Welcome to Texas!

      - Where are you from?
      - Romania.
      -  Awesome, I love Romania!
      -  Have you ever been there?
      - No, but I love it!

*POKERFACE*

Ok, this does not happen on a daily basis, but it can give you a pretty good idea about the depth of some conversations that I have had during the past months. Funny though, a business card that has Texas written all over it, who would have thought?

But let’s get to business and let me show you around Corpus Christi, which is a controversial place, since I cannot decide if I love or hate it. I guess it depends on the day ur asking.

As a picture is worth more than a thousand words, enjoy!

The amazing sunsets:

Cool jogging trails:

Best dressed beer with a pickle on it, yum!

The pools in the apartment complex, which really can be used all year long J

And lots of open doors!

How old are you really?

A little mind game:

You wake up tomorrow morning and have no idea how old you are. All sense of time has disappeared. Your birthday? Yeah, you still remeber.
Your birthyear...no idea


If you really were to wake up one morning and not know how old you are, how old would you feel? If you had to name your age just based on how old you feel, would you know your true age?

Do you live your age? Or would you feel older, a sum of your experiences so far? Or maybe younger?

Fake it ‘til you make it!

All the things we buy everyday…where do they come from? Do we know? Do we even care?  We buy brands – do we really buy brands? We buy fakes, produced god knows where under awful conditions, but we still buy them. Fake, refake, overfake.

A good exhibition I have seen. Got me thinking and reading, until I found a chilly post in the NY Times.

A woman in Oregon randomly bought a Halloween decoration at a supermarket and found the following letter in it:

Here's an excerpt from the letter, grammatical mistakes included:  

"If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persecution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.

People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. Nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month).

People who work here, suffer punishment 1-3 years averagely, but without Court Sentence (unlaw punishment). Many of them are Falun Gong practitioners, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG. They often suffer more punishment than others."

10 yuan = 1.61 $

The letter has been written by a Chinese worker, who has been identified by the NY Times. The worker described how he was imprisoned in a labor camp where "inmates toiled seven days a week, their 15-hour days haunted by sadistic guards." The worker claims to have written 20 letters over the years. The people are imprisoned in one of many Chinese labor camps, Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang.

Of course nothing happened, the camp still produces, fakes, refakes, kills...

If you want to be informed about Chinese Labour camps, visit Chinaview and think twice about what is written on your label...'Made in China'.

The Geography of Bliss - lessons from the unhappiest place on Earth

Eric Weiner has travelled the world to make an analysis of the most ‘happy’ and most ‘unhappy’ countries and see what the backgrounds for a nations happiness are.

And he came up with one very interesting book: The Geography of Bliss. Here the Amazon link.

Here is a brief summary of his research:

‘Extroverts are happier than introverts; optimists are happier than pessimists; married people are happier than singles, though people with children are no happier than childless couples; Republicans are happier than Democrats; people who attend religious services are happier than those who do not; people with college degrees are happier than those without, though people with advanced degrees are less happy than those with just a BA; people with an active sex life are happier than those without; women and men are equally happy, though women have a wider emotional range; having an affair will make you happy but will not compensate for the massive loss of happiness that you will incur when your spouse finds out and leaves you; people are least happy when they’re commuting to work; busy people are happier than those with too little to do; wealthy people are happier than poor ones, but only slightly.’

It is extremely hard to figure out why people living in certain places are happier then others, because the reasons for our happiness are not linked to the economic situation or our income; rich country does not equal happy inhabitants and vice versa.

‘The happiest places, Eric Weiner explains, don’t necessarily fit our preconceived notions. Some of the happiest countries in the world— Iceland and Denmark, for instance— are homogeneous, shattering the American belief that there is strength, and happiness, in diversity. One finding, which Veenhoven just uncovered, has made him very unpopular with his fellow sociologists. He found that income distribution does not predict happiness. Countries with wide gaps between the rich and poor are no less happy than countries where the wealth is distributed more equally. Sometimes, they are happier… 

Many of the world’s happiest countries also have high suicide rates. People who attend religious services report being happier than those who do not, but the world’s happiest nations are secular. The United States, the richest, most powerful country in the world, is no happiness superpower. Many other nations are happier than we are.’

Iceland is the perfect example of how much having friends around counts for your happiness:

‘On a practical level, Iceland’s smallness means that parents needn’t bother with that old bromide about not talking to strangers. There are no strangers in Iceland. People are constantly running into friends and acquaintances. It’s not unusual for people to show up thirty minutes late for work because en route they encountered a parade of friends. This is a perfectly valid excuse, by the way, for being late. The Icelandic equivalent of traffic was hell.’

