NEWS: all trains stranded in Switzerland on last Wednesday

Switzerland and its state train company - SBB experienced a complete black-out of the whole train network on last Wednesday evening. This black-out last about 3 hours and impacted all the trains within Switzerland, i.e. about 200'000 passengers and 1'500 trains were blocked on the Swiss network.

A complete cut off of power due to a short-circuit and a chain reaction was the reason of the incident.

This black-out generated millions of Swiss francs of damages.

I am a very regular user of the train network in Switzerland (daily) and I must say that the quality of the service and the trains themselves, as their punctuality, is *far*, I mean really far, better than the one in France. Furthermore, the SBB employees are not taking their clients hostage each two months by striking. So, all in all, a very good service for the price. There was on Wednesday no trouble in the trains, although the more than 3 hours delay for the passengers! SBB also apologized very honestly by publishing some ads in newspapers. Well done!

As usual, the proof-of-the-pudding concerning the quality of service is crystallized during the crisis events.

I am normally in the train at this time but, on last Wednesday, I decided to go home earlier beacause of the weather :-)

One other consequence of this incident is that the cell phone network was completely overloaded because of all the calls due to the delays, but without a complete black-out in thi field ;-)

NEWS: the most beautiful villages in France

If you are travelling to France or planned to, if you are interested in discovering some beautiful typical (in a positive sense) small French villages, have a look at "The most beautiful villages of France" (a pitty that this site is only available in French....).

This association has choosen only 148 villages of the 32'000 in France (less than 0.5%), so a tough selection. The criteria are very well defined and difficult to fulfill:
- small village, with less than 2'000 inhabitants
- a proven rural heritage, with a minimum of two officially registered historical buildings
- a very homogeneous and coherent architecture and preserved landscape
- a real willingness of the inhabitants and the mayor to preserve this harmony and homogeneity within the village

MUSIC: On heavy rotation

Coldplay released their new CD last week. Immediate buy, immediate intensive listening, specially in the car....and, wow, these 12 tracks (oups, actually 13, there is an hidden accoustic track at he end) are *very* good. It needs a little bit time to appreciate this new album but it is worth the effort, I tell you. The band is exploring new sounds, new rythms, some very interesting stuff here. The best of the three albums, and surely much more "dense" than the two first ones, I mean the overall quality of the whole album is very high, not just the beginning or the end or the middle.

Bunch of references here: Brian Eno (for the atmosphere), David Bowie (listen to his last album and compare), U2 (bass player!), Kraftwerk, R.E.M. and perhaps, yes I dare, some Simple Minds' influences (guitar sounds and effects). Lot of links are made with Radiohead, I simply do not agree.

Conclusion: foreseen worldwide multi-platinum (3 to 4 singles of the album), very dense, a lot of good ideas, an increased pleasure after each listening => this one will be a worldwide success, surely!

NEWS: Software innovation

A perspective on innovation in the Software industry in a BusinessWeek's article. It seems that we are living a shift concerning the place where you can find the real pioneer: not anymore by the big companies, but actually by the small entities which are finding new ways of developping/creating software.

Over the last 50 years, anyone who wanted a sense of the future of business computing could simply look at what the heavy hitters were doing. Building or buying new systems required a lot of capital, and only the largest and best-funded companies could afford cutting-edge technology. Smaller organizations would wait until costs came down, then follow dutifully in the footsteps of the big guys.

But that old pattern is being turned on its head. Today, many of computing's pioneering customers are small or midsize organizations without a lot of cash. They consist of not only businesses but also nonprofits, government agencies, and schools.

They still need to pinch pennies, but instead of waiting patiently for the prices of new systems to come down, they're taking an altogether different route. They're inventing a new model of computing built on cheap commodity hardware, free open-source software, and utility services supplied over the Internet.

This comparison is quite interesting:

The IT developments mirror what happened with electricity a century ago. In the early years of industry's electrification, small companies had to stand on the sidelines as larger counterparts constructed expensive private generators to power their machinery. But then, as electric utilities popped up, the smaller outfits purchased kilowatts over the new public grid first. They may not have realized it at the time, but they were defining the future of electricity in business.

NEWS: Slashdot interview of Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder

An already well-known Slashdot interview of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. I don't know if it is the same for you, I am using Wikipedia really more and more. And till today, I have always found the information I needed.

You can also find a Wikipedia's article about Jimmy Wales ;-)

PRIVATE: Mathieu in Australia

Mathieu, one of the TechHeadBrothers (French portal about .NET technologies), actually the "little" brother of Laurent, also a Microsoft C# MVP, is in Australia since end of February 2005. He opened a blog to relate his trip (in French, not really important for the nice pictures ;-).

