BUSINESS: Tom Peters (2/3)

Sir Richard’s Rules:

Follow your passions.
Keep it simple.
Get the best people to help you.
Re-create yourself.
Play.

Kevin Roberts’ Credo

1. Ready. Fire! Aim.
2. If it ain’t broke ... Break it!
3. Hire crazies.
4. Ask dumb questions.
5. Pursue failure.
6. Lead, follow ... or get out of the way!
7. Spread confusion.
8. Ditch your office.
9. Read odd stuff.
10. Avoid moderation!

Craig Barrett/Intel/01.08.2004

The world has arrived at a rare strategic inflection point where nearly half its population living in China, India and Russia have been integrated into the global market economy, many of them highly educated workers, who can do just about any job in the world. We’re talking about three billion people.

Seth Godin/Fast Company/02.2003

This is an essay about what it takes to create and sell something remarkable. It is a plea for originality, passion, guts and daring. You can’t be remarkable by following someone else who’s remarkable. One way to figure out a theory is to look at what’s working in the real world and determine what the successes have in common. But what could the Four Seasons and Motel 6 possibly have in common? Or Neiman-Marcus and Wal*Mart? Or Nokia (bringing out new hardware every 30 days or so) and Nintendo (marketing the same Game Boy 14 years in a row)? It’s like trying to drive looking in the rearview mirror. The thing that all these companies have in common is that they have nothing in common. They are outliers. They’re on the fringes. Superfast or superslow. Very exclusive or very cheap. Extremely big or extremely small. The reason its so hard to follow the leader is this: The leader is the leader precisely because he did something remarkable. And that remarkable thing is now taken so it’s no longer remarkable when you decide to do it.

NEWS: it's not just depressing, it's positively negative

[via Pierre Carion - in French]

You REALLY have to see this website, it's so funny. It's about demotivating people :-) The company's name is "Despair, Inc.". So great! Some examples:

NEWS: advice :-)

[via vowe and lowercase tee]

Kids are willing to give some advice, difficult to resist :-)

TOOLS: K-Lite video codec

Are you also confronted with this never-ending-story concerning all these audio & video codecs? I personaly got this problem till I installed the incredible package from K-Lite. Really a must-have if you do not want to install Quicktime and/or RealPlayer (both remain quite intrusive to my mind) and if you do not want to waste time by searching the new version of hundreds of codecs (I'm exagerating a bit ;-).

K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. The K-Lite Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play 99% of all the movies that you download from the internet.

The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs:
* It it always up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs.
* It is very user-friendly and the installation is fully customizable, meaning that you can install only those components that you really want.
* It has been very well tested, so that the package doesn't contain any conflicting codecs.
* It is a very complete package, containing everything you need to play your movies.

Mega Codec Pack includes everything needed to play online and offline computer media. This pack is from the makers of the K-lite codec pack. This version includes the Full K-lite codec pack as well as Quicktime and Realplayer codecs, and BS Player. This Pack includes codecs for the most popular compressions like Divx and Xvid as well as some of the less popular but still necesary codecs. This is your one stop codec resource.

BUSINESS: Tom Peters (1/3)

[via @rgumente]

Tom Peters has his own blog!

Good and fresh inputs for innovation, renewal, rethinking. You can also find a lot of the Powerpoint presentations of Tom Peters. I find them...honestly awful from a visual point of view. I know, I know, that's not the most important dimension, but anyway, this.... On the other side, I haven't studied all the material but I already extracted some interesting refreshing thoughts:

Everything You Need to Know about "Strategy"

