Aug
20

Keep up the enthusiasm

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I saw the job request ad below and I remembered that I had a rough week trying to prepare my most important pitch so far. It was for the job interview at MPI and I had to do a market analysis on a segment and then based on it to propose a new business in this segment and develop the business plan, forecasts, competition study, marketing plan, etc.

Initially I thought that this task was to hard for me/my experience and that I would never manage to come up with something remarkable. But, driven by the desire to get this job and to do something better for my career, I received an enthusiasm overdose and managed to see the light with my project. Presenting it was something very confusing - I didn’t know whether I was doing it right or not, I had cold feet and thought I was terrible. Everything was lightning fast (at least that’s how i felt it) and only after a couple of hours, a text message from my current boss cleared out the fog from my head - “it was excellent!”. I managed to sell myself, and I did it good.

So - important moment - high enthusiasm - over achieve - performance & success. What about the daily tasks, the moments that don’t seem that important? How do we keep up the enthusiasm? How do you stay driven everyday? How do you manage to be motivated in daily repetitive tasks and dealing with difficult clients? Always seeing the big picture? Enjoying every single thing that you do?

This guy certainty knows how to sell himself, how to make all those bad things from his past work in his advantage:

Former Marijuana Smuggler

Popularity: 13% [?]

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Aug
19

Hate somenthing, change something

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“Hate something, change something” is a very powerful message and I wish I could remember it everyday and apply it accordingly in business and personal life.

But it’s also the motto for a multi-awarded Wieden+Kennedy Honda ad that has a very nice story - Kenichi Nagahiro a Honda designer - hated with all his guts the diesel engines:

How did Honda react?
It was a memorable presentation. It’s a great thing taking in a guitar. In fact, my advice is, always take in a guitar. Even if you’re not presenting a song. People can’t help being nice to people with guitars. We sang live as we flipped through our doodled storyboards. When we’d finished, Honda said ‘Make it just like you’ve presented it.’ The following five months was about trying to capture the spirit of that presentation. It was pretty much the only direction Honda gave us until we delivered the finished ad. They understood our vision was all in our heads and they encouraged us to make it happen. A truly amazing client.

Via Dragos Bucurenci

Popularity: 14% [?]

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Jul
21

Drive carefully

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Impressive ad

Popularity: 12% [?]

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Jan
11

Inspiration for the day

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A master’s awareness of spiritual laws directs him or her to manifest major life changes by working with their thoughts, not by working harder.

Which isn’t to say they don’t sometimes work very long hours, because they do; they just don’t think of it as work. Which also isn’t to say that they all have cool jobs that anyone would love, because they don’t; they just see every task before them, no matter where they work, as a gift to unwrap.

Hmmmmm…

Popularity: 55% [?]

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Jan
07

2008: Dati tot ce e mai bun si mai frumos in voi!

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Maine Azi este probabil pentru multi dintre noi prima zi de lucru din 2008. Pentru mine sigur este. Incep acest an extrem de motivat, cu multe lucruri incitante in perspectiva apropiata si cu foarte multe promisiuni personale. Dupa o vacanta mult mai lunga decat in alti ani si un pic cam prea multe sticle goale, sunt ferm convins ca noul an va fi unul dintre cele mai bune de pana acum, daca nu chiar cel mai bun. Si nu, nu cred ca e de la sticlele goale si nici de la continutul lor. :)

Nu sunt adeptul “new year’s resolutions” si nici al lucrurilor incepute de la 1 ianuarie dar ceva ma face sa cred ca multe lucruri se vor schimba anul asta in plan profesional dar si personal. Intotdeauna mi-a placut sa imi inchipui cum vor fi lucrurile dupa un anumit milestone si sunt fascinat de modul in care gasim resurse sa ne motivam pentru niste chestii care ni se par “the ultimate milestone”, pentru ca apoi, dupa ce trecem cu brio de ele, sa ne gandim si sa ne motivam sa le trecem pe urmatoarele. Va mai amintiti cum ne gandeam la bacalaureat si la admiterea la facultate? Mie unul mi se parea ca daca trec de astea 2 hopuri, the sky is the fucking limit. Imi faceam planuri despre cum o sa urc pe munte si o sa fac un foc de tabara cu toate cartile din liceu si cum nu o sa mai imi pese de nimic. Sau despre ziua cand va veni timpul sa intemeiem o familie….wawaweewaa ….asta era chiar tare. You get the point….

Ca sa revin la ce spuneam, anul asta, mai mult ca in alti ani, am o imagine destul de clara despre cum o sa arate viata mea la sfarsitul anului ce de abia incepe. Si am toate motivele sa fiu bucuros. Ma consider un tip extrem de norocos iar pana acum toate imaginile pe care le-am avut despre viitorul meu mai clare sau mai putin clare, s-au transpuns in realitate. Sunt norocos pentru ca stiu ce vreau, pentru ca am langa mine o fata care ma intelege si care ma iubeste, pentru ca avem puterea de a ne face planuri pe termene oricat de lungi sau scurte. Nu, n-am fumat nimic …dar chiar sunt HIGH …HIGH on life !

Program TV 25decembrie 1989Voi nu? Atunci uitati-va un pic la imaginea din dreapta - este programul radio-tv din data de 25 decembrie 1989. Incercati sa va inchipuiti continutul programului “PUTERNICA MOBILIZARE PENTRU INDEPLINIREA PLANULUI PE LUNA DECEMBRIE SI PE INTREGUL AN” adaptat la 2008. :)

Life is just a long series of experiences meant to make us better. Make the best out of it!

Popularity: 28% [?]