But the small population in Iceland has its disadvantages as well:

‘Geneticists have found that everyone in the country is related to everyone else, going back seven or eight generations. Icelanders can go to a website and find out how closely they are related to a colleague, a friend— or that cutie they slept with last night. One woman told me how unnerving this can be. “You’ve slept with this guy you’ve just met and then the next day you’re at a family reunion, and there he is in the corner eating smoked fish. You’re like—‘ Oh, my God, I just slept with my second cousin.’

The most interested country in its citizens’ happiness is…Bhutan! They even have a Gross National Product for a Gross National Happiness scale. Progress measured by happiness, and not by money – an approach that is very far from our consumer society

‘In a nutshell, Gross National Happiness seeks to measure a nation’s progress not by its balance sheet but rather by the happiness— or unhappiness— of its people. It’s a concept that represents a profound shift from how we think about money and satisfaction and the obligation of a government to its people.’

See his opinion on America:

‘America’s place on the happiness spectrum is not as high as you might think, given our superpower status. We are not, by any measure, the happiest nation on earth. One study, by Adrian White at the University of Leicester in Britain, ranked the United States as the world’s twenty-third happiest nation, behind countries such as Costa Rica, Malta, and Malaysia. True, most Americans— 84 percent, according to one study— describe themselves as either “very” or “pretty” happy, but it’s safe to say that the United States is not as happy as it is wealthy.’

And which place is the unhappiest place on the planet, according to his study? Moldova!

See why:

‘Many countries are poorer than Moldova yet happier. Nigeria, for instance, or Bangladesh. The problem is that Moldovans don’t compare themselves to Nigerians or Bangladeshis. They compare themselves to Italians and Germans. Moldova is the poor man in a rich neighborhood, never a happy position to be in.’

Not even democracy is a source of happiness for the people living in Moldova:

‘It’s not that democracy makes people happy but rather that happy people are much more likely to establish a democracy. The soil must be rich, culturally speaking, before democracy can take root. The institutions are less important than the culture. And what are the cultural ingredients needed for democracy to take root? Trust and tolerance. Not only trust of those inside your group— family, for instance— but external trust. Trust of strangers. Trust of your opponents, your enemies, even. That way you feel you can gamble on other people— and what is democracy but one giant crapshoot? Thus, democracy makes the Swiss happier but not the Moldovans. For the Swiss, democracy is the icing on their prosperous cake. Moldovans can’t enjoy the icing because they have no cake.’

What lessons can we learn from Moldovas‘ unhappiness?

‘Lesson number one: “Not my problem” is not a philosophy. It’s a mental illness. Right up there with pessimism. Other people’s problems are our problems. If your neighbor is laid off, you may feel as if you’ve dodged the bullet, but you haven’t. The bullet hit you as well. You just don’t feel the pain yet. Or as Ruut Veenhoven told me: “The quality of a society is more important than your place in that society.” 

Lesson number two: Poverty, relative poverty, is often an excuse for unhappiness. Yes, Moldovans are poor compared to other Europeans, but clearly it is their reaction to their economic problems, and not the problems alone, that explains their unhappiness. The seeds of Moldovan unhappiness are planted in their culture. A culture that belittles the value of trust and friendship. A culture that rewards mean-spiritedness and deceit. A culture that carves out no space for unrequited kindness, no space for what St. Augustine called (long before Bill Clinton came along) “the happiness of hope.’

And what is the conclusion of his work?

‘Money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude.’

I just love this book! Read it!

Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

On the banks of Mali's Niger River, Soumana Natomo and his family gather for a communal dinner of millet porridge with tamarind juice. In the USA, the Ronayne-Caven family enjoys corndogs-on-a-stick with a tossed green salad.

A couple traveled the world exploring how the eating habits differ from country to country and presented their results in a photo album, called Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. 

As it is very visual, you are directly confronted with obvious social issues. The album shows the differences around the world, the divison of lifestyles all across the globe. It is easy to see that, as a paradox, the more money we spend on food, the poorer the quality of that food is. People who spend more money on food it more processed products, while fresh and healthy ingredients never see their plate.

How much money do you spend on food? And what kind of food do you eat in the end?

Mexico, Cuernavaca

The Casales family spends around $189 per week.

Ecuador, Tingo

The Ayme family spends around $32 per week.

United States, Texas

The Fernandezes family spends around $242 per week.

Guatemala, Todos Santos

The Mendozas family spends around $76 per week.

United States, North Carolina

The Revis family spends around $342 per week.

Canada, Iqaluit

The Melanson family spends around $392 per week.

