Switching my mind

The pleasure of clearity

2009-12-12T17:26:00.002+01:00

I've been sending my resume abroad, to be more specific to Swedish companies. I run into some job offers that, in my mind, seemed to match my current qualifications. Unfortunately, they, politely sent me back an email saying my qualifications do not meet our needs/profile. What a bummer!! . Anyway, aside from these dismal responses :( what I want to empathize here it's their efficiency. Even if they are not interested in my application they reply to my job submission. In this way you don't fuel faint hopes, make pipe dreams and I think it's the correct and serious behaviour that a company should have. In Italy, generally, the human resource managers contact you only if they want to interview you...

Stop writring guide, it's time for Video Guide !

2009-12-08T19:25:00.007+01:00

In my role as IT consultant, one of my tasks is to write user guides for our products. It' s really boring, useless and it sucks definitely! at least when my chief says to me: please write the guide, I brace myself !

Why is it boring ?
Because you have to spell out every step that you take in order to make things run. You can't omit anything, to write it as comprehensible as it is possible is an asset , otherwise the end-user can't make it out!
You have to care about the details, take several snapshots hopefully none of your colleagues change the front-end in the meantime.
Why is it useless?
In my brief experience, I've run into several users that simply ignore the guide or skim through it. The final result is that they will contact you in anyway is possible and ask you for an explanation. Please do not ask them have you read the guide ? the obvious answer is no or they stammer to say something " I didn't find it".
Why does it suck?
if the reader has never written any guide, please try it just once and I'm pretty sure you'll agree with me.
Then what can we do ? I realized that we might pin down on video-guide. People have changed the way they interact with media over last years, generally there is no time to read a paragraph, sometimes the instructions are not clear, misleading and not up to date.
Why not use video-guides? End users, nowadays, are familiar with Youtube, they are accustomed to see short movies and probably they can get the information in much easier, more quickly and funnier way !!
With a video-guide it's very hard that they do not understand, images and voices can drive them to explore all the features of your products.
To produce a video-guide is simpler than writing one, I suppose it saves time (therefore it implies your company saves $$$). Some problems arise, of course. You shall guarantee that the user has installed on his computer a video-player, but it's not a big problem because you can provide it with your user guides. Maybe the toughest thing is to keep your video-guide up to date. Sometimes we need to update only a few lines or change some screenshot, how can we do it with a video ? I do not think it's easy to replace a frame with a new one.
Now I want to read your comments.
As user guide do you find a video-guide more handy than a written one?
As technical writer would you replace the traditional user-guide with a video guide ?

How to dress for your job interview

2009-11-29T11:35:00.006+01:00

Today's topic is focused, again, on a typical job issue. My intention is to lead you in our labour market, to unfold some typical issues and, indirectly, answer common questions about job in Italy.

Shifting today's topic, what to dress depends mostly on two factors:

the position you've applied for
the company

In my brief experience as an engineer I've always suited up before having a job interview. Honestly, I don't know if there is a real dress code I suppose there is a hidden consensus about a tie and a jacket for your job interview even though nobody has told you to put them on. Probably because I've always applied for consultant positions which requires a customer face role. In Italy a consultant is often thought as someone who suits up, is elegant. We care about our physical aspect too much. However you are not forced to dress a suit always. For instance, in my current company I'm free to dress as I wish when I work in our offices, but when I meet my clients I had to suit up.

In other circumstance I felt out of my comfort zone at my job interview because of my suit. I had a job interview with a Swedish telecommunication company that hold some offices in Italy, as well. When I was there, they immediately broke the ice and weren't formal at all. The line engineer who interviewed me dressed a simple T-shirt accompanied with blue jeans. They didn't make me feel embarrassed but you know, in some occasion you feel like a fish out of water.

Another example, during my interview for a consultancy company, aside from the fact that the manager was suited up, he clearly said to me: " we have a dress code to follow, just on Friday you do not have to respect it, Friday is called casual day."

Conclusion:
if you've applied for a consultant position you should suit up, but it's not compulsory. It's impossible to guess what best choice is, but in general it's advisable to be elegant, show that you are not scrubby, definitely!