1. Do you have awesome Talent ... everywhere? Do you push that Talent to pursue Audacious Quests?
2. Is your Talent Pool loaded with wonderfully peculiar people who others would call "problems"? And what about your Extended Community of customers, vendors et al?
3. Is your Board of Directors as exciting as your product offerings and does it have 50 percent (or at least one-third) Women Members?
4. Long-term, it’s a "Top-line World": Is creating a "culture" that cherishes above all things Innovation and Entrepreneurship your primary aim? Remember: Innovation ... not Imitation!
5. Are the Ultimate Rewards heaped upon those who exhibit an unswerving "Bias for Action", to quote the co-authors of In Search of Excellence?
6. Do you routinely use hot, aspirational words-terms like Excellence and B.H.A.G. (Big Hairy Audacious Goal, per Jim Collins) and "Let’s make a dent in the Universe" (the Word according to Steve Jobs)? Is "Reward excellent failures, punish mediocre successes" your de facto or de jure motto?
7. Do you subscribe to Jerry Garcia’s dictum: "We do not merely want to be the best of the best, we want to be the only ones who do what we do"?
8. Do you elaborate on and enhance Jerry G’s dictum by adding, "We subscribe to ‘Best Sourcing’ and only want to associate with the ‘best of the best’"
9. Do you embrace the new technologies with child-like enthusiasm and a revolutionary’s zeal?
10. Do you "serve" and "satisfy" customers ... or "go berserk" attempting to provide every customer with an "awesome experience" that does nothing less than transform the way she or he sees the world?
11. Do you understand ... to your very marrow ... that the two biggest under-served markets are Women and Boomers-Geezers? And that to "take advantage" of these two Monster "Trends" (FACTS OF LIFE) requires fundamental re-alignment of the enterprise?
12. Are your leaders accessible? Do they wear their passion on their sleeves? Does integrity ooze out of every pore of the enterprise? Is "We care" your implicit motto?
13. Do you understand Business Mantra #1 of the ’00s: DON’T TRY TO COMPETE WITH WAL*MART ON PRICE OR CHINA ON COST? (And if you get this last idea, then see the 12 above!)

The rest in the coming days!

MUSIC: Mercedes Mixed Tape 03

Mercedes just launched the third release of its Mixed Tape compilation. I've already posted about it in August. Extract from the Mercedes-Benz Mixed Tape Newsletter:

Mixed Tape 03 is now online – brand new tracks from around the world!

Mixed Tape, the free music compilation by Mercedes-Benz, returns with its third instalment: until November 23rd 04 you can discover, download and enjoy 15 exceptional new tracks by international artists at http://www.mercedes-benz.com/mixedtape

This time, we are especially proud to present cult star Mocky who opens the compilation with his inspired “How Will I Know“.

In addition, we have tracked down many exciting new discoveries between Budapest, Los Angeles and Malmö: whether glamorous lounge sound (4 To The Bar), dynamic hip-hop (Sol Uprising), dreamy pop (Adria) or cool downbeat (The Tape) – once more Mixed Tape 03 assembles intelligent, cosmopolitan tracks from around the world.

BLOG: @rgumente

After some days of "testing", I've added a new great feed to my blogroll, the one of Dragos Novac, a Romanian entrepreneur. He is the CEO and co-founder of Krogos Software - a software development and offshoring services company located in Bucharest, Romania - and the blogger of @rgumente.

About While presently there are several Romanian internet discussion groups about themes comprehending business issues under diverse forms, @rgumente is the first blog from Romania about business and strategy. It is yet another voice in the space about what is happening in Romania, the way I see it.

Why business and strategy? Because every day I am observing or being involved in the business world both from Romania and from outside and I tend to have a strong opinion about what is going on. People I usually hang out with don't really discuss about this stuff so here I am with @rgumente.

Why Romania? Because this is the place where I was born, where I always came back from my life journeys and where I am presently trying to make a living. Finally, because the business environment from this corner of the world presents several different perspectives quite interesting or scary, depending on the mood of the observer.

Dragos' blog was just reviewed in the weekly Power Blog reviews from Small Business Trends. Great work and definitely another perspective!

NEWS: strategic workshop...on the Zurich lake

We had a strategy session with some of my colleagues in an quite uncommon restaurant near Zürich - the Seerose restaurant. Uncommon because you can have a aperitif on a lake-pontoon (definitely too cold today...) and you are really eating "on the lake", with a marvelous view. We saw the first snow on the Swiss alps.

MUSIC: some figures about the last Montreux Jazz Festival

I found some figures about the last Montreux Jazz Festival - quite impressive:

16 concert-evenings, thereof 8 rainy evenings

more than 100'000 tickets sold

all in all, more than 220'000 visitors

135 concerts in three different locations

140 bands, 39 DJ's

...and some concerts on a barge on the Montreux's lake!

NEWS: Pledge of Allegiance

Some months ago, I had a very interesting discussion with two American friends, both moderated, one Republican and one Democrat, who both know very well a big part of the World, including some Arabian countries and Europe. Both very well educated (Harvard), and both speaking perfectly four languages. So, not really some "average" guys ;-) We discussed the link between the religion and the State in America during quite a long time . Both agreed that G. Bush is making a religion war against the Muslims in Irak and Pakistan, and that the other "normal well-known" arguments which are always mentionned (petrol, geopolitics) exist but aren't so relevant. That was completely new for myself, I was a bit sceptic, as a *lot* of European friends I met the last time.

