PICTURES: new GEO calendars for 2006

I received from one of our provider quite an original X'mas gift last year: a marvelous GEO calendar. These beautiful pictures have accompanied me during the 12 months of 2005.

I have decided to order some of the new versions 2006 for the ecenter. I find that they are even more impressive as in 2005. Have a look!

GEO calendar "die Erde von oben (the Earth from above)"





GEO calendar "Genesis"

Tags: pictures - GEO

OPEN SOURCE: Status 2005, outlook 2006

[via Nick-are-you-really-on-holidays and BusinessWeek]

Very good summary of the status of the Open Source trend and business! Some excerpts:

• In fact, open-source programs have become so popular, they now pose a legitimate threat to the established software giants.


• According to a new study by consulting firm Optaros, 87% of organizations are now using open-source software, somewhere.


• Red Hat finally proves to everyone it can make money from free software. [...] Red Hat is one of the best-positioned stocks in software and should be able to further capitalize on the growing demand for open source.


• Sun Microsystems open sources everything -- except Java. [...] The move transformed Sun into one of the largest open-source software players overnight. Yet critics have complained that what open-source developers really want is Java. Several experts expect that Sun might finally capitulate in 2006.


• Even more exciting for penguin lovers, Motorola, the second-biggest handset maker in the world, announced that Linux would be its standard operating system for the bulk of its future phones.


• Firefox goes mainstream.


• Venture capitalists wake up to open source. Industry estimates show some $400 million was invested in open-source startups in 2005. Two types of companies dominated the landscape: First, so-called application companies, such as SugarCRM which makes customer relationship management software for companies and aims to compete with Siebel and Salesforce.com.
  
  The other category is services companies, which play the middleman between open-source projects and the info-tech departments at large corporations. Companies such as SpikeSource and SourceLabs test and maintain applications like SugarCRM for companies [...]
  
  Half the companies that raised venture money in 2005 won't be able to raise money in 2006.


• All in all, it has been a pretty great year for open source. And 2006 may be even bigger and better.

Tags: opensource

OPEN SOURCE: Swiss FOSS directory

[via Nick]

Nick has pointed out a Swiss website called FOSS-directory, which contains a directory of available Free and Open Source Softwares and companies, sorted by different criteria (industry, region, type of service, etc.).

Seems to be quite extensive!

Tags: FOSS directory

TRAVELLING: Anguilla and St.Barths are coming

Hey, in about 4 weeks now (yyeeessss), we will be in Anguilla and St.Barths in the French West Indies. I gave you some details beginning of November, remember?

Let's compare the weather:





Ok, it seems to be clear!





More than clear :-) 4 weeks!

Tags: anguilla - stbarths

BUSINESS: Holiday eSpending

[via nielsen//netratings, as pdf]

Interesting study from Goldman Sachs, nielsen//netratings, and Harris Interactive about the eSpending (Online shopping) in the US for the 2005 holiday season (Christmas' period):

• total holiday spending hits $25 bn (oct. 29 till dec.16), excluding travel


• +25% compared to the same period in 2004


• categories ranked by revenue


• apparel/cloting: 17% (!)


• computer hardware/peripherals: 14%


• consumer electronics: 14%


• books: 10%


• video games (HW/SW): 7%


• 45% of holiday shoppers went directly to an online retailer (URL)


• 71% have felt very or somewhat satisfied, only 8% very or somewhat dissatisfied with their online shopping experience


• 3 main issues encoutered: product out of stock (22%), could not locate a sought after item (18%), shipping costs excessive (16%)

Crazy, how the shopping structure is changing from year to year and how the remaining issues are evolving. Paiement security seems not to be a problem anymore for example.

Tags: online shopping

PICTURES: Dione

[via CICLOPS]

Cool and icy Dione floats in front of giant Saturn bedecked in a dazzling array of colors.

The surface of Dione (1,118 kilometers, 695 miles across), which exhibits contrasting bright and dark areas when viewed up close, appears pale in this image. It is Saturn’s multi-hued cloud bands that boldly steal the show. Discrete clouds and eddies in Saturn's northern hemisphere can be seen within the faint shadows of the rings on the planet.

Cassini is in a phase of its mission in which its orbit will be nearly equatorial for some time. This view was obtained from about one-third of a degree out of the ringplane.

Images taken with red, green and blue filters were used to create this natural color view. The images were obtained with the wide angle camera on September 22, 2005 from a distance of approximately 803,000 kilometers (499,000 miles) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 43 degrees. The image scale is about 48 kilometers (30 miles) per pixel.

