Family Matters

For Xmas my sister and I posed for some pictures we gave as gifts to relatives. Since they are so nice (both the relatives and the pictures) I thought I'd share them online (only the pics). Partly as a means of wishing my sister good luck with her Manhattan Project :-)

Marvellous, Fantastic, Super

I realise that I am most likely inviting disaster by stating that things are VERY well right now.

After a rough patch, where at work demands were a bit high and with my housing situation far from ideal, I am now on a roll.

First I got a new much better place to stay. Then I got a visit from Sweden. It is always nice with some fresh eyes to help you rediscover a place; they also serve as an impetus to discover new things (which we for sure did). Do I need to mention that both weather and circumstances were conducive for an excellent time? An indication of how much fun we had was that the earliest we came home was 5 a.m.

Then on yesterday I received notice that my thesis partner and I have been granted the scholarship we needed to conduct our thesis work! This means that I will be in Colombia for about 2-3 months, starting in the late summer!

Uppdate: I wrote previously about the research behind our topic. Very good videos, lectures and articles are just two clicks away.

Ich bin ein ”Head-hunter“

For two weeks now, and for coming 3 months, I’ll be learning the ropes as an international head-hunter. (If you are wondering “What is international head-hunting?” click here)

I am doing an internship with Kienbaum Executive Consultants (more about Kienbaum). Our corporate headquarter is in Gummersbach, a short drive outside of Köln, where I live. (more about Gummersbach and how I get there every day)

They are very good at keeping me busy, with increasingly challenging tasks. So far I have been doing Client analysis, Created target lists, Worked on Ads, Identified candidates, Vetted said candidates, Interviewed references, and well pretty much everything else (except things that require me getting on a plane, such as Direct interviews, but maybe that will change also).

Of course, I have already developed some deep insights into this headhunting thing ;-)

Three things have struck me so far.

1) How incredibly open Scandinavian companies are. It is extremely easy to get access to people, whom we want to lure away.

2) God bless the Americans! One of the best sources of people is companies recently taken over by US Corporations. Disgruntled managers are more than willing to make a move.

3) Sometimes the most unlikely people will aid our efforts. One company’s HR manager even supported our recruiting of her CFO. Strange, to say the least.

Headhunting ABC

The Economist recently published a survey on the ”War for Talent”, highlighting that with globalisation (and the increased fragmentation of business) the value of good management has increased substantially, and is set to continue its rise. There are simply too many business opportunities with high demands and too few qualified managers.

So what are companies to do, in order to recruit and retain these scarce and valuable people? Increasingly they turn to companies specialized in the art of tracking down and recruiting business leaders. This is especially true if they are about to expand into unfamiliar terrain (such as a new country of operations). These companies are nicknamed Head-hunting firms, but are formally known as Recruiter firms.

Meet the Kienbaums

Germany is the leading export nation in the world, and they have many international companies. Some of Germany’s biggest companies turn to Kienbaum to help them with international recruitment. Kienbaum was founded in 1945 by Gerhard Kienbaum and has now grown into Germany’s largest recruitment firm. In addition, Kienbaum has a Management Consultancy. All in all, Kienbaum is active in 15 countries and counts over 600 employees. Most of these are however in Gummersbach, where our headquarters are located.

More info at www.kienbaum.com

Going to Gummersbach

Every morning I meet the colleagues from Kienbaum who also live in Köln and ride with them to Gummersbach. (route plan)

It takes about 25 minutes, during which I can either get depressed by seeing the endless traffic jams on the roads heading into Köln, or I can get inspired by the beautiful scenery as the road makes its way up into the hills. I never cease to be amazed by how hilly, and therefore scenic, Germany is. Regarless of view, it goes by pretty quickly since my most frequent "driver" likes speed (I usually tell him to go a bit easier on the gas when we hit 185 km/h).

The downside with this car pool arrangement is of course, that I am to a large extent bound by the schedule of the driver. This has so far meant that I leave Köln at 8 a.m. sharp and usually return around 8 p.m.

