And some companies say they are competitive...

I am a business administration student and some times I can´t help me looking at companies mistakes in Brazil. The business administration course in Brazil is so popular and wide attended that just in my city there are 14 institutions offering it. My city has 500 thousand people. It is probably that more than three hundred people graduate in business administration every six months and over six hundred people a year. It is quite a big number, isn´t?
We could imagine that there are so many good people knowing about procedures, costumer care, production control and so on that we are in fact building a good path to turn our country competitive. Everybody says that and a large number of people believe in that. But the problem is that it is not true.
Despite the fact we are “creating” professionals and teaching professional skills for many people, our country is still struggling with our culture. And our culture is quite strong to be put aside. What aspect of our culture am I talking about? Well, I am talking about the fact that Brazilian people are never worried in doing the best thing at the best time in the best way. We always are worried in doing things that we should have been done yesterday. So we are always doing these things in the faster way, in a delayed time and in the easiest way possible (not in the best way to do).
It is annoying. And it is annoying because the quality passes by.
I happened to be looking for suppliers for one project and I had to be in touch with many companies throughout the country. I spent almost 2 mouths trying to contact companies in different sectors. After contacting almost two hundred companies, I just received answer from less than ten of them. Is it possible? It would be just 5% of return. And I have to say that many of them took many days to contact me back.
It is funny because I was interested in being their costumer. I was not doing span or something like that. I started my contact with “I would love to know more about your company and your products...” and do you believe that many of them were not engaged in getting this opportunity to show themselves to a potential costumer?
I was told by my friends that maybe I took the wrong addresses, but I don´t think so. Is it possible I took 190 wrong addresses? Even if these addresses were in fact wrong, it would not be something positive and it could not put them out of guilt from being unprofessional companies; it is their responsibility to keep their contact updated.
But anyway, the wrong addresses possibility is out of question once my e-mail service would say that the contacts were not delivered. I didn´t get any notice from it.
In an accidental situation I met this guy who were the salesman of one of those companies that I didn´t get any answer. In this occasion I was not tough, but I was not with that smiling face. After greeting I told him “So it is pretty coincidence see you here. I was really interested in you products a couple of weeks ago, but just talked with another supplier...” and then the man came on “Ow.. it is a pity. But you know, I can make to you that special price. I can sell to you for less than this company is actually doing.”
“Ok” said I. “But, you know. I contacted your company a mouth ago and I haven´t got any answer since then. I even tried to call them, but the number wasn´t working. It was just in a busy tom. So I decided another one. Sorry.”
“Oh man. You know e-mail address never works... and phone calls are complicated these days. Please, come on my office and I really can do some special to you.”
Well. Needless to say, I didn´t get in touch with him again and with his company. If I need some help, or a technical assistance, or complain about some mistake in the order delivered? I could not contact them by e-mail or phone... what would that be so? Telepathy?
I didn´t make any accordance with another company, I lied to him. Actually I did not need them anymore. But I thought it would be good show him that the costumer needs attention in the right time. I kept thinking after that in many things. One is that he would give me a special price which it would be less than others suppliers, what is to say is that he would probably loose a bit of money just to repair his fault. Or at least, make less profit. If he or his company had done the right thing, contact me at the time e showed their products and prices I would be so happy that even if they had a higher price, just because the attention I would make business with them.... in that occasion or in the future. Now in the next time, if I need it, I will really look for another one.