Italy, Palermo

The Manzo family spends around $295 per week.

Cuba, Havana

The Costa family spends around $64 per week.

China, Weitaiwu

The Cui family spends around $65 per week.

Kuwait, Kuwait City

The Al-Haggan family spends around $252 per week.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo 

The Dudo family spends around $90 per week.

Egypt, Cairo

The Ahmed family spends around $78 per week.

Australia, Riverview

The Brown family spends around $428 per week.

Germany, Bargteheide

The Melander family spends around $568 per week.

Mali, Kouakourou

The Natomo family spends around $30 per week.

Canada, Gatineau

The Finken family spends around $158 per week.

India, Ujjain

The Patkar family spends around $45 per week.

Japan, Kodaira City

The Ukita family spends around $361 per week.

For more images and information check out the Hungry Planet book.

Pictures from boredpanda.com

Where did the normal people go?

After a couple of very challenging days, to put it mildly, I cannot help but wonder if there are still any people left in our environment, or if we only have ‘The System’.

In our try to be more and more efficient, we have created ‘The System’. You want to register/ deregister/ make a change in your data: ‘Sorry, it is not possible, we have already saved the data in The System’. Or, at your hotel, you stand in front of the reception and tell them you want to prolongue your stay: ‘Sorry, it is not possible; we have already deregistered you in The System’. Or you want to pay cash but you realize you don’t have enough money, so you decide to pay by card: ‘Noooooo, I have already registered a cash payment in The System’. And so on and so far….we are always revolving around this System. Instead of being more flexible, we get more and more bureaucratic, we have created systems over systems which have started to rule our daily lives.  

It does not matter anymore if you stand in front of someone and communicate something – if it is not in the system, it does not exist. We only analyze the data in our system – what happened to direct communication or just picking up the phone and discussing a topic? Since when does everything need to be in a System?

Everywhere you go, regardless of what you have to do, you have to face a System.  Even if you pick up your laundry and stand in front of the laundry employee explaining that you had one more jacket, which is now missing, he/ she will convince you that you didn’t because….it is not in The System!!

So I am wondering, when did all the people disappear? When did their brains and normal, healthy thinking get replaced by a System? When has life become so complicated?

Every day we get confronted with The System, talk to robots and buy stuff from machines, if we have a problem, we have to talk to a robot for half an hour until our call gets re-routed to Dave, in India, who will most definitely assure us that our request is now registered in The System and will be handled shortly.

I am fed up with The System, I would like to be able to have normal conversations with normal people who listen to what I say, and not to what is registered in some System.

But I guess that all the delightful events are just a warm welcome to the era of the Homo Sistematicus…

The new generation of workaholics

Yesterday I read again an article about the ‚workaholism‘ in Romania – according to Eurostat statistics, Romania is under the top 3 when it comes to the sum of annual working hours. I must not say that the situation is not really directly proportional to the economic situation or income of the active working population. But this is something we already know – more means not better.

Still, the new generation of workaholics is constantly increasing, as statistics show. When I still worked in Romania, I kinda felt bad when leaving the office after ‘only’ 8 hours of work…working long overtime and feeling exhausted has become some kind of national ‘pride’ among young people. It is normal not to have a good relationship, or a relationship at all, not to have time to go to the gym, to eat in front of the computer, not to have any real hobbies, not to spend time with your friends and drink your brains out on weekends because…remember, you don’t have any other hobby.

This should not be our reality and thinking that you can’t change anything about it is false! People should not work longer than 8 hours a day, and definitely not spend more than 10 hours a day in the office. It is not normal to do overtime just because you can’t step up to your manager and say that the workload is too high for the existing headcount. There is always a solution…but why bother looking for one, when you still have enough workaholics around that do the job just fine? Why hire 8, when you can make your 4 employees work on weekends and give up their holidays? If only we would not be so afraid of….of what, actually? If everybody would change their attitude towards life, and acknowledge that there actually is a life after work, then the employer – employee relationship could shift. The working environment is always shaped by the two parties, not only by the multinational employer who does not care at all about who you are or what you do.

Why has it become normal to sacrifice your best years for company X? In order to prove what? Of course, it is difficult to stand up and leave the office at a reasonable hour, while the rest of your colleagues is getting ready to sleep in the office. Of course that it will shed a bad light on you, regardless of the fact that you have done your job great. This is a collective problem, it needs rethinking from the grounds and a change can only be done if everyone changes attitude.