Frei Tag

Fridays are (almost) free days. Today I'll be part of a study trip to Europe's largest Steel Plant which claims that it's
approximately 3250 employees produced 5.47 millions tons in 2005 - about 12% of the crude steel manufactured in Germany.
Could be very interesting. We have been instructed to wear clothes completely covering our bodies, so my expectations of something exciting happening are high. If I don't get to see some boiling/flowing iron, I would be most disappointed. ;-)

Compare this with last week's Friday, when I was visiting the Picasso exhibition in Düsseldorf.This self-portrait (made only a year or so before his death, at the remarkable age of 91) caught my eye, but other than I only really like one more painting (and for some mysterious reason it can not be found online and shared)

Much better were the paintings in the permanent exhibition. Who cannot like Dalí or fall for these two Magritte paintingsThis (La Modèle rouge) is actually one of my favourite paintings, and I did not know it was here in Düsseldorf.

This picture (Le Plaisir) prompted all kinds of thoughts: is this human destruction of nature, or perhaps a comment on that even sweet things have a dark side?

Rivalry

I am switching sides. As mentioned before I am now leaving Düsseldorf (partly) to have my new base in Cologne/Köln. The cities aren’t too different but for several reasons there is a strong rivalry between the two (perhaps because they are much alike?)

Köln is much bigger and older. It has more prestigious university and is the predominant Media-city of Germany. So when Düsseldorf became the regional Capital Köln started having a grudge. Trying to order a beer from Düsseldorf when you are in Köln is considered very rude. Strangely this attitude extents a bit further than the bar. Our teacher told us that for many years, if you were driving from the north along the highway there would not be any signs indicating the Düsseldorf exit, so many drivers ended up in Köln. I actually noticed something similar when riding the airport shuttle bus to Düsseldorf. There was only one sign, just before the exit, so if you aren’t paying attention you’ll still miss it.

How the Düsseldorfers wish that their road sign looked like
(Statt means "instead of" but is pronounced similarly to "Stadt",
which means City and is very common on road signs)

The Economist and I

On previous occasions when I have been abroad I have found myself with some extra time on my hands, which I have used to among other things sink deep into my favourite newspaper, The Economist.

Sadly, my subscription is to a mail-box which I have not had access to for the last month so I have started reminiscing about wonderful pieces I read before (clearly a sign that I am addicted to this paper-based “mind expanding substance”).

This might sound strange but I still remember how stunned I was when I saw this graph:

To quote from the article

In an article in Science magazine in May 2002, the two demographers argued that the four-decade increase in life expectancy since 1840 is so linear that it “may be the most remarkable regularity of mass endeavour ever observed”.

I also remember when I read this:

People in very poor countries are, on average, less intelligent than those in rich ones. Some readers may be shocked by this statement, so let's rephrase it.

Some 800m people do not have enough to eat. Without proper nutrition, the human body cannot develop properly. That includes the brain. Those who are ill-fed tend to end up both physically shorter and less mentally agile than they otherwise would have been. Hunger also spurs millions of children to drop out of school in order to scavenge for food, and those who manage to attend school despite empty bellies find it excruciatingly hard to concentrate.

Few papers would be so bold in their choice of words.

(Higher) Frequency

Yesterday I was in Cologne, checking out places to stay. I know that it is a bit late in the game to look for an apartment less than a week before I am about to start work, but since the housing market in Germany is liquid and functioning (as opposed to other places I know) this actually works fine.

Most students and interns share apartments (called Wohngemeinschaft, or simply WG). Renting a room is then a process in which I must convince the owner of the room that I am responsible enough to return it in good condition, but also convincing the other flat-mates that I am fun enough to hang with.

After having checked-out my latest WG, I took a short walk over to the AIESEC-Köln Stammtisch (i.e. the weekly get-together-over-beers). I am always amazed how AIESEC enables young people to quickly find friends in pretty much every corner of the world. The risk of me being lonely or not speaking enough German can now safely be said to be zero.

The main event however was who I ran into at this Stammtisch. In 2004 I did an internship in Nigeria, and a Mexican girl who interned after me (but whom I so far had only seen in pictures) was at this Stammtisch! Wow! A person who has almost the same Nigerian experience as me, and we by chance happen to meet in Cologne. As I've written before, this tendency to run into people is unbelievable.