Apart from that, I am well under with work in the last weeks, and it seems to be getting more, not less. I am currently located in Zurich during the week, so if any one of you happens to be there or in the area, give me a shout!

Yesterday and today I am in Berlin, working from our Headquarter, building a training model for an executive workshop. Good to be back in Berlin for a change – remember, I spent my first three months at Capgemini here, and I sure met some familiar faces. The Institute though has already turned on its head staff-wise (no surprise, as everybody stays for three months, and it was January when I left… so no chance of known colleagues still being there). I stayed in a fantastic hotel for this night – you know, one of those with sound and a telephone in the bathroom, with pillows that are actually pillows and not just folded linen, and with a breakfast buffet that would kill me if I stayed there more often. Too good. Mango juice. Salted butter. Two types of salmon. Fish. Cheese. Really really good variety of stuff. They had banana milkshakes. BANANA MILKSHAKES!
So you see why my day was off to a great start.

Now to something of actual importance. Yesterday night I found out about Randy Pausch. Randy is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who delivered (and recorded) two very interesting speeches. One is called “Time Management“, in which he talks about very practical tips on how to get more things done in life. This is not a theoretical talk – it is very down to earth, it is full of things you can directly apply yourselves. The other talk is called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams“. In this talk, part of CMU’s “last lecture” series, he talks about how he managed to achieve his childhood dreams, and how one can work towards that – or help others achieve their dreams.

The “last lecture” series at CMU is asking the speaker to imagine – if this was the last lecture he or she gave before they died, what would they talk about? For Randy, he needs no big imagination. Randy gave this speech knowing he will most likely die from the cancer he has in the next few months. He already knew that when he gave the speech on time management as well. Don’t shy away now! His lectures are incredibly funny. There is no darkness and sadness in them. All this frightening fact really does is make the speeches more intense. For me, on the receiving end, it feels like an incredible gift Randy has given to us. He even made the last lecture a book – how awesome is that!

When you watch those lectures, you wil realize what a fighting spirit Randy has. Not surprisingly, he is still alive, still fighting hard, still making the best out of the days he has. On his personal website you find a summary of all the things I just introduced to you, as we as updates on how he is doing.

A personal note: Six years ago today, my mum was buried. She died on April 3rd 2002, and boy, I miss her more than words can say. Had she known how limited her time on earth was, I am sure she would have given an awesome last lecture, too. Luckily, she had already filled my childhood with love and some really good advice from which I profit every day.

Today, Tine and I went on a little adventure. From my company, I had the invitation to go to the factory outlet of G-Star (a jeans/clothing brand), with the promise of good rebates. The outlet is about half an hour out of Hamburg, and given the sad selection of jeans left in my closet that are wearable, this was something to try.
So we drove there – really in the middle of nowhere – and entered something like a small warehouse, full of clothes. We were greeted by a shop assistant, who looked and acted more like a bouncer in a nightclub. He asked me where exactly I had gotten the invitation from, and what company I worked for. He wanted to see my passport and proof that I worked for the company (glad I had a business card in my wallet). Then, in a very serious tone, he continued like this:

“Alright, I will give you the hardcore introduction, because if we go into detail, it will take us ages. You are entering a contract with us. You may never, ever, re-sell the clothes you buy here, not in a store, not on ebay. If you do not comply, we will sue you. Whenever you come here, you can bring two persons with you. You are responsible for their actions as well. When you come, you need to present your store ID and your passport. If you cannot produce a passport, we will keep the store ID and you can get it back when you bring your passport to identify yourself. There are no refunds, so look at what you buy beforehand. No go over there to the other clerk and pay three Euros for the store ID.”

Tine suggested that probably, we would need to do ten pushups whenever we did not put something back in the shelves correctly after looking at it. The shop assistant/bouncer guy was only mildly amused.
After this initial shock, it was quite a good experience. Prices were really good, although I understand that I am not allowed to publicize the discounts they give… so I bought myself three new pants – a jeans, a pair with pinstripes that is missing some buttons, and a pair that has a checkered pattern on it… makes me look like a punk, but in a fashionable way. (I hope).

