You can see some photos I made at the event:

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

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

See Eugen POTLOG’s presentation.

See Radu SPINEANU’s presentation.

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

That’s it.

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. 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.

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.

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 contents:
1. What’s the basis for comparison?
2. How have I met Ana-Maria CORLAN?
3. What impressed me?
4. How to contact Ana-Maria CORLAN?
5. Conclusions

1. What’s the basis for comparison?
Besides teachers, I think the number of persons I’ve seen talking for more than 40 minutes with an audience that included me are professionals speakers. Speaking in public has many meanings, from conference speakers, seminar trainers, moderators, but all-in-all I can say I’ve seen quite a lot of speakers.

2. How have I met Ana-Maria CORLAN?
In the winter of 2008 (20th of February to 26th of February 2008) I took part to a winter school about Programmes and Project Management in Predeal, Brasov, in a lovely location on some mountain (or hill). It was organized by National Agency for Supporting Youth Initiatives – ANSIT Romania.

How I got to Predeal? Me and a person I’ve known only via Internet arrived by car in the first day in the evening from Bucharest. After I met my apartment colleagues, we go to dinner. I decide I should sit at a crowded table, with no familiar face (very easy to meet conditions in the first evening). There were 5 persons, not a single boy. After I present myself, another person takes initiative and presents herself, and everybody says a few things. I thought everyone was from the same group of persons, and I only replied to conversations, didn’t initiate any (but I was not very silent, either).

After dinner, an official presentation of the program takes place. One trainer presents his program joyful, full of life, funny. He then invites the other trainer to speak – surprise! It turns out Ana-Maria CORLAN was at the table I was sitting. She gives a less-than-enthusiastic presentation. We are then told by the organizers that we’ll be separated into two groups, randomly. My preference was for the first trainer – I could communicate, laugh and he could motivate me. The second trainer spoke very little both at the table and at the presentation and she wasn’t that funny for my taste.

The next morning I see the lists (we were separated into two groups). “Huh? I’m into this group? No way! I wish to switch!” Switching was not possible, we were told the day before. I go to the training with low morale. I was the last one to enter the room. The chairs were ordered in a U-shape, and there was one empty chair right in the middle of the imaginary U. Someone suggests me to take the chair. I give a “Huh?” look, take a chair from the back of the room and place it right near one end of the U letter, the closest to the flipchart (and where the action takes place).

I knew no one in the room, nobody was talking one to another, after a failed initiation of a conversation with the only person sitting next to me, I get a newspaper and start reading. The training didn’t start yet. The trainer comes and suggests I should put my paper away. “Huh?”, I think, “But there’s really nothing else to do. I can’t just sit here and look at the ceiling. What a waste of time!” Anyhow, I put my newspaper away.

There’s an introduction to the course, we write our names on a name tag, and things start moving. At the end of the first day I was thinking something like “I can’t believe what just happened! This can’t be a training! Wow, and to think I would have switched the trainers. No way!”

What happened next? Imagine courses of roughly 6 hours per day (with minor and major breaks), each day. It was quite intensive.

There were two groups, each with about 20 people, each with its trainer. As said, I was lucky enough to be in Ana-Maria CORLAN’s group.

The training methods involved a theory part (rather short), a work-in-groups part (much longer) and from time to time some fun activities (also known as “energizers“).

The group I was in was kept for the whole week, which meant we could establish good bonds and by the end of the training I had a lot of fun in that group.

3. What impressed me?
At the very beginning of the training there was a definition: What does “Project management” involve? The very first words of the trainer were not “The project is…” Instead, they were “What is a project, from your perspective?” It takes quite a bit of courage to put even the definition of the project, the very first words you start the training with, in the hands of others.

And people were telling things on Project Management, some closer to the definition, some further away. Words pop up, people came with ideas. And the trainer was writing them all on a flip chart. At the end of this there were a lot of words written down.

I was expecting to challenge a few ideas (“wouldn’t you think that it’s better?”, “hmmm, why do you think that?”, “are you sure that’s true?”), to politely refuse others (“yes, this is a worthwhile idea, but I prefer not writing it down”, “yes, that’s true, but it’s better we keep to the core of the definition”), to avoid repetition (“this was said before, even if with different words”) or to come up with hints (“what would you say project management involves on the financial aspects?”) or some brand new ideas by themselves (“would you think that the GANTT chart is involved in the project management?”). Nothing like this ever happened. The trainer carefully listened to each idea, wrote it down. No idea was even challenged, not to say refused, a lot of ideas involved repetition (and they were all written), no hints were given by the trainer (not to mention brand new ideas).