Our parents already gave up a big part of their personal lives, to work for the communist ‘collective wellbeing’, there is no need to keep up this tradition. I have found a working environment where people are happy, relaxed, work normal hours, have really cool hobbies and can take their vacation days yearly – and guess what, the company still works. They still make profit, they still have a sustainable growth strategy and no, there are no sweatshops in 3^rd world countries. Reality has shown that it is possible to work and live at the same time.

I hope I will see the same in Romania in the near future…I hope people will not sell their abilities, skills, time and best years for 500 – 600 EUR a month anymore! Every single one of us can change the market, we are not a low-skill country and therefore should we not be a low-wage one either!

Oas Country - Country of contradictions

'What good is it to have money, if you can't show it?'

There are a lot of stories cruising about Tara Oasului, a region from Satu Mare county. I think that it is one of the most controversed regions in Romania, due to the contrasts that shock you from the second you arrive.

I am glad to see that the development of Oas has been captured in a captivating project, called Pride and Concrete. If you want to get a glimpse into Oas and if you want to understand why the people from Oas work so hard abroad ('cause they do work hard), what drives them and what keeps them coming home, no matter where they have travelled, take some time to visit  Pride and Concrete (romanian version: Mandrie si Beton).

Get to know a different side of the story!

Crowdsourcing – using the ideas of the world

After all of the brains in a company have been stormed, and no WOW-idea has been born throughout the process, maybe it is time to use all the ideas that are outside your company’s doorstep.

Instead of having one or two people doing the job, come up with an idea, you can now outsource it to a large group of people outside the company – you can reach into the minds of so many people! The term ‘crowdsourcing’ was first coined in 2006, but the rise of the crowdsourcing platforms has only been more significant in the past 2 years.

The best people to offer you feedback on your ideas or products, the best to suggest improvements or innovations are your customers – or potential customers. Instead if investing resources into analyzing what your customers’ needs or wishes might be, why not ask them? This is the solution to a successful launch of any product or service: involve your customers from the beginning of your creation process, ask them for feedback, listen to their ideas and they will feel like part of your idea, hence more prone to buying it. Instead of facing them with a final products or service, and afterwards investing huge amounts of money into convincing them that they need what you have just served there, let them be part of your story.

It is effective, it is cheap, it is fun and it is a win-win situation for all parties involved.

Famous Example: Wikipedia. Instead of Wikipedia creating an encyclopedia on their own, hiring writers and editors, they gave a crowd the ability to create the information on their own. The result? The most comprehensive encyclopedia this world has ever seen.

Crowdsourcing’s biggest benefit is the ability to receive better quality results, since several people offer their best ideas, skills, & support. Crowdsourcing allows a company to select the best result from a sea of ‘best entries,’ as opposed to receiving the best entry from a single agent. Results can be delivered much quicker than traditional methods, since crowdsourcing is a form of freelancing, using online platforms. Companies can get a finished video within a month, a finished design or idea within a week, and microtasks appear within minutes.

In return, the people providing their ideas, get promotional articles from the companies, small gifts, or even a small reward payment. The ROI is higher than in any traditional method.

To get some information on crowdsourcing platforms and how they work, you can visit:

Symbid

Crowdcube

Rockethub (Crowdfunding)

NameThis

If you want to read about several successful crowdsourcing ideas, here is an inspirational list:

Open Innovators

One City, One Book

Just imagine standing in the metro in the morning, going to work, reading your book between stations – you look left, you look right - and all around you there are people reading the same book as you. Strangers – but you know you have at least one thing in common – you are all reading the same book. I think that would be a great feeling and would create an instant sense of community. 

I do not know if you ave heard of the ‚One City, One Book‘ initiative, but I just loved the idea the second I heard about it. It is quite old, as it started in 1998 in Seattle under the title ‘If All of Seattle Read the Same Book’. The point is that, during one month of the year, an entire city should read the same book. People can vote in advance on a website and choose the book they want to read – afterwards they can attend different book clubs, readings or meetings to discuss the book or just to meet new people. Nowadays it is even easier to advertise the idea via social media – just image what we could create.

In a big city, characterized by anonymity, a simple book can bring so many people together… We pass by so many people every day – wouldn’t it be great to know that we all have at least ONE thing in common? That we are all lost between the pages of the same book?

I would love to organize such a project, so if anyone is interested, please contact me J

A great example is Dublin!

Step away from the microwave, Ma’am!

When rules are there to be followed

Driving one evening from Vienna to Linz, I realized that I would not find any supermarket open by the time I got home, so I decided to grab a quick sandwich from a gas station. Good food for good value, right? I took a cold sandwich and asked the lady at the counter to warm it up for me.

 Shock. Wonder. 

