Vocabulary

I´m not really inspired at the moment to write something in my blog. I therefore collected some expressions to help you enhance your vocabulary in the meantime. Today it´s about words you definitely have to know if you´re working in an office... :)

Beepilepsy - The brief seizure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.

Blamestorming - A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Chainsaw Consultant - An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Egosurfing - Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one’s own name.

Glazing - Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?”

GOOD job - A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Irritainment - Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

Salmon Day - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end.

Seagull Manager - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.

Uninstalled - Euphemism for being fired. Also: decruitment.

Visiting Blacksocks

Today me and a friend visited Samy Liechti founder and owner of Blacksocks in Zürich. We interviewed him for a case study in our course Leadership/Entrepreneurship. Blacksocks is selling a subscription for socks as a core business but extend lately to underwear. It was really intersting to have a chat with Mr. Liechti.
First I´d like to describe the environment. We arrived in front of the house, Blacksocks was supposed to be in, but there wasn´t any indication of a company. There was no sign, the house looked more like a detached house. But the number indicated that we were at the right address. We went to the second floor and even there was no indication or sign. Only because he told me beforehand that we should come to the reception in the second floor passed the door and entered. Inside it looked more like an art gallery than an office. But we were at the right place and the reception lady indicated us the meeting room we could go in. After he arrived as well in the room he offered us coffee and served it himself - in plastic cups, the ones you usually buy in the supermarket for family celebrations. It was a very sympathic ambiance!
Our intervied finally was about the innovation and how they founded a company, characteristics of an entrepreneur and so on. I don´t to reproduce everything but only some things:

• They started back in 1999 to sell on the internet, at a time where only a small part of people already had access to the internet. There were not so many doing this already, that´s why Blacksocks and LeShop were the ones always mentioned as swiss examples for e-business.
• In the first years they were very motivated and euphoric. Everything was going well, there was a hype for the Internet. On 10.9.01 they were almost celebrating, because they got a 4 min. coverage on CNN and they could see live how there sales were increasing. But the day afterwards it hit them as well like many others, but maybe even a bit more. There whole infrastructure for the US market was in the WTC...
• The factors of success he thinks are passion, bravery, simplicity and not being status oriented but loving what your doing and doing it because you like to implement an idea. Simple they still are - most of the stuff they outsource or lease and rent, even the table and the chairs in their meeting room is rented and not their property!
• His best moment with Blacksocks he says, was when they won the Copernican Award in New York and he was standing with this heavy, ugly thing on 5th Avenue (by the way Flickr was on the 2nd place:)

To summarize it was really interesting and I think it would be more fun for students to do more such things than sitting in classes... Aaaand next time you need socks or underwear check out www.blacksocks.com - they might have something for you!

Cheap Miss?

I went today to Coop Ryfflihof in Bern and when I entered there was a huge crowd in the section of the beauty products etc. I wondered what kind of promotion attracts so many people, cause I only saw those 20% discount ceiling hanger. But when I passed I saw the real reason of the crowd: The new Miss Switzerland was signing autographs. But still the questions remains: Is she a cheap Miss or was it just a coincidence?

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

The past

It´s almost a year since I changed university and came to St. Gallen. And it´s more than a year since a came back to Switzerland. In this year several things happened. I got used to studies again, I “got over” my time in Stuttgart, I met new people at a new university, I passed 13 exams, projects or papers, I got selected to go abroad again to Rotterdam for an exchange term and I started “my job” as NST Alumni Relations in AIESEC. Finally I spent 1 week in Slovakia, 1 week in Croatia and 3 weeks in the bunker. When you just look at it, it seems to be packed. But it didn´t feel as intense as my time abroad! Anyway I wouldn´t change the decisions I made...

The present

These days I’m not so much in the mood to do a lot for my studies. I do things for my different courses from time to time, I feel that I´m as well busy with doing other stuff but I get distracted easily and I have the impression of making no progress at all. And I´m certainly not good at planning at the moment. I don´t know where to start, I don´t know which should be the next step and I even don´t know where I´ll spend next week. St.Gallen or Bern? Somehow I´m stuck…

The future

A common question is, “where do you see yourself in a year”? Well, at the moment I see the following: I´ll have to finish my thesis and pass some exams here in St.Gallen. Then I´ll spend some months in the Netherlands studying and hopefully travelling and enjoying life a bit. During this time I should start to look for a job. But I still don´t know yet when I should start to work. There are several options. 1) Starting to work as soon as possible, that would mean on 1^st of June. 2) Have some holidays and enjoy Euro 2008 in Switzerland, this would lead to a starting date on 1^st of July. Or 3) the one I prefer at the moment is, enjoy Euro 08 in June, then go on a language course (would be probably French) for 3 months and start on 1^st of October. Anyway, answer to the initial question: In one year I see myself working my a** off, in a department related to marketing. But until then:

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

U2 - Stuck in a moment

The future is bright...

...the future is orange! Why? I finally got my last grades today for the exams I had almost two months ago - and I both passed them without being brilliant. But this doesn´t matter at all. One of those was french, professional communication, a language exam. I knew from the beginning of my studies in St. Gallen that I have to proof two foreign languages in order to get my degree. But for almost one year I didn´t care at all, until, in June when I had to register for exams I somehow had the idea that I´ll take the french exam this summer. After being registered I knew that I should study a bit as well, and finally around two weeks before the exam I did that but I was bored very soon afterwards - so I didn´t study too hard. Anyway, on the day of the exam I felt completely unprepared. Not because I didn´t study. But when we entered the room I went to my place, took my water bottle, my pens and my markers out and sat down. Then when I looked to the right, to the left, in front and behind me everyone had this Micro Robert (which has around 1000p,) french-french dictionary with them. Back then I had the impression that I was probably the only one who didn´t take the french preparation course for this whole year. But as a joke I told one of my friends in there, that I will do a little freestyling and apparently it worked. So, I´m glad I didn´t spend a whole year learning french, when I could do it in around a week :)
The second exam I had to take was kind of strange as well. It didn´t interest me as it was business law, I couldn´t go to classes as I had master classes at the same time, I had to write it in the gym hall, the whole exam was multiple choice and the grade won´t count for my average. BUT, it was very important at the same time. Without passing, I wouldn´t get a degree and without passing it NOW I couldn´t go abroad. But luckly, I don´t have to worry about that anymore. The future is orange - Rotterdam here I come. Ik studeer nu en beetje Nederlands...

Time to laugh about yourself