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Oct
28

Career move, MPI, peopleware

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OPNAfter spending more than 3 years (since Sept 04) in Oracle, acting as Senior Web Specialist in the EMEA OPN Web Admin Team and dealing with the administration of Oracle PartnerNetwork portal & eMarketing campaigns, more and more signs that my journey with Oracle was reaching it’s end, started to show.

Don’t want to say something that I would regret later on, but the possibilities to develop my career further in Oracle where extremely limited and the worse part is that I was becoming a lazy corporate boy, learning nothing new and doing nothing merely exciting. As my manager said in a recent email, regarding my departure “No hard feelings on the fact you leave, I actually think that it’s a fair option for everyone as we would not be able to meet your expectations and vice-versa!”, things were not longer working for me. That “vice-versa!” part was a bit mean, but justified by my lack of involvement and motivation during the last months and also by his poor management skills.

I am not being ungreatful, I learned tons of things @Oracle and I got the chance of participating at some pretty exciting stuff. Being responsable for a high trafic portal, for the entire EMEA region and being part in meetings with senior Oracle EMEA management were surely experiences that I will benefit from in the future. Coaching new colleagues and helping them become autonomous was also very challenging. I also met some extraordinary people which I am proud to call my friends - hopefully they will drop by and read my blog from time to time.

Moving on to the next step, I am eager to join, starting November 1st, a team of great professionals, Media Pro Interactiv, managed by one of the pioneers of the online advertising industry in Romania, Orlando Nicoara. I don’t know exactly what my job role will be, nor if I am allowed to disclose these kinds of information (it involves some development plans of MPI), but I am more than excited about the people I already met and the new learning curve I might benefit from. Also, the recruitment process, was nothing like the ones I was familiar with. Corporate world definetly has an impact on you, and after 3 years you live to think that the corporate way is the only way. Well, it is not, and the process that made me “sign” with MPI was not at all corporate. If you indulge me this exercise of modesty, it was more of a head-hunting, rather that the standard interview, only that it was “provoked” by me. Anyway, it’s pointless talking about a job that I didn’t even start and I am pretty sure this is not what my blog is about.

One of the signs, I mentioned earlier, came during the interviews, in the form of a prize. I won the Peopleware book in the contest that Jobber started (thanks Filip!), to help spread the word about their really cool site and product. I believe this book will prove to be very helpful in the new challenge that I was offered the opportunity to take.

Jobber is running a IT job board focused on developers, designers, etc and they recently decided to offer their product as an open-source platform. I am pretty sure that it will have a great success and it’s certainly the platform I would use for helping the HR department of a SME company that does not have a good & stable online recruitment system put in place. Please check out Jobber Development Network if you are interested in the product. You might as well put the jobs widget on your site/blog and participate in the monthly drawings. Filip is offering some pretty cool books. I am fan of Jobber and not only because it’s a Romanian product, but it’s also a great tool.

Later edit: A small mistake in the part about jobber. The open-source platform for Jobber can be found @ jobberbase.com. JDN is something else, even more exciting! Check it out and don’t miss the launch!

Stay tuned! :)

Popularity: 43% [?]

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Apr
10

The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School

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The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School
by Michael McDonough

1. Talent is one-third of the success equation.
Talent is important in any profession, but it is no guarantee of success. Hard work and luck are equally important. Hard work means self-discipline and sacrifice. Luck means, among other things, access to power, whether it is social contacts or money or timing. In fact, if you are not very talented, you can still succeed by emphasizing the other two. If you think I am wrong, just look around.

2. 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
Only 5 percent is actually, in some simplistic way, fun. In school that is what you focus on; it is 100 percent fun. Tick-tock. In real life, most of the time there is paper work, drafting boring stuff, fact-checking, negotiating, selling, collecting money, paying taxes, and so forth. If you don’t learn to love the boring, aggravating, and stupid parts of your profession and perform them with diligence and care, you will never succeed.
more…

Popularity: 16% [?]

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Apr
07

Freedom

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Wolf and Dog (an Aesop’s Fable)
retold by Kevin Strauss 2001

Long ago, Wolf was hungry. Now you might think that Wolf is always hungry, and you would be right. But on this day, Wolf hadn’t eaten for weeks. It was almost as if all the deer and rabbits had evaporated from the forest like mist in the morning. Wolf was so hungry that he decided to look for food near where the humans lived. It was dangerous for Wolf to hunt near humans.

Some wolves that go there never come back. But Wolf had never been this hungry before. So as the sun dipped red behind the western hills, he walked through the forest to the edge of a farmer’s field.

Wolf sniffed the air and scanned the field, looking for a calf or lamb to eat. It was then that he heard a strange sound. The barking noise was coming from a creature that looked a lot like he did. The creature was running toward Wolf. more…

Popularity: 12% [?]

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Jan
16

14-20 January 2007 - It’s slow down week !!!

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slow down week

Adbusters.org have a great proposal for all workaholics who forget to spend some time for themselves or spend to little time with their friends and loved ones. Brilliant idea and I will always encourage such projects.  Click on the image above or download the swf movie right here:

Slow down week movie

Popularity: 12% [?]

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Jan
09

Write your future self a letter!

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Futureme.orgHow about writing your future self a letter and being able to select the date when you will receive this letter. This can be easily done via futureme.org a pretty nice idea with over 360,779 letters written to the future so far. When you write your letter you have the option to keep it private or post it on their site.

futureme.org has been around since august 2003 and these guys have quite a story - featured as site of the day on Yahoo!, on hundreds of publications and thousands of blogs, their idea even got imitated by forbes.com and movie staff from “Lakehouse“.

Guess what - last year they were approached with the idea of publishing a book with the best public letters from the site - and they are actually doing it - I believe it will be a hit.

I have great respect for simple, brilliant ideas that nobody thought of but when you look at them you can easily say that you could’ve thought of them yourself.

Popularity: 10% [?]

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