4 +, 4 -

The 360 degrees evaluation (the “what?”)

Each year, I make a 360 degrees evaluation of how I am perceived by people from different areas and fields in my life, from which I ask  to tell me 4 things they like (appreciate, resonate) and 4 things they don’t like (which could use improvement).

There are two major classifications of the people I ask feed-back from (the “who?”):

1 a. People that got to know me for a certain period or which I worked with for a while (examples: relatives, friends, customers, collaborators, colleagues)

1b. People that I met once or twice on different occasions (networking events, short-period trainings, people I talked to over the internet, dating)

2a. People in the professional field (customers, collaborators, web 2.0, trainers, coaching)

2b. People in the personal field (relatives, friends, aquointances, appartment colleagues, dating, hobby activities – related)

The main criteria for choosing people is to have had contact with those I’m asking, in the previous year, and to have an balanced representation among all the categories and areas where I can be personally known. That’s why I plan to ask a few dozen of people, to get a complete answer from at least half of them.

There are two purposes of this exercise (the “why?” and the “when?”).

First, is personal development. I have set a few personal development directions for 2012, based on my opinions, but I haven’t made an objective evaluation based on other people’s impressions until this week. I am doing this evaluation once a year. But this year, it got a little bit more special: I also did an analysis on the past 6 years. I re-interepreted the data and it’s almost ready. In a few days I will share with you some of my conclusions on this blog.

The second is personal branding evaluation. It’s important to know which are the main attributes that define me in the other people’s eyes. That helps me understand how to communicate myself in the most natural way. If people perceive me in a certain way, it is easier to communicate about myself on those aspects that are naturally perceived from my part.

The methodology (the “how?”)

As a methodology,  I take the 4 positive attributes and the 4 negative attributes from all the people that gave me a complete answer, I search for patterns and I identify the common attributes from these patterns, according to the importance they have, measured in points. I then make a top of the main positive and the main negative attributes. I ask each year from different people, over the phone, over messenger and face to face, because it’s important to have an objective opinion. Sometimes I seek answers from people I asked in the previous years, but that’s under 10 % of the people I ask. Usually, there are more than enough individuals to ask for the first time every year in all the categories.

The main objections I get are: “Oh, but I don’t know you that well”, either if it’s coming from someone who knows me since 7 years ago or someone who I met last fall; “Oh, but you’re OK the way you are, who am I to judge what’s good and what’s wrong about you!” – again, this is not self-esteem improvement, actually I will most likely forget what each person told me, that’s why I’m taking notes while getting the answers. I’m interested rather in the average of all subjective impresions.

My 4th year in blogging

2012 is my 4th year of blogging. This is post # 100 on this blog.

So I decided to make a retrospective of my writing experience, throughout my whole life. I will share the story I haven’t told to anyone – now public, on my blog, for the first time.

When I was about 10, three great things happened:

1. I received a typewriter (it was quite old, from before WWII), my first professional typrewriting instrument, years before meeting the PC.

2. I have written my first poetry – a silly thing about the moon, inspired by Eminescu‘s poems [en, wiki].

3. My first business idea ever: to open a publishing house. :)

Good for my mother, to help me analyse the business idea. My enthusiasm got stuck. Not the same thing was with poetry, as I persevered, although my poetry was awful – at least for the few couple of years. In highschool, when I was 17, I published my first poetry and I’ve written quite some good ones – of course, in highschool I was quite different than how I am today. As for the typewriter, err… some few years later, I was convinced to throw it away, as it became broken beyond repair – now you can imagine how much I typed to get there…

Contrary to what kids do at that age, I started writing at about 10. And since then, I have never stopped. I started writing first notebooks, than cahiers, than dossiers, hundreds, than thousands of pages, of… film analysis and storytells from actual films I saw either at TV or at the cinemas. I also wrote short stories.

No wonder my first job ever was film critic, in 2001, at a B24fun-sort-of glossy weekly avant-la-lettre. A month later after being hired, I was promoted to cultural editor. That’s how I started my work here and there in editing and writing small articles in the local press.

That wasn’t all. Being totally passioned by the physics of relativity, cuantum physics and cosmogony, I started writing scientific white papers, which brought me some local and national awards for: general skills in physics, observational spirit & perspciacity and logical thinking. In the end, I published them all in 2005 in my first and only printed published book, about the origin of the Universe. Anyway… That was just a hobby.

In 2004, I did a little bit of translation.  I worked for the translation in Romanian of Encyclopedia Britannica. Not much at all. Just enough to determine I don’t pretty much like that.