Man's Search for Meaning : Viktor Emil Frankl X Marketing Class

In order to participate in a seminary promoted by my university professor of marketing, I was requested to read this book called “Man's Search for Meaning” By Viktor Frankl. These book is a kind of book that deserves a profound thinking after reading it.
Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. This book is his account on the days being an inmate on concentration camps. Far from denouncing the atrocities that was made in these camps, frankl changed the perspective and wrote a kind of essay on how the events were perceived from the prisoners and how the prisoners handled with the overwhelming situation and with all the suffering that they were faced to live.
The author managed to show his point of view on existentialism, the struggle for surviving and how to live is always the only option. These points are the roots for the author´s logotherapy, which is considered the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy" (the first one is the Freud's psychoanalysis and the second one is the Adler's individual psychology).
Logotherapy is an existential analysis that brings forward the “will to meaning” and says that life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones and our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
The author himself experienced this meaning while working in an extreme situation where he happened to think in his wife. He said he understood in that occasion what many thinkers and poets had proclaimed that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.
Full of emotion, this book is amazing. Despite the dark and heavy background, the book is a quite optimist account. The author´s position of not showing revenge thoughts give us a sense that we can change things and for changing the world we need stop looking at the other´s faults and start shape our thoughts and acts up to find meaning to our existence.
After reading the “Man's Search for Meaning” I was full of thoughts and ready to talk about them on my marketing class. I was thinking that it is quite hard to accept what happened and what men are capable to do with each other; that the worst is that even today after too much suffering there are many people in many places in the world passing through situations like that. I started to think how is meaningless many aspects of our reality and how there are so many things to be changed, to be transformed in our world. There are so many things to be done and first of all we need to know and understand ourselves; and find a positive meaning of our life; a meaning that could be match with the transformation of this reality in a better one.
For my disappointment, the discussion in our class was poor. We didn´t talk about the meaning of life or other philosophic issue. We didn´t even talk about our position or about our role in the society. We didn´t talk about the weakness of the system or the necessity of thinking better on our acts. We talked about marketing, about branding, about propaganda and how get position in the market to sell our products and make profit. What was supposed to be a great opportunity to have a good conversation, was in fact, a bored time spent together and a frustrated meeting.
We had a little brief on Second World War and about Nazism Propaganda. The professor explained how Hitler invented many tools on mass communications and through these tools he managed to make a whole nation to follow him in his politic vision. We didn´t get on human nature or others facts on History to understand what was going on. I believe that despite the fact we are grown and attending university, many people are still confused about many things on Second World War, and that would have been a good occasion to talk a little about it. But I have to say that not so many people were thinking like me in that moment.
We came on talking about some topics from the book, which the students were asked to write them down separately and then put all together to be read by some chosen ones in order to make the presentation of the topics more organized. Every single topic were presented to the class and then opened to be discussed. Every single topic had to be related with organizational environment and nothing more profound than it.
Well, actually it was my fault to believe that we could have some philosophic moment in an administration course. In addiction, we are going to the final laps of our graduation; this kind of feeling must have died some time ago, after the first year course.
I could say that I should have expected that, but the fact is that I feel myself a little bit strange for using this meaningful account in our so market directed discussion without feeling.

