January 2008Yesterday I think I have found an application I have been looking for for a long time. It is called WikiPad : it's the fusion between a Notepad and a Wiki. It's the ideal place to structure your ideas and you notes about your customers, your personal projects or even draft your blog entries like this one. You can than export the database or parts of the database in HTML for publishing or archiving. I just find it a GREAT tool. Look at the website here : http://www.jhorman.org/wikidPad/  The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. (Marcel Proust) 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. Interesting facts about Entrepreneurship in a Quiz.
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. Je me dis souvent que si j'avais des lunettes, les autres me feraient plus confiance...
Reading a story to your child before going to bed is the best example of a sucessful win-win negotiation. At the beginning, there is no contract zone : he doesn't want to go to sleep. Than the value proposition comes : "I read you a story and you go to bed." "OK" Deal ! And a win-win : being together to read a story is a real pleasure for both of us. But children are excellent negotiators, when the story is finished they don't want to leave something on the table : "Another story, Pleeeaaase?" There you need the best of your sales skills : Objections handling and Closing... of the light. 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.
If you wish to have advice on your energy usage I recommend you this company.
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... http://pechakucha.architempo.net/ Did you know that the web is archived every 2 months ? My website has been archived !! Here is how my website looked like in 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20010809213009/http://www.jfdeclercq.com/ 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 ? Le self coaching pemet de se mettre dans un état cérébral plus productif.
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 ! See an example of unconference here : http://mindview.net/Conferences/ProgrammingTheNewWeb 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. Click here to start the slideshow : http://picasaweb.google.com/jfdeclercq/BestShots2007/photo#s5150550810699008482 You can find the album here : http://picasaweb.google.com/jfdeclercq/BestShots2007 HAPPY 2008 PS : you can still have a look at my other years best shots here : December 2007Aujourd'hui je lis mon email, j'ai un nouveau commentaire sur mon site. Chouette ! He ben non. C'est une insulte et ca me fait de la peine... (voir plus loin) Peut-être que avec mon site web je ressemble à une Castafiore mais c'est un hobby, cela m'amuse et je n'oblige personne à le lire... Joyeux Noel et Bonne année quand même à celui qui m'a envoyé ce commentaire: A new comment on the post #6 "General Comments" is waiting for your approval http://jfdeclercq.wordpress Author : Mickey (IP: 213.49.228.90 , ip-213-49-228-90.dsl.scarlet E-mail : Mickey.mouse@disney.com URL : Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin Comment: Quel connard ce type. IBM emploie vraiment des Castafiore
"Il n'y a pas de vent favorable pour celui qui ne sait ou il va" - heard on Europe1 a long time ago but I still think about it (There is no favorable wind for the one who doesn't know where he goes) "Si c'est défendu, c'est que c'est possible" - IBM Sales Motto (If it's forbidden, it's possible) "May the best of your past be the worst of your future" - Peter Raferty (Vlerick Mgt School) to Roland Van Dierdonck departing Dean of the school Yesterday I attended the Vlerick Winter Reunion and we had an excellent presentation by Bertrand Piccard. Bertrand Piccard is one of the two pilots of the first ever non-stop balloon flight around the world. It's difficult to summarize all the concepts that were explained yesterday. Here are the topics I have written down. In fact I agree with most of the ideas of Bertrand Piccard and I believe I have already applied them more than once. Don't fight against the winds, just choose the most favorable one Bertrand Piccard explained that during this air balloon experience, he learned that trying to control everything (an air balloon, your life, your career...) does not automatically lead to success. You also need to stop and feel the possible winds, change your plans and follow the most favorable winds. Pro-act To be able to adapt to most favorable winds, there is a necessary mind shift which doesn't match our education. We have been trained to eliminate the unknown in order to come back in speed, control and power and work as a bulldozer to reach our goal. We have been trained to react and not to pro-act. Communication Decision taking when facing the unknown is a difficult task. If you take decisions alone, you face the risk of having too little objectivity. In the balloon decision taking was than the result of a discussion between the two pilots. The problem is that two people sharing ideas are not productive : or they have the same ideas and 1+1=1 or they disagree and 1+1=0. The trick is to avoid expressing ideas but rather sharing experiences. Those experiences being the necessary information for a common decision taking. It's a positive common bottom-up argumentation rather that a destructive top-down opposition of ideas. In summary "I wish I have the strength to change what I can change, that I have the courage to accept what I can't change, and that I have the wisdom to be able to make the difference between what I can change and what I can't change" Also have a look at Bertrand Piccard's website here : http://www.bertrandpiccard.com/eng/index.php A nice project to have a look at. Vlerick supports the project = gave money during the 2007 Winter Reunion yesterday.
Last week, I received two books :
Ce dimanche 16 décembre 2007 avait lieu le cyclo-cross de Overijse. J'y étais. Tous les meilleurs coureurs y étaient aussi. Ici, Sven Nys en action.  Mais le cyclo-cross c'est surtout une ambiance. La foule dans les champs qui crie pour encourager les coureurs. Dans la descente - tres glissante car il gelait !  ... et dans la montée  Klaas Vantornout a mis le turbo et voici le groupe de poursuivants qui traverse la pleine de jeux.  Finalement Klaas Vantornout n'est jamais repris et gagne la course.  You can now better control what you see on my home page. Look at the right under my picture.
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Those who think I'm just playing around with JavaScript are right. In fact I'm very close to use Ajax but I have a lack of time. |