Between 2004-2006, I was member of a literary circle of critic, Quasar, in which I learned how to write better, through constructive critic and supportive feed-back from the participants

In 2005, I received at a National Psychology Conference the award for the best original work in psychology. Also, my first marketing research was awarded 1st prize in a students’ contest awarded by teachers from the Business Management and Economy Faculty (which was quite unusual, as I wasn’t a student to that faculty). Also, then I presented an innovative method for strategic analysis at the National Fair of Psychology and at the Organizational Psychology National Conference and I published my first work in “Psihologia Azi” [ro, php].

Encouraged by that success, in 2006, I have written a book called “The Education in Romania, between development and dressage” and I proudly presented it to some qualified people. It was too biased and unstructured, so much so that I understood I did not have the ability to write a complex book at that time – the book about the Universe was not the project of a book per se, but the merge of a few white papers which were already appreciated. Also, my first try to write articles on personal development did not succeed, as psychology white papers & research weren’t the same with personal development.

In 2007, I have started my carreer as a blogger – on a Romanian website which was then nr. 1 in online personal development [ro, blog]. I have written around three dozen of articles which have been published on that website, on persuasion and negotiation, self-esteem and personal development. I even won a prize for best article in personal development. That was a very useful school of online publishing for me. Also in 2007, I started my first YahooGroup, which now is the largest non-student group on professional development from Romania. The exercise of creating and moderating a community, done in the same time with getting my articles published was certainly helped by my experience as a copywriter – my first customer, in consulting in the summer of 2005, was for copywriting. I learned how to develop different styles of writing, how to express complex ideas and how to support hundreds of people to develop personally – which was quite an interesting perspective.

In 2008, I self-published an extended, re-edited version of a multimedia CD for efficient learning – including an e-book written by me, on speed reading and memory techniques. That was a real success.

2009 was my first year of blogging.

After a discussion with Andrei Roşca [ro, blog], I decided it was time for me to have my blog, in the end. It was quite late not to have a blog, as a blog required a lot of responsability, and I kinda postponed it, year after year. My first blog post was Impressions from the GalerIAA Opening [en, blog], the coverage of a cultural event organized by the International Advertising Association in Bucharest.

After a few events, there I was, little me with my tiny blog. Of course, the blog was intended – and served, after all, its intention – as a critical analysis tool on business, marketing, public relations, human resources and personal development. So my articles started getting better and better. I had quite an enthusm in my experience, but in the same time, I was also a bit unsure of myself – and I had why. Some of the articles written in the first whole year of blogging I decided to delete, as I considered them not that great.

2010 was the year of confirmation

Although I had quite some things to learn about myself in the style, rythm, topics and even in my “writer’s blocks”, I started to receive some appreciation in 2010: some of my articles were re-published by others, other people inspired by me have made their own blogs, statistics went up, I’ve written more. In 2010 I was proud to call myself a true blogger!

Still, since October 2011, I took a biiiig pause, while I moved to Belgium – which is unfortunate. I still remember, while I was there, lots of articles came into my head, and I was writing them in my mind, only to be frustrated I did not make enough time to publish any of thoughts.

2011 – three years, three blogs

Returned to Bucharest in the spring of 2011, I started to blog again, but not only on Analytic Vision, but moving my attention to two other new blogs: Debug Your Mind [en, blog], which I started in the summer of 2011, and Discerne [ro, blog], which I started in spring 2011. To oppose the generalistic, un-focused perspective from my personal blog, Analytic Vision, these two blogs are more concentrated: On “Discerne” (which means discent), I write about professional & organizational development in Romanian, and on “Debug Your Mind”, about documentaries and docudramas I recommend, to better understand geopolitically and economically the present times.

In the same time, I kept my activity on Analytic Vision: 41 posts in 2011 – more than 2010 (38) and twice as much as in 2009 (20).

For the moment, my main blog remains Analytic Vision [en, blog], but I don’t write on it only for Romanians, but rather more as an expression of my own perspectives to anyone who is interested in floowing me – either using RSS, Twitter or e-mail. Discerne [ro, blog] is my blog for Romanians. Discerne is my work as a better blogger. Doing my “blogging school” with Analytic Vision and all of the others, I have managed to create a better blog, in Romanian.

Its mission is to provide the necessary and useful information for develoipment: for individuals (may they be independent consultants, entrepreneurs, psychologists or managers) and for organizations (the marketing, PR and HR functions) in order for them to take the best decisions from the palette of options which lie ahead the future.

You read my blogs because it’s interesting for you and because you like the way I write – I have a very professional style of writing (no matter what the subject is) ands quality always attracts. In the end, it’s not what you write that matters so much, but how you write about it *read more about it in this article: It’s not WHAT You Write, it’s HOW You Write).