Dracula Author: Bram Stoker

I had already seen dozens of movies, comics and games about Dracula but I had not ever readen the original book by Bram Stoker. Through an initiative of Dublin City Public libraries, with a project called Dublin: One City, One Book, I took attention to the Stoker's book, which was chosen for the 2009 edition of the project. This project every year takes a different book and put it in a lighted spot to be seem in evidence in all over the places in the city - in museums, bookstores, theaters, libraries (of course) and even on the streets.
My reference to this book was the 1992 Coppola's adaptation film that I heard it was the closest to the original, and for that I guess it is true, but just for the first part of the movie. I shall return to talk a little about the differences between one and another later.
The book starts with the kind of atmosphere that is shown in the movie when Jonathan Harker goes to the Castle of Count Dracula, in Transylvania. The mystery about the place, the weird aspect of the Count that for each page becomes a more evident evil person and all the suffering of Mr. Harker that slowly changes status from a guest to a prisoner, describe the first part of the book. The pages are written by the view of Mr. Harker and it is a rich account and incredible breathless.
The story is built by excerpts from Jonathan Harker's journal, Mina Harker's Journal – Jonathan's wife , Dr. Seward's Journal, Dr. Van Helsing's journal and some pieces of newspapers. In this configuration the author manage to put real emotions and gives a sense that can really be felt from the reader.
The plot is simple. The monster minded Count Dracula decides to move to London, England. He learned the social rules, the language and managed to afford some lands in the Britain capital and he needs some help to do the transition. Well planned to move on, the Count calls to Jonathan Harker, one of his London's solicitor, to come to his place in Transylvania where they could work on the last details.
Count Dracula treats Harker as a guest in a very good manner and they start to talk every night for almost all night which the Count says it is good to practice his communication skills in English. After each session with the Count, Jonathan writes on his journal how was the conversation. They talk about impersonal things like the Britain culture and so on and the Count always avoid to talk about himself. In each night the Count always says that he would like that Jonathan could stay longer. Nevertheless Jonathan starts to suspect that the Count is actually pretending be something else that he is not. As the days going on, Jonathan starts to see unusual and terrifying things inside the castle. After a while without being able to get out of the castle at anytime of the day or in the night Jonathan realizes that there is must be something very wrong in all the situation, including the Count's behavior. He finds very strange the fact that the Count just can be seen after dusk and that, although there is always noise in the castle, he cannot see anyone else living there.
During the day-time Jonathan takes the opportunity to be alone without the presence of the Count and tries to know about the castle and see all the rooms, corridors and maybe if there exists a exit from the built. In one of this tours he finds a little chapel with a coffin that for his surprise it has got the Count himself laid down like a dead body.
Jonathan makes up his mind that the Count Dracula is a sort of a monster, an aberration, and he tries to play the game that he was put in on just to try to scape from that alive. Indeed, Count Dracula realizes what is going on in Jonathan's mind and he plays even hard the role of a good host to make Jonathan fight with struggle to keep himself sane.
Crossing the excerpts of others journals, the book changes the subject and shows more two main characters: Mina Murray, that after will be Jonathan's wife; and Dr Seward, a sanatorium's doctor. Their lives are going to cross with the Jonathan's life when he comes back to his home and they will together fight against the Count Dracula that will be landed in London. To help them, a dutch professor called Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam and friends of one of the first victim (best friend of Mina, Lucy) of the evil Count Dracula in London, Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood will be added to the plot and all the crew will learn about their enemy and the best way to defeat him.
I would say that the Irish author Bram Stoker was brilliant in the way he put all the suspense in the book, but in my opinion the action at the very end of the book could be better. Actually I thing is that the end was with no glamor.
And to put glamor to this plot, I think Coppola's adaptation succeeded. The Coppola's version took all the suspense that Bram Stoker managed to create and then added to it an another end with love and sexuality that was not written in the book.
It is not possible to blame the author for the lack of the right action at the end of the book. The author managed to publish this book in 1897 and at this time he was inventing a new genre in the literature that later had influenced many other authors.
In addition of a very good experience the book brought to me, it influenced me in one thing as well – I have started to write a journal. The book is not just built from the character's journal but all the time it is said how important and good is to keep a journal by the characters in the book. I took them for example to be followed. And I actually believe that the habit of write about our day can be important in the future. Many journals brought to the history facts that would be ignored if they did not have been written (or found). I have got two big examples. The first one is the Christopher Columbus's journal; if it had not been found, we would believe that the America's discovery was done by someone else and we would never had known that his plan was to get in on India through his idea that the earth was round.
The second example is the Cabeza de Vaca's Journal. He was a Spanish explorer that survived a wreck in the America and managed to walk naked for almost ten years meeting and taking knowledge from the native American Indians and the jungle. Through his account, it is possible to take many information on the America's discovery and what the explorers found in the new world.
I am not to say that my accounts will be important for the course of history, but above from be a good write exercise, it can be used in the future by others to know how we managed to make things in our lives done and help them in anyway.
To finalize – the Bram Stoker's Dracula is a full entertainment and full filled all my expectations. It was a pleasure read it.