So, at the end of the task, we had a page of flipchart filled with words, some closer to the truth while others further away. Clearly some of the ideas were less important, and we had to know which one was good and which one was bad. Who was the one person in the room who knew most about project management theory, much more than anybody else? You’re right: the trainer herself (Ana-Maria CORLAN). Now she had to have the list reduced to a little more than the current list. And what does she do? Instead of cutting the words on the current page of flipchart (which might offend someone’s feelings), and instead of picking up the right words herself (a thing for which she had the most expertise), she challenges the class: what would you pick to be the right definition of a project?

Now I am shocked: I had to write down on my notebook a small list of words chosen by my colleagues from a larger list of words coming yet again from my colleagues. And I had to learn this definition for a end-of-winter-school examination. At that very moment I didn’t quite realized what happened. But by the end of the day I knew this was one of the most unexpected things I’ve seen in a training until that date. It was huge. After day one I was all eyes-and-ears to everything that happened in the training room. It was just unbelievable.

You may think that this was a one-time event. No way! There were more and more examples of coming up with ideas. I think that a lot of the training was question-based. I came to the winter school eager to accumulate, and I was challenged to give. Now that’s what I call change of perspective.

Hadn’t I known better, I would have doubt her judgment abilities – “you can’t empower others so much. This can’t be. There’s something wrong with your abilities”. But no, it was her option to do it like this. Quite contrary, she was a good trainer also. This is breathtaking.

What determined such thinking from me? The thing that impressed me mostly was empowering. According to Dictionary.com website, citing Princeton University’s WordNet, “empower” means to “give or delegate power or authority to”. Days passed and many things happened, but the most important thing that impressed me was empowering.

Another thing that struck me was the emphasis put on working in teams. This was, by far, the longest type of learning I’ve done at the winter school. We worked on teams a lot. And, for myself at least, I had a lot of fun doing this. What can I learn out of this? Even if I was mostly impressed with the abilities of Ana-Maria CORLAN as a trainer, she still allowed the participants to better express themselves in teams, rather than present them with information. So, she put emphasis on teams, even if she could have done a great presentation, or good interaction with the participants. Now how can’t that be great?

Some people put little emphasis on feed-back. Others more. Ana-Maria CORLAN made it like this: in the first day she asked for a feed-back via a fill-in form. In the last day she asked for feed-back in a form. In the last day she also asked for feed-back in a live manner, with real discussions. I think feed-back is important. How did she treat the feed-back? I’ve noticed a change in the way she reacted to the persons who were late after the first day. Also after the first day she said that some persons asked for energizers. We had plenty of energizers from that day on, and the second day started with two energizers.

At the end of the training, in the last day of training, prior to the examination session, we had the option of switching sides. Yet again I could pick things. My alternatives were this: a cool trainer, funny, very sociable and a trainer which encouraged personal thinking and initiative to the maximum. My general pattern of thinking when choosing this is simple: “if I don’t know you, if there’s something new about you, if I can learn something new from you, I’m your man.” This means I prefer diversity, and I would rather see a new trainer than the same training or trainer again and again. There is just one exception to this: the trainer has to be very good, or to impress me in such a manner that the option of diversity simply fails. In this case the choice was very simple. After knowing her, Ana-Maria CORLAN was the obvious choice for me. It’s nice to mention that I have looked on the presentation written on a large paper for both trainings and the written presentation for Ana-Maria CORLAN was much better this time.

In the last day I found out with great surprise that the class I was part of didn’t behave according to the trainer’s expectations. My reaction was something like “Huh? What did you mean? It was perfect. It was great”. Well, it wasn’t that great after all. It seemed that some things which I appreciated a lot – empowering others, letting them express, encouraging communication -, were misunderstood. Some persons, including me, expressed too freely. It seems the training participants exaggerated the very large options they had. I hope nothing changed with the trainer’s behavior after that.

Regarding empowering actions: she asked for help whenever needed (help with materials, arranging the room). During games, she asked for help from some participants.

4. How to contact Ana-Maria CORLAN?
You may find another training with her. Leaving a comment for her on this blog post might also help.

5. Conclusions

_______________
Bottom line: I took part to other summer and winter schools, to other trainings, conferences, seminars and workshops. I’ve made friends at the winter school in Predeal and I have some great memories in there. But the empowering abilities as a trainer of Ana-Maria CORLAN impressed me most for any public speaker I’ve seen.