2012 – The year of expansion

My first two blogs have reached, each of them, 100 posts. This year I have great plans.Here are my intentions

1. I will launch my first audiobook, which will be included on the third edition of the multimedia kit for efficient learning, together with a brand new e-book called “The Guide for Efficient Learning” – all in Romanian

2. I will start taking interviews, which I will publish on Discerne (in Romanian) and on Analytic Vision (in English). Get more information here [ro, php]

3. I wil host guest posting on Discerne. Get more information here [ro, php]

4. I will start publishing my articles on other websites/blogs.

5. I will publish a printed book on negotiation, titled “The Ways of Persuasion in negotiation” – a Romanian book, my first book for business people.

So, if you want to know about what I’m up to, read my blogs:

Analytic Vision                                                                Discerne                                                   Debug Your Mind

How to promote: 7 Romanian great video examples, selected by Stefan Alexandrescu

This post is a succesion of the original one.

Film Promoting on Facebook by Director Andrei Dascalescu of his film “Constantin and Elena” presented at the The New Cinema of the Romanian Director

The Press on the National Event “The Night of the libraries“

The truth about Iasi – Irina Schrotter official YouTube promotion before qutting to run for mayor’s office a spoof of The Truth of Argentina.

Boardbreaking workshop with Bruno Medicina

Target practice promoted for bloggers - I dare U launch from UTV Romania

TV Placement for speed reading

Moise Guran, the presenter of the “Biz Bazar” admires the marketing genius behind the initiative of “Rosia Montana Gold Corporation” on convincing government to destroy an important part of the Romanian Ecosystem

You can also check the video on trilulilu here

I also recommend to study this: The most viewed YouTube Vidoes

How to promote: 10 great video examples, selected by Stefan Alexandrescu

If you work in advertising or marketing, it is mandatory to view these!

Saga Commercial – DARE

The Google Story

Microsoft Future Vision

Socialist Catalonian Party Vote

Coraline book trailer made for content by a user

The Truth of Argentina

About the Hey clip

The girls who made the “Hey” clip explain behind the scenes their vision. Hey is one of the most visioned Youtube clips (over 33 million views)

The “making of” is actually a funvertisment

EU policy on consumer protection

Entrepreneurs can change the world

How to present inventions in the shower – European Comission Enterprise and Industry & Junior Achievement International

Holographic concert – Ad for T-Mobile

Ad for “The Secret” scam

I also recommend to study this: The most viewed YouTube Vidoes

Ştefan Alexandrescu’s favourite 10 cities to live in

1. Brussels

2. Dublin

3. City of Luxembourg

4. Berlin

5. Strasbourg

6. Chişinău

7. Madrid

8. Barcelona

9. Geneva

10. Paris

Article break

I have intended to write quite a few articles the previous weeks, actually started some of them, but I just didn’t have time for it, as I am more concentrated on my Romanian blog, Discerne and on the books I am currently writing.

So I’m sorry that I don’t quite know when I will be back online, but thank you for your interest and please visit the Archive section.

How Easely Do You Conform to “No”?

I’m considered a rather insistent fellow. I don’t easily take “no” as a definitive response. It really depends on the issue and the time I have available, but in most cases, I insist, until I obtain the answer I wish. I noticed the main difference does not only start from my attitude, but mostly from my negotiation skills.

I would even be mean and say I can’t work in a team with someone who doesn’t know how to negotiate, because in order to be able to collaborate to the people I’m working with, I need to rely on them. How can I rely on someone who takes the first “no” as a “stop”? Somehow, the lack of ability to negotiate ends up influencing anyone’s life. The uncanning conclusion is that in life, you only have what you negotiated for. The way your life looks is the result of the negotiations – or the lack thereof. Whatever You accept as given – may it be a behavior, a product, a service, a price – everything ends up limiting your options. Fear of non-conformity, fear of the unknown and even lack of courage all contribute in making each one’s life more and more cheap.

Writing two books about negotiation, I have confronted myself with the question: how much do I really know about the subject? Do I consider myself a specialist in this area? All the things I wrote seem so natural to me. And then the answer came to me from experience and from my clients: what seems natural for me may seem as a threshold for others, who have not built for themselves these abilities. I like to think I have benefited from my negotiation skills more in my personal life than in my professional life. Also, the most part of the people I know DO have the ability of looking for offerts and negotiating – the contrast is given by those who don’t have this ability.

About 8 years ago, when I started to get in touch with personal development systems, I was in a rush to share all the wonderful knowledge I was getting with everyone. Now, I find out with sadness that there is a gap. A huge gap. Some people actually prefer to live an unnegotiated life – and to work unnecesarrely to pay for it, just to avoid the pain of getting out of the comfort area. The comfort they dream to is getting much more highly paied, unfortunately.