Seems to be a great experience. Australia is really a marvelous very diversified country. It is also quite unusual for a French guy to realize this kind of big long journey! Chapeaux bas Mathieu :-)

NEWS: Newsweek Edition 2095

[via InternetActu - in French]

A cool initiative from Magazine Publishers of America.

Five more of the nation’s most popular monthly magazines will be wrapped in “faux” covers dated up to 100 years in the future and delivered this week to thousands of advertisers and marketing leaders. The campaign featuring a new round of provocative monthly magazines covers is the latest development in a national advertising campaign launched February 28, which touts the enduring power of magazines to engage readers.

The “faux” covers, which are wrapped around the actual covers of the magazines, suggest that the appeal of magazines to engage readers is so great that even decades into the future, magazines will continue to connect powerfully with consumers.

Have a look at their website.

NEWS: Switzerland joins the EU-Schengen zone

Hey, bravo to all my Swiss colleagues! They voted yes to the participation of Switzerland to the EU-Schengen zone (almost all the new laws are voted by referendum in Switzerland, with what they call "direct democraty" - I have to post once about this interesting way of implementing the democracy). 54.6% yes, 45.4% no.

Have a look at the Wikipedia's article about Schengen. Very good explanation and already uptodate concerning Switzerland....although the Swiss people voted this afternoon!!

The Schengen Treaty means that people within the participating countries can move into any other participating country without having to show their passports, or in any other way being checked. The Schengen Treaty also means that participating countries will co-ordinate their external controls. This is necessary since a person acceptable to one country but not to another can still enter both, if one admits him. For example, immigration policy must be agreed upon as immigrants can enter through the most relaxed border and make their way to less hospitable countries once within Schengenland unless entry criteria are homogeneous.

An article from Houston Chronicle about the vote in Switzerland.

BUSINESS: Don't wait. Get small. Think big.

Again, an incredible post from Seth Godin (RSS, Atom) "Small is the new big".

If you haven't read Seth yet, although I have already posted a *lot* about him, please have a look at this one. FEED FOR THOUGHTS. It is good to start the week with this kind of input :-) WOW, *so* inspiring.

[...] And then small happened.

Enron (big) got audited by Andersen (big) and failed (big.) The World Trade Center was a target. TV advertising is collapsing so fast you can hear it. American Airlines (big) is getting creamed by Jet Blue (think small). BoingBoing (four people) has a readership growing a hundred times faster than the New Yorker (hundreds of people).[...]

Today, little companies often make more money than big companies. Little churches grow faster than worldwide ones. Little jets are way faster (door to door) than big ones.

Today, Craigslist (18 employees) is the fourth most visited site according to some measures. They are partly owned by eBay (more than 4,000 employees) which hopes to stay in the same league, traffic-wise. They’re certainly not growing nearly as fast.

Small means the founder makes a far greater percentage of the customer interactions. Small means the founder is close to the decisions that matter and can make them, quickly.

Small is the new big because small gives you the flexibility to change the business model when your competition changes theirs.

Small means you can tell the truth on your blog.

Small means that you can answer email from your customers.

Small means that you will outsource the boring, low-impact stuff like manufacturing and shipping and billing and packing to others, while you keep the power because you invent the remarkable and tell stories to people who want to hear them.

A small law firm or accounting firm or ad agency is succeeding because they’re good, not because they’re big. So smart small companies are happy to hire them.

A small restaurant has an owner who greets you by name.

A small venture fund doesn’t have to fund big bad ideas in order to get capital doing work. They can make small investments in tiny companies with good (big) ideas.

A small church has a minister with the time to visit you in the hospital when you’re sick.

Is it better to be the head of Craigslist or the head of UPS?

Small is the new big only when the person running the small thinks big.

Don’t wait. Get small. Think big.

NEWS: Bono's Irish rock star with the Toxic Texan

[via dragos]

A great long interesting interview from Times Online of U2's singer, Bono.

So you liked this man? [Talking about G.W.Bush]

Yes. As a man, I believed him when he said he was moved to also do something about the Aids pandemic. I believed him. Listen, I couldn’t come from a more different place, politically, socially, geographically. I had to make a leap of faith to sit there. He didn’t have to have me there at all. But you don’t have to be harmonious on everything - just one thing - to get along with someone.

Don’t respond to caricature - the left, the right, the progressives, the reactionary. Don’t take people on rumour. Find the light in them, because that will further your cause.

What was your gut feeling the first time you came face to face with President Bush?

