if all the required information has been provided to the personnel, if they know it and apply it; It should also apply the feed-back from the personnel;
- The personnel should offer valuable feed-back, should be capable to offer a continuous improvement of the process;
- Delegation can also go from lower levels to upper levels: “Boss, I have a problem with this – What can I do? / Can you help me? / Why is that?”; That’s bad delegation;
- For a traditional type of store the process of selling is the one thing that makes the difference among different store; It’s the actual experience of buying, from the interaction with the seller to the placement of goods;
- Steps for a better brand positioning:
a. Communicate at a location level (trade marketing);
b. Receive the client;
c. Recognize the profile of the client (Is he just a passerby? Does he intend to buy something?);
d. Identify the needs;
e. Present the appropriate products;
f. Close the sales;
g. Paying the goods;
h. A request to come back again;
- It’s a bad idea to just measure the results, it’s much more appropriate to measure in different steps – what is the client’s specific need;
- Standards are made to be followed by orders and changed by feed-back;

C. What is coaching with Gerard o’DONOVAN – Noble Manhattan
This is Gerard o’DONOVAN:

And here is a clip I made with him: What is coaching with Gerard o’DONOVAN – Noble Manhattan;
- We all live somewhere and do something;
- There are four foundations to coaching:
a. 90% of the coaching can be done via phone;
- You can have clients all over the world;
- A human being will reveal more things on the phone (more openness, more clarity);
- On the down side, there is no body language on the phone;
b. A coach is non judgmental;
- it doesn’t matter if you tend to be judgmental, every one of us is like that;
- you, as a coach, you have to learn how to be non-judgmental;
- the more you practice being non-judgmental, the more you become non-judgmental;
c. Coaches are non-directorial – avoid saying “must”, “have to”, “should”;
- You cannot be a directorial coach;
d. Coaches have no answer;
- “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” – Albert Einstein;
- In coaching we create our own reality;
- “If it’s to be, it’s up to me”;
- Things about the human spirit:
a. We are human beings – you have an inner light that shines and that is out of this world;
b. We are spiritual beings;
c. We have access to any resource that we ever dream of in order to set or achieve every goal that we set for ourselves;
- Coaching is a collaborating partnership;
- Coaches see the clients as their potential;
- Coaching = “releasing human potential”;
- There is nothing wrong if we need attention, appreciation, affection; We all need love;
- You can learn anything;
- Coaches are living examples for other people;
- They are M.A.D. = “Make A Difference”;
- Coaches empower people;

D. Solution Focus Coaching – recognize the difference – Petra MUELLER-DEMARY, MDI Training
These are some pictures at the workshop:

and this is a video: Solution Focus Coaching – recognize the difference – Petra MUELLER-DEMARY.
- What’s the difference that makes the difference?

You can download the entire presentation in here.
A camp to take part to, organized by Petra MUELLER-DEMARY: The Journey of Life.

E. “Mens sana in corpore sano”: the classical way to self improvement – Bruno MEDICINA
Photos I made that Friday:

And two videos I made:
a. Mens sana in corpore sano – the classical way to self improvement – Bruno MEDICINA – clip 1;
b. Mens sana in corpore sano – the classical way to self improvement – Bruno MEDICINA – clip 2;
- Whatever our mission is, we need one thing: energy (food, sports, breathing);
- 90% of the globe’s populating is addicted to music;
- We are surrounded by energy vampires;
- We can be, ourselves, poisonous persons – persons with toxic thoughts;
- I can create at any time my emotional reality;
- The concept of energy is very personal;
- We have too much: information, money, cars, women;
- Practical test: try to run as fast as you can and see for how long can you hold that speed; Bruno MEDICINA’s estimate: 5 seconds;
- We need energy to do anything;
- What’s moral and good tends to lift the energy level, while the things that are sins tend to lower it;
- What stops you to say positive things about others?
- The key to receiving energy is to offer energy;
- Help the ones that surround you to understand that they can do more;
- Discovering who you are is a lifetime project;
- Stop from time to time to ask yourself what you want;
- If you want to understand objectives and goals, you should pick a simpler path: the path of energy, success, achievements – they should all be aligned; That’s the better solution: see if you align all the goals in your life;
- We are aligned by a force bigger than ourselves; This is the key to leadership;
- The previous rulers thought they represented a superior force;
- The Universe has a superior key to be understood by;
- Try to remove the poison that surrounds you;
- You have to have courage to forces yourself out of your comfort zone;
- The one thing that is appropriate to drink is water;
- To raise the energy level, you should offer energy to other persons;
- Connect yourself to a superior source;

F. On addictions with Valentin PESCARU
Valentin PESCARU in some photos:

and in a Clip on addictions.
- You should have more confidence in yourself;
- You should have more control on your actions.

All-in-all, I had a great time at the event, really enjoyed things in there.

Some pictures at the event:

A. The first part of the conference

1. “New strategies of development in the context of crisis” (PPT) – Daniel ENESCU, General Director for Daedalus Group
How does the behavior when buying changes?
1. Before vs. After:
a. experimenting (try new things) vs. making a sure choice (certainty);
b. more is better (never ask if you really need it) vs. lesser and better;
c. I spoil myself (an attitude) vs. I take care of others (family, responsibilities);
d. luxury (not necessarily luxury products, but premium brands) is a trend vs. “eco” is the new luxury (recycling);
e. I replace (with new items) vs. I fix;
f. my resources are infinite (continuous growth) vs. my resources are finite (these are extremes);
g. I do shopping vs. choosing is stressful;
h. I am on my own vs. I decide with my family.