Tags: picture - dione

NEWS: Google vs. Technorati

[via Martin Varsavsky]

Martin Varsavsky, CEO of FON, had the chance to meet Google and Technorati founders on the same day. Two different approaches. Quite provocative but interesting.

First I was shocked to find out that there´s practically no contact between Technorati and Google. I guess it´s hard for 5000 people strong Google to meet 30 people strong Technorati and clearly Google is in a complete different league altogether but with both companies being so close to each other I found it remarkable that each should follow a complete separate path to similar objectives, facilitating search.

Secondly after having studying the way Google works vs the way Technorati works my conclusion is that Google has a model that is not as scaleable as Technorati. I know this may sound shocking but here´s why. Google basically copies the internet every two weeks just to find out what changed. This process is slow and incredibly wasteful as "what changed", may be, and I am guessing, one percent of what´s on the Net. In a way Google is based on the principle that people don´t want to be searched but Google goes ahead and searches them anyway. Technorati instead is based on the principle that anyone who publishes something wants others to know. Thus Technorati needs very few computers as it is only collecting notifications, the famous pings. In other words, while Google combs the haystack to get the needle Technorati simply uses a magnet that attracts the needle, and that magnet is people´s ego.

Tags: google - technorati

BUSINESS: Ten CIO resolutions for 2006

[via Gartner]

[...] "To get through this confusing and unstable period, IT leaders must drive their organisations with one foot on the accelerator and the other hovering over the brake." [...]

Choose 2006 tactics towards a 2008 strategy
1. Educate your business about the second internet revolution (before someone else does)
2. Set some 'do not migrate' orders in advance
3. Target 2008 for major innovation delivery

Insist on agility - in the heart of the organisation
4. Get yourself and your team ready for your next jobs
5. Start a significant 'software as a service' implementation as a trial and education
6. Organise your merger and acquisition capability

Push beyond 2005 comfort zones - in value focus and technology
7. Revisit capitalisation with your chief financial officer (CFO)
8. Build your brand and your team
9. Refresh your meetings with the chief executive officer (CEO)
10. Check out some 2006 'hot' technologies

Tags: cio

MUSIC: Mercedes Mixed Tape 10

Mercedes Benz released its 10th version of the Mixed Tape. Still for free. Download here. Now, you can also find a weekly podcast :-)

Tags: mixedtape

BUSINESS: Microsoft's Top 10 challenges for 2006

[via Directions on Microsoft]

Interesting inputs, not on a "I hate Microsoft" level. Real strategic challenges.

1. Take Vista into the Boardroom


2. Lead on Application Security and Reliability


3. Deliver Clarity on Managed Solutions


4. Get Going on Tools


5. Refresh the Online Strategy, Again


6. Small and Medium Business: Get Beyond Naming


7. Make a Systems Management Downpayment


8. Reengineer Engineering for Clearer Roadmaps


9. Xbox 360 Final Death Match Challenge


10. Licensing: Value for the Money

Tags: microsoft

BLOG: Merry Christmas

To all my readers, I wish you all a Merry Christmas 2005. Have a good and restful time with your family and friends.

And, if you don't celebrate, have a good time too ;-) Some are ...umh... exagerating?


[via Alek's Christmas Lights]

--- A dream is becoming true ---

I am very proud to announce you that we created officially and legally this morning, on December 23, 2005, the ecenter solutions, a new company of the Helvetia Patria Group, located in Zurich - Switzerland, as a corporation (in German: Aktiengesellschaft / AG).



I would like to share with you this very very perticular and exciting day for me, and this, one day before Christmas. Wow, what a marvelous gift :-)

Some of you already know that for a while, I have started a spin-off process of the Business Unit I am responsible for - the so-called eCenter - within the Helvetia Patria Group, for about 13 months now, exactly on November 18, 2004.

Thirteen months.....of ups and downs, of deep doubts, of tough political games, of incredible challenges for bringing mentally the daily works and the spin-off process further and at the same time, of slepless nights. I have thought I know my motivation drivers well before this process, umh, it is clearer now, I can tell you ;-)

All this completely crazy and unbeliveable spin-off process was *only* possible because I had the support of:

• Nick who joined us in February this year, for realizing this process with me and without knowing if it will work or not. *Lot* of respect, *lot* of humility from my side, such a nice and smart guy. Without Nick, no spin-off.