Related posts to this blog story are:
a. English message: How to make a career decision? IT – Economics – PR – IT back again (personal case study);
b. English blog post: Status on self-improvement: March 2008. What you can learn from this;
c. Romanian text: Cea mai penibila intamplare din viata mea si ce am invatat din asta.

Have I left a mark on you? Do you have an opinion you wish to share with the world? Please post a comment below.

Some pictures at the event:

What insights did this event brought me?
1. God defines Himself: “I am who I am”; You can learn something out of this and say a similar thing: “I behave in the way in which I choose to behave”;
2. Life deserves to be lived;
3. A way in which to discover things about meanings of life:
a. Ask yourself “What would be the greatest choice right now?”
b. Ask “Do I follow my own path in life?”
c. Pose yourself this question: “Do I know what helps me?” (in this area there are multiple answers on three levels – to exist, to do, to have);
d. Ask “Do I recognize the signs of my path?”;
4. Out of any thing that goes into your life you can learn something, and that thing brings up new opportunities;
5. There are four levels in which you can perceive the world:
a. You; (blame others)
b. I; (it’s all me)
c. We; (it’s all us)
d. ”I am who I am” (spiritual level);
The farther away from “You”, the better;
6. Meditation on your workplace? Think about it!

What did you learn out of this?

This blog post has the following structure:
1. What’s the basis of comparison?
2. How have I met Jim BAGNOLA?
3. What do I like about him?
4. How can you see him?

Note: I hope you’ll understand why I don’t mention too many things about what Jim actually does. Is it magic? Is it so-carefully-planned science? I don’t know. Each time I watch Jim I’m amazed. I always hope – “You do something bad. Say something I can pick upon. Have a wrong feeling at a wrong time”. And he always lets me waiting for nothing. Nothing like this ever happens. I really can’t pick the one thing that he says, a way of thinking, some patterns of behavior. But I’m always amazed.

First of all, I think you should see more of him. This is his professional web site. Here is Jim BAGNOLA doing some trainings (filmed on YouTube). He also has a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook profile. In Romania he works closely with HPDI, and they’ve made a page for him. Contact HPDI for details in seeing him live in Romania.

1. What’s the basis of comparison?
At the very first glimpse, one can say that a person who’s job is public speaking must be compared with everyone that does just that: public speaking, training, seminar, coaching etc. Even stand-up comedians, preachers, teachers and singers might entitle to be public speakers.

But I’ll reduce the circle rather abrupt and only compare Jim BAGNOLA to the people that have a life led by design. You can truly be a public speaker that is only interested in your own good, you have a message to say, you say it one way or another, you get paid, go home and the next time you speak in public you speak the same. Or you only learn and apply the few things that are to be learned in a natural way of leaving (if someone tells you in a loud voice that you do something bad, you change; if everyone’s happy, then you stay the same).

How do I view Jim BAGNOLA’s solution? Instead of not learning by your mistakes or instead of learning by your own mistake, I think that Jim BAGNOLA’s closest solution comes with learning from other people’s mistakes. This is living a life by design: instead of just waiting for things to happen to your life, skills, attitudes and actions, you choose how should life be like.

In that way, I can’t compare Jim BAGNOLA to every public speaker I see. Perhaps I’m thinking all wrong in here, but to me most people learn, most of the time, by their own mistakes. I myself may be mistaking when assuming that Jim BAGNOLA learns by others’ mistakes.

Just by this challenge only, you should understand the level at which I compare him: people that are doing their best to have a perfect behavior. The circle of persons I compare Jim BAGNOLA with is small.

2. How have I met Jim BAGNOLA?
The story goes back to the year 2001. The organization for students Volunteers for Ideas and Projects had a Business School between 1st and 15h November. In one of those days, the organizers announce us that they’ve managed to borrow Jim for a session with us from a foundation (it was the first time I’ve heard of this – LEADERS Romania). I was a freshman, who got to Bucharest for less than two months, very quiet.

And then it happens: I see Jim. We had some trainings before him, we had some trainings after him, and this is really how I separated things – the trainings before Jim and the trainings after Jim. He was funny (I laughed a lot), he challenged us with questions, he put us to work (exercise and such), and I remember to this day some things he said about leadership.

I took part in an exercise, I watched and learned a lot of things. At the end of the Business School, we had a poll about which speaker did we like best. I was a very serious student back then, didn’t miss all of my classes at school, so I missed a few speakers at the Business School. But I do remember that not only me, but also most other people picked Jim BAGNOLA as a favorite speaker. It wasn’t even on the list at the beginning of the business school.