A cold sandwich – from the cold foods section – cannot be warmed up. It is from the cold foods section, meaning that you are supposed to eat it cold. If you warm it up, the consistency of the ham would change, because it is not a ham that you are supposed to warm up. It is just the order of the world – sandwiches from the cold foods section are to be eaten cold. It is the way things should be, and any deviation from the rule would cause chaos!

You can imagine that this extremely trivial occurrence got me thinking – when are rules to be followed, and when are they to be broken? Can you assume that some rules are more important than others? That some rules must be followed, and others can be bent? And if so, who decides which rule is more important?

Every society follows rules, but not every rule is followed by society.

Having lived for the past years in a highly flexible society when it comes to rules, I have developed a very permissive attitude towards rules, more like: I know about the rules, but I only apply them when I need them. Comfy…but wrong. 

After having seen the other side of the coin, I started thinking: you cannot expect a society to follow some ‘important’ rules whilst ignoring the rest. They either respect the concept of rules, or not. That is why in some countries the system works, and in others it is just a big mess. It is not about deciding which rules are more important, it is about respecting the concept of a rule – if you respect the concept, you will apply it in everyday life and act accordingly. Traffic will be civilized, terms will be respected, work will be valued, people will not cut in lines and cold sandwiches will be eaten cold. But it is just a small price to pay, compared to all the benefits which arise for society.

If we want to be respected, we have to start respecting first. If we want to live organized, we have to start following the ‘little’ rules first.

It all starts with a cold sandwich…

What a horse can teach you about business

Yesterday I went riding again, after a long break of a couple of years. Upon arrival I was taken to my horse Feli and we started to get ready for the riding lesson. But in the end the experience was much more than a riding lesson – it resembled more of a business lesson.

How come a horse can teach you something about how you should work? It’s easy – a horse can teach you several valuable lessons, it will actually teach you the same lessons you would hear in business school:

1. You have to work before you can hop on!

You cannot just take the horse, hop on and start riding. You have to let it smell you first, get to know you, have to brush it, stroke it, talk to it and let it get used to who you are. You first have to make the horse trust you, before you can take it for a ride.

 Just like when meeting a new business partner, you cannot just get to business – you first have to do some work, gain a partners’ or clients’ trust before you can get started on anything.

2. Set the boundaries first!

Every horse will test its rider, see how far it can go with you in the saddle. So do not be afraid to show exactly where the limits are, what you accept, and what you don’t. In the professional life things are quite similar – people will test your limits, see how far they can go. Be clear from the beginning – it is much more difficult to correct things after a while.

3. Apply moderate pressure!

When the horse does not listen, you have to start applying pressure – through pressing of the legs, pressing with your heels, using your voice or pulling the holster. But if you do all this at a time, the horse will be confused. You have to apply the pressure gradually, have it react to the first signs – if you apply too much pressure from the beginning, you will have no room to increase it.

Again, it is the same in your professional environment – if things do not go in the right direction, you should start applying pressure – but gradually. Try to get things back on track starting with a low pressure degree, do not get too pushy from the beginning.

4. Keep your horse focused!

You are in charge of where you want to go, it is not the other way around. There are so many more interesting things for a horse to do: follow another horse, stop and eat, stare at a bucket or just stand around. Riding for you may not seem very appealing to it, especially compared to the staring-at-a-bucket option. Still, whatever distractions come your way,  you have to be able to keep your horse focused on where you want to go, on your destination.

It is just the same with keeping your business partners focused on your destination – they will see other opportunities along the way, some of them more appealing than what you have to offer, but you always have to know how to keep them on track, otherwise the ride will come to a quick end.

5. Find a common pace!

Too fast, too slow, I can barely keep myself in the saddle… It is not easy to find a common pace with your horse – one that you can both keep up with. You will not be able to force your pace on a horse, because it won’t let you, just as a horse will not be able to force its’ pace upon yourself, as you are the one trying to stay in the saddle.

Setting a common pace is also crucial when working with someone. It is important to have a steady common development of a project, a working pace that keeps everyone motivated, but not exhausted. Goal is that you and your partners can stay in the saddle for the entire ‘ride’.

6. One wrong step, and you can be in deep s***!

So you have built up a relationship with the horse, you trust each other, you are ok in your saddle, tabbing at a relaxing pace…do not become less careful. You always have to pay attention, horses are unpredictable – one wrong step and you can be in deep s***.

 But then again, so are people.  Unpredictable. Never lose them out of sight. Always pay attention to your business partners and react timely to changes. Do not let your horse or partner take you by surprise.