• The great ecenter team with Thomas, Bojan, Laurent, Oli, Rolf, Peter, Constantin, and specially, Philippe and Lorenz, our "pillars". Without them, no spin-off.


• Our three internal Executive sponsors by Helvetia Patria. Hey, without them too, no spin-off.


• My great wife and son, who had such a great comprehension for my professional vision. I was *so* deeply trapped in this process, night and day. Without familly, no spin-off.

Warm thanks to *all* of you who are now supporting us and following us in this new exciting journey.

So, how to have a better start?

• A great experienced and nice team, super motivated :-) FIRST WHO, THEN WHAT
  


• An innovative software product, already very mature, and able to solve some painful business issues :-)


• Great references with very good business cases :-)
  


• Some very exciting projects with our "historical" customer for the next months :-)


• A sales funnel before having starting :-)


• A first (small but with a lot of potential) contract before having started :-)


• Some very promising partnerships with big players in (advanced) discussions :-)

And some very tough but interesting remaining strategic issues which have to be solved in the coming months......

Am I really the CEO of this company? Too great to be true. Or, in other words, one of my dream is becoming true.

The next months will be very exciting, no doubt. Also no restful time planned!

Nick and myself at the end of the first (informal) Board of Directors meeting

Tags: ecenter solutions

BLOG: Off to Denmark

Off to Denmark for the coming days, my first time in Copenhagen. We will stay in the hotel Copenhagen Strand.

Huge program, with different face2face. I am excited ;-)

It should (must!) be my last travel this year, hopefully!

OPEN SOURCE: Open Source BPMS company

[via Jeff & Bruce Silver]

Wow, what for a move!! Intalio, a new entrant in the Open Source stack (stack representation from Optaros) as Business Process Management Suite:

Step One was the acquisition of FiveSight Technologies, the company that brought to market the first open source implementation of the BPEL 2.0 specification. Embedded by major open source projects such as the ServiceMix Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and leading development tools like Sun's Java Studio Enterprise, the FiveSight PXE BPEL 2.0 engine – rebranded Intalio|BPMS – is effectively the most widely deployed BPEL product today. Intalio is planning to continue the development of the BPEL engine under the open source Common Public License, and release its BPMN process modeler and BPEL4People workflow component under similar open source licenses later in 2006. The Intalio|BPMS Open Source Edition includes these three components plus open source ESB, integration adapters, and rule engine. Its customers will be mainly independent software vendors, who will embed the engine and tools into their own end user offerings.

For end user organizations looking to implement BPMS, Intalio will also offer the Community Edition. Community Edition is not open source, but it is free. Based on the open source BPEL engine, workflow extensions, and BPMN modeler, Community Edition is a complete J2EE BPMS, including a full Eclipse-based BPMN process designer supporting data mapping and simulation, a rule engine, ESB, integration adapters, metadata repository, and a full BAM suite. The only “catch,” if you want to call it that, is that it runs on Geronimo, the Apache open source app server and the MySQL database. Unlike competitive free offerings like Oracle BPEL Manager, not only is the development environment free but so is the production environment.

Tags: bpms - intalio - open source

DRINKS: Great wine-tasting

On last Thursday evening, I have organized a completely crazy wine-tasting for our annually ecenter christmas event. This, with the help of the Cultural Federation of the French Wines (Fédération Culturelle des Vins de France), which is really great because, as their name doesn't show, they are interested in wines from all around the world.



So, for us (we were 14), we had 12 *great* wines. Have a look:

1) France - Champagne Krug Cuvée 1990



2)France Rhône - Costière de Nîmes blanc Cuvée Excellence 2004 Mas des Bressades



3)Portugal - Réserva blanc 2004 Conde d'Ervideria



4) Italy - Pinot Néro 2003 Domaine Manccini



5) France Bourgogne - Mâcon Pierreclos "En Chavigne" 2001 Domaine Guffen's



6) France Bordeaux - Pomerol Château Clinet 1994



7) France Bourgogne - Pommard 1er Cru "Fremiers" 2003 Domaine Boulay



8) Austria - Merlot 2002 Domaine Weninger



9) Spain - Réserva Pago de los Capellanes 2001



10) Italy - Brunello di Montalcino Valdicave "Madonna del Piano" 1999



11) Portugal - Porto Vintage 2000 Domaine Quinta do Estahno



12) France Alsace - Muscat Sélection Grains Nobles 2000 Domaine BarmesS Buecher



Wow. Grazy :-)

Drink moderately and safely. Enjoy your alcohol!

