Blog It Forward – Julia Dorbic

Very warm ‘hello’ to the whole community,

passion about specific subjects is what makes this community so interesting and helpful! There are as many different interests and topics as there are members in this community, and I am grateful to Dëv Päträ for BIF’ing it to me!

About myself, my name is Julia Dorbic. I was born in 1982 and am half German, half Kroatian born and raised in Berlin, the greenest capital city in the world!! I love hectic cities like Shanghai or New York just as much as I love the quietness of a forest, a hike through the mountains, a bath in the sea or a walk with my two minipigs, Wanda and Lulu. Happiness is also riding through beautiful landscapes (which we have all around and in Berlin!) …       

   Montana, Wanda & Lulu – my four-legged friends 🙂

“Things to do in Berlin” Unlike City Guides

Here is a list of things to do when you come to Berlin, they might be a bit touristy, but hey, why not 😉 here we go:

A really nice way to see Berlin is taking a tour on a boat, I personally like the evening tour of three hours most! If you like it green, take the public ransportation and go to one of the beautiful lakes in- and around Berlin!

Berlin is said to be the greenest capital city worldwide, I chose to post pictures of it’s ‘green’ side rather than sightseeing sights you all aready know 🙂

Clubs- most of them very cool and casual, but crazy, some chic and fancy…check out the links below.

http://www.whitetrashfastfood.com/

http://www.water-gate.de/

Salon – Zur wilden Renate

http://www.arena-berlin.de/

http://www.week-end-berlin.de/

http://www.bar25.de/

http://www.solarberlin.com/

http://www.berghain.de/

http://www.yaam.de/index.php?act=&lang=en

http://www.clubdervisionaere.de/home/  –>(Houseboat-style, very nice!)

And many, maaany more…

Then a very nice place to spend a mellow afternoon is the flea market “Mauerpark” with karaoke each Sunday afternoon in an old amphitheatre in the district  “Prenzlauer Berg”.

The typical places to go shopping are ‘Friedrichstrasse’ and ‘Unter den Linden’, ‘Hackescher Markt’ and Alte Schönhauser Allee (former east Berlin), Kurfürstendamm (former west Berlin). If you come to Berlin (for d-code in November, e.g. 😉 ) and have any specific questions, ask me!

About myself…Being half Croatian and going to an international school in Berlin, I was lucky to grow up in a multilingual environment. After I graduated from high school I volunteered in a non-profit organization in Southern Chile. The experience of working with 3-6 year old children, most of them coming from an indigenous background, had an impact on my life like no seminar or university course could have ever had. After I sorted myself out again and gave up on the attempt of studying Sinology (China studies) I decided to go with the interdisciplinary program ‘Applied Modern Languages’ combining Spanish, English and Business Studies, which allowed me to further focus on my languages Spanish and English and offered to choose between a big variety of courses ranging from Management Studies, Public Relations to Finances and Cultural Studies with focus Latin America, Spanish Linguistics, and Business English.

At university I also had the opportunity to study Business Administration in Costa Rica and Denmark, two very different cultures with a great choice of interesting courses and highly motivated teachers, much better that Germany’s university system at the time, I think. I also always loved to play theatre; hence, I was part of a Spanish theater group for five years, which meant working on pieces by Spanish directors together with a great mix of people. My mayor Spanish required fieldwork in the linguistic field for completing a main course. Together with my peers and my younger brother, who studied media designer for image and sound, we started to work in all phases of writing, directing and producing a documentary for my mayor in Spanish linguistics together with fellow students, which I enjoyed so much that I sometimes wonder whether I should have rather studied something in that direction. My creativity and range of expertise were highly encouraged through these activities. I love to travel and especially enjoyed the trips I was able to take during the course of my studies. I was selected to participate in a research project collecting linguistic data in cooperation with the University of Ghana, West Africa, which was an unforgettable experience that gave us the opportunity to work with extremely bright and inspiring co-students at the University of Ghana in Accra, Ghana’s capital. The enrollment in such projects enabled me to work in a multilingual work environment and gain a wide range of experience in team work in an intercultural context. I feel very lucky.

Career..

And then came Design Thinking – this iterative, user-oriented process which solves complex problems and encourages the development of innovative ideas based on the work of interdisciplinary teams allowed me to work in a manner that I believe in. Each project is individual and case related, innovations are created together with the ones who should really matter, the end users, and its concept can also be applied to everyday life. As a Design Thinking consultant, I was able to gain a multitude of experiences coaching projects in China (10 months), UK, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany. The peak of my working experience as Design Thinking consultant and coach until now was meeting brilliant people from all around the world at the SAP TechEd’s in Madrid, Bangalore, and Amsterdam in 2012/13. I felt warmly welcomed within the community called ‘SAP Mentors’ and felt highly inspired by their openness and engagement. In May 2014 I was elected to become SAP Mentor myself, which I feel is an incredible honor and I am looking forward to this new, exciting challenge!!

So why did I end up working as a consultant in the IT business? Well, being a linguist and having studied business administration seems to be an advantage when it comes to evaluating IT solutions. Interdisciplinarity is the key term which enables a team to tackle problems from different angles, from a holistic view. I never thought I would ‘end’ here, but I can assure everyone reading this: I am so glad I did. And quoting one of my favorite movies- “Life is like a box of chocolates- you never know what you get.”

The #DutchSAPMentorBunch at #SAPTechEd in #Amsterdam last year

My answers to Dëv Päträ’s questions:

1) Your ambitions are: #1: To be a good man. #2 You are very very crazy about SAP and want to be a SAP MM Consultant and to be a good professional man on industry. 😉

2) As you stated, your best friend in life’s name is Rana Koley and you posted a picture with him and his beautiful wife 😉

My questions: I would like to blog forward 2 questions as well:

Why do I like working in a DT mode?

Why is Berlin so special to me?

And a third one: Robin van het Hof and Christian Braukmueller

Being SAP Mentors, what are you especially looking forward to this year? 🙂

So I choose to BIF it to…as already mentioned-

Christian Braukmueller

Robin van het Hof

..because they are my fellow new SAP Mentors 2014 and extremely cool guys, you will see in their BIFs 😀 !

Remember the BIF rules:

Follow the Blog It Forward Chain in order to be updated when the people you blog it forward to post the links to their “Blog It Forward” blogs.

Read Moshe’s blog again to make sure you follow the rules in your own blog:

• Provide an introduction to yourself
• Provide a fun fact about your country or yourself
• Add a cool picture of yourself or your homeland/town
• Answer specific questions that were “Blog It Forward” to you
• Answer 3-4 optional questions from the bank of questions provided below. Or choose to answer questions you make-up on your own.
• Create 1-2 personalized  questions you would like to blog forward
• List at least 2  people who you are blogging it forward to. Share why you choose them. Link to their SCN profile by typing @  and then their name (e.g @HisName).
• Ask the community to follow the Blog It Forward Chain in order to be updated when the people you “Blog It Forward” to post the links to their “Blog It Forward” blogs.

Thanks for reading! 😀

-Julia