I gave up to some products, or stopped experimenting (see carbonated water, coffee), or look for cheaper alternatives (sunflower oil). There is a tendency to stop consuming juice.

A person out of four frequently buys products that are on sales / promotions.

A vast majority read the advertisements in magazines.

Discounts, promotions, prices – they all matter more in the buying process. There is an equilibrium point, which represents the value of the brand (”how much I pay is how much the product is really worth”).

A lot of the decisions are taken at the shelves.

2. “Revitalization of electronics and home appliances” (PPT) – Dragos SIMION, President of Flamingo International
The sales costs had to be adjusted.
We had to optimize the working capital, postpone expanding plans and some investments, reduce the number of suppliers and prioritize among them, close non-performing stores, close small size stores, focus on large size stores.

3. “Reducing operational costs by automating bill processing” (PPT) – Theodor DUMBRAVA, Business Process Services Manager, Xerox Romania and Republic of Moldova
An idea to take home: You can reduce costs by providing a bonus: if a buyer of yours pays its bill within 10 days, he gets a 2 percent bonus, which is larger than any bank interest.
If a bill is processed entirely manually, the cost per one bill can be up to 50 dollars.

4. “How to have a lot of clients in the malls yet again?” (PPT) – Razvan GHEORGHE, General Manager Cushmann & Wakefield

B. The second part focused on 10 marketing solutions for increased sales:

1. “The story of a client with fidelity or how to sell with fidelity?” (PDF) – Radu SCHMITZER, Sales Director Linea Directa Communications
I liked this quote:
“The main goal of the business is not simply making money but creating clients …” (Peter DRUCKER)

This was fine also:
“Business’ aim must be creating and retaining the clients” (Theodore LEVITT, Harvard Business School)

All that a customer wants is really related to:
a. Relevant information;
b. A pleasant experience in the store;
c. Easy methods to buy things;

68% of the clients (I’m not sure if in Romania or worldwide) are brand switchers. Only 5% are loyal to a certain brand.

73% of the clients us at least 5 different information channels prior to buying a product.

26% of the clients only buy from one retailer (universal store, web site, kiosk, gas station).

Target of the retails store: the consumers in shopping mode (set to buy something).

70% of the decisions to buy products are done at the shelves.

In-store activities:
a. selecting and positioning products;
b. environment within the store;
c. conversations between the buyer and the sellers.

Who are the clients that are appropriate to your business? Find out their name, where they live, why have they bought, what do they need

2. “Marketing solutions for increasing sales” (PPT) – Marius LUCIAN, General Manager Reveal Marketing Research
Big errors:
a. giving up premium brands;
b. altering the image of premium brands (see the solution of Vodafone, who tackles the problem of price with no cuts, but by making sure the clients know exactly how much they pay).

You should keep the premium brands intact.

Put more emphasis on the shelf presence. There is a discrepancy between what the marketer sets as guidelines within an office, and the reality at the store level.

There is an error in trying to be “The cheapest price” for a highly competitive market. On any market it can’t be the same positioning for any brand.

The smallest price is an added value which is not believed by the market.

What is tricky in trying to advertise a promotional price for only one product out of the whole range of products a supermarket has?
a. The product must be physically present in the store (there is not always on stock);
b. The promotional price must be sustained on all the products in the store, not only on that specific product (this never happens).

3. “Marketing solutions for increasing sales – Retail as brand” (PPT) – Mona OPRAN, Managing Director Saatchi & Saatchi
65% of all buyers are not conditioned by the price.

In 84% of the cases, the brand can make the difference if a product is bought in favor of another one.

Treating the store as a brand can be a solution for:
a. Loyalty of the buyers;
b. Increasing the shopping list;
c. Increasing the value of own brands (in-store brands);
d. Increasing market share.

You can have yoga classes in a sports article store.

Make:
a. Your clients;
b. Your employees;
c. Yourself;
say: “I love my store”.

4. “Blue Ocean Strategy” (PPT) – Eusediu MARGASOIU, Managing Partner The Network
You have two main options:
a. Fight within the limits of your ocean and fight the competition (blood bath = red ocean);
b. Jump from a market with fierce competition into another market.

This is The Blue Ocean Strategy:

What I’d do better had I organized the conference?
a. I’d start the conference at the scheduled time;
b. I’d make sure that the PowerPoint presentations are on the laptop one day prior to the event;
c. I’d have a quick look at the PowerPoint presentations and see if there are any small-sized fonts in them (I personally had problem with this);
d. Do a prior instruction of the speaker on the microphone and pointer;
e. I’d make sure the speakers don’t promote their own business with more than a small reference;
f. On the footer of Retail360 web page, there are a few error messages:”Antreprenor360: No Feed Key Found, Cariere360: No Feed Key Found”, etc.;
g. I would allow some presentation to take a little longer, if needed.

____________
Bottom line: All-in-all, a great conference to take part to, lots of things to learn in there.

First of all what did I learned about promoting a coaching or a training business?
1. Most of the promotion should be on:
a. Competency;
b. Human Factor;
Those are the most important factors in deciding to participate at a training or coaching session;
2. You should avoid promoting a brand or doing a commercial;
3. You have to convince the consumer that the training brings him value;
4. Lots of hard-to-define insights from entrepreneurs;
5. Bobby Voicu answered me a private question about web directories; Thanks!