I was involved this week in a project which required a lot of persuasion from my part. Much more than I was able to deliver, to my shame. But I would like to share with you some of the learnings I had & conclusions I drawed:

1. When following a target, it’s not as important to push for a positive response as it is to correctly identify the right public: who, from the audience, is your target

2. Timing is more important than a lot of other factors. There is a right time to approach persons for persuasion, and there is a wrong time. Getting it right might be the difference between winning and losing

3. Each of us has the potential for spotting the right person to do a certain job, much more than we believe. We just have to train this potential into abilities.

4. People usually don’t wait for your indecisions. Lack of answer will be interpreted the way the listener is best suited. If you don’t choose, you lose.

5. There will always be people who get better deals than you and people who get worse deals than you. If you want to make it into the first category, the first step is wondering “how do they do it?”.

6. There is a difference between acceptance and resignation. Acceptance doesn’t even mean approval. It seams some still don’t get that. For most Romanians, without a culture of negotiation, usually to “accept” means “to surrender to”.

7. One of the inconvenient reasons for which most people don’t appreciate persuasion is the fact it requires patience. The culture of “I want results, NOW!” ends up costing more than what it promises to deliver. Persuasion doesn’t rhyme with short-term.

8. Most people don’t realize in order to fulfill their most basic needs – for survival – they have to develop. The distress provoked by the necessity of working  a lot for maintaining the place to stay, food and transportation ends up being a trauma out of which nothing is learnt. Those who refuse to develop, end up feeling blocked and continue the same processes again and again. Those who embrace the change realize that developing professional development skills is not a form of intelectual stimullation and education – but an issue of survival – may end up learning something: that life without learning is death, in the current economic context.

9. When I was younger, I used to promote the idea one can learn from anyone. While I still believe that, I believe more in negotiating for my time now. My time is precious, so I plan for everything which is important to me, including meetings with friends. Therefore, I carefully choose the people I spend the time with. Generally, it’s better to spend more time with the people you aspire to become like. Everyone is the average of the 6 people  (s)he spends the most time with. So… I use my right to say “no”. I know people don’t usually fight it.

10. If you search for people who have available time (for what?), better search for people with no plans, no goals, which would rather work for others’ goals. They are the most likely to act responsive.

In the end I have a question for you: “If I ask for this, what is the best thing that might happen”?

Great Posts You Haven’t Probably Yet Read on Analytic Vision

I surfed a little trhough statistics and I couldn’t help not noticing that there are a few articles less read, but which I consider noteworthy – no matter when they’ve been published

1. Less is more. Until it becomes nothing.
2. Transcending Patterns of Communication
3. The Art of Listening Others. Version 2.1.
4. DOs and DON’Ts about fear and apprehension
5. Half a Year of Discent
6. Top 10 Stefan Alexandrescu’s favourite FICTION films (part II)
7. Nikola Tesla The Genius Who Lit the World
8. Customer satisfaction in modern society
9. Study this small story, Hope that makes a BIG change
10. “The Art of Personal Branding”, or Sometimes, a “pen” is Just a pen. But Sometimes It Isn’t.

What Are You Pretending Not to Have in order for Your Problem to Be Real?

More often than not, most people have an interesting procedure for self-sabotage. They may unconsciously want to experience more attention, more diversity or simply to elude the responsability of dealing with their own problems. In fact, they have (access to) more resources they would like to admit. This is by no means an intention of wasting other people’s time. It just so happens oftenly that, caught in the flow of things, we forget the main purpose.

I will give you my example. During the summer of 2011, I worked at 7 projects (see more details here) Of course I haven’t finished any of them. In exchange, I seem to have been caught (this is just a fiugure of speaking – actually, it’s all my fault) in a lot of small time-occupying activities, which won’t actually matter in 5 years, and which are only urgent stuff about which you forget after doing them – like mounting parquet, getting involved in other people’s issues (living other people’s lives while I’m borrowing mine to other people), being sick; I blogged on Debug Your Mind [en, blog] and Discerne [ro, blog], I met with a lot of people which shared me their business ideas – out of which none of them earned me any money, compiling and re-organizing my professional files, doing shopping, cleaning and re-arranging the house, fighting with some tough-headed people, etc.

All these non-strategic activities got me involved in other people’s plans in stead of involving others in my plans. I forgot that I myself, as a coach, have a set of tools designed specifically to prevent such things from happening. Time is the most precious resource any person has. Doing things without a sense of purpose gest motivation down. In one day, you wake up and find out you don’t like what you have to do. You find you are the prisoner of your own life. Using freedom to lose it is the most current manner Western civiliyation uses in order to feel useless and purposeless.