Tags: wine tasting

BLOG: some little changes

I have integrated some little changes in my blog. Among others, new (extended) blogroll. Just the part I read daily (focus!):

• dragos novac


• françois nonnenmacher


• heiko hebig


• jeff bussgang


• jeff clavier


• jeremy zawodny


• laurent kempé


• loic le meur


• marc goldberg


• rodrigo sepúlveda


• russell beattie


• scott adams


• seth godin


• tom peters


• volker weber




• loic le meur (fr)


• mathieu kempe (fr)


• michel edouard leclerc (fr)


• pierre assouline (fr)


• pointblog.com (fr)


• zorgloob (fr)

Tags: blogroll

PICTURES: Alpenrose

I have spent three days in the Swiss Alps beginning of this week, beautiful place, snow, sunny. Great :-)

[click]



Great view on the Santis.

Tags: swiss alps

NEWS: Gmail for mobile

[via Laurent and BetaNews]

Gmail Mobile
Now you can access your Gmail account from your mobile phone or device. Just point your phone's web browser to http://m.gmail.com. Your Gmail account stays synched, whether you access it from the web or the mobile interface. It's easy to use and it's free (but yes, your wireless plan could still charge you).

It also has these cool features:

• Automatically optimizes the interface for the phone you're using


• Opens the attachments you receive in messages, including photos, Microsoft Word documents and .pdf files


• Lets you reply by call to people whose phone numbers are in your Gmail Contacts list

Working very well on my Blackberry 7100v.

Tags: gmail mobile

BLOG: Off till Wednesday

I am off for the coming three days, in the Swiss Alps for an IT Management workshop. Hope the weather will be good :-)

Tags: alps

NEWS: How to buy a gift in 72 seconds

[via Scott Adams]

How the techonology could help to speed up buying stuff. And how far it could be difficult to find the right gift for your better-half, also for women ;-) I definitely *like* the Scott Adams' humour.

I asked my fiancé what she wants for Christmas and she was nice enough to e-mail me a specific suggestion for a hard-to-find item.

I copied the product name from her e-mail, pasted it into the Froogle search engine, and found the cheapest one on the Internet. That took about 12 seconds. It took another minute to enter my address and credit card information.

When it comes to gift-giving, they say it’s the thought that counts. So far I had 72 seconds invested in my future wife. I wondered if that was enough.

I knew that my fiance’s job of shopping for me wouldn’t be so easy. I have the deadly combination of not caring much about material possessions plus a high disposable income. In the unlikely event that I decide I want something that’s small enough to fit in a box, I buy it that same day.

Tags: dilbert

PICTURES: Luc Giard

I discovered this very nice photographer, Luc Giard, this week-end. Great approach for discovering new countries, a real work with lights. Have a look.

Approach

When I concentrate on a country, I look for what makes it most different from neighbouring countries and can be found nowhere else. Reading, meetings and several visits permit this approach.

A different Angle

Faraway countries may be very exotic but this fact does not belittle reports on neighbouring countries. When I had the occasion to start work on England it seemed the ideal opportunity for an all-round deepening of my research. Close up, everything seemed familiar, but I found it interesting to see this very familiarity from a different angle.
The familiar allows reflection on our daily life. The commentary is not descriptive but rather a mirror reflecting each individual personality.

It takes time

My task consists of crossing the country, immersing myself in its culture and observing and capturing the elements that best express its character. To make an 80-minute film I need to film about 10 hours during trips of varying lengths over four or five years. I travel by camper van in order to be as close as possible to my subject at the right moment. I usually work alone, as patience is the operative word. Opportunity and chance, and especially light, are my working partners, but I do have time on my side.

Tags: photographer

WEEK-END: Snow and Christmas time

Nice week-end, snow in the mountains, Christmas party for my son :-)

OPEN SOURCE: JBoss acquires Arjuna

Another acquisition from JBoss. Have a look at the official press release (pdf).

JBoss®, Inc., the Professional Open Source company, today announced it has acquired distributed transaction monitor and web services technologies owned by Arjuna Technologies and HP and will open source them for the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite (JEMS). In one strategic move, JBoss has propelled JEMS further into the high-end market long presided over by proprietary application platforms, while at the same time making pricey, enterprise-quality middleware software freely available to the mass market.