A call for more democracy in the tv world

2009-11-22T14:04:00.003+01:00

Young guys and girls, with a brawny body, tattoos, tanned 365 days per year, call for more democracy in the TV world.
An entire society which, over last the years, has its fundamentals and pillars on the importance
of becoming popular, showing off. Youths who are obsessed by the idea to become famous, as the only turning point of their life, unique way for escaping from a common, ordinary life.
This pipe dream for some of them may be true, for the majority can't be.
The way for the success goes through a picture with a vip or an appearance in a Tv show, few minutes to show your face, smile and catch up Who is Who's attention.
Behind the faint hopes and ambitions of these guys, there is a restrict circle of decision maker people, who can give you a pass for the gate of your dream.
You could be taken aback to discover how important the image is in a country and to find out that is in the hand of just one person.
He is not a common man, he is someone who is in power, who represents an entire nation, whose abilities allowed him to become rich and start up a profitable business.
If I've managed to make these lines tempting you must see Videocray, a call for the democracy in the Italian Tv world.

How to write an Italian resume/cv

2009-11-16T22:23:00.003+01:00

Hi dears,

In this last period it seems I'm really concerned about the job and all the things related to it... it's true, definitely :)
Now, I'm going to give you some suggestions for writing an "Italian" resume.
Listing:
1) Use a standard template/format, we generally fill in the European resume template. It's available here. Broadly speaking, we don't have a lot of different CV styles, for instance I saw that in other countries there is a resume particularly suitable for executive manger or other for young graduate, we just use a standard format.

2) Write not more than two pages. Recruiters are always in a hurry, they just skim through the text and their attention is cached by some key words, therefore you do not need to make it long.

3) Pay attention to your hobby section, do not be neglect. A lot of times, even managers, have been interested in my hobbies.

4) Report your work experiences from the more recent to the less one.

5) It is not compulsory to add your passport picture. If there is no compelling reason or it's not explicitly required do not put your picture. Provide it only on demand.

6) In your languages skills section provide your listening, writing, speaking and reading capabilities. It might come in handy the self assessment grid with which you can assess your capabilities on your own. Also, this grid allows you to express your mastering of the Italian language (and eventually others) in a standard way.

7) At the end of your resume add your agreement for your personal information treatment according to our law. We write something like: "Ai sensi del d.lgs 30/06/2003 n. 196, autorizzo il trattamento dei miei dati personali".

8) Good luck :)

Do your social media contact go into your cv (3)

2009-10-31T16:43:00.003+01:00

I came across an article published on The Local, a Swedish news paper.

This article reports that an employee has been dismissed allegedly for the post published on his blog! In my first post of the series "Do your social media contacts go into your cv ?" I started to investigate whether it's worth publishing or not your social media contacts on your resume (or curriculum vitae). Even though the fired employee, in the article that I have pointed out previously, haven't posted his blog address on his cv, I think this article well-stress the conjuction between your internet corner and your work.

See you.

Do your social media contacts go into your cv ? (1)

2009-10-18T16:49:00.007+02:00

During these days I spent some time to update my curriculum vitae (cv, resume) with the new competencies that I've gained since I started to work.
Two questions arose:

Shall we add our social meeting contact to our cv ?
Shall we add our blog address (or windows web space or whatever you use to "post your thoughts on internet") to the cv ?

Regarding the first question, the answer is not immediate and easy.
You can also add your Skype contact, in somehow you can consider it like an additional telephone. I've already seen managers who exchange their Skipe contact, maybe in Italy we are not accustomed to use it in our business meeting, but I bet in other countries it is widely spread for your daily job conversation. But would you write your messenger contact on your cv ?
How can it come in handy for the recruiters ?
I don't think that it's helpful to add your msn contact to your cv for several reasons:
1) Maybe you are not going to add your recruiter contact to your list because you do not know who is behind that nickname, a similar explanation is valid for Skype as well.
2) Chatting does not reveal enough about you and might be misleading. On the contrary, Skype works well because it's like having a job interview at telephone.