7. Do not stand where you cannot be seen!

Horses have a limited eye sight – there are a lot of interesting articles about equine eyesight in the web. They have been born with a blind spot and many predators, meaning that they cannot see you, if you stand around their back. So if you go to your horse, you should not touch it in the back area first, because it cannot see you and it will get scared. This will obviously trigger a negative reaction. That is why, when going to a horse, you should start stroking it from its head, continue to the neck, body and the back – this way, the horse can feel your touch and knows where you are.

You should avoid blind spots in your professional life as well, as they are dangerous and can trigger highly negative reactions. Feel your way around, let your partner always know where you stand and avoid taking him by surprise. Remember that we all have our blind spots!

8. You can wash, but the smell will stick!

After finishing the ride, cleaning the horse and cleaning yourself, you will observe that a slight smell is still in the air, in your clothes or hair.

People also leave a trail, the work you have done leaves a mark, every action you take is still in the air, even after you have moved on to something new. Do not think that you can just ‘shower’ something off, because you can’t. People can smell you and can tell how you have acted so far in your professional life. Therefore, always consider your professional decisions in advance, consider your actions before taking them, because their reminiscence will stick with you for a long time.

Harry’s Home is your home!

Friendly, colorful, warm and fun! This is my new home for 6 months (have spent already 2 months here) and I can only tell you that it is a great place to stay.

When travelling a lot and spending most of your time in a hotel room, you realize that it is very important how your room is like – because it is not only a room, it is your new home. I am staying at Harry’s Home in Linz and have a Studio Business. It is a studio with a sleeping and living area, a huge bathroom, a kitchen corner, a walk-in closet (more like 2-step-walk-in J) and a cute balcony facing the inner garden. I also have a table and chairs on the balcony, so I can even eat outside if it will ever get warm and stop snowing/raining!

The place offers all you need for a long stay, and even more. Washing machines and dryers are on my floor and they are never too busy. Ironing table and hot iron can be borrowed from the reception at any time, you always have where to park and if you get bored, you can also borrow a book from the hotel library.

The hotel is right near the Danube, which is great if you like to go jogging in the evening. If you need to shop, you can find supermarkets within 1 min. walking distance, which is great given the fact that stores here close at 19:00 or 19:30.

The free wireless internet is always working, it is always nice and warm, very clean and whatever extra need you have, the staff will do their best to fulfill it. Speaking of the staff, they are extremely friendly, make you feel welcome the minute you walk in.

I am truly happy I decided to go with this hotel for my 6 months stay in Linz, as I have everything I need and really do feel like home.

I did not bother uploading any extra pictures on the blog, as the rooms look exactly the way they are presented on the internet, which is a rarity in this business.

My tip: whenever you can book a room with Harry, do not hesitate to do so!

You can read all the details on Harry’s website.

Why do people not listen when I talk? The arc of tension

Do you know the movie ‚Super Size Me‘? About that guy who makes an experiment on himself and only eats McDonald’s products for 30 days. I am convinced that every single person who has viewed that movie already knew what the conclusions would be: the guy gains weight, feels tired and unhappy, is more than unhealthy. So everybody who watched that movie already knew what it was about and how it was going to end – still, a lot of people have watched it.

Which raises an interesting question: why did all the people take the time to watch a 100 min. movie, if they could already figure how it was going to end? It was definitely not the ending that they were interested in, as they could figure it out beforehand. It was not the quality of the story, or the special effects, as the movie has been kept really simple – simple plot, simple filming. It wasn’t the characters or their complexity, as it is a one man story. So what was it then?

I believe that our attention is only kept through the arc of tension that is being created by a narrator. There are many kinds of tension. It might be raising fear in a thriller. It could be anger in a revenge action tale. The tension could be pleasant rising anticipation of a pleasure to come. Or simple uncertainty, not necessarily positive or negative. But in every good story, you need to create the tension. And the creation of an arc of tension is not only necessary when we talk about a movie, or a book. If you want to raise some interest for your person and your stories, you need to create the arc of tension in everything you say.

People who get to have more ‘listeners’ do not necessarily tell the better stories. They just tell them a better way! Imagine you went out last night and went to the movies. There you bought yourself a popcorn and went in to take your seat. Of course you arrived a bit too late, because that annoying neighbor of yours blocked your car again with his oh so old van. In the end, you were just happy that you made it to the cinema and also got to buy some popcorn and a metal hammer for your neighbors’ van J. Well, as it was already dark in the cinema when you arrived, you slowly tried to make your way to the seats. Aaaaand, gravity stroke again…there you had it, your popcorn all over the man who looked like grumpy cat anyway. No need to explain that it was not the best movie night you have had and Mr. Grumpy was loud enough when explaining to you that besides being clumsy, you are also late and you probably have a hard way getting through life with this attitude.

