Language: English

Theater director Chris Simion- Mercurian, Gabriel Trăistaru – Tele-kom Romania, entrepreneur Iulian Pădurariu and Raluca Radu – Answear.ro are coming to Fuckup Nights Bucharest Vol IX

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Theater director Chris Simion- Mercurian, Gabriel Trăistaru - Tele-kom Romania, entrepreneur Iulian Pădurariu and Raluca Radu - Answear.ro are coming to Fuckup Nights Bucharest Vol IX

Bucharest, March 15th, 2021: Chris Simion-Mercurian, director and founder of Grivita 53 – The first theater built together; Gabriel Trăistaru – director of the digital division within Telekom Romania; Iulian Pădurariu – entrepreneur (SeedBlink, Cruiser Aviation, Pony Car Sharing) and business consultant; Raluca Radu – country manager ANSWEAR.ro and founder MTH Digital – are the speakers for this new edition of FUN Bucharest.

Their career stories can be heard on Thursday, March 18th, 2021, starting at 19:00, online, on ZOOM. Event tickets are available here.

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Why choose WordPress as a CMS?

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WordPress Logo

Why should one choose WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System)?

I think the main reason is the ease with which you can make changes.

Are you aiming for good SEO? A general SEO plugin, a caching plugin (like LiteSpeed Cache or WP Rocket), and a WebP plugin (Imagify, Smush) might do wonders. Lazy loading (a3 Lazy Load) images could also help.

Interested in a specific thing, a micro-mini-small-tiny thing you specifically want, but which, generally, is rather hard to get done internally, by a programmer? There’s likely a plugin for that.

Do you want to change how the website looks? Choose a paid template, do some customizations, and you’re good to go.

The thing is, each and every thing you want to get done with WordPress can get done in other platforms. You can code HTML from scratch, you can choose another platform, you can make your own CMS.

But it just gets harder and harder, as you administer more things.

If you have a one-page website, you can consider having it done in plain HTML, although even for this WordPress might help with a template and solutions for better performance (speed).

But if you manage things like content, users, security, speed for a larger website, WordPress is just the easier path. Lots of providers „fight” to get a good SEO to their users. Lots of providers of plugins compete to get good plugins. Lots of theme creators try to solve the needs of the aesthetics of users.

It’s just easier with WordPress.

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Burning

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Jim Nix - flow

There’s a song which says:

„… Mă consum pân-o să mă fac scrum” (Alina Eremia – Cum se face – YouTube)

(adapted translation) „… I stress myself so much, that I’ll turn into ashes. I’m burning!”

Should you do it? Should you allow yourself to be so immersed into the living, that you feel you’re burning?

It depends. On one hand, stressing yourself too much might not bring you good results. You might lose some health aspects, you might live less, you might have an unpleasant life.

On another hand, if you’re into the flow, if you’re enjoying what you do daily, you might do some great things.

So, it’s unclear. I’d say it like this – if „burning” helps you do good work, and it doesn’t affect your health (physical and mental), do it.

If you get too stressed, do stress over this, too – how to stop being so stressed?

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On placing blame

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Bruno Malfondet - We're one, but we're not the same

Sometimes, I get offended.

But, whenever I write something on this blog I try to speak about things that happen, as far as I can tell, to more than a single person.

So, if X does something that gets me upset, I’ll generally avoid writing about that thing.

But, if there is a generally bad thing (a company doing poor things to lots of people; a bad thing in the society), I will consider writing about this.

Why the difference?

  • If I’m the one being offended, I am allowed to forgive that bad thing. It’s OK.
  • If there is more than one party offended, it’s just for me to take action.

„Ai dreptul să ierți numai ce s-a făcut în paguba ta.” (Nicolae Iorga)
(via Nicolae Steinhardt »)

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Work fast

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Patrick Dirlam - Speed demon

One time, during my professional life, I encountered a person who used to reply very fast to most emails.

Not only this, but the person also used to solve tasks quickly.

Some tasks were solved less-than-perfect, but, boy-oh-boy! – Were they done quickly.

I tried to learn from this as much as possible.

I tend to reply rather quickly to most messages.