What did I like best about the conference?
1. The form for entering the conference looked just great (nicely done);
2. The questions received rather long answers; It was not a fast, quick, rapid fire of answers; Instead, the questions were answered with lots of details; Lovely!
3. You could see that the speaker had a great time; It was fun, people laughed, everybody seemed to enjoy the show;
4. Both the questions put and the answers received were smart;
5. The promoting of the conference was good (and I helped a bit);
6. The sweets were delicious;
7. Speakers came from various fields of activity;
8. Great place for networking;
9. There was great emphasis on “How is it in Romania?” rather than “How is it worldwide?”; That’s just great.

What would I do better?
1. If I am presented with a form with 5 questions to enter the conference, I’d love to see those questions asked at the conference; If you want me to have just one question, that’s fine, but asking me for 5 things, from which I should pick just one – well, that’s not that good;
2. There were two speakers in the room at the last panel of speakers:
a. Speakers who spoke a lot;
b. Speakers who spoke less than a lot;
I would have preferred to see them all speaking; (this could be arranged by the organizers, by invited the speakers to – well – speak;
3. The conference should have begun at 10 and have a schedule; The conference begun later than 10, and all the day there was a rush to recover the lost time, which ended in a very short lunch break; I would have preferred the conference to start at 10 and keep the schedule;
4. A lot of small breaks? I’d much rather prefer a smaller number of larger breaks;
5. At the beginning speakers were not introduced and I had to deduce who does what (an answer from an accountant is usually from an answer by a advertiser);
6. I had the impression that the catering was done something like that:
a. Either too many waiters at the same time;
b. Either no waiter;
Anyhow, it was fine, no big deal;
7. In the morning it would have been Ok to have some snacks;
8. I was in the first row and I didn’t hear everything; I wonder how it was in the back of the room.

All-in-all, a great conference, lots of things to learn and to enjoy the show.