This was for me a kind of new light concerning the war in Irak.

With some distance, I must say their analysis is definitely interesting. In this field, I read a post of Pierre Carion about the pledge of Allegiance. If I understand well, this is a school flag-raising ceremony which takes place each week. Foxnews published an history of the Pledge of Allegiance and its different versions. The Pledge currently reads:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I find this idea of Pledge, as an integration "instrument", ok. On the other side, as a French guy, I am surprised that the Pledge is containing such an explicit mention of *God*. What happens to all the Americans who are atheistic or who don't care about religion? I have thought that, as in France, there is strong and clear separation between religion and the State. Questionable, no?

Pierre quoted also an extract from an interview between Robert Sherman, a reporter, and George Bush (the father ;-) in 1987:

RS: "What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?"

GB: "I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me."

RS: "Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?"

GB: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

RS: "Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?"

GB: "Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists."

I found this input interesting with the light of my two American friends...

TOOLS: Sauce Reader v1.8

About one month after the version 1.7 of Sauce Reader, Synop launched an updated version of its great feed reader (first review, second one), which is available for free download (for personal use).



What's new?

Along with many bug fixes, this release has one major new feature:

URL Feed support to monitor and store changes to any web page.

Using this feature, you can now monitor updates to any web page using Sauce Reader. Monitoring a URL for any changes, Sauce Reader will download a complete copy of the page for offline browsing (MHTML file). Use this feature to:

Keep a complete record of all versions of a web page over time.

Monitor infrequently changed pages that do not publish a feed.

Wow, it sounds interesting :-)

BUSINESS: Ethics and profits are compatible

Another interesting article of the Knowledge@Wharton about the role of corporation in our society. The article is based on some inputs from a documentary film called The Corporation and the corresponding book - The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power.

Both are an attempt to create a new definition of goals and responsibilities for the business world consistent with the realities of the 21st century. The key to this reappraisal is the concept of a "sustainable economy.
I don't know the book and the movie, I found interesting that the authors point out that:

As a reminder for all of us, Corporate leaders are legally bound to make profits, not to act ethically.

We need a shift in the corporate paradigm from a 19th century emphasis on maximizing profits to a 21st century ideal of sustaining long-term growth.

It already exists companies which are acting in this way. One example is quoted in the article - Interface, Inc, the world largest carpet maker (!):

Acting to make Interface an entirely self-sustaining and ecologically responsible firm by 2020, [its founder and Chairman, Ray Anderson,] has guided his company to a record of remarkable achievement. In the July 19, 2004, issue of BusinessWeek, data supplied by Interface show that waste produced by the company has been reduced by 80%, water intake is down by 78%, emissions of greenhouse gases down by 46%, energy consumption cut by 31% and use of petroleum-based materials by 28%. The final figure is in some ways the most persuasive, detailing a total savings of $231 million. Ethics and profits are indeed compatible.

Great concrete example!

Source: A Critical Look at the Corporation's Dominant Role in Society

MUSIC: tribute to Ray Charles

Google's Tribute to Ray Charles today. Ray was born on September 23 1930.

PRIVATE: autumn and chimney fire

September 23, autumn is already here....

One way to "fight" against the autumn's spirit, a good chimney fire! The first one since last winter.

BUSINESS: the 2nd mainframe in Europe

I visited one of the datacenter of Triaton in Frankfurt (Germany) yesterday. Quite impressive! We had a chance to have a look at the second mainframe which was installed in Europe! This installation happened in 1957-58 by the Hoechst chemical company. It was a 701 model. The goal was to organize better the payroll system. Already a Business Process Re-engineering project ;-) I was surprised that IBM already had more than 80'000 employees in 1957...

I couldn't take some pictures but I found some funny and interesting pictures and information on the IBM's website. Have a look at these pictures and the incredible power of this machine!

Overview of the mainframe (the one we saw was bigger)



The incredible control panel



The magnetic core storage unit



The vacuum tubes



System performance

Electrostatic storage capacity: 20,480 digits.

Magnetic drum capacity: 81,920 digits.