The acquisition includes Arjuna Transaction Service Suite (ArjunaTS), one of the most advanced and widely deployed transaction engines in the world with a 20-year pedigree, and Arjuna’s Web Services Transaction implementation, the market’s only implementation supporting both leading web services specifications Web Services Transaction (WS-TX) and Web Services Composite Application Framework (WS-CAF). This implementation is also one of the few that has demonstrated interoperability with other industry leaders such as Microsoft and IBM. The core Arjuna transaction engine will be the foundation of JBoss Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

Tags: jboss - opensource

BUSINESS: 2005 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 (EMEA)

[via Deloitte]

The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 program covers public and private companies across EMEA, and is based on five-year average percentage revenue growth. The awards are researched and sponsored by the Deloitte Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Industry Group. Key trends observed in this year's rankings were:

• Total five-year revenue for the 500 ranked companies as a whole grew by an average of 935%, down 308% from last year;


• Software firms have increased their dominance of the ranking, making up 47% of all listed firms;


• Communications and networking firms are generally better represented than last year, at 16% of all listed firms;


• Northern Europe and Eastern Europe have increased their share of ranked firms this year, with 25% (up 8%) and 7% (up 3%), respectively;


• Number one ranked Norwegian broadband provider Catch Communications ASA achieves average five-year revenue growth of 77,682%.

Deloitte today published a survey of the Fast 500 CEOs in EMEA. Highlights of the survey include:

• Confidence in sustaining future growth has reached an all time high in the region, with 82% of CEOs either extremely or very confident that their company will sustain its growth over the next year;


• 66% of CEOs agreed that the quality of employees is the key to successful growth, and recruitment and personnel development are the key operational and personal challenges of CEOs. This is also true in Asia Pacific and North America this year;


• 62% of firms offer flexible working hours (far higher than in any other global region) and 46% offer a stake in the company like stock options to enhance motivation;


• 42% of CEOs see over 50% of their planned business revenues coming via IP-based applications. 16% expect between 30% and 50% of revenues to come from IP;


• CEOs see the greatest potential for growth over the next three years in Internet and IP-related segments.

Tags: startup - entrepreneurship

eCENTER: Conference in Moscow, Russian slides

So, my last inputs concerning our participation to the Life & Pension conference in Moscow. It is about our slides which were translated in Russian. Looks good ;-)

Tags: ecenter

BUSINESS: Slow to hire, fast to fire

[via Dragos & PK]

Great! That remembers something. Umh, and we decided last week to take the time ;-)

I used to hire people that I knew in my gut weren’t right ... because I was desperate to fill a position. We don’t do that any more, and we have some positions open for months and months. It costs a lot of money to hire someone and you waste a lot of time if it goes wrong. Then you have to fire people, and that’s not fun. So don’t rush it, wait until you find someone who really works.

Tags: human resource

NEWS: Les Blogs 2.0 - finished

I couldn't attend to the end of the conference because I had a meeting in Paris. A great one :-) Now I am in the airport, again connected (I am addicted, wow).

My last words for Rodrigo (Sepulveda), Jeff (Clavier), Marc (Goldberg) and Robert (Scoble): it was a great pleasure to meet you "physically", I really had a great time! Thanx for all the discussions and exchanges and advices and.... See you next time :-)

Thanks to all the other bloggers I could meet, great time also with you all ;-)

Bybye Les Blogs 2.0 and thanks to Loic Le Meur for the organization ==> Loic, il n'y avait vraiment pas assez à manger, sinon c'était super, bravo. Et dommage que l'on se soit croisés si vite ;-).

Update: oh oh, I forget to mention the very good discussions with Maryam (in Parisian taxis :-), the wife of Robert Scoble. She has started to blog too. Have a look!

Tags: lesblogs

NEWS: Les Blogs 2.0 - Second day

Second day is starting with Mena Trott, President and co-founder of Six Apart. Her presentation is linked with "being more civilian while blogging". Good point.



Yesterday evening, I had the chance to meet Rodrigo Sepulveda. At last! Very nice guy, interesting discussion about its new company vpod.tv, which is about Video Publishing On Demand. "On Demand", outch, has it something to do with IBM On Demand ;-) More information "when we will be ready", Rodrigo hates vaporware. It seems to be promising!



On the way to the Monday Evening Event, I met Adriana Cronin-Luka, who is a "special geek" in the sense that 1) she is female (you should have seen that ;-) and 2) she likes pretty much ... guns. So, be careful! (hey, just to be sure, I am *joking*).