I’ll give in this blog post some tips on event organizing (mostly for conferences and such):
1. The very first tip I’d give is picking speakers the audience doesn’t know that well; Pick some strangers to speak for your conference; I know, that’s a tricky part (how can you trust them? why would the audience pay to see some strangers), but I personally would much rather see a surprising new face, rather than see the same circle of people, again and again, at all the conferences I go; You can only do something wrong if you don’t try;
2. The next tip is making sure the participants at the conference speak about a subject that’s a matter of interest to the audience; This is part of your task; Hard to do, but do make sure that the speaker’s presentation will focus little on what is kindly called “case study” and what it is in most cases self-advertising; You can approach the subject up front, you can set a rigid presentation theme, you can ask for the PowerPoint to be sent prior to the conference for a check-up; Rarely have I seen a self-advertising presentation that is even remotely interesting; Make sure that this doesn’t happen to your event, or you might have some unhappy clients;
3. A nice presentation tip would be involving the audience; A simple raise of hands would wake a lot of people; Go for some resource-giving questions (What would you say are the best ideas for doing X?) and you get some more people to be attentive; Finally, provoke them do a hard-talk dialogue and you might conquer the world of presentations; You can have the audience put a lot of questions to the speakers (have a rather long time of time allowed to questions); You can also have moderators of panel discussions put questions to the speakers; But all-in-all, you should make sure that the trainers at a conference really do involve the audience;
4. How to pick a speaker? I think a good speaker has some qualities like:
a. Good structure of information (he should know things for himself);
b. Provides you with insights (not only does he say stuff, this stuff make my mind go right);
c. Makes you feel good (even laugh; great way to learn things; beautiful state of mind);
d. Involves you (I’m not here to sleep, I’m here to dance!);
e. Provokes you (makes you blush);
f. Say new things (I want to hear something I don’t already know; give me new stuff, I can read old stuff in books);
g. Take you out of the comfort zone (by first going there himself; you shouldn’t feel all that comforting at a conference);
It’s not an easy-to-find kind of speaker, but these are some basic criteria; Find a trainer with as many qualities out of these as you can;
5. Prior to getting a speaker to a conference, I think it’s best to:
a. See him doing another presentation, live or via electronic means;
b. See him live, have a friendly chat with him (while you observe his personal skills);
c. Hearing him doing a presentation on the phone (on the Internet, via a web cam, would be better);
d. Get outside review (ask others, search the Internet, get peer review);
Some of the things above are harder to implement, some of these are easier; But I’d really avoid having a speaker at a conference and knowing little to nothing on him;
6. Be there for the participants; Rarely this thing doesn’t happen, but you have to make sure that at any moment at a conference there is a person from the organizers watching things over; Just a tip to make sure you remember this rule;
7. Regarding food: Solve frustrations with fast-consuming foods by replacing food as soon as it gets hard to find (so rather than having a long lists of foods, and some get eaten very fast, I think it’s better to have a smaller list of foods, that are easy to replace with new foods of the same type; this is not an universal law, but it might be frustrating to talk to someone only to find that there are only some not-that-great-looking sandwiches left);
8. Regarding promoting of the event:
a. Have a web site of the event; Do Search Engine Optimization to that web site;
b. Promote your event via press releases; Press loves this kind of thing!
c. Have a promotion in the social networks of your participants (these are highly dependable on the types of audience you have; but all-in-all, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Xing – Germany mostly, Cirip – Romania mostly, might be good ideas for your promotion; You can see a list of social networks on Wikipedia)
d. Promote your conference into relevant mailing lists; Visit Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups homepages and search for keywords related to your event target group; Promote your conference in there, with care with the general atmosphere in the group (if it’s discussion-only, you might be unwelcomed with a purely informative message; Adjust your speech to the specific audience of a group; Read 10-20 recent messages on the group to have a glimpse on what’s it about);
e. Ask for help; Bloggers, business partners, press – all can provide you with help on promoting the event; Ask for help! They can do anything from writing about you, placing a banner to your web site, send information to friends to participating themselves;
f. Have a fresh thinking! A lot of people would like to see a YouTube video with your event, see a virtual map of the address of the conference, see videos with the speakers, see a list with people that participate to the event, receive a participation diploma from the event, receive a gift at the event; Learn to attract people, to motivate them;
9. Do Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – This might involve giving some invitations to the event or donating part of the money obtained on the event; You can offer scholarships to participate to your event; You can sponsor some persons to accommodate at a hotel; Think creative! And you can promote your ability to do CSR; It’s the right thing to do;
10. Thank the speakers for holding speeches at your event; You might even offer them gifts, flowers or at least offer transportation; Also thank the participants to the conference by sending them a postcard or two with a great picture at the event; This should be memorable;
11. If your conference is an all-day event, it might be a good idea to offer your participants information on other events that take part in the same day, prior to leaving your event; So, let’s say your conference ends at 18:30 and there’s another event at 19, an event on 20, another one at 21; Be a kind host and give alternatives to your guests for the evening; You can also give information on where to accommodate for the night prior and after the event;
12. Pick the right day for the conference: Monday is great, Friday is less-than-great; Think of a day and period of time in which it would be easy to get a day off (if there’s a day celebrating women in March, it might be a good idea to organize a conference in a period of time that is close to that event); Friday may be bad due to the closeness to week-end (and at the end of the week there’s always something to do); On the other hand, very few people plan for the next Monday to do something;
13. In order to keep a tight schedule, you can set a time for registration: so registration to begin at 9:30 AM, while the conference to start at 10 AM; And keep the schedule; Rarely does a conference announced to start at 10 AM really starts at 10 AM sharp;
14. How to get great speakers? Ask for recommendations; Ask the participants to give you hints on who should participate at the next event;
15. I think it would be alright if the speakers had a training themselves: how to operate the microphone, how to get to the next slide, how to use the pointer to show something on the screen; Even some soft skills training might be good (involve the audience); Talk to your speakers and give them a few hints;
16. The most important thing at a training are the trainers themselves: the hotel, location, food, materials, organizers – I personally can live with lesser quality of any of these; A great speaker, who should give me both emotions (make me laugh, annoy me, make me happy) and also provide me with insights (not just learn things, discover them myself) would be great; And at the end of the day, I should take some good memories with me (on emotional and practical part);
17. Try to pick a location that is accessible via more than one way (not only by car, but also by Metro or bus or tram; Think of multiple audience of your conference); Prior to the event, when sending an invitation, also send a map with the great locations near your event; It might impress people in a good way;
18. Make sure that there’s not another great event in that very day with yours; I would hate to have to pick between two great conferences;
19. Ask for volunteers to come and help organize the event in a great way; There are a lot of people who want to get involved and you only need a lot help in the days prior to the event itself and in that very day;
20. What happens when all things are set? I think an evaluation should exist on the following levels:
a. Training contents and structure;
b. Level of “I was touched” (laughed, annoyed, intrigued);
c. Level of “I got an insight” (I learned this and that, I discovered new things);
d. Level of “I applied what I learned” afterwards;
e. Level of “I could keep my attention focused on the things the trainer said and I understood his message right”;
f. How well did the trainer go as a body language?
g. How much did I trust the trainer came in the room to help me?
h. How much did the trainer involve me?
i. How was the event organized;
j. Was it worth coming to the event? (both on time, money and things applied)
Evaluation should be done, in my opinion, after a longer period of time: 6 months, 9 months; Do this and you’ll get some participants the next year.

What do you think about my message?

This blog post’s content:
1. How many Romanian trainers did I see? (with whom do I compare?)
2. History of events (when have I seen Bruno MEDICINA?)
3. What do I like most about him? (What makes Bruno MEDICINA a great trainer?)
4. How to see Bruno MEDICINA for yourself?
5. What decision to take?

Note: you may wonder why in this blog post I say little to nothing on what Bruno MEDICINA actually says. The reason is very simple: the thing I like most about this speaker is not the way in which he speaks or the things that he says. It has mostly to do with what I feel when he speaks. And this is largely unwritable. I will describe some general feelings on Bruno MEDICINA, but I can’t give you too many examples.

First of all, who is Bruno Medicina? You may wish to see his profile on Business Edu web site or his own web site.

1. How many Romanian trainers did I see? (with whom do I compare?)
In the autumn of 2001 I joined the Faculty of International Business and Economics (the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest). I would stay in there for four years. After college, I’ve worked full-time, and then for almost an year I’ve been a freelancer. Now I work for another full-time job.