Magnetic tape capacity: More than 8 million digits without changing tape.

Addition and subtraction: More than 16,000 operations per second.

Multiplication and division: More than 2,000 operations per second.

Tape reading and writing speed: 12,500 digits per second.

Drum reading and writing speed: 8,000 digits per second.

Printed output: 180 letters or numbers per second.

Punched card input: 600 digits per second.

Punched card output: 400 digits per second

Source: IBM model 701 exhibits

BLOG: milestone "200 posts" :-)

I passed the "200 posts" milestone on last Friday :-)
Thanx all for taking some time here!



Image source: Wikipedia

NEWS: Interview with Mena Trott

Digital Web Magazine published an interesting interview with Mena Trott - co-founder and owner of SixApart - about SixApart itself, Movable Type and the blogging tool market. To be read!

DigitalWeb: How do you characterize the nature of the competition between you and Blogger and WordPress, and some of the other folks out there? Is it collaborative, with everyone wanting to grow the whole industry in an effort to get a piece of a bigger pie, or is it becoming more competitive?

Mena Trott: It’s hard. We and Blogger are both very focused on what we’re doing. In terms of knowing people, we talk to the Blogger team a lot and are on very good terms with them. We both have such different markets. When you have a free product and a subscription product in the same market, there is overlap, but it’s not cutthroat. In terms of collaboration, there can be more.

Unfortunately, we’re given a rap because we are so dominant, I guess, in terms of use. People see us as this big guy who they want to bring down, oddly, when we really aren’t—we’re still a small company. That’s frustrating. We’re more than willing to work with people. Being big and corporate completely goes against the things the company is all about.

NEWS: The Net helps drive auto-buyers' research

[via eMarketer]

About 50% of new motor vehicle buyers have had their decisions on make/model and price influenced by information they found on the Internet.

One reason for the rising popularity of manufacturer sites is that they generally provide the most accurate information on the vehicles.

BLOG: some tests with AdSense

So, as it is clearly a trend, I would like to test myself the AdSense program of Google. I tried to integrate it "smoothly" in my weblog (see right to the title).

First impression: the contextual choice of the ads is really working very well. Impressing...

TOOLS: beta-test Perfect Disk v7.0

I'm testing the beta version 7.0 of Perfect Disk from Raxco since yesterday. Already published a review of the version 6.0 of Perfect Disk.

It seems that the guys from Raxco did a good job! New features:

20% less memory consumption

Improved speed on larger drives

Improved user interface

Support for mount points

Network Configuration Management Wizard - Allows you to globally set most of PerfectDisk's registry keys without using Active Directory.

NEWS: working session in Zurich - part III

For chance, Laurent (this URL is crazy!) told me before that I forgot to mention in my last post about our wakeboard experience on the lake of Zürich that I was talking about THE Laurent of the very well-known French site about .NET technology called Tech Head Brothers. To be sure that there is no possible misunderstanding remaining, I publish again the picture of Laurent (you know, this Laurent), trying to initiate a new kind of wakeboard-style called "submarine wakeboard".



PS: Laurent, I know, there will be some reprisals from your side ;-) Anyway!

BUSINESS: Corporate Governance by the numbers....

Three professors of Wharton tried to find out if it possible to quantify and to measure the quality and efficiency of Corporate Governance.

For chance, the answer is clearly NO. A kind of common sense, I think... Some extracts:

"Lots of people are coming up with governance scorecards [...] They're coming up with best practices and selling this stuff. As far as we can tell, there's no evidence that those scorecards map into better corporate performance or better behavior by managers."
[The three professors] do think corporate governance matters, but after puzzling over reams of company numbers, they are not confident that anyone can measure whether one firm's governance is better than another's at least, not by using typical metrics.

I specially like this one:

In the absence of effective measurement tools, investors who are trying to assess firms' governance have to do it the old-fashioned way. That is, they have to do their homework, examining companies one at a time.

Source: Corporate Governance by the Numbers: It Doesn't Work

NEWS: working session in Zurich - part II

Some days ago, I explained that we had some fun in Zürich with some of my colleagues. We began with a McDo, have a look here :-) After the McDo, we did some wakeboard on the Zurich's lake. Lorenz was really good:



I could start after the third try, somehow still "tense" :-)



Laurent tried a new kind of wakeboard called "submarine wakeboard", also named "plouf wakeboard" ;-)

NEWS: IBM is sometimes ... so funny :-)

[Via vowe]

IBM can be really funny and, in a way, completely ridiculous.

