On Friday, it was already sitting in my letter box. And at first sight, it actually looked like a folder with spiral binging. We at InterFace have a few brochures of this kind. One of them is called flatland.
It tells you what sort of entrepreneurial culture we would wish to practice. Well, it is a little utopian. But I believe in it. It is very exciting. The new bran
eins reminded me of “flatland“. But I will write about “flatland“ some other time.
As always, the first thing I do is let the outside appearance of the new brand eins sink in. A friendly gentleman looks at me from the cover page. He is probably older than I.
That is something I enjoy, because it means that, after all, I might still have a chance of some day landing on the cover page of a magazine. The gentleman emanates piece and dignity. Well, that is good news, isn’t it?
Then I see the heading: Not For Cowards Olla! What might be the meaning of this?
I still do not know if I am a coward. Or am I (what)? What is the opposite of a coward?
A courageous person? A fear-free person? At the moment, I am too lazy to look it up. I will do so tonight. Incidentally, being lazy is an important virtue. It brings a lot of happiness. All you have to do is dare to be lazy. In a way, being lazy is not for cowards.
I read on and get to the focal thesis The Good Life. Again, something comes to mind. Do I have a good life? My spontaneous answer is – doubtless, I do! But then I also read the small print on page one: “Today, I have the nice feeling of having decided in favour of the right priorities” Gerd Knop, 70. Well, once in a while, it pays to read the small print. It is the solution to the riddle. The gentleman looking at me in this content way is Herr Knop and he is 70 years old.
So I plunge into the magazine – as always, the first thing I read is the editorial by Frau Fischer. It says “Not a Matter of Luck” and I think to myself: “it is probably not a matter of luck whether or not you set the right priorities“? Well, this is nowhere near as easy as it looks. I do not know. But it is certainly exciting.
To me, it seems like the magazine is quite bulky. It has 170 pages. Well, that is a lot, isn’t it? Again, the first thing I have to do is hold it up and give it a shake so that a lot of adverts can fall out. I am sure you remember me writing about this the last time around. So I get the wastepaper basket and dump all the adverts in it. I feel like Mother Hulda. You can expect it to snow soon on our planet. And the result is – the magazine is now a lot less bulky.
So am I now the kind or the unkind girl? Basically, I know: I must be the kind girl. After all, I did a lot of shaking out material. And I also have the nice feeling of having my priorities just right. And I enjoy life as long as I can still learn and experience new things.
It only takes a few pages for me to see that, again, there is a lot of precious stuff I can learn from this magazine. With other high-gloss magazines, this never happens. Not even with “Playboy”. Neither with business weeklies or manager magazines or periodical journals with the same words on their cover pages (just like there are many parties with words such as “Christian” or “Social” in their name). No matter how I turn them upside down, nothing useful for me will ever fall out.
So here it is in a nutshell: again, they wrote a beautiful magazine with a great title. I will let a few other people read it and then take it with me on my travels. And here is what I say: if you read brand eins, you will not become the unkind girl.
So here are the kind girl’s best wishes for your weekend.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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