Let's shift our focus on the second question.
Nowadays a lot of us get on line in a several different ways. Just to name few social-media: Facebook, Windows web space, blog, Twitter and so on.
Would you allow a recruiter (who still does not know anything about you) to access to your FB wall, or blog ? Would you write your blog address on your cv ?

Well, here the answer is more complicated and crunchy. Proceeding by examples. if you have your "geek coffee on line" and you hunt a job in the IT sector it might interesting to reveal it. Indeed it shows that you're really concerned about technology, you're fond of it :) and moreover you show how you are able to master some kind of technology.

Now, changing the example. Suppose you have your blog where you tell your personal life, your daily experiences, in other words a place where you free up your thoughts. If you give these information to your recruiter, you might reveal more than you would do during an interview.
From the recruiters' point of view, I suppose your blog or FB is an attempting source of information. Indeed the human resource manager is highly interested in your soft skills (organizational. communication capabilities ...) and sometimes they are more important than your technical background or previous work experience(s).
By adding your "on line personal corner" (for the sake of simplicity, I call FB, blog, etc in this way) you expose yourself to the human resource manager and it could even be an advantage.
You're just saying "that's me" , here my true point of views, you can also enforce your candidature with your blogs and show that you're the right person for that vacation.

How would you answer the opening questions ?

Do your social media contacts go into your cv ? (2)

2009-10-27T22:38:00.004+01:00

I still can't give some answers to my previous post. I just want to add that after I have questioned myself with those answers I ran into this blog. The author is an engineer like me and he posts his personal thoughts as well as his "geek articles" on it and he also have added his blog address to his work email signature...

Programming and Going Green

2009-10-25T15:45:00.002+01:00

I'm just wondering how I can give a sense to my work...

I'd like to work at software project (I'm mostly a software engineer) whose target is an everyone benefit. For example a project that involves "going green" aspects or aids to achieve humanitarian purposes. Any help or suggestion is appreciated.

Day 5: Malmo

2009-10-11T10:03:00.005+02:00

45 minutes by train keep us away from Malmö, in the morning we decided to take the train and visit it.
Malmö is quite different from Copenhagen. Firstly the weather was sunny I can't say hot, but good, definitely. The city is more calm and quiet than Copenhagen, there aren't many tourists at least this was my impression by sight. The city centre is very small and in preparation for hosting the next summer events, unfortunately we couldn't take part in them because they started in the weekend we will be leaving for that time :(

I also caught the opportunity to train my poor and basic Swedish with some Swedes, for example with the customer assistant at shop, but I have to work around it really hard...
Again, I can say that Swedes are welcoming and kind. Like it happened two years ago, when a bicycle rider helped us on his own volition, now a woman, gently, pointed us towards the correct direction without we would have asked her any help... I love this Swedish society's aspect :)

Another big difference between Copenhagen and Malmö is the average population age.
Copenhagen citizens look much younger than Swedes.
Comparing the two city centres, Malmö seems more concerned about love for the environment, indeed I notice more parks than there are in Copenhagen and in some cases they are obsessed as you can see in that picture in which some three grow up over a house wall... but it's nice :).

Anyway I was there for a short time, I can't give you a real taste of Malmö :(

day 4 There is no perfect place

2009-10-04T14:03:00.004+02:00

Copenhagen has been recently stated as one of most liveable cities according to Monocle's Most Livable index, despite its second place I saw an area near the city centre called Christianshavn in which you can find clear signs of urban blight and decay.
Wall destroyed without a safety protection, or more dangerous, young guys driving their mopes without their crash helmets, crossing gardens at fast pace almost stumbling your shoulder..

