A moment we waited for 12 long years has finally arrived -- Partizan won Maccabi in the quarter-finals and reserved the place at the Final 4 in Paris! With a little luck this team can also achieve something we are waiting for 18 years -- to win Euroleague…

Yup, I actually said “with a little luck”, because this team is, despite the youth and low budget (salary of just one Olympiacos’ player is bigger then the complete budget of Partizan), really something special and far from an underdog. It is consisted of a carefully selected group of players which are all talented, but combined with Partizan’s legendary coach, Dule Vujosevic, and the equally legendary Partizan’s fans, Gravediggers, this group becomes a very special team that gives 150% on every match and has become a very tough cookie for all the biggest teams in Europe.

Even Mr. Gershon, Maccabi’s coach, has noticed in one of his interviews that Macabbi has already taken a couple of great players from Partizan, but they never played anywhere as good as in Pionir Arena and under Dule’s guidance.

Below is what I’m talking about, and what Paris can expect from 7th to 9th of May.
I suggest the city of Paris to strengthen the foundations of Bercy Arena, for earthquake called Gravediggers is coming!

Last minute and celebrations:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZTjTXNNOb0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRa0AePQS8M

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnCEMe1QEvI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzQUsQlyo8M

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4NpPN-NC5U

Remember Bobby McFerrin, the world famous author of “Don’t worry, be happy” song?

Well, if you are aware of him and his work, you also know that he is more then just a singer. His style and approach is very unconventional and his music cannot really be put under any of the genres, which makes him unique and which brought him 10 Grammy awards, invites to play with most famous orchestras in the worlds etc.

But not only… Recently he got an invitation to participate at the World Science Forum and its Panel “Notes and Neurons – Search for the Common Chorus”, which aimed to find answers on questions like “Is our response to music hard-wired or culturally determined?” or “Is the reaction to rhythm and melody universal or influenced by environment?” as well as to illustrate “music’s note-worthy interaction with the brain and our emotions”.

And he did it in his own way. They told him that not everyone is musical. His answer was to show the power of pentatonic scale:

See full coverage of the panel here.

Now, this video is fun to watch for anyone, but if you think a little bit about it, it’s much much more. It shows how wrong and limiting our education system is… Imagine if education was there to really support your creativity and not to limit it within the curriculum made in 1960. or whenever… Imagine if teachers were talking to us instead of lecturing us?

Internal CSR, or being responsible to your own employees is equally important as being responsible externally and communicating it.
Depending on your business, that can mean anything from allowing them to have unions, have fair compensation and benefit systems, growth opportunity, security, but also quite often their own safety.

However, it’s just not good when you overdo it. I bumped into this example at sustainabilityforum.com and found it very disturbing.
I mean, keeping your employees safe is one thing, but having a policy not allowing them to help someone not to be beaten up brutally is something else…

Check it out below. Conclusion is after the video.

The Potential Brutality of CSR

Written By Chris Milton
Published On February 12, 2010

There’s a reason I’ve not put any picture with this post: because there’s a video at the bottom.

I think you should watch this video. It’s just over seven minutes long.

It’s of a news item from CNN in the USA last night.

It shows CCTV footage of a girl getting beaten up and having her head kicked in at a bus station in Seattle, Washington.

Then there’s the three (four? five??) security guards who watch this happen. Clearly within arm’s reach.

This is terrible, says the commentator. Surely as decent human beings, maybe even fathers, they should intervene and stop this brutality?

The attacker even returns for afters and is unhindered.

Why didn’t they intervene? Because there is a policy, apparently, that security guards do not intervene in violent confrontations. Difficult to swallow that one.

So on comes a guest, a Sergent from the local police force, who steps through this policy and explains why it’s there and that, once the fight had finished, over 60 officers attended the scene.

Then at the very end the presenter thanks the Sergent for his time and for explaining it to them.

So that’s OK then.

Now, why am I posting this on a CSR blog?

Simple. The reason these guys didn’t intervene is because they had a policy to follow. Tick boxes, insurance (no doubt) and all of that.

And this has subverted their normal human behaviour.

CSR and sustainability is all about reinventing business: it’s not a standard to acheive, it’s a model to follow on a path of continual improvement.

The tick-boxers and standard acheivers in the CSR world are little better than these security guards: watching disaster happen infront of them “satisfied” that they are following their professional protocols.

No one, not even a member of the public, intervenes. But it’s the security guards who are best placed to do so.

We all want to be on the side of the defenseless, the impoverished, the disadvantaged and the downtrodden. However, we — as people — have to act for that to happen, not just implement a policy and think that’s the best we can do.

Needless to say, those of a sensitive nature may prefer not to watch the video, and please be sensible with minors. The video can also be watched here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/11/seattle.beating/

Please watch it. Now.

