Okay, so I am again looking around for a new consulting assignment or a permanent job. Having helped Yulia to establish CheckIn.com, we are about to finish the work on the dashboard redesign supporting route level analysis and have first (successful) tests of the related analyses, so we’re confident to have those before Winter.

As my readers know, I am not “academic”, as far as it is about a university degree. “All I have” is a three year business education in Whole Sale & Foreign Trade Economics with a German Chamber of Commerce degree, similar to the integrated degree program. Which poses a hurdle finding a decent job in Germany. Not so easy if you don’t “fit the box” of a cogwheel. Being creative, interdisciplinary, a fire fighter, doesn’t make the fit into a box any easier.

Should you happen to seek a creative campaigner, do talk to me please ツ

But I just happen to look at some quotes that keep popping up on LinkedIn…
My preferred one for many years:

Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates didn’t finish university.Still, there are people like Marisa Meyer at Yahoo (former Google), disqualifying good and successful people only because they didn’t graduate…

Recently I read former German Minister for Scientific Research Heinz Riesenhuber saying “The only difference between German Trainee program (Berufsausbildung) and the Dual Study system is that only the latter gets a university degree.” Having qualified after three years with a non-university degree in Whole Sale & Foreign Trade Economics, I’ve worked at the edge of creative developments and shared my knowledge as guest lecturer at universities. I’ve been speaker at international events. But i.e. at Lufthansa I don’t even have to apply as they demand a university degree; might be agriculture at that I am told…

This statement be Robert Kuok, the richest man in Malaysia fits a quote by Steve Jobs, late founder and brain behind Apple.com:

As I mention frequently in interviews, most of my business life I was hired as a fire fighter. Sometimes I was allowed to change things and usually then those things succeeded. At other times, I was hired as the scape goat. Just recently … Naaaw. Let’s not dig into that open wound ツ But being the eternal optimist, I learned that there’s a solution to any problem.

Extinguishing fires for the past 30 years turned me into a creative, interdisciplinary but optimistic aviation expert with my own network of aviation experts helping me where I get stuck. It allowed me to speak at top level aviation events on IT, business travel, analysis, usability and design, A-CDM (operations), marketing and other issues. Frequently about how pieces fit into the puzzle. As a consultant, I’m called to oversee projects in aviation that sometimes impose a lot of change to the people. Related mostly to marketing, analysis, distribution, operations, interfaces and other such issues.

So these quotes above are simply examples, making me confident that I will find my next challenge where I can make a change.

Food For Thought
Comments welcome