Most of those four college years, and the year working as a freelancer, I’ve taken part to a large number of activities involving public speaking (other than formal education). Even when working full-time I went to a lot of public speaking events. I have even created a mailing list dedicated to such events, where I informed my readers about conferences. I’ve been a member of some NGOs specialized in event organization, and basically I have been always interested in hearing someone speaking. You might want to note the fact that the “trainers” category of professionals I recommend is currently the largest one. Most of the speakers I’ve seen were Romanians, but some International speakers also. I can say I compare Bruno MEDICINA with quite a few other trainers or speakers.

2. History of events (when have I seen Bruno MEDICINA?)
The very first time I’ve seen Bruno MEDICINA was actually at a fair, rather than a conference event. I was living in a hostel of the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, somewhere near RomExpo exhibition centre (the area is know in Romanian as “Agronomie” – Agronomy – due to the closeness to the main office and University campus of University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest). I think it was in a winter or spring, perhaps in 2001-2002 or 2002-2003. Anyhow, sometimes between autumn of 2001 and spring of 2003.

I came to the fair with two thoughts: to see the fair itself as quick as possible and to attend to at least one workshop. By the time I finished seeing the fair, the Bruno MEDICINA workshop already begun. It was in a room with multiple entries, there weren’t that many people present (it’s natural for this to happened at an under-promoted fair), and I sat in there. I didn’t understand everything Bruno MEDICINA was saying (he was speaking in Romanian, but with an Italian accent), and this lead me into not paying attention. Writing down wouldn’t help either – I was writing down words, but wasn’t paying all that much attention. I left disappointed. Time passed and I forgot his name, but the attitude remained with me. Back then I was only focusing on what can I learn from a speaker, not on the things that happen within me.

In the second (or third maybe?) year of faculty, I found out about a fire walking experience, first time in Bucharest, for free. Just the thought of it provoked me badly. “Me on fire? Wow, now that’s something!” But I managed to cut down on enthusiasm and self-convince that it isn’t all that great (not that I was, by any chance, afraid). I thought “What a waste of time”. I didn’t know back then who Bruno MEDICINA was, even if I’ve seen him before, so I didn’t associate the two events.

I think I’ve seen him after that at some other conferences, one-time-only events (my memory doesn’t help me all that much). While working as a freelancer (2007-2008), I had a lot more time to go to conferences. I went to see him a lot of times in the middle of the day at a tea-shop in the Bucharest center. I was enjoying this a lot, mostly due to the sense of emergency (Some announcements went like this: “Come to see Bruno MEDICINA today, in two hours time, at a Tea-shop”; Quite funny to be always vigilant). I’ve seen him quite a few times like this. The event was filmed and broadcasted on the Internet.

In the autumn of 2007 I went for the very first time at a firewalking. Lots of preparation prior to the event, excitement and fear, enjoyment and stress, all in one. Great day, great memories.

I’ve also seen him a few times in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Studies, at events organized by ASPSE students’ organization.

I’ve seen him two times at Palace Hall, in the spring of 2008 and 2009 (I have made a video at the last event in here: Bruno Medicina on the things that really matter).

And in the autumn of 2008 I went for the second time at a firewalking event (and this time I had quite a physical experience). You can see me in this YouTube clip: Bruno Medicina – Firewalking at Studentiada (I’m the second one to pass, after Bruno; I’m the white-collar guy).

3. What do I like most about him? (What makes Bruno MEDICINA a great trainer?)
I told you that the very first time I’ve seen him, sometime in 2001-2003, I had a bad impression after meeting him. The two faults I saw were:
A. He said blunt things;
B. I had problems understanding what he said (he didn’t do a lot of question and involvement of the room).

If I were to look at the current behavior, I would say that the biggest two problems are:
A. He says blunt things;
B. He doesn’t involve the audience by communicating directly (even though now I can follow what he says much better).

So, where’s the evolution? Why since 2007 until this day I constantly went to see him again and again? Why is it that I went through fire (literally) two times at events where he lead the action? Why is it that I consider him such a good trainer that he is on my blog? The answer is simple: it’s not the things that he says, it’s the things he provokes in my mind via the things that he says. I evolved during those years, and now I interpret his actions differently.

He has a way of putting my mind to work, that I leave most of the presentations thinking “What was that!?” He says simple things, some things that are really boring. But the way those things make me feel is out-of-ordinary. I’m touched, I have insights, I get new perspectives, I find new paths of thinking, I develop my creativity. He’s that good.

I’m pretty sure that if Bruno MEDICINA would pick a subject he knows nothing about and he would speak about this subject for the first time in his life, I would have some things to learn. Because it’s not the things that he says, it’s not the way in which he says it (he mostly puts rhetorical questions, not involving the audience), but it’s all on how he makes my thoughts wander.

I could go see Bruno MEDICINA for countless times, speaking on no-matter-what. I’ve heard him speaking on firewalking for a quite a few hours, and one year after I repeated the experience. My feelings on that? I want to go again this year. I’ve heard some of his ideas for three to four times. And yet I go again and again to hear him talking.

Unfortunately, it’s not him the one that talks. It’s me. The things that he says wake up thoughts in me. And that’s plain wonderful. Yet I can’t really describe this in detail.

Sure, he has other qualities that make him a great trainer: he’s sincere (to the point that you may wonder if he wouldn’t be losing money if he says some things like that), he’s funny (and laughs at his own jokes, which is cool – I know when to laugh), he’s supportive (I’ve always felt support from him), he does CSR, although he wouldn’t call it like that (how many free events have I seen from him?), he does engage the audience when he wants to (at the firewalking sessions he’s a totally different person than when he speaks in public at a conference), he’s good with technical part (better than a lot of other trainers at least).

