I just received an Information Letter from PlayMobil where they propose me to have a look at a book about Egypt : "Découvre l'Egypte".
This book is rendered using a technology that I have seen for the second time and that I find very interesting : FSI-Viewer.
Those guys found a way to put flyers in a browser. It's much better than the traditional pdf (which is never in Landscape and always in Portrait, obliging you to scroll).
Two days ago, with a colleague, we had an interesting discussion around the future of Entreprise Portals.
Today in a SOA, Services are consumed by consumers like Fat Clients (Lotus Notes for instance) or Thin Clients (via a Portal).
The arrival of Web2.0 technologies like Rich Internet Applications (RIA) like Google Calendar, Google Docs ect will puzzle this architecture.
At IBM we already have two examples with Project Zero and Websphere Business Spaces. A Portal product is than no more necessary for consuming and exposing services in a browser.
What becomes than the role of a Portal in the SOA ? Probably it becomes a provisionning and security platform for RIAs and Mashups. At the security level, it means offering an Identity and Access Management platform. At the provisionning level it becomes a place where you can search for a mashup, configure it and use it immediately.
If you start using Netvibes you will understand how you can mix content on your own page using Widgets. Those widgets contain their own application logic (Gmail, Google Notes, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook....). Netvibes doesn't own the widget's code like a traditional Websphere Portal would.
Therefore the future of Traditional Portals like Websphere Portal is to provision those kind of Widgets in a secure way.
Last week we (Mireille and I) went to the Vlerick Marketing Alumni Event : How Social are you ?
The evening was about a marketing approach on the Social Networks and Online Communities.
Robin Wauters started with an Introduction on Social Networks. I didn't learn much on that introduction (maybe I know already too much) except that the groups that exist on different networks like Facebook are a target for Marketeers.
So creating or using social networks is now the objective of good marketeers. Pieter Goiris (CEO Boondoggle) showed us how the Heineken Music site to illustrate how brands try to engage in a give & take relationship with online communities. By the way this website is a wonderful Mashup (Stoemp) ! Web2.0 is also about involving the users to make the content. It's the case of Sensoa, a Flemish website where people can ask all questions about Sex.
Luc Colson of 4C Consulting explained us that in a Social Network, three kind of people are very interesting for the Marketeer : the people with most connections within a group (Let's call them "Leaders"), the people linking independant groups to each other ("Connectors") and people on the path between the two profiles ("Relays"). The "Leaders" would allow to influence the group. If the Leader has an excellent experience with your brand, others will know it. "Connectors" allow to transfer the brand experience from communities to communities. "Relays" are a way to accelerate the transfer from Community to Community (they connect the Leaders to the Connectors). Those concepts are for instance exploited in the Telecom sector to enforce operator loyalty and reduce the risk of churn.
Steven Van Belleghem (Insites Consulting) gave me the best impression. He explained that Marketeers have to understand how the new technologies can impact the way branding works. Marketeers have an important challenge to learn surfing on the web2.0 advertsing wave led by FaceBook, Google... There is a change of paradigm going on. Before the Marketing equation was the following :
Advertising ... Brand ... Sales
Today the chain is the following :
Brand ... Advertising ... Conversations.
The goal of the marketeer is to land in the conversation zone. Consumers need to talk about the product, advertsing is not enough anymore...This session gave me a better idea on how marketeers think about Web2.0. I see it as a great way to discuss with people and a great technology at the same time. I see the promise of the semantic web. They see segments, focus groups, communities, conversations, advertising...
Note 1 : For the Vlerick Alumni people, that kind of event is the best rather than just have a beer, let's also have some content.
Note 2 : From web experts websites, I'm not always impressed : 1) I hate the Boondoggle's website (try searching Heineken in it...), and 2) how is it possible to have an URL like http://www.4cconsulting.com/Templates/home.aspx?id=32&langType=1033 when you know the following principle : "Good URLs never Change"
Yesterday when watching the Champion's league, I found very funny that when eventually the best french players are performant, they score against a French club. Malouda and Anelka have killed... Bordeaux.
On Sept 11th 2008, we attended the Samsung Omnia night.
The party was not as good as the last one but there was more content : the presentation of the new Samsung Omnia.
The Samsung Omnia is a great MulltiMedia device (Music, Video, 5 MegaPixel Camera, GPS, MS Office Integration, Push Email...).
It also has a touchscreen like the iPhone. If I had to choose between the iPhone and the Omnia, I think I would choose the Omnia because it's more compact and Windows Mobile 6 would allow me to install more custom applications.
However I still have a phone with a keyboard (Samsung SGH I600) and I'm not convinced about the Touch screen yet.
Yesterday when watching the Champion's league, I found very funny that when eventually the best french players are performant, they score against a French club. Malouda and Anelka have killed... Bordeaux.
This weekend we did De Gordel, a bicycle tour around Brussels.
Our goal wasn't political but rather sportive. We did 120 Km. The tour of 100 Km makes in reality 106Km. As we left and went home by bike we did another 7Km. Also, I had a flat tire in Meise and the assistance truck brought us back to Wemmel, it added 7Km to the trip.
