"I really want to know what it is about programming, or computers in general, that makes people want to grow a beard, have long hair, and dress like a slob."
We than went to the BOZAR for a second Europalia exposition called "Encompassing the Globe - Portugal and the World in the 16th and the 17th Centuries" which shows how the Portuguese have travelled the world : Africa, Asia, America.
Visiting museums like this is also another way to enjoy Brussels.
Yesterday (Jan 20th 2008) we attended the second pecha kucha night organized in Brussels. As last time, it was great. When Mr Nandi announced the last presentation, I was thinking : Already ! Time is flying when you are having fun.
Some of the things I've written down:
Joannes Vandermeulen, archaeologist & user experience expert:
Story telling is important and specific to the human race because "Stories are alternative futures"
Within 10.000 years, we will "Travel less but wander more"
Jan van den Bergh, Boondoggle:
The basis of Brand management is to master your customer database
Le test complet est ici. La conclusion : "Le Cybook Gen3 de Bookeen introduit une rupture avec le lecteur d'ebook traditionnel grâce à sa technologie d'écran e-paper. Lisible comme une feuille de papier, très peu gourmand en énergie, il apporte les solutions techniques qui manquaient il y a quelques années."
Le test complet est ici. La conclusion : "Le Cybook Gen3 de Bookeen introduit une rupture avec le lecteur d'ebook traditionnel grâce à sa technologie d'écran e-paper. Lisible comme une feuille de papier, très peu gourmand en énergie, il apporte les solutions techniques qui manquaient il y a quelques années."
Vous savez peut-être que j'aime préparer des présentations convainquantes. Souvent je les construit bottom-up car je veux que mon argumentation soit sans failles. Cependant le storytelling me montre que c'est peut-être une erreur de vouloir trop démontrer. Il serait plus adéquat de raconter une histoire. Tout comme les publicités ne montrent plus les produits, ils évoquent plutôt le succès, l'image ou le bonheur de celui qui les utilise.
C'est notament pour cela que je m'intéresse aujourd'hui au Pecha Kucha. Ces présentations de 6minutes40 sont évidement des histoires qui collent au concept de Storytelling.
Quelques liens pour mieux comprendre le storytelling:
For a long time, I have been using Yahoo! Mail as my only personal email platform (no email client).
After having used Gmail for some time, now I realize that my personal stuff is more and more on the web: - I use Google Notes to take notes - I use Google Calendar - I use Gmail as personal Todo list (using a todo and a done label) - I use netvibes Webnotes - I upload my important documents on my website, in Yahoo Briefcase, in Google Docs or I email them to myself (since there is virtually no size limit anymore) - My knowledge base is built using my blogs that I aggregate in a Wiki on my website - My bookmarks are in Del.icio.us - My Contacts are now in LinkedIn, Plaxo and Facebook - Most of the information I need comes from the web or from my company's Intranet
The only things that remain on my computer are the Office Documents, the pictures and the email archives. If I would upload all my pictures on Picasa or Flickr, I'd very close to have nearly nothing on my computer anymore.
If the Internet tone becomes as reliable as the phone tone, environments like DesktopTwo (https://desktoptwo.com) will actually become our computers. Desktoptwo provides you a virtual computer on the web, with the advantage that the only thing that you need is an Internet connection to access your virtual computer. All your documents remain on the server and are backed-up, archived...
You will find the same kind of concept in the WebOS eXoplatform (http://www.exoplatform.com/) : "This new giant step is an important one in the process to make the network the computer".
At JavaPolis, James Gossling said concerning Google that nobody could have predicted that the killer app of the web would have been "Advertisement". Maybe the next killer app is the computer itself, swallowed by the network, the servers becoming fully pervasive.
We have seen the show this Saturday. Last time I was not convinced by Natalia but this time she managed to provide a great show by wearing nice blue and brown dresses and by sharing the scene with En Vogue and Shaggy.
Just created a Wikia Profile in order to test. Wikia The alpha release still has ot of bugs today. Only the future will tell if this integrated social networking + wiki + google will be a success.
I have just registered to the next Pecha Kucha night (Brussels) on January 20th at 20:20.
In the registration form there was a "do let us know what your area of interest, themes" question. I answered : IT Architecture, Entrepreneurship, Management, Technology, Innovation and Cycling...
En cette période de soldes, il est navrant d'observer les gens dans les commerces. Combien de personnes me dépassent, me bousculent, me marchent sur les pieds, ou bloquent le passage pour arriver en premier je ne sais où, voir un vêtement qu'ils vont jetter par terre sans l'acheter. Dans le métro de Bruxelles, ceux qui montent n'attendent même plus que ceux qui descendent soient sortis. Même dans les avenues les plus luxueuses de Bruxelles, l'impolitesse et le "moi d'abord" priment, à l'image des grosses BMW qui dépassent toute la file et, au bout de celle-ci, forcent le passage pour passer en premier...
En réalité, ca n'est pas vraiment de leur faute, ils vivent simplement comme ca. On ne leur a jamais dit. Ils ne remarquent même pas qu'ils poussent les autres pour passer.
Cela me donne envie de retourner à la campagne faire du VTT dans les champs et la boue mais là aussi un exité de la compétition va peut-être me crier dessus pour passer "A DROITE" ou "A GAUCHE".
Mais que dois-je dire à mon fils ? De se laisser pousser ou de pousser aussi, comme les autres ?
Que dois-je faire le matin ? Dépasser la file de l'E411 par la gauche avant de faire une queue de poisson juste avant le ring pour passer avant tous ceux qui ont attendu normalement ?
"Et si le luxe c'était l'Espace ?" demande le constructeur automobile Renault.
L'éducation et la politesse sont-ils aussi un luxe auquel peu de personnes ont accès ?
During JavaPolis we had a very good presentation by Bruce Eckel called 'Unconference'.
"An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is created and managed by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by one or more organizers in advance of the event" (WikiPedia).
The agenda of discussions is negotiated between the participants and those discussions than happen in open spaces.
I like it because I have more and more difficulties to follow a long session without interacting. Also often when you go to an event, the good part is not the presentations but rather the contacts that you could make. Very often what I retain from a presentation is the name of the speaker so I can ask him questions later.
In an unconference, you must think "conversation" and you must be interested in this conversation otherwise you drag the energy of the meeting down.
My feeling about unconferences is that you should carefully choose the conversation topics otherwise you'll might have some problems. I especially think about the problem of having conflicts of interests among participants (competitors for instance). So I guess it would be more interesting for a loose network rather that for one-to-many communications.
But I'm looking forward to participate to or organize an unconference !
As it is a tradition now, I send you my best shots of 2007 in order to wish you the best for 2008. This year I could not make a good selection : I have 77 pictures for you.