Although IBM is very strongly implemented in the industry I'm working for (insurance), we are using succesfully BEA Weblogic since more than 4 years. I must say I really like the contacts we had with this company and the technology vision they are implementing. A great integrated product!

On the other side, you have IBM with its Websphere product-line, not really integrated (at least ;-), not very convincing to my mind, but quite a good success on the market. Now the following example - how to enable security in a Websphere portal - is really convincing me that we are on the good way ;-) I know, I know, it's just an example... Do not forget to have a look at the last sentence - These steps are not supported and are provided as is. The cherry on the cake :-)

Installation for LDAP setup:
----------------------------
1. Install WebSphere Application Server Developer.

2. Update WebSphere Application Server Developer to Version 5.1.0.1

3. Install interim fixes.

4. Install Portal Toolkit and test environment.

5. Update WebSphere Portal to Version 5.0.2 by installing Fix Pack 2.

6. To set up the test environment (Test1) . perform these steps:
a. Start the workbench.
b. Create a portal through wizards.
c. Deploy that portlet in the test environment without security enabled.

7. Setup the wpconfig.properties file with the following parameters (use defaults for all other parameters):
- WasUserid=uid=wpsbind,cn=users,dc=ibm,dc=com
- WasPassword=wpsbind
- PortalAdminId=uid=wpsadmin,cn=users,dc=ibm,dc=com
- PortalAdminPwd=wpsadmin
- PortalAdminGroupId=cn=wpsadmins,cn=groups,dc=ibm,dc=com
- LTPAPassword=wpsbind
- LDAPHostName=amtam.itso.ral.ibm.com
- LDAPAdminPwd=
- LDAPBindID=uid=wpsbind,cn=users,dc=ibm,dc=com
- LDAPBindPassword=wpsbind
- LDAPSuffix=dc=ibm,dc=com

8. After LDAP configuration, execute the wpsconfig.bat tasks
stop-portal-server, stop-admin-server

9. Start WebSphere Portal by executing wpsconfig.bat task start-portal-server and logon.

10. Stop the portal server again and start the existing server in WebSphere Application
Studio Developer.

11. The server start will fail. (Note: there are no security settings yet. Even if you manually
insert security settings, the server start still fails.

12. Delete the existing test server and create a new one. Security settings will be
automatically inserted. Start the test server.

These steps only work if the wpsadmin password is wpsadmin. If you change the password, you need to update the wps-info.xml file. The userid and password in a server configuration are stored in the following file:

servers\YourServerName.wpc\wps-info.xml

The password is encrypted. If you remove {xor} from the line of password, you can input the password in ASCII directly, such as: wpsadmin.

These steps are not supported and are provided as is.

BUSINESS: Microsoft vs. Apple - online music

Very interesting article from Knowledge@Wharton about the future competition between Microsoft and Apple in the field of the online music.

• The overall digital music sales market represents in 2004 about $270 million. By 2009, this market will represent 12% of consumer music spending, i.e. $1.7 billion! (Source: JupiterResearch)


• The current market situation cannot be clearer: Apple holds 70% of the market share with iTunes. It sold 125 million songs since the launch of the Windows version in 2003. Apple offers today a catalogue of about 1 million songs.


• Though this strong strategic starting position, Apple could be confronted with at least two strategic possible issues in the future: first, Apple can repeat the same error as in the past with its OS and the Macintosh, i.e. a closed system which works exclusively with its own Hardware ; second, iTunes is only a download platform, it seems that no streaming functionality is planned...

Some extracts:

Wharton professors say that Apple, by not opening its iTunes format to other music players, could be repeating the mistake it made with its operating systems (OS) for Apple and Macintosh computers back in the 1970s and 1980s. The fact that Apple's OS software was a closed system that worked only with its own hardware - in contrast to Microsoft, which licensed its operating system software widely and eventually emerged as the industry standard - isolated Apple.

If Microsoft and other services can convince consumers that monthly subscription services are better than downloading songs a la carte, Apple could face problems since it apparently has no plan to offer a streaming music service.

"Microsoft will ultimately be cheaper because it's not out to sell hardware," says Clemons. "It usually starts out badly in a new market, but then it either gets better or it terrifies the competition." Usually it does both.

Outch!