About night life, if you visit Copenhagen during the week don't expect a buzzing city at night, actually it was tough to find a good place where to drink and dance.
In a lot of places the admission is free and there is a huge variety of clubs, some dedicated only to techno music other to rock and so on.
I noticed that CPH lacks a place like a "disco club" in Italy. We have places where you can either eat or dance when it gets later .
In Copenhagen, but I reasonably suppose in the entire North Europe, clubs are used exclusively for drinking and dancing..
The prices are quite high as I told you in the former emails and their alcohol did not seem to have any effect on Marco and me... I'll tell you how we get drunk on last night :)

Girls are typically drunk, I haven't seen a girl to drink as much as Danish girls do.. . Chatting with some of them, they told us that the Italians give always a dim-view of themselves
I had to hear always the same complaints.. we can't speak English, we are womaniser, we talk out of loud and so on .. what a crap !!
In Copenhagen I ran into some Norwegian girls, to tell the true I expected that Norwegians go to
hotter places for their holiday rather than going to another quite cold place :)
Yet about CPH, one Norwegian girl told me that Copenhagen is quite expensive even for them and she was going shopping in Gotenborg because it's dirty cheap !!

What else? In club there were also people over 40 among people aged from 22 to 30...
it was weird indeed we were wondering if it was night for over 40 people, but we went to the same club more than once and we noticed again the people over 30.. conclusion there is no age range in the clubs ;) .

I was about to forget another upsetting point.. in the club there were sluts (sorry if I'm rude..)
mostly coming from Africa and Asia. They were there to make someone take the bait
and carry him to the other "colleagues"... disappointing.

At the end of the night we couldn't miss out a wonderful spectacle, some guys throwing glasses bottles to othe each other and someone says Naples is not a safe place....

Day 3 in Copenhagen: Mind the cycles

2009-09-26T13:48:00.003+02:00

Strolling again...
The first sentence of the day is:"Domenik, here, we have to mind the bicycles not the cars"

In this phrase I can sum up the Danish (broadly speaking, the North ) way of life. They are accustomed to use bicycles rather than cars. Cycles lanes are widely spread all over the city,
there is also a route dedicated to the tourists in order to make them enjoy the most relevant places of the city by bicycle.
You can rent a bicycle or get one for free, indeed there are some that you can take like you do for a shopping cart. With 10 DKK (Danish coroners) you borrow it from one of well known bicycle points and you can freely ride it. When you park (not necessarily in the park where the cycle was picked ) you 'll get back your 10 DKK.
Unfortunately, the number of bicycles is underestimated and it's not easy at all to find some one that is in a good condition... what a bummer !
Going ahead, we went to the Round tower from which you can enjoy the view of the city.
Then we reached the Kastel Church, here I ran into some mills. Shifting briefly our focus to the mills: In Denmark, I noticed that even on some souvenir are represented or depicted some mills, as far as I know, Netherlands is famous for its mills... I have to ask to Google :)

We went sightseeing the city with a canal tour that takes about one hour.
The city is a mixture of old and new buildings. Residential areas are really nice and
liveable as we could notice by going there on foot, later on. For instance, a lot of houses stretch along a square in whose centre there is a playground for kids.
There are also several benches where you can simply seat on and wind up...
Honestly, a lovely place where I eventually would like to grow up my family. These facilities impress me, because I think that they are expensive to build up and maintain, but they can really enjoy only for a short time due to unaffordable weather conditions.

At 6:00 pm we were back on our way towards our hotel. Generally for the whole holiday, we decided to go back to the hotel at about 6:00 -6:30 pm, in order to have a shower, give relief to our pour aching foot and.. SLEEPING for 2-3 hours before going clubbing :)
In our hotel was also available a swimming pool, well why don't we plunge ?
that 's what I and Marco did, we brought with us a swim-suits, originally we wanted to
go to the Copenhagen shores, but as you can imagine the weather prevented us from doing it :)

A sad and nasty note:
At night we wanted to join the night life in Copenhagen, first of all, we were unlucky because during the working days Copenhagen is not so buzzing.
Second of all, we asked to the reception assistants to show some places where we could enjoy ourselves. One of them pointed us towards a well know night club...
Ok we might have looked like wolfs ready for their buck-hunting, a classic Italian stereotype
but you can suggest to your clients a night club, when they ask you "where can we chill out?,
where can we have a whale of time? "
Anyway we decided on our own where to go... this is another story, stay tuned :)

Recession... curious signs ?