Now, maybe the above is not the best example of a captivating story but the point is that every story can be told in different ways. Imagine you would have told the story this way: I went yesterday to the movies and spilled my popcorn all over an annoying man who gave me a hard time. This only happened because I arrived so late. Do you know why?

Ahm..no, and by now probably no one cares why you arrived late or what happened next. And your ‘listeners’ have already found a new topic to talk about. Not because your story is not funny or interesting, but because you have created zero tension.

Just like in the movie, people can imagine the ending, but it is how you take them to that ending.

The same applies to presentations – if you put all your main points on the first 2 slides, no one will want to listen through, as you have already disclosed the essential. Always keep in mind that everyone is in a hurry nowadays and if you give them the essentials in the first minute, they will most probably not spend the second one listening to what you have to say. 

The definition explains it best: arc of tension = the self-imposed delay between the onset of desire and its eventual fulfillment

Let your competition work for you!

Expansion, greenfield investments and growth are a huge topic in many sectors that have started to grow again. Companies always strive to conquer new markets, but on their way to economic victory they now encounter a serious problem: lack of specialized staff. When working in the production industry, no matter what you produce, you need specialized staff – people who have studied law, history or literature will not keep your business going. Unfortunately, less and less young people choose to study engineering, production, chemistry and even less choose to become process specialists.

So, you want to build something, but you do not have the people to operate it. You would like to train them, but it is quite hard to train on greenfield. What can you do? Simple – send them to your competition for an on-site training, while you focus on building your plant. Sounds impossible? It isn’t. You pay your competitors to train them, it is not like they would do you a favor! Of course you should not rush to your fiercest competitor – you will most probably get the door slammed right into your face. Just think and make a list of competitors with whom you have a good relation, or even cooperation agreements when it comes to complementary products. Think of companies that could profit from you being there – a larger market also attracts customers and can create win-win situation for everyone involved.

Sometimes a far-fetched idea is not necessarily impossible to implement. And even in the services industry, the concept can be implemented. Competition is not necessarily bad and cooperating with competitors should be seriously taken into consideration, when trying to grow a new market. 

Modern career jungle

Why don’t you study abroad? Why don’t you look for an internship? Why don’t you get a job in country X, where my cousin’s cousin’s friend said that it is sooo great? 

Easy to ask, easy to say, but when you start thinking about it, when you really start looking to build up some international experience, the options, the advice and the application processes are overwhelming, the amount of information is just too much to absorb. At least this is what I felt at times, when trying to find my way through the jungle of offers and opportunities. Finding an internship or a trainee program that really suits your personality, your education and your future professional goals is quite challenging. Germans have a really great saying: ‘Die Qual der Wahl’ which means ‘The torment of having a choice’ and is not far from reality.

Finally, after years of looking, trying and testing, I have found a program that I really enjoy and would like to share some insights of how an international management trainee program looks like, once you’ve found your way in.
Let’s start with a short description of the program, so that you can decide if it’s worth to keep on reading or not. The management trainee program I am in lasts for two years. It is governed by a big player from the steel industry and is accessible to young professionals from all over the world. (I will get to the requirements shortly).

Every two years they choose 5 young professionals to join the program and this year we are a highly international team, from all over the world.

Throughout the program, you will get to work on 4 different projects, each of them lasting for approx. 6 months. Each project will be in a different country, maybe even on a different continent and you will get to work in the main divisions of the company. Too much steel and metal talk? Don’t worry, I didn’t even know how a steel plant looked like when I arrived here and wouldn’t have recognized a furnace if it had hit me in the face! If you are willing to learn and have the ability to do so, you will soon be able to talk about production processes and understand everything that’s going on around you.

The projects you get to work on are extremely varied and depend on your education and experience. You can work in HR, process management, production, logistics, finance, marketing, sales, strategy….it is basically impossible not to find something that you love doing. And be sure that the HR team will make all the efforts to place you somewhere you can perform well and use your skills. The part I enjoy most about the program is the way it is constructed: throughout the 2 years, you get a mentor who will guide and advise you, but you have a lot of freedom when working on a project. You can really create a concept from zero and make it grow in the 6 months, you can structure your work as you wish. Of course, with great freedom comes great responsibility and you have to deliver good results at the end of each 6 month project, but given the fact that absolutely everyone in the company is supportive, it is almost impossible not to.

So, what are their requirements?