The organization of the Gordel is excellent. If you have a mechanical problem, a truck brings you to a repair centre. The people of VAB repaired my bike, I had nothing to do do except pay the inner tube.
The weather was horrible in the morning : rain, rain and rain. Only in the afternoon after more than 60 Km it stopped and we could enjoy the tour a bit more.
The parcours is not very difficult. I expected more climbs. In fact, the most difficult part is between Zaventem and Overijse (Vossem, Duisburg) and that was the last part for us. Or was it the most difficult because it was the last ? Perception is reality...
De Gordel was our main bicycle objective this year and we are quiet happy we did it ! We will do it again.
PS : Is it politically correct to blog about De Gordel in English when you are a native Walloon and and live in Flanders ?
How to seduce people so they vote for you : address their concerns.
Obama addresses several key concerns of 2008 :
"I do want three things," "I want to end the war. I want to get everybody a health care system that is sensible and common sense and saves money. And the energy policy. But, if I had to just choose one thing, that would be it."?
And I believe indeed Americans are concerned by those
war
health
energy
If you add that he wants to decrease taxes for the middle class, I believe you have enough broad subjects that can gather many votes.
So to be successful, just address your client's pain points. A well known sales technique applied at a large scale.
If you blog often I recommend you to have a look at ScribeFire. It's an excellent FireFox Plugin which helps to write or edit your posts. It allows to include Videos, Links, images in a easy way. It also supports multi-blogs.
Lately I have hesitated to buy a new kind of device : an Internet Radio. It connects on your WiFi router and plays thousands of radios streams that you can catch on the web.
Today I just plug my portable PC into my HiFi system using a mini-jack, but I find the quality is not so good. Therefore I have been looking for better options. Here are some products I find interesting :
I have visited several shops (Padeg, TDH... ) in Brussels, LLN and Overijse to try to see those products in real but they have not yet arrived in the shops. So for now, the only option seems to be to buy online. We probably need to wait until Christmass.
I don't know if you have ever had a look at my long CV but it's quiet a long one. I have read in a article (in Bizz I believe) that a good CV should be at the most 3 pages. Therefore I have tried to rewrite my CV in a much shorter format . I have organized it along 5 aspects of my work that I like and that I want to continue to develop during my career:
Strategic Thinking
Leadership
Management & Team Work
Creative Solution Design
Marketing & Sales
The result is here : Quick CV and I have published in PDF and MS Word formats also here
I have successfully passed my ITIL V3 Foundations Certification !
ITIL is a framework which allows IT Managers to standardize the IT processes which aim at satisfying the demand of their system's customers and/or end-users.
In order to meet customer's needs, ITIL organises the lifecycle of IT Services which are delivered by IT.
The IT department can supply several types of "services", for instance :
Applications (SAP, CRM, Document Management)
Purchasing of IT material (PCs, printers...)
Help Desk, Call Center
Internet Services (Home Banking system for a bank for instance)
Hardware Installation
Printing
...
ITIL gives guidelines on how to organize the professional delivery of those "IT services".
ITIL V3' service life cycle defines 5 "steps":
Service Strategy : it defines which services the IT department should provide
Service Design : it defines what the delivered services are and how they are realized
Service Transition : it determines how a designed service is put into production
Service Operation : it describes how services have to be run in production (according to their specifications and their Service Level Agreements)
Continual Improvement : a set of processes to improve the life cycle realization
Last Weekend we did quiet some cycling in Flanders.
On saturday we did the "Limburgse Rivierenland" tour in Halen. It was supposed to be 52 Km. We did 63 and we even did a shortcut at the end.
On sunday we went to Herentals and we followed what is called the "EcoCyclo". There the KM were correct and it was 46 Km. We started from Herenthout and we used the following "KnoopPunten " :
Herenthout - 45 - 46 - 47 - 9 - 10 - 8 - 15 (Let op: we rijden niet volledig tot aan 15. Neem een kijkje aan de watermolen. Het is een waardevol monument. Daarna keer je terug naar 8.) - 19 - 18 - 14 - Hidrodoe - Van Hidrodoe rijd je terug naar de knooppuntenroute. Sla echter niet af naar links richting knooppunt 14, maar blijf rechtdoor rijden. Volg de pijltjes richting Centrum. - 12 - 60 - 62 - 65 - 66 - 43 - 44 - 45
Le site Internet pour Paul Leroy se trouve sous mon nom de domaine. Nous y travaillons de temps en temps en buvant un bonne bière. Nous l'avons mis à jour cette semaine:
Il y a un nouveau menu pour faciliter la navigation.
Paul a également mis des nouveaux tableaux en ligne sur PicasaWeb.
Moi j'aimais bien skynet pour la météo facile a trouver et facile a lire pour les prévisions à dix jours. Il y avait une colonne bleue à gauche avec toutes les possibilités skynet dont la météo. C'était facile et efficace.
Evidement il y a quelqu'un qui a trouvé que c'était mieux de changer. Essayez maintenant d'aller sur http://www.skynet.be/ et trouvez-moi la météo. Bonne chance !
Comme dirait l'autre : "Si je connaissais le con qu'a fait sauter le pont..."