2009-09-17T22:24:00.003+02:00

You can see recession every where, big companies are going to close their offices in some countries, laying off a lot of people... I personally notice a curios sign.
Every morning when I take the bus there is a woman who used to bring with her a handbag branded by a blue chip company... some days ago I went to know that this company was laying off its personnel and coincidence the lady has replaced her bag with another one....

Second day in Copenhagen

2009-09-13T10:41:00.010+02:00

We booked a room and in our package breakfast was included, the only drawback due to this choice was that we had to get up early in the morning, not later than 9:30 a.m.otherwise we should have said goodbye to our "vital" breakfast.
The first morning we had a great idea, why don't we prepare enough sandwiches for our lunch time ? Well, while we were eating croissants, sweet biscuits, jam and everything you can imagine
we packed our sandwiches let me say we made 10 of them ... Stupidly we left them lay on our table... a big hill of sandwiches, two minutes later a waitress, gently, rebuked us by saying: sorry, you can't take them out"... we were running a pony show, Italian stereotype.. I know it's frowned upon...
We were embarrassed, but we didn't want to excuse ourselves from the table with all those sandwiches therefore... we started to eat them, can you believe it? we were already stuffed ... just one word PIGS :)

Ready for our first visit in Copenhagen, a sweater or a windbreak -jacket embraced our chest (it was a bit cold), a map in our hands and we went to the city centre on foot. It's nice, small and most people ride a bike, it reminds me of Stockholm but the latter is better :)

What I didn't expect is the width of the main streets that are larger than the ones we have in Rome (frankly, the avenues in Rome are very large). For example the Andersen boulevard takes 50 seconds to be crossed from one side to another.. how can I know it ?

because they use some traffic lights equipped with an electronic counter that shows how many seconds remain :)
The buildings are quite similar, one to each other with stunning colours but it seems a city without a precise identity, actually. For example I didn't see a square dedicated or in honour of someone. Now I can also reveal what staff is really expensive in CPH.. FOOD !!
A bottle of natural water, half litre 1,5€ !! a chewing-gum packet 1.3€ thus our breakfast turned out to be "vital", because by eating in the morning as much as I could,
I could skip our lunch and this was what we carried on doing...
Next ride, next tale :) follow some pics

(From) Farewell

2009-09-07T23:29:00.000+02:00

I love the love that distributes
in kisses, bed and bread.

Love the can be eternal
and love that can be fleeting.

Love that wants to liberate you
to return to love again.

Divine love that gets close
Divine love that leaves

P. Neruda

First Day in Copenhagen

2009-09-06T15:57:00.002+02:00

10-Aug,
I didn't know one of the fellow travellers: Valerio, the other one was my closest friend Marco.
> We were at the train station waiting for our train for the airport, all of a sudden Marco's mobile rang...
I'm Valerio, I'm facing a problem... I don't find my ID card... well

Marco told me that Valerio lives at the edge of this world :) , but I couldn't believe he was able to lose his ID-card...anyway, no panic !! and try to wash away silly prejudices :) before meeting him.
Nevertheless, we decided to go to the airport and talk to the local police station, they suggested to Valerio going to the municipal office and ask for a new ID card, in the meanwhile we, Marco and me stayed in the queue for the check in.

I didn't care about his "problem" because I felt pretty positive about this holiday and confident that Valerio was able to reach us somehow.

Since by nature I'm a sociable animal :), I have started to talk to a guy and a girl..

The latter one surprised me with her story. She was Peruvian and living in Italy, her brother was half Danish and half Peruvian. This world is more and more beautiful and wothy to be discovered. Chatting, getting in touch with people, the time goes at fast pace... I've never told you, but I love queueing if there are some people you can talk to:)

Thanks to God, our airplane was delayed two hours and Valerio
succeededin getting to departures with us

In Copenhagen, a cloudy day was waiting for us, I personally didn't know that it would have been
our closest friend for the entire vacation ... The CPH airport is well connected to the city centre and within a few minutes, we got to it. Public transport are wonderful and efficient, but trust me, damn expensive.. one ride in the city centre is about 2 €... but we still ignored what the most expensive thing was

