{"id":725,"date":"2009-05-18T15:52:25","date_gmt":"2009-05-18T12:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/en\/?p=725"},"modified":"2014-03-12T16:40:43","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T14:40:43","slug":"eurovision-2009-a-great-business-lesson-for-all-of-uspart-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/2009\/05\/18\/eurovision-2009-a-great-business-lesson-for-all-of-uspart-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision 2009: A great business lesson for all of us\u2026 (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tfor part 2, click here <\/a>     <\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSaturday night hundreds of millions of viewers around the world watched Eurovision song contest. In some countries, like Greece, it reached the levels of “hysteria”, with around 83% (!) of the turned on televisions around the country watching the show. I was definitely one of the millions who watched, as I have been watching it since I remember myself, back to the early ’80s (following a special “agreement – pact” with my parents to allow me to stay so late, after… tough negotiations).
\n\t       The Norwegian Alexander Rybak<\/strong> (with origins from Belarus) was the winner this year, collecting a record number of points and having the majority of the countries giving him the desired “12”. Iceland and Yohanna<\/strong> was second (a major surprise), while Azerbaijan with the famous Arash<\/strong> and the juicy newcomer Aysel <\/strong>was third. Turkish Hadise was fourth, English Jade Ewen<\/strong> (in a song by Andrew Lloyd Webber<\/strong>) followed, Estonian “Urban Symphony” was sixth. Right after the Greek star Sakis Rouvas<\/strong>, and next the one and only French Patricia Kaas<\/strong>. Moldavian Nelly Ciobanu<\/strong> was 14th, while Romanian Elena <\/strong>was 19th, one position higher than the German “Alex swings Oscar Swings!”<\/strong> who was backed up by the presence of the famous stripper Dita Von Teese<\/strong>.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat if we analyzed the strategies of the countries with business terms?<\/strong>
\n\t        “Ok and why all these are interesting in a blog about Real Estate and business in Romania”<\/strong> all of you will think, wondering what happened to me during the weekend and I start talking about Eurovision. Well, it might sound funny, but all these were translated to my mind as… business! As I know how things move in Eurovision, I easily understood what was the strategy of the countries which were the main challengers for the first place and the title. Because there was strategy indeed.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t2008: Money – Power won. 2009: Low profile won.<\/strong>
\n\t        We live today during probably the biggest financial crisis of all times. It was just 2008, one year ago, when Eurovision contest was won by the famous Russian star Dima Bilan, singing “Believe”<\/strong>. Just 12 months ago, the world was different. So, the European masses voted for the guy who had the perfect package: Lethally handsome (at least this is what the women I know told me…), singing a song full of self confidence (“Nothing else can stop me if I just believe, and I believe in me.”), having a very expensive campaign before, a famous world star in ice skating behind him dancing on ice and the best choreography (having paid the most expensive Greek dance teacher and show creator). Add the rumors of his money, bodyguards etc and you see that in a world kneeling in front of money, Russian Dima was exactly what people wanted in 2008, someone who imposed his legacy around him and forced the rest to appreciate and accept him through his power.<\/strong>
\n\t        Take a look now to this Norwegian – Belarusian Alexander Rybak. He didn’t even create a video clip<\/strong>. He is not what women call “handsome”, but he is cute. He has a very low profile, he doesn’t show off money, but his talent in violin. He appeared on stage with some chords of this violin ruined, singing about a girl who left him, far away from the “macho” style<\/strong>. I recognized in his song folklore elements, the simplest and purest music, appreciated by millions of people throughout the centuries, the ultimate “non fitze” music. He didn’t try to impress the people with who he was. And in a world that lives difficult moments, he won. Without budgets and expensive promotional tours. In 2009 European people chose the one who “spoke” to their heart, they needed it more, voted for the one who gave them what they felt they wanted: Human touch<\/strong>.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBusiness World today: The endless war of companies has entered in a new era…<\/strong>
\n\t        In 2008 everyone was searching for power, size, big names<\/strong>. The multinational corporations were presented as “impossible to defeat”, their figures were improving non stop and their top people were the beloved ones of the media. This happened everywhere, in USA, Europe, in Romania too. In almost all the business segments, including Real Estate. “The bigger – The better” was the rule and if you would talk to people for efficiency, seriousness and low profile, you were treated like you were two years old<\/strong>. That was the world of Dima Bilan who was first last year and Ukranian Ani Lorak, the “hot lady” who was second.
\n\t        Where are all these today? Multinational companies have closed down<\/strong>, or tremble, firing thousands of their people so as to save themselves from the worst. Instead of stars, their top management people are usually hiding<\/strong>, or they appear so as to reply to the extremely aggressive accusations by the media and the public. This is the world of  Alexander Rybak and Yohanna. Even because of the problems, people started once more to re-discover the basics of life and business. “The client is the king”, “We can not chase money and profits without ethics”, “A society which builds he happiness of a small clan based on the misery of millions can not last long” etc<\/strong>. The business environment is completely different. In Romania too…<\/strong>
\n\t         Look around you. People have started “not having problem” with where your office is.<\/strong> They “forgive” you if you don’t have a very expensive car. The majority criticizes the ones who live their life in a provoking way, spending millions on stupid costs, ridiculous cars etc.<\/strong> They don’t consider you stupid if you just have 6 employees and not 150, as a competitor of yours (had last year, now he usually has also 6 – 12…). People search for the substance of business, for results, better prices, respect and honesty<\/strong>. Yes, they loved the nice lies of the past, with the big promises and the rest. But now they want them to look at their eyes and to tell them the truth. And they will award you for this.<\/strong>
\n\t                                                                           (tomorrow the second part)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

for part 2, click here       Saturday night hundreds of millions of viewers around the world watched Eurovision song contest. In some countries, like Greece, it reached the levels of “hysteria”, with around 83% (!) of the turned on televisions around the country watching the show. I was definitely one of the millions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[216,205],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}