He was very funny and quick. Just quick-witted. With him, I got pretty quickly to the point, and the point was an unarguable one - that 6,500 people dying every day of a preventable and treatable disease [Aids] would not be acceptable anywhere else in the world other than Africa, and that before God and history this was a kind of racism that was unacceptable.

And he agreed: "Yeah, it’s unacceptable." He said: "In fact, it’s a kind of genocide."

But you must have disagreed with him at some point.

He banged the table at me once, when I was ranting at him about the ARVs [Aids drugs] not getting out quick enough. I’m Irish. When we get excited we don’t pause for breath, no full stops or commas. He banged the table to ask me to let him reply. He smilingly reminded me he was the president. It was a heated debate. I was very impressed that he could get so passionate. And, let’s face it, tolerating an Irish rock star is not a necessity of his office.

So who’s your favourite politician?

It would have to be Gorbachev, a genuinely soulful man who, following the courage of his convictions, left himself so open to criticism in what was the USSR. Some people despise him for the dismantling of that old giant. But without him the 20th century might have had a very different end.

NEWS: Google testing new indexing approach

[via BetaNews]

Since its inception, Google has tried to make sense of billions of Web documents and using advanced in-house technology. But now, Google is experimenting with a new concept to better its search crawlers: ask webmasters for help. The program, called Google Sitemaps, could revolutionize how the Web is indexed.

Specifically, Sitemaps will direct Google's Web crawlers to content that has been changed or added, removing the need for Google to spider an entire site. Sitemap files are based on XML and contain a number of parameters to aid in the search indexing process.

To aid in the creation of Sitemap files, Google has developed an open source generator utility that runs on Web servers. Sitemaps are then submitted to Google, which uses them to create a better index of the site. Google says the end result will be the search engine crawling more pages and staying up to date with any changes.

But Sitemaps aren't restricted to Google. The project has been released under the Attribution/Share Alike Creative Commons license so other search engines, such as Yahoo or MSN, can easily implement the same functionality.

PRIVATE: peacock in the garden

Little surprise this afternoon in our garden: there was a ... peacock just walking here and there. Quite big and impressive. No idea where this one came from!

BUSINESS: Entrepreneurship and fromage in France

[via Dragos]

Dragos pointed an CNEt's article about technology and France....

The blunt truth is that France, a country with a $1.7 trillion economy, is still better known for its fromage than its technology.

I don't mean to pick on the French. Truth be told, I'm an unabashed Francophile. I love their food, adore their language and admire their culture. But when it comes to high-tech innovation, there's no escaping the fact that France does not punch its weight.

There's no shortage of technical ability in France--but a brain drain is hurting the company's economy. About 200,000 French men and women, graduates of their country's best technical schools, are living in the Bay Area, part of the reason there's a technology gap.

"Lots of new technologies are getting developed in France," [Gauthier, dean of HEC MBA] said, "such as the ones that went into the Airbus. That's not being widely communicated."

Gauthier may have a point. But no amount of spin and marketing is enough if you don't have the goods. And so far France still has not risen to the challenge.

NEWS: Skype's blog

I know, I know, I am a bit late :-)

Skype has a blog (RSS, Atom). Cool.

eCENTER: our first slide in Russian

On May 29 2005, Petra, who is Director Insurance Sector by Hewlett-Packard EMEA, participated to the Russian Insurance Summit in Saint-Petersburg and presented one slide about the eCenter...translated in Russian. Cool :-)

BUSINESS: "Vision Guidance Leader"

[via Mihai - in French]

Have a look at this "company" called huh?.

Their motto: we do stuff.

We have *all* already met these kind of consultants, haven't we? I have some examples in mind ;-) Just hilarious.

Our main consulting strategy is to convince clients that we do stuff they can't do themselves, and that we deserve lots of money for it. The best way to do this is to always look good, and always sound like we know something you don't. Because we do.

Are you confused yet? Of course you are. And that's just how we like it. Our marketing professionals are constantly coming up with new ways to make you feel inferior and stupid. Because you are. And we're not. We're new-age, eMoving, marketing consultants.

If you call our office, the phone will be answered by a very disinterested intern, giving you the impression that we're too important to talk to you. Because we are.

We have really smart people who are always thinking up totally cool shit. We have a meeting room with a big, round, expensive table. When you hire us for marketing and consulting projects, we spend lots of time sitting around the table having meetings.

Our CEO is rarely in his office, and all female team members are expected to sleep with him, or at least pretend like they want to. Our designers ride Razor scooters around the office, while wearing mail-bag style backpacks to hold their iPods.