This blog-post has been prepared, as are the next ones the next two weeks. I decided to go for an adventure trip to Russia. And no, not to Moscow or Saint Petersburg, but into the country.
The region I visit is addressing international markets but lacks a decent airline connection. In fact, there is one. But being expert for aviation distribution, I was simply unable to book the flight and have to travel from Moscow more than 12 hours by train. The flights I intended to fly out of Germany on were just cancelled on short notice. So I had to adjust my plans and that involved to stick within the schedule. Ad hoc changing the visa due to a flight cancellation? No way! Booking an affordable flight to Moscow? Nonrefundable. So I had to wait for the visa to be issued before I could book. Hotel? More expensive than in Berlin. So the entire trip turned out to be a preplanning nightmare and a bureaucratic Ironman challenge.
If I would like to do business there? There is a lot to be done and I work on a study to give them the look from the outside.
Thanks to exceptionally motivated people in the German Foreign Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, Olga Bleykhman, being a member of the Russian Marketing Guild in St. Petersburg, who became quickly a very close and valuable friend, Alla my personal translator in Magdeburg and long year friends such as Heinz, Richard or Mike, to mention some, I have been able to compile quite a detailed study, I am now trying to complete “on site”.
I will report upon return!
A discussion on LinkedIn triggered thoughts about personal priorities in business. And keep in mind that it’s the (wo)man in the mirror that makes a change (or doesn’t).
I do think we far too much try “selling” and many people have forgotten the good old habits of reliability, honesty, trust and faith. We spend all our time making money to spend on luxuries and saving it for spare time we do not have. We forgot how to live.
Many managers nowadays aren’t any better than Ebenezer Scrooge and one just wishes the Ghosts of Christmas to visit them! What is important? The money you make? The money some unknown investor makes? Welcome to the Grey Gentlemen! If you are a manager, what are your values? Think about it!
Throughout the time I was employed by others, I played a game I call, “Bring Me a Rock.” The game has thousands of minor variations but they all follow the same basic format.
The game begins when the boss calls me into his or her office and invites me to have a seat. Over the next several minutes of extended conversation, the boss’s message can easily be summarized in four words, “Bring me a rock.” I’d then return to my own cubicle or office and construct a list of the features I believed the boss’s rock should have and begin to study where and how such a rock might be developed.
Hours, days, weeks, or months later I’d return to the boss’s office and proudly place my rock squarely in the middle of the desk. Aghast or at least disdainfully, the boss would ask, “What the #e!! is that?” Gently I would remind, “You asked me to bring you a rock.”
“That,” derisively, “is not the rock I wanted.”
Then I would inquire, “Can you tell me about the rock you want?” “Yes!” emphatically, “I will know it when I see it!”
Eventually my last boss got tired of the game and let me know I was being laid off. As I heard his words, I realized that I too was tired of the game.
If this has happened to you, this blog is just for you.
A German saying asked “Do you still have sex or do you play golf already?” (Hast Du noch Sex oder golfst Du schon?). Adapting it this week to “Hast Du noch Privatsphäre oder googlest Du schon?” (see title).
Following the general and naive media hype (can the media be truly that naive?!) about the new Google Chrome, German ZDF and some other more reputable news media took a closer look. Do you remember the public outcry when Microsoft was found “phoning home”? Google’s Chrome does not just call home. Your browsing history (aside others) is stored right on the Google servers. Interesting enough, despite ability to develop tools cross-plattform, the Chrome browser is only available for the Windows environment.
Another report did address the fact that Google builds “The Cloud“. As most my readers are travel industry related, you may recall that Amadeus Germany (“Start”) replaced the last “dummy terminal” in 1993 with a “PC”. Enabling storage of information locally. With “The Cloud”, you need to be always online, but you do not need a large hard drive any more, as all programs and data is stored on the servers in the web. The Google servers that is if you ask Google… Welcome back to our roots!
1 ½ years ago, at my anual ASRA presentation (4,1 MB), I addressed data security. The friends in ASRA joked about me being paranoid. Last weeks the “loss” and misuse of private government data (in large style) is all over media and politics in Europe, especially U.K. and Germany. In Germany even the official registration office (where any citizen must register one’s address) sells the data quite publicly. So paranoid? Or just realistic? Or underestimating the case?
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reported to actually pick laptops from travelers without a particular security concern (“spot checks”). Too bad, if that happens to an Airbus official, who denies to give the passwords to access the encrypted data. And there is no official information, how the data is secured by the DHS. So the data may end up at Boeing quite “legally”. And yes, sure there are many ways to ensure the DHS not getting access to any privacy data. The Cloud Computing can also be set to communicate not with Google but with your own server(s) and a nice, unobtrusive special login allows you to invisibly purge (not just “delete” recoverably) all private data including server accesses in case that becomes necessary. Then you login in via VPN (access details not on the computer) and just restore your work environment. On this or just another PC… Details on request 😉
Hmmm… The DHS and politicians sure know that terrorists are not so stupid as to answer “did you pack a bomb” with “yes” (still “normal” question at U.S. airport check-in) or that they are usually organized good enough to secure their backs better. So if they know that, am I paranoid to believe them to not be interested in terrorists but to increase their control of us, their citizens?!
It is a radical change of the legal paradigm that one is innocent until proven guilty. Today we are all presumed terrorists and have to proof we are innocent citizens! All that under the argument that an innoncent person does not have to hide anything? What a complete farce!
George Bush, Wolfgang Schäuble, read my lipps: You will be going into history for having brought down freedom and established the surveillance state. Oh, sorry George Bush, you did better, you’ve become the president leading the U.S. into global wars being proven lier, using faked proof for “weapons of mass destruction”. Your “holy wars” have as much justification as the holy wars of the mideval ages! What was that movie? Wag the dog… Good to start a war to cover up the real business – such as to establish a surveillance state? The land of the free… The what? … Well done Mr. President!
So as a summary: Be careful with your private data and start to consider preference of non-commercial Open Source software, such as Mozilla, Open Office and Linux instead of Windows – it becomes increasingly a (vital) privacy issue! Not only privately, but increasingly also for corporations…
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This blog-post has been prepared, as are the next ones the next two weeks. I decided to go for an adventure trip to Russia. And no, not to Moscow or Saint Petersburg, but into the country.
A discussion on LinkedIn triggered thoughts about personal priorities in business. And keep in mind that it’s the (wo)man in the mirror that makes a change (or doesn’t).
Throughout the time I was employed by others, I played a game I call, “Bring Me a Rock.” The game has thousands of minor variations but they all follow the same basic format.