So I adopted some strategies which I would like to share with you.

1. When all sorts of thoughts came in my mind, which would lead me to waste my time, I would tell myself: “What crazy ideas you have! It’s no wonder, since you avoid doing what you like!” You know, it takes effort to do what you like.

2. I took a large paper notebook (A4) and I started writing on it everything that came into my mind while I was doing something else.

3. I took a few strategic hours and I wrote tens of motivation quotes in SMSes, which I send to all of my friends every 2 days. Sending them, reminds me of what I should be doing myself.

4. I started to relax and stop working on Sunday. I went for walks, I went to the movies, I met with friends, I ate a lot of things I like and, most important, I went to the Church. It’s a real challenge to absolutely clean your thoughts for a few hours of all the mental pollution (“I’ve got to do this”, “I don’t like this”, “I’m so angry at X for doing this to me”, “where am I gonna get these resources from”, “Why is the person in front of me dressed that way?”, “I wonder who just called me”, “I have a new idea how to make money”, etc.) etc.). Just STOP rewinding and recycling all this shit for more than it’s worth and concentrate on communicating with God.

5. I really made an effort of getting into bed earlier, and stop staying until 3-4 in the morning, working like crazy. My sleep time table moved from 3-10 AM to 11 PM -6 AM. This way, I increased my sense of humor and I can smile more while walking on the street and I can inspire other people to a better state.

6. I cut more than 100 small pieces of paper, noting on each a certain small task or proccupation (a.k.a. “to do list”) and I put them on the floor, creating a huge quadrant like this.

7. I sorted my friends. Yes, as you hear it. Of course, it may be difficult to make a list of your friends at a certain moment. But for me, since I have about 30 of them, it’s important to keep track and remain in touch with each of them. But as anyone knows, some people change and go in different directions and then, what brought you together doesn’t keep you together. Then, some others abuse the friendship and only take all the time, without ever giving in return. Some other people may be very good friends from my perspective, but I am not contributing in any manner for their well-being and wether I keep the connection with them or not, it’s the same for them – there is no reciprocity, therefore I cannot call them friends. There are also a lot fo people to which friendship brought me in a specific proximity. Meeting with them again doesn’t provide that same closeness. So cut, cut, cut. And connect, connect, connect. It may be difficult recognizing you have lost a friend, but as soon as you figure nobody actually cares about that except you, it will suraly be easier to go on.

8. I watched a lot of movies (eh, summer) and that might have been reflected in my posting activity on “Film” category and I ve been writing on my new film blog, Debug Your Mind [en, blog] . Seeing films offers insightful parallels into other realities. It can serve you as a metaphor and result in important insights. It’s easier to learn from other’s experience or from others’ stories than from your own experience. And it’s more confortful to watch movies than read books for most people.

PS: Study This Small Story, Hopes It Makes a Great Change

What Have I been doing lately

I have became mysterious, some say, since non of my blogs seem to indicate what I’m up  to lately.

Since I also use the blog to communicate to the simple question “ce mai faci?”/”hey, what’s up?”, I will make a confession.

Besides blogging, since April till September (half of 2011), I have been writing for 7 projects.

The psychometric measurement of Self-Esteem by Ştefan Alexandrescu

The HR Evaluation through Graphological Analysis and Psychometrically through Metaprograms

The Ways of Persuasion in Negotiation / Căile persuasiunii în negociere, Romanian professional development book, printed (finalized 80%) Approx 300 pages

Negotiation Frames in Business / Cadre ale negocierii în afaceri, Romanian professional development e-book (finalized 80%) Approx 300 pages

Branding for Beginners / Branding pentru începători, Romanian professional development book, printed  (finalized 80%) Approx. 400 pages

The Multimedia CD for Efficient Learning Training: Speed Reading Audiobook (text finished 100%, currently being translated in Italian), Approx 1 h 15 mins, Concentration and Memorising Techniques E-book  (finalized 80%) Approx 100 pages

The collaboration with 4Career, a young company launched this September on the HR market in Bucharest and Ploiesti, which will start this October organizing trainings and workshops for me. I have been working with them on demo trainings, presentations, promoting and partnership strategies.

This October I intend to start working with a multinational research company.

Last month I worked for renovating the apartment where I live, which is quite central – Vitan Mall.

In my spare time, I meet with friends, watch movies and read history books.

I have stopped spending time on Twitter, Facebook and Yahoo Messenger.

You can find me only on this phone number: 0040 754 534 929.