- Academic degree in technical/ metallurgical fields, economic studies, law

- Maximum 3 years of proven work experience in one of these fields
- Excellent English language skills (level A1/ B1 European Reference System)
- Experience in working/ studying/ living abroad
- Willingness to change location on a frequent basis: high level of mobility due to regularly changing work placements

The recruitment phase lasted for about 6 months and I had 3 interviews plus a 3 day assessment center at the HQ. The interviews were a lot different than you would have expected and that experience is definitely worth a separate post.

Maybe I did manage to raise your interest for a valuable program and you have some time to think about applying for an international program yourself!

Never cut your Knödel!

Or how to have some Spaß when working in Austria

They speak German, arrive on time and drink beer, but are not Germans. You can read all the general DOs and DON’Ts on the web, so I won’t bother repeating all the ’be punctual and greet everyone’ tips.

But, I can give you some tips on working in a traditional Austrian company. I have started a 6-month project in January and am working for one of the biggest players in the steel industry, which is a highly male-dominated environment. So, you’ve got the picture: traditional Austrian, male dominated, maybe not so easy to blend in as a 25 year old girl from the East. Still, not impossible. Of course I did some mistakes in the beginning, but I have quickly learned my lessons:

1.       The world has The Harlem Shake, Austria has The Handshake!

If you are not used to shaking hands all the time, all day long, you’d better start practicing! In Austria the handshake is of high importance, especially in Upper Austria, as I have been told. It is usual to shake everyone’s hand – shake our colleague’s hands when you arrive at the office in the morning, when you meet them on the hallway or when you have a meeting. Especially when you have a meeting, it is good to arrive a bit earlier, otherwise you will have to walk the round and shake 25 hands before you can go and take a seat.

You should also shake hands when you leave, ladies first, of course. I myself have forgotten to do the handshake a couple of times in the beginning – it is not a tragedy, but it is considered to be very impolite and people will let you know!

2.       Talking – less is more

When you are the ‘new kid’ on a team, people will be more cautious in the beginning and not approach you directly. After 2 or 3 days they will start asking you questions and showing a lot of interest in who you are, where you come from and what you have done before. You will enthusiastically start answering those questions and let them know about yourself, but that is not always the best approach. If you say too much about yourself, about your education or career path, it might be considered as bragging, even if you have been asked about those topics. I have figured it is best to engage in a conversation but, as long as you are at work, keep the details to yourself. Show people who you are, but keep it on a very professional level and do not go into many details – my impression is that Austrians are more private and they expect you to be the same. So, instead of putting yourself out there, let them discover you step by step.

3.       Don’t start running, learn how to walk first

Austrians are very specific at work, very accurate and they invest quite some time into planning and discussing a project. Coming from an environment that was very fast paced and with a stronger hands-on attitude, I was not really used to discussing a topic or project for a long time, I was more the ‘we will see along the way’ type.

Here, you do not see how something develops along the way, you discuss all the possibilities before and most probably also have some alternatives for everything that might deviate from the initial plan. Try to find the appropriate working pace by analyzing how your colleagues work – in some cultures, if you are faster than the rest, you will be appreciated. In Austria, if you try to be faster, it will most probably mean that you have not invested enough time into planning your task and you have not discussed it with all the persons concerned. In conclusion, rather than trying to change something, you should try to adapt to your working environment and blend in, rather than standing out.

Other than some working cultures, Austrians do not only focus on the result, but also on the way you got to that result, which is a quite healthy approach.

4.       Keep it simple

The same way you should keep it simple when you talk, you should also keep it simple when you dress. Other than in the East, no one cares how you dress or look like when you go to work. If you spend too much time dressing up or doing your hair, you will most probably be the target of your colleagues’ jokes. So focus on what is in your head, not on your head. If you are a good professional and master your assignments, you will be appreciated.

Speaking of appreciation, do not expect to get public praise or very much feedback – you will sense that people appreciate your work eventually, even if they do not say it directly. If you are a feedback fan, you will have to rethink your attitude, because you will not get a lot of direct feedback here. Learn how to read between the lines and you will know if you are on the right side of the road.

5.       Don’t assume – ask!

As you do not get a lot of direct feedback, you might fall in the trap of assuming stuff. Do not do that – if something is not clear or if you do not know if you are steering your project into the right direction, just ask! Austrians like direct, open people and they will never leave you in the dark with your work. People at work are very supportive and I have not sensed any type of unwillingness to help. So, instead of imagining things, just put them on the table and you will have your answers right away.

And what about the Knödel thing? I have read that you should never ever try to cut your Knödel, because it is impolite – you should only break it with your fork!

What can I say? Good luck with breaking this one: