Who is Oana Juncu

The next person for the “Who Is” series is Oana Juncu. I invited Oana because of her always present energy. I only “met” here recently, but already it looks like she is(was) always present.

What is something people usually don’t know about you but has influenced you in who you are?

I’m a fan of books for children, British humor, and fairytale. One of my favorites is ” Through the Looking Glass“, by Lewis Caroll, that combines all these. I’m so found of that book that I nearly believe I was Alice in a  former life. Respectful curiosity, fresh humor, and unconditional tolerance allow you to think out of the box and accomplish amazing things. That’s what’s all about. I read it when I was 12 years old. I’m afraid I never grew older since. Let me give you a quote from the book so you’ll know why :
Alice laughed. `There’s no use trying,’ she said `one ca’n’tbelieve impossible things.’

`I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!’

If you would not have been in IT, what would have become of you?

One of my  great love is about  languages and semantics. As for example, I’m fascinated by German as a self-generating new concepts language my merging different words. I’m quite sure that’s why they have such great philosophers. I can bet that if you have notions of German you can easier understand Martin Heidegger in German that your mother tongue.  Take a look at “Sein und Zeit“. It’s not translatable.
Actually that’s also why become a passionate IT : the day I learned about N. Chomsky’s theory of grammars that was the foundation of language compilers, I decided to go for IT.

What is your biggest challenge and why is it a good thing for you?

My biggest challenge is to keep all my engagements and have a good balance between personal and professional life. Being aware of this, as a challenge made me realize that personal and professional activities aren’t and shouldn’t be conflicting. If that’s the case , it can be a source of continuous unhappiness.
Taking several engagements is a challenge I take and taking challenges  is making me moving forward.

What drives you ?

Curiosity : looking behind the curtain. Sharing. Learning.

What is your biggest achievement?

I’m not sure having any big achievement. I had a lot of tiny achievements that I think useful. For example making teams with different goals work together by creating empathy. So an useful achievement is that I’m a rather good facilitator. But that’s only my opinion. Maybe other people think I’m the worst facilitator they ever encountered.  The major achievement that I would like to have is helping my children be happy. No guarantee I’ll ever make it.

What is the last book you have read?

I’m copying from Lisa’s answer, I’m a too multi-tasking  book reader. I’m currently reading a book about the Romanian Revolution back in 1989, and I finisher “Private Angelo” by Erik Linklater. I’m also traveling through the kindle version (so handy!) of Management 3.0.

What question do you think I should also ask and what is the answer?

“What are the insights that guide your behavior?”
Those I learned from my grand-parents. Mainly from my grand-father that a good part of his  youth being a refugee during the World War II.
One is to take advantage of the every day routine, we should see it at a privilege. Put your problems on a scale from minor to life threaten and see how you feel about them after doing so.
Help people if you can and if you want, but  don’t organize your life around the recognition you would like to have.  That is another huge source of unhappiness.

Who should be the next person to answer these questions?

I could have a lot of proposals . Let me mention just a few. One is Marcin Floryan that is one of the co-organisers of ALE2011. I didn’t know him well before. I appreciate his way to care about other people opinions, and spend some time to understand what the “damn’ they are talking about”.
Another is a full bunch of list of Italian Agilists that I discovered lately, like Fabio Armani an Agile Coach and Jazz composer, Carlo Breschian IT Agile guy that made a master in semiotics and had Umerto Ecco as one of professors, and then thought that developing software would be cool. And there a couple more, I was very impressed by their thoughtfulness and their modesty.Finally, Yves, I think you should answer your questions. You’re such a wonderful coach, asking these questions proves it.  So why don’t you let us know who you are from this perspective?

La version Français peut etre trouver ici.