About published articles

It’s been fifteen years since I wrote my first “something” about branding, design and the company I run. Since then I have had the pleasure of answering many questions and interviews and I had the chance to write my own articles on this blog, on Daily Business, Forbes, the Financial Newspaper, Wall Street and many other places and publications. I remember with great pleasure – I believe it was 1998, after the completion of the branding process of Tiriac Holdings – Adriana Halpert and Petre Barbu (who, at that time, worked at the Capital newspaper) offered to interview me about that project. I think it was the first in extenso article in Romania, an absolute premiere, about design and branding, a two-page spread, I hope I remember well. Likewise, I remember with great pleasure the interview taken by Larisa Ghitulescu, directly, to the point, pragmatic and very well-documented.

I discovered the pleasure of writing and expressing my ideas also on paper, as my job is preponderantly a visual one – in the case of design projects or preponderantly analytical – in the case of brand consulting projects. A brief review of the company’s archive showed me thousands of pages written about my own projects, analysis, strategies, interviews and articles. I enjoyed reviewing them for the most part. However, I also remembered (not with great pleasure, I must admit) about the occasions when I was asked to write regularly in certain print or online publications, general ones or specialized in marketing, where the editors did not offer to pay me, at least symbolically, a minimal compensation for the fact that I was writing content for their publication that was benefiting from them. I have always been honoured by these invitations and at the same time disappointed by, let’s say, this attitude. Maybe even more because I believe that everybody should always be rewarded for the job that they are doing. “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you” is one of my favourite proverbs and sayings, the one that says so much about common sense and politeness while having a sufficient dose of pragmatism.

The situation is different in the case of events and seminars. Here there is already the practice, in most cases, of compensating for expenses and paying a fee for the speaker. A commendable fact, a proof of the maturity and politeness of the organizers, because in the end it all comes down to the politeness and at the same time the pragmatism of compensating the effort, experience and know-how of someone you benefit from.

This article is also a pretext to thank the journalists with whom I have had the privilege of interacting during my professional life and from whom I have learned a lot.