There are other persons from which I got more insights on a given period of time. There were people who made my mind wander in a better way. But for a training / public speaking / workshop / conference / seminar of 30 minutes to 5 hours to constantly give me fresh ideas, to constantly provoke me, to fully break barriers in my mind, I’d definitely pick Bruno MEDICINA. Because it’s not on what he says. It’s on what you think about what he says. This is all about coaching.

4. How to see Bruno MEDICINA for yourself?
Bruno MEDICINA is an international man of business, but you can mostly see him in Romania. You can sure provoke him for another country, see what happens. He has a web site, an Yahoo Group, a Facebook profile, a Facebook group, a Facebook page (these three are different one to another), a LinkedIn profile and he works on all of them thoroughly. You can find him on YouTube, you can search for him on Google and see a great article on him on Business Edu. But I do suggest you see him in person to have a clear glimpse on what he can do.

5. What decision to take?
Bottom line: I read articles by Bruno MEDICINA from time to time (I actually read them all). I see him on videos. They’re not that bad, but they’re not that good. But being in the same room with him, letting him play with your mind, is one of the best experiences one can have. Bruno MEDICINA is all about real experience, is all about the things he puts in me. And that’s why I deeply admire him for: for making me think in a really creative way.

1. Quote: “When the storm comes, some build walls, others build windmills”;
Some the bad times as crisis, some see it as an opportunity;

2. The whole economy might fail if the governments do nothing about this;

3. How can the world economy grow?
a. More population in the production; (by now, via globalization, about the whole world is involved in the process, except, maybe countries in Africa)
b. Be more efficient (have a better organization; in the Western countries the growth in these areas is low; they are already having good productivity levels; there’s not that much that IT can do now);

4. There is a progressive erosion of trust in managers – and that affects productivity; How can one be a leader in times of crisis, when you’re not trusted? (main reason for dying as a firefighter – not trusting the leader);

5. Romania is lucky for not being so successful in the past, but the crisis will affect us too;

6. Immediate effect of crisis: quality of consumer relations suffers;

7. What to do in times of crisis:
a. (most companies do this) Cost-cutting (including by firing personnel);
b. (there should be much more emphasis on this) Fight for revenues.

8. How to get revenues? One solution is not to offer price discounts, but instead offer other types of discounts / bonuses (like three products at the price of two; an extra service); After the crisis, it’s much harder to get the prices up & running, but it’s easy to remove the extra benefit;

9. You should also look for a better business model; Can you do something different or better? Do it! (e.g.: Do cross-selling, sell additional services with your products);

10. There will still be companies after the crisis; Who remains? The best of the industry; Be better than your competitors;

Joke:
“Two men are walking through a forest. Suddenly, they see a tiger in the distance, running towards them. They turn and start running away. But then one of them stops, takes some running shoes from his bag, and starts putting them on.

“What are you doing?” says the other man. “Do you think you will run faster than the tiger with those?”

“I don’t have to run faster than the tiger,” he says. “I just have to run faster than you.””

11. At the end of the day, leadership values is what remains out of a business; Do great leadership;

12. There is not one single recipe for success, but one path to failure is getting the philosophy of victims;

13. Spend time with your people; Get your sleeves up;

14. In a company the best people always have the best opportunities; They are typically the first to leave;

15. People don’t leave their jobs, they leave their bosses;

16. It is not important to be the best at predictions, it is important to react fastest in a time of crisis.

That just about wraps it up.

A great idea, which I need to apply better, is to have a mission statement for any project / web site / company I work with. That’s just great.

All in all, it was a very cerebral presentation, lovely to hear, great ideas.

This is the presentation ready for download: How managers add-destroy value.

Tendencies for 2009:
1. The online medium will make the difference in 2009; Currently active media agencies should try going digital;
2. The percentage of Interet usage for advertising will rise in 2009, because, in a time of crisis, the online medium has the highest profit-per-investment ratio;
3. The advertising company of 2009 is radically different than the same company of 1994;
4. We can expect an increase of the current penetration of mobile phone penetration in Romania (it is 123% right now);

Tendencies for the years to come, in 2009 and afterwards:
1. Using a technology called Radio-frequency identification (RFID), in the future it might be possible to interact with the objects around us; The television set, the fridge and my mobile phone might interact in the future to come;
2. The Internet connections will have an even higher penetration in all age groups;
3. The companies will put more and more emphasis on relations, not on selling things;
4. The mobile phones are the platform for communication of the future;
5. The future belongs to the Internet browsers that are integrated with desktop applications;
6. Dialogue with the client (as direct as possible) will bring more sales, but only if it will exist;