The Party was really crowdy, not so much to eat (it seems to be a constant common denominator - BUT, this time, I went to the McDonald's before ;-). So, I decided to have a tour of Paris (I haven't been here for quite a long time). Beautiful!

Galeries Lafayette

Tour Eiffel

Arc de Triomphe

Champs Elysees

I must admint, to close properly this evening, I "visited" the Virgin MegaStore ;-)

Tags: lesblogs

NEWS: Les Blogs 2.0 - Jeff's presentation

Dave Siffry, CEO of Technorati, is also participating and exchanging his blogger experience (about finding the time to run a company *and* blogging *and* having a family. Umh, it remains me something ;-).



Jeff has moderated a panel about VC, angel, buyer and entrepreneurs, represented by David Hornik, Jeff himself, Simon Levene, and Rodrigo Sepulveda. Some good stuff, nothing really new for myself. The message is clear: finding investements is possible, interest is again increasing for techno start-ups, back to the roots concerning business models and managing efficiently your company.

I will remember this presentation for a long time because Jeff did his presentation with a Mac (was that *really* necessary?) and he had some issues with the screen resolution :-) What a mess to change this little option. Dave Siffry had to help, have a look at the picture below.



The Mac myth is going down and down and down. Russell should agree, you remember?

Tags: lesblogs

NEWS: Les Blog 2.0 starting

So, Loic has opened the conference. About 350 participants (150 turning down), 25 countries. Wow, great atmosphere.

I already have great contact with great people: Robert Scoble, Shel Israel, Simon, Kevin Anderson (BBC journalist, no blog? come on Kevin ;-), Marc Canter, Anina, Jeff Clavier, Suw (who likes chocolate and vodka ;-), and Marc Goldberg. So, I think I can go home now :-)

Anina, Marc and Robert

Jeff and myself

Shel and Robert

It is now their turn!

Tags: lesblogs

OPEN SOURCE: Sun shifting to Free and Open Source Software

[via sun.com]

Some figures about SUN:

• 4.5 million Java developpers


• OpenSolaris community of 10'000 members


• 196 million downloads of Java


• 53 million downloads of StarOffice and OpenOffice


• 1 billion Java mobiles

First, having seen tremendous momentum with the Solaris Operating System (OS) as free and open source software, Sun is making the Java Enterprise System, Sun N1 Management software, and Sun developer tools available at no cost for both development and deployment and further, is reaffirming its commitment to open source this software. Second, Sun is announcing that it is integrating all of this software along with the Solaris OS into the Solaris Enterprise System, the only comprehensive and open infrastructure software platform available today.

Included at no cost in the new Solaris Enterprise System are:

• The award winning and open sourced Solaris 10 OS, with the recently announced PostgreSQL database;


• The entire Sun Java Enterprise System infrastructure software platform, including the Sun Java Identity Management Suite, Sun Java Integration Suite, Sun Java Communications Suite, Sun Java Application Platform Suite, Sun Java Availability Suite and Sun Java Web Infrastructure Suite;


• The N1 Management Software including the Sun N1 System Manager, the Sun N1 Service Provisioning System, the Sun N1 Grid Engine;


• All tools for C, C++ and Java development, including Sun Studio 11, Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8 and Sun Java Studio Creator;


• SunRay ultra-thin client software;


• Sun Secure Global Desktop Software.

NEWS: Word AIDS day

Google is supporting the Word AIDS day.

NEWS: Top 50 business brains

[via TimesOnline]

Below, the 15 first "business brains". Interesting to see Jim Collins at the 6th place, Kjell Nordstrom at the 9th, Scott Adams at the 12th. Otherwise, no big surprise.

1. Michael Porter (2)* Harvard strategy specialist


2. Bill Gates (20) Founder of Microsoft


3. C. K. Prahalad (12) LBS strategy man


4. Tom Peters (3) Leadership consultant


5. Jack Welch (8) GE’s ex-CEO and celebrity


6. Jim Collins (10) Author of Good to Great


7. Philip Kotler (6) Kellogg’s marketing guru


8. Henry Mintzberg (7) Promotes Managers not MBAs


9. Kjell Nordstrom & Jonas Ridderstrale (21) Funky Business exponents


10. Charles Handy (5) British portfolio worker


11. Richard Branson (34) Entrepreneur and Virgin flyer


12. Scott Adams (27) creator of Dilbert


13. Thomas Stewart (37) Intellectual Capital author


14. Gary Hamel (4) Strategy consultant


15. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne (31) Blue Ocean Strategy duo