Now if you’ll excuse me, there is some serious weekend-relaxing to do. And some work, unfortunately… but for that work, I get to help giving a training in our company’s university on Monday and Tuesday – how cool is that! I did not expect to come back to that great place as a trainer anytime soon, I certainly feel honored… now I have to meet expectations, of course.

Seems like life has played an april’s fool joke on me. Since yesterday.

The last weeks have been busy – I am on a new project at the same client that will last until April 4th approximately, and of course I’ll tell you where I am heading to afterwards (once I know it myself ;-> ). Besides work and enjoying the spare time, I also set up a new website lately. It is called KillerConsultant.com. It does not have to do anything with the Mafia – that name is explained in the slogan: “Doing a great job while having fun would be killer, right?” (so, in this case, “killer” means “great”). KillerConsultant is a site from a consultant (me, obviously) for consultants… because there is a lot of career-related info on consulting out there, some blogs for fun, playing with the clichees of the industry, but I could not really find a website that is centered around the day-to-day life of consultants. So I made one. If you are interested, please feel free to head over there and let me know how you like it!

Cheers
Florian

(who is totally ripped of by the hotel right now, because they changed the internet connection, and now one hour costs three euros… hilarious. Not.)

Imagine the startled look on my face when the only thing available at the link for a domain name registrar was a TEXT file, reading

Thanks for your inquiry about registering a domain under the ER top level domain.

The current policy is that domain names are limited to businesses or persons actually in Eritrea and application for a domain name must be made to Zerai. currently there are only two domains under `.com.er’, a single `.edu.er’ domain, and a bunch of `.gov.er’ domains. there are actually over 100 subdomains under these domains, but domains directly underneath ER are fairly tightly controlled.

To register new domain names under ER, you must talk to the administrative contact. Here is the contact information:
[snip]

Eritrea does not yet have a direct internet connection. domain names are currently being used for the delivery of email.

For more information about the domain look at
http://www.punchdown.org/rvb/email/index.html

thanks,

[name]

technical contact
ER top level domain

I realized that I had taken it for granted that when there is a TLD, the country is “online”. No, they are not, at least not fully. They have E-Mail, but no working internet access. Which makes me think about two things:

1. How incredibly lucky I am to live in a part of the world where there is SO MUCH – peace, infrastructure, democracy… all and every need is taken care of.
2. The digital divide is there. “Still”…. well, the problem only came up in the last decades. This was my first contact with it. Unfortunately, this is not even close to being a big problem to Eritrea in comparison to its other issues, but still a thing that needs attention. And awareness, first and foremost.

Has any of you touched the digital divide yet? In what context?

Technorati Tags: Eritrea, Digital Divide, TLD, domain names, politics, Africa, Development, Awareness

When it comes to coincidences, luck, karma, whatever your liking: Dopplr.com can help. Last week I already met up with an old classmate because he noticed I was staying a mere 20 minutes from his hometown! Sign up and share your trips with me, so that we do not miss each other.

As you have guessed from my not-blogging the last days, it has been busy. Office Friday does not happen this week unfortunately, though I have been in the Hamburg office last week, even if only for 10 minutes to get me an access card. That almost counts as office Friday in my book.

Today is not the greatest – weather is shite, team leader kindly asked me to do the taxi at 7:30am (leaving the hotel, not waking up, you got that right), so breakfast was nil. Of course I forgot the parking lot-card in the hotel room and had to sweet talk my way out of the parking (with my boss and his boss in the car). To top things off I threw away some notes yesterday (I had worked in all changes that were on them for me)… the notes that my boss now asked me to give him back because there was something he needed on one of the pages. Tough luck. I think I will just pull this day through and look forward to getting back to the hotel, hoping that I do not make any more stupid mistakes today (and that I find an ATM so I can buy some food).