As said before, if you give a quick answer you help that person lose less of their time.

If you value their time as much as yours, you might want to try and work fast and reply to emails quickly.

At least, that’s what I try to do.

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The games of power, the unwanted power of thorns

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Rolf Schotsch - trifoi_1

I have vivid memories from the first part of my life when certain persons of authority (mostly, teachers), wanted to show that they had power.

And they did, they did have power.

But, at what cost?

What did it cost to put this power into practice?

People had not only power but also exercised this power aggressively. It felt like thorns.

I do have positive memories, moments of happiness, times of enjoyment.

But there were also times when people in power abused their power.

How did I use to look at their shadows?

As if it were huge, with immense power.

Because some pain of the thorns was real, even if the power was fictive.

The solution? Do some therapy, try to view the past as not-so-bad, associate good things with it, calm your emotions.

But some remains of the thorns are still there.

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«People think about petty things» – Robert Kiyosaki

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Pascal Gaudette - Crab Spider and Fly Prey

In an interview (BANII TE FAC SĂRAC!), Robert Kiyosaki said:

«I don’t think about petty things. People think about petty things» – Robert Kiyosaki

This is so great!

It’s so irrelevant to think about the small things and to ignore the big stuff in life.

Sure, „big things” can mean different things to different people.

But focusing on the „small aspects”, talking about trivial things, might stop you from doing greater things.

Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are told to have a limited wardrobe, not focusing so much on the small decision.

Barack Obama used to choose between just two options when picking a wardrobe, as a President.

Sure, it matters to look fine. But it matters even more to keep the focus where it’s important.

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Why should you answer to a message quickly?

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Adam Y Zhang - Fast

There are some time-management solutions that claim this:

  • Only answer your emails a few times a day.
  • Don’t be constantly available for messaging.
  • Don’t reply to phone calls at all times.
  • … etc., you got the message.

Why do I consider the advice wrong?

The logic goes as follows: if you value your time on the same level as one of your partners of discussion, you should reply to messages ASAP.

If they lose time talking to you, and they are interrupted at moment X, if you reply to them 3 hours later, they’ll also be interrupted 3 hours later.

So, it makes sense – „I’ll interrupt what I do at the current moment, to help my business partner not lose time. Their time is as valuable as mine, if I postpone answering the email/message for 3 hours, then their time will be lost. I’ll sacrifice my time for the good of the overall partnership.”

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Slower pace

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arbyreed - Goddess of Speed

Slowing down the pace might help with managing emotions better.

Do listen to this song:

(STEPAN PROJECT & PAUL GRIGORIU – Cât de mult te-am iubit… – YouTube)

It’s about loving a person. But it’s also about talking in a slow, friendly, calm voice, which gets to your mind.

Or this one, in English:

(Diamonds And Rust – YouTube)

Speaking slower might help you become calmer.

You don’t need to do so each time you speak, but a bit of an exercise like talking like the person in the video can do miracles.

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E-motions

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Farrukh - Emotions

Emotions (or e-motions) determine behavior.

They matter so much!

I know a lot of people in the IT industry focusing on developing technical skills, and completely ignoring the so-called „soft skills”.

The thing is, „soft skills” can be rather difficult/hard to acquire.

And, for work efficiency, for good results, for creativity – it may matter more if you can balance hard/soft skills than if you’re not at 93% level in PHP, but at 97%.

Sure, you can’t work in IT without at least average knowledge.

But, after a while, it may be more relevant to focus on the soft, than improve the hard skills.

I tried to apply this in my life.

Meeting people, doing theater acting, going to conferences.

Even culture – reading, watching movies, and all-in-all immersing in online culture, might help.

„But fiction has at least three advantages. We have access to the character’s interior world in a way we normally do not with journalism, and we are more likely to willingly suspend disbelief without questioning the veracity of what people are saying. Finally, novels allow us to do something that is hard to do in our own lives, which is to view a character’s life over many years.” – Does reading fiction make us better people? – BBC Future

Emotions help with the visible part of life – they keep the motion going.

Other than this, I’ll say this again – the most important thing for working efficiently is passion. It’s not the physical part, but the inner-thinking and passion.

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