LexArrow - it’s in your mind…

Yup, I got a new job! I’ve been searching for 4 months for a job I see me doing at least for the next 3-4 years. I was also one step away from going to either India or Belgium, but I had a “gut feeling” doubled by a bit of help and I didn’t leave. I don’t regret the decision, on the contrary, things turned out so well that even if I tried to put them together myself I couldn’t have done a better job. And I got by with a little help from my friends… Besides the new job, I moved in with Cori in Bucharest so my personal life also got an “upgrade”

I forgot to say where I work now: Deloitte Consulting Bucharest

I got to share this. Adi managed to climb Mont Blanc. And if this is not a “deed”, then the fact that he did it with only 68 euros (67.53 to be exact) is a “deed” indeed :).

I’ve come to a conclusion that was cornering my mind for quite a while. It doesn’t matter what software I use as long as it leads me to the expected result with the less stress possible. I may be an Open Source/Linux fan, but I’m more a fan of meeting my goals. The event that filled the cup was a document I’m translating that didn’t open properly in Openoffice.org 3 and Office 2007 still has annoying bugs in Linux.

For the past year I’ve been hearing way too many times the word “leadership”. I think that’s why a little question popped in my mind: “What would be the traits of the person that has as subordinates other leaders?”. My wild guess is soft skills come into play more often here, along with increased awareness.

I just have no clear idea why. Windows (btw I downgraded after 1 year from Vista to XP) does everything I need and still I am gradually moving to Linux (Ubuntu). For the last 2 years I spent countless sleepless nights figuring out Linux from clicking around the desktop to automated server scripts. It had both positive and negative impacts on my life. My communication skills decreased…my analytical and creative ones increased. A new door opened for me, the one of choice, challenging the status quo and thus I discovered a new perspective to look upon things, everything, not just IT. I guess I like feeling like an underdog rising up in the ranks, I like the elegance and the intelligent solutions it provides. I like the community vibe. I like the power it gives me, both creative and destructive like a Roman Emperor in the Colosseum. Thumb’s up: wireless works, video enhancements work, server combo works. Thumb’s down display crashes, programs don’t compile, server fails. You may notice in this allegoric description I didn’t say anything about Linux being free…just didn’t cross my mind in the beginning. I like it’s simplicity and logic. It took me a while to discover, but it’s a lot more straightforward and intuitive than Windows.

And to think laziness also had an important role in this…Yeah that’s right I was too lazy to learn learn by heart what I should have learned for school and I found Linux as an excuse

The experience has shown me there’s no feasible way to use both operating systems and I think this is another reason pushing me away from the blue screen of death.

P.S. I know the blog theme is butt ugly and I promise I will change it. Just didn’t find a nice template yet

Dana published an interesting article on innovation in Romania. It’s an easy walk-through the concept of innovation in Dracula’s country, from premises to law and policy, blended with a lot of figures and comparative charts. It also covers a niche that lacks info, especially in Romania. If your interested about innovation in general and its current status in Romania, her article will be a great read.

Orange Romania launched a new marketing campaign: together we can do more. The end line of the commercial is (in Romanian) “Sunt cine sunt datorita tuturor“, which in English translation means “I am who I am because of everybody else“. The problem? The meaning of ubuntu is, and I quote from their website “Ubuntu is an African word meaning ‘Humanity to others’, or ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.”

The words may not be the same, but the meaning is identical. Coincidence or not?

I just posted the longest blog comment ever, on Denis’s blog. I rediscovered a part of me I thought gone: I managed to follow my line of thought, by letting it free, unbiased. Like I was someone else, hearing another voice reasoning. Haven’t felt that in a while

This is the title (translation: the time of the cathedrals) of the song that opens the Notre Dame de Paris show. I’ve seen it for the first time in high school at a French class. I’m not a fan of musicals, not by a long shot, but this one is really amazing. Great music, great voices, great choreography, great scenery!

This is the title of a book I’m reading, written by Daniel Goleman. It has too many anatomical details for my taste, but it’s interesting none the less. It sustains that IQ plays only a small part in professional success and in fact EQ makes the difference. EQ meaning capacity to form human relations, self awareness, self confidence, pro-activity and other feelings like these. Everything is based upon documented research. It emphasizes awareness and trusting your instinct. It explains the fact that people are not rational in a mathematic/computer kind of way. The human brain makes decisions based on perception and former experience.

This is not astonishing news, as I’ve heard these things one by one in different situations. The fact that much of the scattered information I’ve been acquiring are in one book is an important value added.

I see this book as a tool to successfully prove some points I couldn’t prove before. For example school teaches only hard skills/technical stuff, but never the soft skills needed in life, not just in business, but in everyday life. It also raises some questions. If people don’t make rational decisions, why try to explain human behavior through inflexible mathematical patterns. I’ve learned so many economical models that our teachers even said they will never happen in reality, but YOU HAVE TO KNOW THEM. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think practice is possible without theory (or the other way around), but I feel I learned a lot of useless things in college that I never applied in almost 2 years of working experience. Well, that’s just the result of going to college in Romania. I had a great time both in school and in high-school with very demanding, but awesome teachers. College was a biiiig disappointment. On the other hand, as a student, I had time for extracurricular activities (a.k.a working) that shaped me and taught me essential things that I will detail in further posts.

Back to the book, if you’re not interested how the amigdala and the limbic system make you react in certain ways, then read this book on the diagonal in some parts. You’ll essentially learn what EQ is, how it manifests, what is it useful for and a few tips on how to improve it.