Now the business school ends and I remained in wonder – how can I see another of such beautiful thing? I knew he came from the United States of America, invited by the LEADERS Foundation. I had very little hope of them getting Jim BAGNOLA back, but I could still try to join that great organization that brought Jim BAGNOLA to Romania.

In May 2002 there was an event in one location in Bucharest about entrepreneurship organized by LEADERS Romania. Great to know more about them.

That very first year of study I applied to about three organizations for students. Rejected. The second year I tried again, to two of those old ones, to a new one (so again I apply to three organizations). Same result. All-in-all I had 6 rejected interviews in those two years. Sometime in October-November 2002, something magical happens: there are some posters in the Academy of Economic Studies that LEADERS Romania wants some new people in their team. I might have even not notice the posters, they were only on a few posting boards in the large University that the Academy of Economic Studies is. I announced a friend about this, we both went to LEADERS Romania, we both got in.

Here comes the second year of study, I was announced in LEADERS Romania that Jim BAGNOLA is coming, once again, to Romania. It was a sunny day outside, I was rushing from a class I had to keep and got to the training a bit late. And, while sitting at a table with Jim BAGNOLA, I couldn’t believe that I am in that position. Thoughts went into my mind again and again. He talked about Romania, about leadership, about teams. While I was still hearing what he said, I was mostly interested in the way in which he communicated non-verbally. And I liked that a lot.

And things got better and better. Jim BAGNOLA came from time to time to Romania and, for quite a few times, I went again and again to see him. The last two events I’ve seen him were held for large audiences, in some quite-good locations in Bucharest, chosen by the LEADERS Romania’s team and from now on it wasn’t only the LEADERS Romania team who saw Jim BAGNOLA – a lot of other persons saw him.

3. What do I like about him?
Perhaps you expected that in this blog post I’ll write about specific behaviors and words of Jim BAGNOLA, and I would say how I feel about them. But the thing is – there is not such thing. Detailed as I may think, the thing I like most about Jim BAGNOLA is everything: I like it all. I will try to detail just a bit below, with my remark still remaining valid (I like everything on him):
A. The things that he says – His basic principle is saying simple things in such a way that everyone understands; He won’t complicate things; I think he’s actually tricking us: Some basic things he says can create broader insights; So, by saying simple things he can actually create very smart affirmations; Then there’s this Latin quotation: “Non idem est si duo dicunt idem” (If two persons picture the same thing, each still has his own idea – translation source); I don’t think it’s the same if Jim BAGNOLA and the person who hears him share the same thought; If he speaks for four hours, I must say that from time to time I disagree with him; But most of the time he says things on which I agree; (even if I just thought about them) And while hearing him speaking on the same subject, I still learn new things;
B. The way in which he acts – I’m sorry to disappoint you, but to me it all seems perfect; He has some gestures which I’ve only seen on him, but somehow they seem natural; He has a lot of exercises in which he involves the audience; Hopefully, you’ll be able to take some things home with you;
C. The way in which he makes me feel – Sometimes I wonder if that’s a training or an hour of stand-up comedy; And most of the things he says are strictly related to what happened in that moment; He will make an affirmation relevant to what you say, and somehow you might get to laugh; I wrote messages about quite a few persons on this blog; Writing about Jim BAGNOLA was easiest;
D. My relation with him – He has this nice way of entering in your life in such a way that you’ll like it; He’ll come with jokes, with good humor; But he’ll also come with trust, and empowerment, and loads of common sense; And to me all these matter for a good relation.

4. How can you see him?
This is his own web site. You can see a few videos on YouTube with him. You can also check out his Facebook profile. He’s also on LinkedIn.

LEADERS Romania and HPDI might help you if you wish to see him in Romania. Contact HPDI for details in seeing him live in Romania.

What about other countries? Back in 2001, the CEO of LEADERS Romania, Ovidiu BUJOREAN, managed to get Jim BAGNOLA from the USA to come to Romania. I’m sure there are options for you too.

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.

What can you read in this blog post?
1. What’s the basis for comparison?
2. What’s the academic background of Nicoleta CORBU?
3. How things happened for my February 2008 dissertation? (story line)
4. What was so great about Nicoleta CORBU coordinating my dissertation paper?
5. How would I improve on being a good dissertation coordinator?
6. How to contact Nicoleta CORBU?

1. What’s the basis for comparison?
I’ve graduated the Faculty of International Business and Economics – REI (Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest – ASE) in August 2005. For the final testing, I had to make a graduation thesis and take part to an exam.

