Business Quests in the Information Age: To conform or not to conform?

November 2008

Entrepreneurs On Business Quests

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Nicolas Martignole
Nicolas is a passionate technologist and an explorer of new ways and usages of technology. I like his no-nonsense way of approaching topics and definitely enjoyed learning and working with him at a scrum training.
sandrine Plasseraud
Great new marketing evangelist in the UK.
Hans Rosling
Professor of International Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. I "discovered" him at a conference in Paris and found his quest for a fact-based understanding and analysis of the world most appealing.
Sylvain Zimmer
A young talented wiz kid who has been on a couple of business quests in the past five years... and he's in his early twenties!
Laurent Kratz
A serial entrepreneur currently very focused on the music industry.
Emmanuel Vivier
One of the top evangelists of new marketing methods in Europe: buzz, wom, viral & more.
Pascal Leurquin
Chef d'entreprise belge de 44 ans, marié, 3 enfants.

Found on the site of the University of Michigan, this text is quoted from The Corporate curmudgeon (Dale Dauten). Quite interesting and thought provoking...

"A university once was thought of as a place for freethinkers. Not now. The thinking is never free; it is expensive and shackled. In the absence of freethinking, college has become a vo-tech for bureaucrats. A diploma proves that you are a card-carrying bureaucrat, that you are willing to do what you are told for years at a time. thus, you are qualified to work for major corporations.

And when you go to the placement office, think about the sort of companies that would want to come to a university to hire employees. Ask yourself: If these corporations are such great places to work, why are they the only ones other than the Army to have 'recruiters'?

If you want to live your own way, it is important to understand that those who make a difference are nonconformists, rugged individualists. What school prepares you for is a life as a hard-working non-individualist, a rugged conformist.

You arrive at graduation ill-prepared for the life-long struggle against conformity. Refuse to concede. Start by refusing to take the obvious job, the one that pays the most. You've heard that old lie about 'He who has the most toys when he dies wins.' Change the 't' in 'toys' to a 'j' and you'll be closer.

And if you have to give up a few thousand dollars a year to join a small, lively organization, remember that each $1,000 in salary is only about two dollars a day, take-home. Would you leave a $5 bill on the dresser every day to have a lively, energizing career?

So, if you want to have a chance to slip the bonds of bureaucracy, you will have to look beyond the placement office.

You will have to search among the oddballs and black sheep, among those whose shoes aren't shined and whose smiles aren't rehearsed..

No, do not go in search of a job, but an inspiration. Find a leader, a guide. Find friends. Look until you discover true individuals and then plead with them to take you in."