What strategies and tactics to use now to adapt to the future:
1. Right now the consumer is like a chicken, and the media agencies are like foxes; Foxes try to eat the chickens (it’s a win-lose situation), but it would be wiser if they coexisted, and we would get from the chicken the eggs to sell them (a win-win situation); You should be friend with your customer;
2. How can you rightly analyze the impact of an YouTube campaign:
a. Did it attract attention?
b. Was it forwarded?
c. Was it copied by others? (have spoofs been made?)
3. You can get very good profits from creating a very good game for your brand or by putting in-game advertising;
4. Monitor an online campaign closely to fully understand its impact;
5. Create experiences pre-sale, during sale, and most importantly: after sale! It’s being reported to be about 7 times more expensive to bring a new client than give up an old relation;
6. Use these five steps for a complete interaction with the client wishing to buy a car:
a. Collect data and have a good communication on sale (collecting data is great for a good communication);
b. After sale: verify the degree of satisfaction and cross-sell another thing (see if the person wants to personalize his car);
c. Cross-sell something to increase the life expectancy of a product (warranty);
d. Examine all of the clients’ objections and have a dialogue on this (at this time it might be angry);
e. Do buy-back & cross-selling on a higher level (sell him a brand new car);
f. Use this: an online clients costs less than an offline client;
g. Use browser cookies and authentification to learn more things about your clients;
h. Try to create a very personalized presence for a visitor of your web site: You know about each of your clients the time of the visit (you can provide a different web site in the night, different ads), its geographical location (provide information about its area), what browser does it use, what resolution has its screen (you can deduce from here that a person with a 22 inch monitor has more revenues); And for the logged-in clients, you have even more information; Use this for a very personal experience!
l. Try to create for the different interests of a client a personalized experience; Out of the 2.000 products on a web site, your visitor is interested in just a few and will only buy one; How to make him choose that? Try creating a wizard, a step-by-step guide, to make him choose wisely.

These were the speakers at the conference. I won’t tie the affirmations above with the speakers below, because I could have poorly understood the message, formulated it badly, or I could have came up with thoughts on my own:

• Alain Heureux, President, IAB Europe;
• Manuela Necula, CEO, Ogilvy Group;
• Mike Stapelfeld, Digital Director, Omnicom Media Group;
• Mihai Pricope, Platform Evangelist, Adobe Romania;
• Julian Smith, Director of Digital, Insight & Research, MEC Interaction;
• Adrian Stanescu, Country Manager, Eyeblaster;
• Dan Virtopeanu, Director General, Voxline;
• Catalin Emilian, Operations Manager, Gemius Research;
• Marius Deak, CEO, Green Pixel;
• Aurora Enghis, Manager, ARBOMobile;
• Gabriel Boaca, Sales Director, Intact Interactive;
• Adrian Alexandrescu, Managing Director & Partner, Interactions;
• Radu Ionut Munteanu, Account Executive, Carnation;
• Marius Pahomi, Interaction Business Development Manager, MEC:Interaction;
• Alex Visa, Managing Partner, Hyperactive.

I hope you find my blog post interesting enough for a small comment.

What’s this blog post about?
1. What’s the basis for comparison?
2. Who is Nigel RISNER?
3. History of events (how I’ve known him)
4. Why do I consider Nigel RISNER to be great?
5. What I’d focus on more if I were Nigel?
6. Get Nigel to motivate you!

1. What’s the basis for comparison?
In most of my college years (four in total), and while working as a freelancer (one year) I’ve been involved in a quite a large number of activities which involved public speaking (other than formal education). I have even created a mailing list dedicated to such events, where I informed my readers. I’ve been a member of two NGOs, and basically I have been always interested in hearing someone speaking. You might want to note the fact that the “trainers” category of professionals I recommend is the largest one (three persons I recommend are trainers). So I can compare Nigel RISNER with quite a few other speakers.

2. Who is Nigel RISNER?
First of all, Nigel RISNER is not only a motivational speaker, but also an author and television presenter. You can find out more about him on his web site. I especially likea nice article of Nigel’s that can be downloaded in a PDF about “Nigel’s top 10 tips for primary business champions”. Good to know.

Luckily, I can show you three live performances of Nigel in front of an audience. First, there’s a brief Ecademy Presentation. Then, there’s a larger presentation on a Ecademy Power Network Meeting (December 2006). To see it, you have to go to the members’ area, after you first register on his web site. Finally, you can view Nigel in a TV show on UK’s Channel 4 “Richard & Judy Show” (it was broadcasted in February 2004). You can see by watching his performances if what I say bellow is right or not.

3. History of events (how I’ve known him)
In October 18, 2007, at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Bucharest, HR Club (see HR Club web site) organizes a conference on “Aligned at Top: the Strategic Promise of the Human Resources”. I had the role of an observer and to be of little help to the organizers (“little” being the right word here). The day starts, the presentations keep on coming, then there’s a cool workshop, a third break. It was 6 PM, the conference day begun at 9:30 AM, and some of the persons went home. But at 6 PM it was time for Nigel RISNER’s training: “How to Create IMPACT as an HR Partner”, and those persons may have lost an opportunity.

Anyhow, in general I am not impressed by a training itself. I go to a training, I may like the way the trainer reacts (like with Jim BAGNOLA), I may like the way the trainer involves the audience (such as Ana-Maria CORLAN), but to actually like the things the trainer says – that’s rare (also rare are the first two examples). So it’s quite unusual for me to be impressed by the actual words. Nigel used in his training three things: verbal communication (it was great; I will present it below; it’s the only training I want to present from everything I’ve seen so far), motivating games (I like them all, but I won’t present any – it spoils the surprise; they are also not so motivating to me; finally, you can view some of them on the videos on his web site), and finally funny clips (I consider ads, and some funny clips to be some of the greatest things one can see on TV or sites like YouTube; but generally speaking an ad and a funny clip is not that of a great thing; I can’t say I didn’t like the clips Nigel presented, it’s just that a clip by itself is not very entertaining to me).