Atlantis and Crusade Gold Author: David Gibbins

These both books together were the first I read when I came to Ireland. I used to read a lot in my language but to read in English would be a new big challenge for me. To start I thought that it would be a good idea if I got books with the same subject that made me love read when I was a teenager. I believed that if I were really interested probably I would give my best to try understand the reading. Other point I thought was that for the reason I was familiarized with the subject I would understand the read intuitively and then learn how English works.
Well I cannot say rather I was wrong or not because it has being not a long time since I start it. But now I think that to learn a new language is not that simple and requires much more than I thought before. Actually I can say that to understand is one thing, to speak is other thing and then interact is other thing. I thought before that I would have to first to understand in order to speak and then to interact. Now I see that we need different practices to understand, to speak and to interact. If I had a good level of understand, it would not necessary means that I have a good level of speaking and so on. Therefore I now believe that to make a good way to learn a new language is necessary to read, to write, to listen and to practice speak a lot. (What I have not done and for this reason I have not taken a the improvement I expected.)
Anyways, backing to the books, they are great. PhD in Archeology Gibbins managed to write fiction with historical information, rich technical detail on archeology, sea expeditions and shipwrecks. The author is a underwater archaeologist and was professor in a UK university before leaving teaching to become a novelist and dedicate himself to carry out fieldwork. The book on Atlantis was his first novel book and Crusader Gold was his second. The author have published others titles since then.
In Atlantis, the marine archaeologist Jack Howard and his team are on board of the Seaquest hunting one of the most intriguing legend in history – The Lost Empire of Atlantis. Mixing lessons of history, mystery and adventure, the book is full of what the science knows about this island that was first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias. In order to make the reader understand all the mystery about Atlantis the author puts discussions between the members of the crew that carry on many pages with a lot of information and assumptions on it.
The crusader Gold is a direct sequence on Atlantis and brings back Jack Howard and his team in a search of the holiest of the treasures called menorah. The menorah is a sacred golden lampstand symbol of the Jewish faith that was taken from Jerusalem probably in 614, when the city was pillaged by the Persians.
Going through the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Vikings, days of Nazi power and ancient bloody rituals in America, Jack Howard takes a gigantic adventure that could change the view of the whole history.
The way that the author manage to show the facts and to develop the action in these books is unique. I love how the crew members interact with each other and the many different places that the author describes. Places like Greenland, UK, Mediterranean and America. The author also puts in the end of each book the facts behind the fiction.
Good as thriller, as a adventure book and as a lesson book. It is a complete entertainment.

The Places in Between Author: Rory Stewart

If someone asked me what is my favorite book this year, I would be in trouble because I have really enjoyed most of my choices this year, but maybe I could say that The places in Between is, in some sort of way, the most remarkable. What I felt while reading this book was very special. It was a passageway for another world. I said and mean to say another world because I realized how the mid-east affairs were alien to me. I had never understood nor tried to understand this region that I only used to heard about it on news on terrorism, violence, war from one religion to another, and women's oppression. After this book, and because it, I started to search more about what is going on middle east and point my interest on Internet, magazines and documentaries. Moreover I read The Osama bin Laden I know, The bookseller of Kabul, the Occupational Hazards – The prince of Marshes (other fantastic book by Rory Stewart) and I am reading the From Beirut to Jerusalem. Because The Places in Between I was awaken to this part of the world I had missed until then and I have started to try figure out what is going on.
I had special feelings about how and from what the book was written. I admire Rory Stewart for his courage and he is for me what I would like to become one day, but I do not have the knowledge, the emotional strong and the unbreakable will as he has got.
The Book is a diary of one part of his twenty-one-month journey on foot throughout Asia. This was to be the last part of this journey. The author followed the footsteps of the first Mughal Emperor of India, called Babur the Great, and walked across Afghanistan from Herat (west) to Kabul (east) in the winter time with snow all over the places and a after-war atmosphere.
With a little Persian communication skills, Stewart arrived in Afghanistan in January 2002, very short after US invasion on Afghani soil on the war on Terrorism. He said he was probably the only tourist in the country at that time and it is not hard to believe. The author's intention was to walk alone for all the route but the immigration service and officials thought he had better take some companion for security reasons. Stewart and his companion started to go across the country in a very cold and hostile terrain, slept in small villages and feeding themselves with the rare food of humble hosts that shared their houses for his safe. The author dedicates his book to the people that helped him trough his journey and realizes that without these people his adventure would never be done (although he puts that a number of these people were 'greedy, idle, stupid, hypocritical, insensitive, mendacious, ignorant and cruel', but he tanked for they did not attempt to kidnap or kill him).
Rory Stewart writes with passion and sensibility, despite the fact that he needed for his journey be strong to get respect for the people he met on the way. He shows a very weak and devastated country suffered with almost twenty five years of war. Remote areas and isolated people that live their lives with struggle. This country looks like a forgotten world standing between modern societies.
For those who like to know more about this book, there is a video which Stewart talks about these days on Afghanistan that I put below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJTBn73M6Y