Two years later, I graduate my Masters’ Degree – MD – in Communication and Public Relations at the Faculty of Communication and Public Relations – FCRP (State University of Political and Administrative Studies Bucharest – SNSPA) and I only had to do a dissertation paper.

For both of these I had to choose a coordinator. The coordinator at the MD was Nicoleta CORBU. So the basis for comparison are only two coordinating teachers. I can add to this my personal image on how what a coordinating teacher behavior should be.

Why did I pick only persons who were less known figures in the Universities? I was mostly interested in persons who would have more time for coordinating my paper. Thus, I didn’t choose very well known figures in the Universities (at least from my perspective). I have only picked teachers that had seminar classes. Also, these teachers coordinated a smaller number of persons in the same time, so I think they had more time for coordinating each paper. I also think that they were easier to contact and get a fast reply, and it was easier to meet face to face. Of course, these can all be in my mind only, since I only chose teachers with seminar classes and don’t know the other side of the story.

I’ve learned a lot of things from the first coordinator: I had to read some documents to have an overall look on the paper (readings on liberal economics), I had to read a lot of things on making the paper (and make reviews of what I read, and comment on this, even if I wouldn’t actually use my notes on the paper). There was little emphasis on writing the paper and even less on the presentation.

I’ve also learned a lot of things from the second coordinator. The reading part was on my own – “this is suggested reading, read what you want, you may find other sources, and you don’t have to make notes”. As you might expect, I have only read one whole book, and only excerpts from other books. Adding the excerpts would bring just two whole books, so in total I’ve only read about three books. For the first thesis I’ve bought and read more than 10 books, and read some 5 more from the library. There was a lot more reading involved. I have to say that for the second thesis I’ve also read some materials on the Internet (skimming involved there too), and the one book I’ve read from cover to cover was the whole Romanian literature on the Web 2.0 subject at that time (so the subject was not fully documented in the literature I consulted). I’ve done the writing part for the second paper much better. I received quality feed-back from the teacher, my paper was actually read, I was advised on the strategy of writing and I got hints on what’s hot and on what’s not that hot (“hot” was not the actual word used). I also got a feed-back on how to write a paper with minor details, which although a bit annoying for my taste, helped me understand how scientific papers are written. Also, I got some basic advice on how to do the presentation part (I have to admit that at the MD paper I actually asked for advice, and on the Bachelors’ Degree I don’t remember to have done this).

How did I pick my subject for the two papers? In the International Business and Economics faculty it was simple: I looked at all the subjects and I gave up subjects which involved numbers and geopolitics. From a list of almost 200 suggested subjects, I remained with 6 subjects, all involving Negotiation. The list of teachers that could coordinate my paper on this subject was small, and I picked one of them. In the Communication and Public Relations masters’ it was even more simple: I looked at all the possible fields of studies in the MD and removed those involving numbers and Geopolitics. That removed Statistics and Geopolitics subject itself and that was it. I was faced with a huge list of fields I liked, so now picking a teacher was more of a problem.

If you’re interested on the final results, you can view online and download as .doc or .pdf files both thesis at my Thesis Olivian BREDA page (they’re in Romanian, and I can’t easily translate papers of more than 80 pages in English).

2. What’s the academic background of Nicoleta CORBU?
I think it’s relevant for you to know more things on Nicoleta CORBU before anything. A Curriculum Vitae (CV) is a good place to start. This is the CV page of Nicoleta CORBU in the comunicare.ro web site (the website of FCRP – SNSPA).

Studies:
1. Bachelors’ Degree from the Faculty of Letters – University of Bucharest, graduated in 2000;
2. MD in French Linguistics from the Faculty of Foreign Languages – University of Bucharest, graduated in 2003;
3. Studies in Communications and Public Relations from the FCRP – SNSPA, graduated in 2003;
4. PhD in Sociology at the Faculty for Sociology and Social Assistance – University of Bucharest, started in 2005.

On the CV page there are also listed some internships in the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company and Polirom Printing House. Nicoleta CORBU also organized and coordinated events at FCRP – SNSPA, including scientific communications of students and round table. She has been an editor for the FCRP’s Publishing House.

Nicoleta CORBU has also been an author of Romanian and French publications, such as: Le français au quotidien (2004), History of communication (Romanian, 2007).

Finally, there is a list of prizes and awards at Romanian National Olympics (Olympics are Romanian Regional and then National contests for pupils in Primary and Secondary School on different subjects; a National contest gathers best pupils for a specified subject in each county) for Mathematics, Informatics, Romanian literature, Romanian culture and civilization.