So Nigel starts in a very energetic way, noted that it’s a bit late and even offered tips on how to make the session shorter (so he motivated the audience in a rather unusual way – something like “Let’s keep this short, shall we?”; thus he accepted that his training may be boring to some; it takes guts to say that) .

One of the first things he said fascinated me: how long can a person pay attention? You can see this blog post of mine to understand why attention is important to me. He said that children can pay attention for 37 minutes, while adults only for 20 minutes (this should contradict the bad remark that some successful businessmen of, say, 30 have the intelligence of a 5-years-old).

He then redefined feed-back. To Nigel feed-back is not actually feed-back, but much rather a feed-forward. An observation on one’s activity should only bring the person in a better place: forward.

I noted that Nigel RISNER talked with pauses between sentences (so you have time to recap the last sentence). He put a lot of questions, to keep the awareness level high (I think).

One of the most influential affirmations on the workshop to me: you go to a conference, there are some good presenters, some bad presenters. How do you give feed-back? Is it OK to just use the feed-back form that some event organizers provide? No, it’s much better, Nigel said, to give feed-back in person. I generally considered that a speaker’s time, even after the persentation ended, is much more important than mine, so I almost never gave personal feed-back. Hey! If Nigel says it’s like this, I should do it (I think Nigel has one of the most expensive cost-per-hour of the persons I’ve met; if he’s a successful trainer, and if he says that one should give personal feed-back, then yes, I really should do it). And for the next months, at each presentation I went I gave positive feed-back (including reasons) whenever possible (I won’t wait at a long line of persons wanting to talk to you just to say you were great and why). I didn’t gave negative feed-back, because it’s hard to change anything since most of the time it can be resumed in a few words: “You are boring me” (I can give some easier-to-change motives, but still these things are not easy to be said and the results are not always for the best).

What did he focus on next? (here comes shock again) Awareness. This is yet another text of mine presenting why awareness is important to me. He noted that while everybody is in the room physically, not everybody is focused on what’s happening.

Again he says something on attention: if you write the texts in the conference (like I was doing), you are likely not to pay attention on the speech itself. This hugely challenged my previous knowledge on this: you retain just a few things while watching television, more things if you read texts, and even more things if you read texts and take notes in the same time. I tried to be aware on the “don’t take notes on conferences, just be involved” affirmation on his seminar and, to my amazement, he was right. Unfortunately, I can’t apply this knowledge to other conferences. My mind easily gets away. I do note just when interested by something, I don’t just note every word I hear.

To make things more enjoyable, he used some funny videos (as funny as a video can be – which is not that funny, to me) .

He made a quick game on awareness (very cool game).

Nigel also presented a way to handle the “I don’t know” answer. He said that if someone tells you so, you can say “If you would know the answer, what it would be?”

Then a new game on why are people afraid of acting.

At one point he says: “I’ve worked in prisons. I know some familiar faces in here.” Also a text similar to this: “After they are 12, people are responsible for their faces” (by Abraham LINCOLN, referring to people smiling). Also: “You’re either in tense, or in past tense”.

Another game was aimed on positive thinking effect on muscles.

From time to time he said “Does this make sense?”

He ended with: “When all is said and done, more is said than done”.

4. Why do I consider Nigel RISNER to be great?
1. When his presentation begun, it took him just a few seconds to get people’s attention; Everything, and I mean everything, on his training had attention-helpers: lots of questions, energetic speaking, provocative affirmations, humor, interaction, audience involvement, call for action, clips; I have yet to participate in a training where my focus was so intense; Everything else being equal, after a workshop you hold on to memories where you were most involved;
2. The subject he picked were of very high interest to me – attention, awareness, human action, positive thinking, even human resources;
3. The training took about 35 minutes. I don’t think I ever changed so many patterns of thinking in such a short time frame;
4. Good humor;
5. (related to 4.) Good logic & intelligence;
6. I left the seminar with the impression that he honestly wanted to help the people around him (due to his actions); It was not all a brand image, he actually applied what he thought was right.

5. What I’d focus on more if I were Nigel?
First of all, I want to present you a small text:
“The shaper is a task-focused leader who abounds in nervous energy, who has a high motivation to achieve and for whom winning is the name of the game. The shaper is committed to achieving ends and will ‘shape’ others into achieving the aims of the team. He or she will challenge, argue or disagree and will display aggression in the pursuit of goal achievement. Two or three shapers in a group, according to Belbin, can lead to conflict, aggravation and in-fighting.” This is from the Belbin Team Inventory page on Wikipedia. I am familiar with the characteristics of the shaper, because it best defines me.

One of Nigel RISNER’s advices (other than people should smile, which he didn’t seem to do) was to be comfortable with a state of discomfort.

I can’t say wether Nigel is a Shaper (according to the Belbin test) or not. I will say that on the single conflict in the workshop (a man didn’t like a personal joke on him), Nigel said: “Do you think I came all the way from UK to argue with you?” (so even in a conflict, he still challenged the situation). I will also say that although it was the best learning experience I’ve had, I’m not sure everybody in the room felt fine with being provoked.

So, if I were Nigel, I’d just be aware on the fact that shaping others leads to discomfort. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

6. Get Nigel to motivate you!
On his contact page on nigelrisner.net web site, you find information like phone, email, contact form, fax and postal address.

You should first check the services page on nigelrisner.net web site, to see what Nigel can do.

What impression did this blog post left on you? Please leave a comment below.