Nick Weisser

Kategorie: Bildung

  • The Power of Words

    The Power of Words

    Business Insider UK spoke with the 2015 Toastmasters International World Champion of Public Speaking, Mohammed Qahtani, a security engineer in Saudi Arabia.

    Qahtani grew up with a stutter and still deals with it occasionally, but speaking on a stage empowers him and rids him of the impediment. He said that his confidence grew from advice he received from a speaking coach, which was to tell himself that he’s better than the people in the audience.

    «I don’t mean that in an egotistical way!» he said. Rather, he tells himself that he’s «better» in the sense that he’s courageously speaking in front of people who are sitting there to listen to what he has to say. It’s a mental shift that removes the fear of humiliation. «You don’t need to be afraid of them because they’re the ones admiring you,» Qahtani said.

    You can watch Qahtani’s full speech entitled The Power of Words on Business Insider UK.

  • Hellmuth Karasek rezensiert IKEA Katalog

    Hellmuth Karasek rezensiert IKEA Katalog

    Karasek begann seine journalistische Laufbahn bei der Stuttgarter Zeitung. Danach war er ein Jahr lang Chefdramaturg am württembergischen Staatstheater Stuttgart und ab 1968 Theaterkritiker bei der Wochenzeitung Die Zeit. Von 1988 bis 2001 war er ständiger Teilnehmer der ZDF-Sendung Das Literarische Quartett, das unter der dominierenden Leitung von Marcel Reich-Ranicki stand.

    Karasek und Reich-Ranicki

    Eigentlich ist es aber ein Skandal, dass das meistverbreitete Buch der Welt mit einer Auflage von sage und schreibe fast 220 Millionen Exemplaren im literarischen Quartett bisher nie rezensiert wurde.

    Man könnte dem IKEA-Buch vorwerfen, dass es mehr Bilder als Personen hat. Es erzählt viel, aber ist quasi vollgemüllt mit Gegenständen.

    Die Meinungen über dieses Werbevideo sind laut der Welt scheinbar geteilt. Manche sprechen vom PR-Gag des Jahres. Andere maulen, das einzig Sehenswerte darin sei der Blick auf Karaseks Plautze. Persönlich finde ich es äusserst unterhaltsam und das ist letztlich auf was es ankommt. Die Marke IKEA erzählt eine Geschichte, Stichwort Storytelling.

    Und hier das ganze Video:

  • The Year Without Pants

    The Year Without Pants

    Scott Berkun was born and raised in Queens, New York City, studied philosophy, computer Science and design at Carnegie Mellon University, was a manager at Microsoft (1994-2003) where he led a team of over 100 developers and designers who built Internet Explorer up to version 5 when it still was the market leader.

    The Year Without Pants CoverFrom 2010 through 2012 he worked at WordPress.com and wrote The Year Without Pants which gives a behind-the-scenes look at the firm and the unique work culture that contributes to its phenomenal success. I listened to the audio book during my summer vacation in Italy and really loved it. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know how it feels to work inside or build a team of remote workers. Personally, I think it’s the future of work. Although being employed also has lots of benefits, the freedom you have when you can work from basically any place is an amazing quality of life I would never want to miss again being the founder of a remotely organized company myself.

    50 million websites, or 20 percent of the entire web, use WordPress. The force behind WordPress.com is a convention-defying company called Automattic, Inc., whose ~300 employees work from anywhere in the world they wish and launch improvements to their products dozens of times a day. With a fraction of the resources of Google, Amazon, or Facebook, they have a similar impact on the future of the Internet.

    Berkun’s story reveals insights on creativity, productivity, and leadership from the kind of workplace that might be in everyone’s future.