3. How things happened for my February 2008 dissertation? (story line)
I told you that picking a teacher at SNSPA was a bit more difficult. I’ll explain why. In December 2006 I started contacting teachers at SNSPA to coordinate my dissertation paper for the July 2007 presentation of the paper. Prior to this, I’ve skimmed through their CVs on the FCRP web site – comunicare.ro. Had I seen them in person, the task of choosing a coordinating person would have been much easier, but it was not the case in here. I was enrolled in distance learning, and I have only seen a few teachers. From those few teachers I saw, I chose two, and contacted them. It didn’t go as wanted, so I contacted a few more. Still bad results (the bad results had different causes: teachers’ unavailability, my Economics background, poor communication, etc.). I then contacted a larger group, and I got two positive replies to my requests, and I picked Nicoleta CORBU.

Why did I only contact persons via email and not via telephone or going to the Faculty? The answer is simple: it’s likely that I would have received a much better response via phone or direct contact. Unfortunately, this would have involved that each time I had a question I would have to go to the faculty, each time I finished a chapter I would have to deliver it in physical format, and I didn’t want to do such things. Contacting teachers only via email helped me filter the teachers that would never answer my emails fast. If I only got two positive replies on this – well, that’s fine.

Since I contacted a lot of teachers via email and got some negative answers at the beginning, I learned from this and made a better speech – I presented myself, I came up with a subject for the thesis (even if it was made in 30 seconds worth of time), and made a bit of a sales pitch. The two teachers that responded positively to my emails had some notes on my titles. It was either a wrong year right in the title of the thesis (Nicoleta CORBU), or it was a poorly picked subject (some other teacher). After a while, I changed the subject of the thesis with Nicoleta CORBU, so even I admitted it was a not-so-great title and subject. So making a lot of sales pitches might have been a good idea for finding which teachers reply to emails fast, but not so good on making a good, personalized, sales pitch.

There’s one more aspect I want to mention: before starting my paper I thought there were lots of materials on Public Relations (PR) on the Internet – more or less legal ones (which is false, I could only find ridiculously small numbers of illegal books on PR after hard searching). I thought the teachers would have such materials, and, after I talked a bit with the first teacher I contacted, I asked him: “Could you provide me with some electronic materials?” (I didn’t mention illegal, but it was rather implied). He didn’t reply to any of my further emails. This made me angry, and all of the emails I’ve sent from that point to teachers had the question about providing electronic materials. Yet another filter on you-would-annoy-me-a-lot-if-you-never-reply-to-this. The filter would allow me not to waste some back-and-forth emails before finding out that the teacher has too high standards to offer me electronic materials (I didn’t specifically asked for illegal ones, even if the idea was implied). Nicoleta CORBU didn’t had a problem with my request and provided me with legal materials on PR.

From the very first email she sent to me, she asked for a strategy. It would take more than a year for me to create a paper that had a strategy, and in the final paper only the last chapter (and perhaps the previous one) have a very good strategy. So I had to learn a lot on this, and the fact that she put emphasis on strategy right from the first emails tells me it was a good learning experience from my part.

The second email insisted on having a theoretical background for my thesis – in order for me to prove anything, it would be better to have a theory from which to start. It seemed that my sources – Internet articles – were less-than-perfect sources for an academic paper, so I was advised to read some hard cover books (and given five examples). I only took some specific notes from those four (I couldn’t find one at the library). I’ve also went skimming through other books and written down just some paragraphs (they added to about 5-10 hand written pages of notes).

I was then advised to actually get a result and start writing on the paper. I could add that the emails in the whole coordinating period actually put emphasis on me doing things, they offered solutions, and contained good feed-back.

May 2007 comes. Finally, I have done my theoretical part and send it at the end of May. I have received negative feed-back on it. My initial theoretical part was filled with bullets and numbers (and should have generally contained paragraph texts, graphs and tables). A lot of small paragraphs had a title on their own, and I had a lot of paragraphs with no connection one to another. I also had some problems with formatting and citing papers.

In order for me to get things done quickly, I ignored the errors on my theoretical part, and focused on writing another chapter. My biggest problem? I had almost no strategy in writing the paper. I was just writing, analyzing, seeing small things, but I lacked on the big picture (this would remain a problem until the last four days of writing the paper). I still had some formatting issues.