I'll say it to youlater, in the meantime try to guess ...
Our hotel was DGI Bean, a newly furnished building in a perfect Danish and modern style. A bit cold in my opinion, you know, some places can make you feel some emotions already at first sight...
In the end we unpacked our luggage, had a shower and went out, strolling in the city centre,
teasing and laughing at Valerio for his ID-card and planning our next days...
Intense, tiring, funny, exciting days were on the way :)

It'sdramatically true

2009-08-31T12:08:00.004+02:00

Travelling&Love

2009-08-28T20:39:00.001+02:00

Travelling is like Love,
excited before leaving like while wooing,
a new place is being discovered, a new life is in front of you.
Happy when you get to the destination, when you give your first kiss.
A soul to love, a place to live
unhappy when you're coming back, when it is over...

To a sweden woman

2009-08-23T11:01:00.002+02:00

White blond girl lights my nights,
true beauty, you fell my eyes

I'm back

2009-08-19T12:08:00.001+02:00

I'm back from my journey in Copenhagen, I' m writing some posts about it.. stay tuned

Last months

2009-08-01T10:30:00.002+02:00

Probably, you've wondered how I spent my time recently and why I'm always out of time to write an email...
Well, unfortunately my free time is dramatically decreased due to two sucking deliveries in these last months.
In addition, it's getting hotter and hotter so I don't like to stay at home in front of my PC,
actually I sweat like a pig (we haven't got an air conditioner :( and what I do, mostly, during my weekend is to go to the sea.
I haven't been in the habit of going to the sea for years, I disliked it... now my mind has changed and I like being tanned and have a rest in the sun lounger... maybe because after an entire week spent to slog away I just need to relax...
In the past I was addicted to tanning, someone called me "lizard" because the number of days spent to go sunbathing... it's true, old habit die hard :)
But, definitely I can't say that I'm a sun worshipper :)
About my next holiday, the dice is cast finally ! just another week at work, We are going to go to Copenhagen from 10th Aug to 14th Aug then I'll be back in Italy and plan other things to do, my days off last until 23th Aug.
How have you planned your holiday ? What country or city will you visit ? What is your itinerary ?

Departure eve

2009-08-09T09:57:00.002+02:00

Now I'm in Naples, organizing last things before leaving for Copenhagen...
I wish all you "Wonderful holiday"
Kisses and hug !

Happy-nice-small-things

2009-06-26T23:23:00.000+02:00

Your shiny smile in the trembling sun light
A kiss with your plump lips still milk flavoured
Another day gets started
work,friends, duties, time-wasting
...
The sunset is fading away
and I'm walking in your moon light
At home, you and me,
another night loving each other.

Rowing

2009-06-21T12:54:00.002+02:00

I had rowed for a long time in the ocean,
I never lost my direction, my heart was my compass
it carried me to you.

First time..

2009-06-13T11:57:00.002+02:00

Last Thursday I was on business trip for the first time, precisely I had to go to a meeting off-site, in Turin, where our client is located.

It was the first time that I had to deal directly with the client, in the past I had just a conference.
Moreover I was alone, I mean as technician without a senior, on my left there was only the sale manager who didn't give me a great support, actually.
Honestly, before leaving for Turin I gathered all the possible advise that I could, I spoke to seniors, managers and so on.. I was worried about this task because I didn't have any frame of reference on how to cope with customers.
I was afraid of becoming the laughing stock or shooting from the hip.

Also, it was the first time that I had to take some decisions for our current project and guide our client towards the best solution (at least I hope it was the best one...) and propose a new activity for the sake of increasing our revenue.
In some moments I acted more as a pre-sale manger than a technical adviser... but it goes with the territory in my profession.
Summing up, I think I hit the target :), I reported the outcome to my manager and I received some compliments on it, but it's not the time to rest on my laurel :)
An unhappy note... I was forced to pay all the expenses (aside from the flight tickets) in advance and I'm about to be strapped because I can't withdraw more money, I'm near to overcome my monthly limit withdrawal ... I set it too low... :(
How was your experience when you had your first meeting with the client ?