TOOLS: Firefox 1.0 Preview Release

The Firefox v1.0 Preview Release is now available. BE CAREFUL, a lot of themes and extensions from v0.9.3 are not compatible with this one and their updates are not already published!



PS: you can find my review of Firefox here.

NEWS: "China's growth is a tougher event than anything we faced since World War Two"

Loic posted a great article about the economical development in China on last Sunday. If you think that China is going to have an impact on us - or specially if you don NOT think so - I recommend strongly the reading of this article!

Some extracts:

China has grown at 8% per year for many years, it is the sixth economy in the World. The standard of living has improved dramatically with an average per capita income above $1000, it was only $300 twenty years ago. 400 million Chinese are now above the global poverty line.

What strikes me the most is how unprepared the US and Europe are to China's growth. The impact of China's economic development is now already huge on the Global Economy. The first consequence that is very often seen is of course jobs being transferred to China but the impact of China's internal demand for energy for example is equally important, China is for example now the second largest importer of oil and second largest electricity consumer. This has an impact on global energy prices and it will only increase.

The technology education available in China is according to Robert to World Class Standards. China graduates 2 to 2.5 million students a year and 60% of them are in the technology sector, where India graduates 1 million for 50% in technology and the USA 2 million a year with only 25% in technology.

We mostly think about toys or clothes production when we think about China. China has become the manufacture of the World but with such high standards of education and such a high number of highly qualified technology graduates China is now ready to move to the next step and create World Class leaders and companies. It would be a big mistake to consider China's competition to the US, Europe and Japan as low cost subcontracting capabilities only.

Seen from the US and Europe, the threat is generally understood as loosing jobs subcontracted in China. It should probably be understood more as new fast moving Chinese companies created and not only addressing their local market but becoming new leaders.

WEEK-END: Monkey Mountain

Great visit today in an impressive and beautiful place!

Monkey Mountain is more than 280 monkeys living in total freedom in 24 ha of forest and meadow. Walking along the paths, you are transported into a different world through direct contact with the monkeys who don’t hesitate to come and take the popcorn, distributed at the entrance, from the palm of your hand.

The path takes you through a splendid forest; a 24 ha protected area where the monkeys live. Forest paths, cleared and laid out for visitors, take you through the park, leaving large areas reserved for the animals, space they need to rest in peace and quiet.

Barbary Macaques are today considered an endangered species. [...] A recent estimate of the living population shows that the wild population represents 10’000 monkeys in Algeria and Morocco (down from 23'000 in 1978). The Monkey Mountain is strongly committed to the protection of the species by :

raising public awareness of the protection of Barbary Macaques by presenting them in a setting very similar to their natural habitat

developing educational actions (see inter-active boards and games, booklets, guides, etc)

creating and preserving an invaluable genetic pool with the population present in the park

strengthening wild populations by re-introducing entire groups of monkeys. Ever since the Park opened; some 600 monkeys coming from our three parks were reintroduced into their natural habitat Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

Source: Monkey Mountain

PRIVATE: In memory....

Already the third anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack of the Twin-Towers. Some pictures are better than words.









These pictures were taken by Bill Biggart (excepted the last one) who died when the second Tower felt down. I recommend you to have a look at the Bill Biggart's last exposures. Very impressive.

Bill was killed when the second building came down, and he was crushed under all the debris. I don't know if he jumped back under the underpass, or whether the direct debris killed him. We know in his last picture he was working to the very end, and that's telling of the commitment he had to his work.

BUSINESS: Knowledge-sharing based on weblogs (03)

Weblog-Conversations

Weblogs form networks between eachother: Webloggers read other weblogs and will often use this material to write up own pieces. A free-flowing conversation ensues between the authors and members of the audience who chime in. Technologies such as "TrackBack" (which displays "inbound links" to a particular post, that is: references to a particular post from other entries in other locations that reference it) or referrer-lookup (analysing where traffic came from, made possible by analysing server-logfiles or special web-based tools, such as technorati.com) make it possible to track these discussions across multiple weblogs. New participants can join the discussion anytime by commenting or writing an entry on their own weblog. These conversations are self-organising and only moderated decentrally by the individual weblog-authors.

Weblogs and Networking

By reading someone elses weblog readers get to know the writer very well. It can be seen that webloggers who read eachother and use their weblogs to converse with eachother are building up trust. As a consequence, they are collaborating and forming networks (see Zijlstra, 2003).