Now I could have ignored the theoretical part, but the not-so-small chapter I’ve written on this phase was also bad. Time was short and life was full of surprises. My professional activity went to a change (I changed the job). Therefore, I decided I’d postpone the paper from July 2007 until February 2008 (I had much more time available, and trying to force myself to finish the paper for July 2007 didn’t look like a very good idea). This was all in the end of June 2007, very close to the paper’s deadline. I think I could have done a poor paper in time, but doing the paper and failing the presentation exam was not really an option to me. Postpone was a not-so-bad alternative.

I’ve received some basic tips and tricks at this time from Nicoleta CORBU and I’ll tell you about these. But first, an intro. In the beginning the title for my paper was “Particularities of the press campaign in the Romanian media space. The campaign of Traian BASESCU for presidency in 2004″. I was going to compare Traian BASESCU’s campaign with that of Adrian NASTASE for the end of 2004 and show that Internet and other modern media like Short Message Service (SMS) helped Traian BASESCU a lot. Unfortunately, I could barely find materials in the campaign of 2004. But my luck changed. In May 2007 there was a national referendum in Romania concerning suspending from Presidency of Traian BASESCU (you can see the Wikipedia page in English on the national referendum subject). The referendum used even more modern media, and materials were easy to find. So the new subject for the paper was “The importance of the Internet in Traian BASESCU’s campaign for the referendum of May 19th 2007″. Both of the initial title were faulty, they contained general terms like “Particularities” and “Importance of”, and such things made the thesis very broad, instead of being specific.

Now for the tips and tricks received from Nicoleta CORBU. The teacher advised me to pick a less broad theme. I came up with “Web 2.0 from the non-youths’ perspective. The campaign of Traian BASESCU for the referendum of May 2007″. Main thesis: does a campaign focused only for youths drive away the non-youths? Do they feel rejected from you? Another tip: I should follow that theme throughout the paper and stick to it. My basic hypothesis for the paper should not be a truism (everyone knew that new media helped Traian BASESCU’s campaign both in 2004 and in 2007; I needed something a bit different). Finally, I shouldn’t have a lot of suppositions and use them all, it’s better to have a very small number of theoretical aspects, and elaborate on them in the paper.

December 2007 comes and I decide I’ve waited long enough. I now had the brand new subject, I came up with some ideas. I meet with the teacher at SNSPA (I’ve only talked with her in person two times in more than a year) and I receive some suggestions. She gives me some electronic materials to read, and suggests me some literature.

I then redo the theoretical part, and use about 50% of the texts I’ve written in May. I’ve added to this a lot more information. I would then work on the theoretical part whenever necessary (I read some electronic texts while doing the case study, and added to the theory). The feed-back was overall positive (the first positive feed-back).

Here comes February 2008 and I’ve done yet another chapter (so I now had two chapters out of three). About 20-30% of this chapter was taken from the paper I’ve done in June 2007. There was a lot of text unused, and a relatively not-so-big percentage actually used. I received a neutral feed-back, with emphasis on citing papers. Also, I was advised to move quickly (I had a maximum four, perhaps five, days and yet another chapter to be done, and read by the teacher).

In ASE I learned the (bad, I might add) habit of doing things in the last moment. I’ve done my thesis for REI in four weeks, while working full-time (but the reading and taking notes have taken me much more time). I’ve done 70% of the dissertation for SNSPA in the last three weeks, and 40-50% of the whole paper in the last four days. The habit of doing things in the last moment is bad. It’s also very engaging (thinking that I have to wait for a lot of time to be able to present my paper, it’s very motivating to write).

Four days passed quickly, and when writing the third chapter I thought a fourth chapter was necessary, and I’ve written two chapters in four days. They had a good overall strategy and I was finally feeling I had something to write. The teacher congratulated me for the paper, she said it was very well documented and written. After the presentation she said she would have given me a 10.

Now it’s time to tell you a joke:
“To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.”
Adapted to my story, the joke goes like this:
“To the teacher, the paper was very good.
To the commission, the presentation I made was less-than-good.
To me, getting a 9.50 grade out of 10, when 7 grade out of 10 was good enough, meant that I worked a lot harder and unnecessarily more than I planned.”
It was good for the CV, though.

I printed the confirmation email from the teacher, printed the paper in three copies, I put some covers on it, went to the Faculty and gave the paper. When printing the email I printed with full email headers (see the article on Interpreting Full Email Headers on ualberta.ca web site). The secretary gave me a surprised look when I showed her the email with full headers (full headers are a better way of proving the email is not forged, but they look very complicated).