Geldof in Africa Author: Bob Geldof

I had not ever heard about Bob Geldof before I came to Ireland. When I was in Library, I used to see his book about Africa and wonder what kind of book it would be. The cover was a picture with a weird long-haired person with stripped shirt, sunglasses and outdoor boots. It was not that attractive. Despite the fact I find the theme of Africa very interesting, I was afraid of that the book would be silly. It looked to me a complete waste of time – how I was wrong. One day I decided give it a chance and took the book to home. For my astonishing I was took by surprise and since I began to read it I could not stop until the end. This book in my opinion was written by inspiration. It is brilliant.
Bob Geldof is a Irish musician and activist and very recognized for his anti-poverty efforts. He initiated Band Aid in 1984, a record for the victims of famine in Africa, and since there he has made many efforts in name of charity. He has influenced a generation of artists, including Irish humanitarian Bono Voz, for fighting for a better tomorrow in poor countries.
The book 'Geldof in Africa' is the snapshot of his mind, as the author called in its foreword. It is his personal diary while he was visiting thirteen countries in the Luminous Continent (how Geldolf calls Africa) and it is illustrated by his own photographs. The author describes situations, gives sense of place, talks about culture, religions and politics. Many chapters begin with lose weird news taken by locals newspapers and he finds where put his ideas and poetry.
There are some points he talks I had not seen before as he puts them. Things like the the realistic vision of the cruelty of AIDS, the cyclical poverty, the difference between cultures inside Africa and the synchronism that happen with believes. He puts 'Like everywhere else in the world . Religion in Africa is a great new political force again. Islam, paid for by fundamentalists Saudis, in the north; evangelical Christianity, with links to the American Pentecostalists, in the centre and the south; and an unprecedented rise in the old traditional religions. People [in Africa] say, 'We're 60 per cent Muslin, 40 per cent Christian and 100 per cent Voodoo'. And that's true of Africa – the assimilation of new ideas and bolting them on to the old'.
He tells us 'the complex, unexpected story of slavery' showing that before the Portuguese, the Arabs and Chinese had been visiting the east coast of Africa for hundreds of years looking for Gold, frankincense, ivory and slaves. He shows his vision and understanding in why slavery became something integrated to the continent.
Some unexpected aspects are shown as well like his description of the Africa's smell. He notes that no one before had written about how Africa smells. For him, it smells so weirdly that this theme deserves a chapter in the book with a touch of poetry. He describes the landscape and talks about how it is hot by the sun; and how the sand is everywhere.
The author finish the book writing about his vision and what he thinks it is good for Africa. He shows what has already being done and what should be done more strongly. The last part is a very exciting part showing the preparations of an musical event to collect funds to charity. The whole book shows how Geldof is involved and really honest about his activism. The book give us the notion that it is possible to change and help Africa and more than this, it shows how think towards Africa is, actually, needed.
He says that go to Africa fells like... going home, and I really felt, at the end of the book, like getting there one day.

The Holographic Universe Author: Michael Talbot

I did not read this book after I came on travel, but I have talked about it constantly since I read it five years ago. The funny thing is that without my intention the ideas of this book always come across in my conversations, in special situations when I am talking about our existence as human (maybe because the theories showed in this book are actually about the universe as a whole and everything in it, so in theory I can fit the same ideas to explain everything) and somehow they make me happy and the others that I am talking to hopeful.
I did not get as much I wanted to from the book, I mean as much as I think that it would be enough to make me comfortable to write about it. Although the book is written in a very easy way to understand (it is not necessary an advanced knowledge in physics or any kind of science), I have not got the the English or the writing skills nor even a science vision to try make a opinion about.
But the point is that this book was the first one I read or noticed that started with the idea that the interior experience can manifest in outside world (the book was published in 1991). This idea became popular through books like 'The Secret' and the 'The Power of now' and several others and documentaries like 'What the bleep do I know' produced by William Arntz (http://www.whatthebleep.com).
The holographic universe exposes a theoretical model of reality that suggests the physical universe is akin to a giant hologram. The book explains first what is a hologram and gets on a trip with the studies of the quantum physicist David Bohn (US born British) and the neurophysiologist Karl Pibran (Austrian) to explain the holographic theory. The book can be separated into two parts where the first part is the explanation of the theory and the second is the applicability of it. The author believes that this vision can provide basis for a mystical experience.
Maybe because the author's background, much what we can see in the book has to do with paranormal and anomalous phenomena, but alike others Michael Talbot brings us a scientific theory and supports it with a very good material. These two links below (both with the same contents) explain the theory in a short-read article.
http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html
http://twm.co.nz/hologram.html
In a Holographic Universe we are not what we think we are, we are not separated nor even we have got a individuality nor ego, we are manifestations of the holographic universe viewing itself from inside.