Weblogs can be seen as a "Personal Presence Portal": They are an online representation of a knowledge worker's presence and serve as an access point to his work and thoughts. Also, they provide access to other forms of getting in contant, such as email, instant messaging or meeting face-to-face. (Zijlstra, 2004)

Conclusion

Source: Knowledge Work Processes and Support for them through Weblogs

MUSIC: On heavy rotation

I really appreciate very much Pat Metheny, an incredible Jazz guitarist and a very kind and humble person, at a minimum on stage ;-) I bought recently a DVD of one of its concert with the Pat Metheny Group (PMG): Imaginary Day, recorded live and filmed in 1998 at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga (USA, California). Pat is technically and melodically an extraterrestrial, so good! The band is doing a very good job in the background, special mention to Lyle Mays, the pianist. The sound quality and rendered surround-mix is execellent. The production is...quite bad, so to speak, funny! As when you are discovering and testing the visual effects and transitions of Adobe Premiere for the first time :-) Anyway, all in all, a very interesting DVD and musical experience with Pat Metheny!

I've seen Pat for a while in another band-context - his Trio - during the last Montreux Jazz Festival.

BUSINESS: Knowledge-sharing based on weblogs (02)

Email client as a knowledge management tool?

"Email is often described as "the killer application of the Internet". Based on our research, we think it is possible to be even more emphatic; email is a serial-killer application! It is seriously overloaded and has been co-opted to manage a variety of tasks that it was not originally meant to support." (Ducheneaut & Bellotti, 2001)

Weblogs as a Personal Filing Cabinet

A weblog can serve as a personal "filing cabinet" of information (Pollard, 2003a). By "blogging" items - that is: referencing and citing pieces of information, annotating them and publishing them on a weblog - a weblog author ("blogger") can build up his own personal information repository. The simplicity of the weblog system encourages filing and annotating things that were previously left unfiled. Ths structure of hyperlinks and free text and the absence of imposed hierarchy makes it possible to archive items that could not be organised well in file systems.

By linking to older entries in one's own weblog or to other items found elsewhere, the user can build his own personal information structure that is tailored to his needs. When working on a specific task the weblog becomes the starting point of a search for information.

Weblogs as Knowledge Journals

Journal writing has always been an important task of learners and knowledge workers. Taking notes of things learned and expatiating thoughts is an important process to intensify learning (Kerka, 1996). Weblogs can serve as a medium in which to record ideas and thoughts and reflect on current work and things learnt. They become "representations of patterns of meaning" (Fiedler, 2003) or: representations of knowledge.

Weblogs and Feedback

Weblogs are published in public or at least to a defined audience. Weblog-authors are therefore not only using weblogs as personal journals but also to get feedback on their thoughts. Often, weblog-authors will publish "half-baked ideas" to get feedback on them and develop them into something more meaningful. Also, readers will often help an author with tips on where to find more information on a topic blogged about.

Source: Martin Röll

NEWS: new version of the Google alerts

Google launched a new version of its tool "Google alerts". You have to enter the keywords you want to monitor. New management possibilies, good utility to check the evolution of your sites and the ones of your competitors...

BUSINESS: Knowledge-sharing based on weblogs (01)

Interesting article (html, pdf) from Martin Röll, the content was presented during the BlogTalk 2.0 in Vienna-Austria on July 2004. As the author of the paper, I am convinced that an email client cannot be the base of proper knowledge management. Some important mandatory functionalities are simply missing. I agree also with his analysis when he says that weblogs could and should be used as a central personal knowledge management tool. In this field, I will also post some comments and inputs about the usage of Groove and its new version in the coming days.

Some abstracts of the article:

Knowledge work processes

Source: Framework for Knowledge Work Analysis (Efimova, 2004)

From this framework the following processes can be identified:

Organising personal information ("Personal Information Management")

Making sense of information (personal)

Negotiating meaning (social)

"Creating" new ideas

Establishing and maintaining a personal network

Collaborating in communties

Finding (codified) information

Source: Knowledge Work Processes (own illustration, based on Efimova, 2004)

MUSIC: music-linked lithographs

I like music, generally speaking :-) In different forms: lives, CD's, DVD's, documentaries, books, etc. I do often forget to mention ... lithographs. My office walls were full of them for some years, and it's growing again. I have three lithographs of the Montreux Jazz Festival, including the one of 2004:



And I just ordered two U2's limited edition lithographs.