The teacher suggested I don’t do a communicating presentation (with questions, messages going back and forth). I should much rather do a classic presentation, with me, the speaker, just sending a message.

The presentation went well and didn’t went well. I had some negative feed-back on my presentation skills. You can see me speaking on the YouTube to have an idea on how do I speak – in YouTube – Olivian BREDA’s videos. I got a lower mark on the presentation skills, a good mark on the writing skills, and an average of 9.5 out of 10. Pretty good, after all.

4. What was so great about Nicoleta CORBU coordinating my dissertation paper?
1. She replied to my emails. Fast. This might look like silly reasoning – “Why wouldn’t she answer your emails?”, but from my experience with contacting teachers at FCRP, the reply speed is not so great (if they ever reply). This is a huge advantage for students in distance learning – you get a reply via email and this means you don’t have to see the person by yourself;
2. I received good quality electronic materials on the subject – and they were not illegal (I think this is a good aspect, I wouldn’t know);
3. Great emphasis was put on motivation: “you should start writing now, you should keep the dead-lines”;
4. The teacher understood the value of time: she said I should work on the paper way ahead of the last period of time, not procrastinate;
5. The feed-back offered solutions and practical steps – “you can improve on this by doing that”;
6. She actually read my thesis. Very important thing. Very rare thing;
7. I was given tips and tricks throught the writing of the paper and for the presentation part.

5. How would I improve on being a good dissertation coordinator?
1. Going off the beaten track. Regarding citing papers, I was advised to see a book of Septimiu CHELCEA (which I had in electronic format; err, forget that, this should be an illegal act; sorry, I bought the book and scanned it; right; this is it). The book presented some ways of referencing, variations of the widely used Author-date referencing citation system. It is also known as Harvard referencing or parenthetical referencing. You can see the Wikipedia page on referencing. For my MD paper I used the less popular documentary-note, also known as Oxford, system. You can see the Deakin.edu.au page on the subject – Referencing using the documentary-note (Oxford) system for more information.
I wanted to use this system for my dissertation, and I was told I’m simply referencing badly. That was the whole argument – I was not citing right. Now I know it’s a less-than-popular citing method, but it’s the one I liked better and it’s still a citing system that can be used;
2. Courage for innovating (this is different than point 1.). When writing a paper on the Internet subject, you should reference to some web pages. These pages generally have either large Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), or they are intricate. I give two examples from my paper. This is a huge URL:
http://www.iqads.ro/stire_6933/felix_tataru__gmp___campania_pentru_referendum_l_a_costat_pe_basescu_550_000_de_euro.html
and this is a not-so-huge, but a intricate and hard to type URL, using numbers and special characters:
http://www.cotidianul.ro/index.php?id=10504&art=28123&cHash=c6847003be
The second URL now actually redirects to a more friendly URL concerning Search engine optimization (SEO), yet it’s longer and thus harder to type. URLs are mainly used in electronic format, and linking is possible. When being forced to type an URL from a printed material, things get trickier.
What was my idea for improving this? For my license paper I came up with this solution: instead of just using a long URL, I can also put an URL created by a web site for small URLs. Tinyurl.com is such an example. This is how the two URLs above look when done with tinyurl.com:
http://tinyurl.com/4ays9s and http://tinyurl.com/3umbwe. You don’t even have to type http://, it works without it. Quite easier to type, isn’t it?
So I told Nicoleta CORBU about my idea. She said she does not recommend doing this. The argument was: “this is not common practice”. OK, it isn’t common practice, but I still want to use it. It’s still a valid idea. I don’t really care what’s the common practice, I care about the good practice;
3. Create a hand-out for the presentation part. There is a written book by Septimiu CHELCEA on how should a student write a dissertation paper (regarding formatting, citing, using sources, etc.). Unfortunately, I could not find any materials on how to do the presentation part, there are no tips and tricks on this. Perhaps Nicoleta CORBU should write such a material and provide it to the students she coordinates. It’s important to know that a high percentage of the grade you take for the final examination is provided for the very presentation one student does. A text (small, bigger, huge, it does not matter) can be provided to each student coordinated;

6. How to contact Nicoleta CORBU?
In case you want Nicoleta CORBU to coordinate your dissertation paper, you can get in touch with her. You can get contact data from the CV page of Nicoleta CORBU on the comunicare.ro website.

You can also phone at FCRP secretarial office and find the schedule to meet face-to-face or get a phone number. See the Contact page on comunicare.ro web page.

Would you care to comment on this blog post? I’m looking forward to hearing your opinion on these. Thanks for reading.

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.