Conclusion:
Personally and as an HR professional, I blame this not only on the company policy, but also on the corporate culture that they obviously have. I mean, this culture has to be very passive-defensive and very strong to change (in my opinion) basic human behavior to react in such circumstances. Or all of these 3 guys are simply bad people…
I hope that the kid is fine…

Since Yugoslavia stopped existing, a lot of things have been changing in Serbia, including the coat of arms, flag and anthem.
Many things changed, but some remained the same -- corruption in all spheres of life and levels is one, and the second is success in many many sports.
The corruption is what kills us, makes us feel helpless and quite often deeply depressed and highly apathetic (see some stats at @Dzangrizalo’s blog post -- serbian & google translated english), and when any government brings us a new anthem or anything that should gather us all around, we simply cannot accept it so easily… Even if that anthem is a beautiful song from 1872, it is still not easy to relate to it… Not even if they play it every morning and evening on national TV station… (I suppose that is an explanation to the hatery towards celebrations in the same blog post )
Myself included…

However, recent shower of medals on World Swimming Championship, Waterpolo Championship, as well as U18 European Basketball Championship (all in a couple of days) has brought us a lot of happiness, and along we listened the anthem in a whole new light… All of a sudden, I didn’t care about the government, about the corruption, about anything really -- just enjoyed the goosebumps I missed so much last couple of years…

It’s stupid, I know, and I feel like a kid when this happens, but these successes give you kind of a boost and motivation to do more… They wake you up from apathy and show you that if you are talented and really want to do something more with your life, there is no system or surrounding that will stop you do more…
So, thank you Serbian swimmers, waterpolo and basketball players -- you have been such motivation boosters this week!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgTR4sQDkc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_0fmJoC4bE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikhEmTkJrik

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNWHMu3KU70

What an awesome day!

1. No more visas soon!
Report: EC to propose visa liberalization
14 July 2009 | 20:03 | Source: Tanjug
BRUSSELS — The European Commission (EC) adopted unanimously on Tuesday recommendations for visa liberalization for Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia.

EU diplomatic sources told Tanjug news agency that the recommendations relate to period starting January 1, 2010.
More at B92.net

2. Champions League: FC Partizan hammered Rhyl in qualifications 4:0…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSSC_YbLUdk

and most importantly:

3. THE LEGEND COMES BACK!
Partizan Belgrade announced Tuesday that former star forward Dejan Milojevic signed with the club for what may be his last season.
More at euroleague.net

In Serbia, we say Dobar dan (Good day), but those 78 days of NATO dropping shitloads of bombs on our heads, we used to say Bombardan… Traditional Serbian humour – the darker, the better…

So it’s been 10 years since NATO started what they called action “Merciful Angel” “Noble Anvil”. This angel used 1000 airplanes and 38000 “combat missions” and dropped  who knows how many bombs that are either old (with depleted uranium – cheaper to drop in Serbia then to destroy) or very new and experimental (special bombs that destroy complete electrical network etc) or just against humanity (cluster bombs – aimed at killing as many people as possible).

And it’s been 10 years since they admitted that only by bombing 10 million people they can take care of Milosevic. That was, as they said, the reason for bombing…

And even 10 years later, they are still killing us… Depleted uranium is a very serious thing and many young couples are afraid to have children nowadays… Read more here – http://arirusila.cafebabel.com/en/cbtag/191033

Bombing itself was meant to be aimed at military targets and infrastructure, but this was not really true, as they were hitting anything that moves (buses, trains, refugees in the road, whatever) and other important targets like Hotel Jugoslavija and Chinese embassy (both in part of town where there is absolutely nothing military kilometers away). Here’s a short list of “mistakes” that BBC made – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/340966.stm

Not to be too subjective, here’s what Noah Chomsky thinks about it:

Then even better – General Lewis Mackenzie, Canadian dude that commanded UN troops…

To conclude – check out this awesome documentary by some Serbian guys. It has been made during the bombing and, in my opinion, in a true Serbian way:

I believe I wrote something similar somewhere once already, but nevertheless:

There is a saying about Serbs, that we always forgive but never forget and this is very true… For most of us, the war and the hatred towards the West ended with the last bomb that fell in Serbia (or even before, as a guy in the last movie in this post states). We come back to this and many other events every year, to remember the fallen and drop a swear or two on our miserable lives, but that’s pretty much it… We don’t hate, we don’t have terrorist groups trying to plot a nuke in Washington or whatever (I wish we are able to be so organized like that Serbian terrorist group in the Season 1 of 24 ), we just continue rebuilding quickly where we stopped. Quickly, as you never know when the next war will happen (someone said – only in Serbia there are 5 seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter and war)…

So, what makes us so calm, in peace with the situation? I think it’s history… Actually, am pretty sure about it… We subconsciously know that this is just another “great empire”, another in a row, so to say…let’s just see if this one falls in our lifetime or a bit later… and if the next Great war will start somewhere else and not in this unlucky area…

This is where the GPS Navigation took us on our way to Timisoara airport!
How can you not love modern technology? Without it, we would never visit this amazing place )

Budget of CSKA – 30.000.000 EUR
Budget of Panathanaikos – 45.000.000 EUR
Budget of Partizan – 2.000.000 EUR
Lasme & Vesely (both foreigners) singing a fan song dedicated to the love for Partizan (in Serbian!!) – PRICELESS!!!

There are things that money can’t buy…