WEEK-END: sunflower - part II

Our sunflowers blossomed for the first time in July and we lived a second strong blossoming at the beginning of August. Great results. France-Anne did a good preparation job with the seeds :-)

NEWS: RSS feed and FeedBurner

For a while, I wanted to give the service of FeedBurner a try. This tool is converting an Atom feed to a RSS feed "on-the -fly". Blogger is still only generating Atom feeds...

FeedBurner is free and still in a beta-mode. But the service is quite convincing: great interface, lot of options, very stable, good availibility, and so on. On the other side, I don't think that publishing Atom feeds is seeing actually as a limitation. A bunch of famous newsreaders are supporting Atom feeds. And one big annoying thing in using FeedBurner is that you shift a part of your traffic on another platform. It is very difficult (although FeedBurner contains a statistics module) to track correctly your overall blog traffic and to analyse it.

That's the reason why I de-activated the RSS feed. Sorry for the inconvenience, if any!

NEWS: buy on Google store

I read this post on the Google blog, it's about the Google store.



I decided to have a look and I was quite impressed by the new design and buying process of the Google store. All worked fine and I bought some "very important things" ;-) The only limitation is the quite high shipping price...

NEWS: what for an answer!

[Via vowe]

The answer of anakata is ...umh... an interesting kind of prose. anakata is "polite as usual" and completely politically incorrect. I must say I like this answer. Advice: read the full text of the answer :-)

Dreamworks' lawyers:

As you may be aware, Internet Service Providers can be held liable if they do not respond to claims of infringement pursuant to the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In accordance with the DMCA, we request your assistance ...

Response:

As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States of America. Sweden is a country in northern Europe. Unless you figured it out by now, US law does not apply here. For your information, no Swedish law is being violated.

TRAVELLING: Frankfurt and its towers

I was in Frankfurt (Germany) today for a very interesting business meeting about Offshoring and Nearshoring (Software development). I will publish an article in the coming days. In the meantime, some pictures of some towers in Frankfurt.

PRIVATE: first time in the kindergarten for our little boy

Tomorrow will be the first day for our little boy in the kindergarten. I'm completely stressed...I know I don't have to, billion of children have already managed that, including myself. But, you know, he's our little boy ;-)

10 unwritten rules for a consultant to live by

[Via vowe]

1. You work for the client, not the consulting firm. No matter who cuts the payroll check, the client is the one paying for your services. Do the right thing for the client, not the consulting firm (or anyone else).


2. Your network of consultants is your most important asset.


3. Consultants should keep a blacklist of firms and other consultants that should be avoided, and why. Share this list with your network of consultants but not to the general public.


4. Do not make negative comments about another consultant within ear shot of an employee of a client, and especially around the sales and marketing people of a consulting firm. Negative comments are fine between consultants, but, keep it "in the family". But, never break rule # 1. When dealing with non-consultants, do like your mom always told you, "if you don 't have anything nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all".


5. When your consulting firm takes you out to lunch, remember, you are really the one buying lunch. It is coming out of the consulting firm's cut out of your rate, so just pretend you are picking up the check. Would you really want to pay to have lunch with this person? The same thing holds true for all events and gifts you may get from the consulting firm.


6. Avoid giving consulting firms information on possible leads without first getting everything in writing (especially your commission). And even then, the contract usually isn't worth the paper it is written on. Don't expect to get any money for info on leads, so be careful who you give them out to.


7. When referring another consultant to a consulting firm, expect a finder's fee. $2 per hour is the minimum that they should offer. Flat fees typically benefit the consulting firm not you, so try to avoid them. Remember, your finder's fee is coming out of the consultant's pocket. So if the consultant is part of your network, you should waive the fee. Your network keeps you employed.


8. If you didn't negotiate your rate starting at the consulting firms billing rate to the client don 't try to find out what it is, unless you are prepared for the consequences. That knowledge will usually just make you disgruntled.


9. Never tell the client what the consulting firm is paying you. If they need to know, it is up to the firm to disclose that info (see rules #1 and #8).


10. Avoid professional days. You don't bill for hours you don't work, so you shouldn't work for hours that you don 't bill. A good project plan, with a budget to match it, is a must. Unless of course you created the project plan, then you should live with the mess that you created.