The IBM Solution builder is a powerful tool to help you design IT Solutions which makes use of IBM Software.

I gave this session on SBE/SCE at Logix today.

I have tested today the GTalk/Twitter integration. By sending an instant message to Twitter you can twitt and receive your friends twitts. It's really great : Twitter becomes a kind of broadcasting chat engine.

It's a common trend that I have seen at IBM also. You can add a service - called a Bot- as one of your buddiesand ask him questions. It's the computer on the other side who talks to you.

For example, at IBM we have a number of Instant Messaging bots available on Sametime to employees, including:

• Calendar, which searches the calendars of specified people to find a mutually available meeting time
• Dictionary, which looks up requested words in an online dictionary
• Help, which allows users to search across multiple online help systems
• RemindMe, which notifies users when a time/calendar event occurs (for example an upcoming meeting or vacation)
• SkillTap, which finds and connects users with others possessing one or more requested skills
• Stockquote, which retrieves price data from any online stock market ticker (not that we spend a lot of time doing this during work hours, of course!)
• WhatIs, which defines IBM acronyms (and is therefore very popular)

There is a technical article over here : Building your own Sametime bots. If you know some good bots for GTalk, MSN or Yahoo, please let me know.

Marrakech, malgré la pollution, est une ville où il fait bon vivre. Nous avons profité de ses belles couleurs amplifiées par le soleil : le jaune des bâtiments, le vert des palmiers (c'est une oasis), les couleurs des souks, le jaune du jus d'orange, le bleu du ciel, le blanc de la neige au sommet des montagens de l'atlas...


Marrakesh c'est aussi un spectacle permanent. Notre attention est sollicitée par le grouillement de mobylettes, de vendeurs dans les souks, d' ouvriers sur les chantiers , de cireurs de chaussures, de personnes qui demandent ce que nous cherchons dans l'espoir d'obtenir un bakchich sur une vente improbable, de taxis et de calèches qui veulent nous ballader, de vendeurs de cigarettes ou de cacahouètes, de policiers qui surveillent chaque carrefour, des petites charrettes tirées par des ânes au milieu des bus et de gros 4x4...

We went to Marrakesh two weeks ago. You can have a look at the pictures over here :
Photos Marrakesh on PicasaWeb

Symphony is IBM's alternative to Microsoft Office. Lotus Symphony ha been crowned Office Productivity Software Product of the Year by Datamation Magazine for 2008.

I just completed a IBM course on Architectural Thinking. Here are the best quotes :

"Every Solution to a problem introduces new problems"

"At IBM, Architects must have a T-Shape"

"IT Architecture is a set of decisions that you take which will cost you a lot of money if you change them afterwards" (Robin Mulkers)

(In architecture,) "Good is good enough"

Still playing with technology. I tested today the integration of CoComment with my website. If you use CoComment, let me know here so maybe I integrate it everywhere in the future.

Le destin de Hai : J'ai vu ça hier soir à la télé et je trouvais ça beau. Jetez-y un œil.

"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."

Last weekend was cultural as we visited two Europalia expositions this sunday.

We first went to the Musée d'Ixelles for an exposition called 'All ways lead to Rome" ("Tous les chemins mènent à Rome - Voyages d'artistes du XVIe au XIXe siècles")

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.

Je vois dans mes statistiques web (feedburner) que beaucoup de personnes cherchent et trouvent l'histoire "Les différents sentiments" sur mon site.

Vous qui cherchiez et avez trouvé, dites-moi : pourquoi cherchez vous "différents sentiments" dans Google ?

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
• http://www.flyinggrasscarpet.org/
• Those guys have ideas and they work to make them true

Some Links :

• Second night Pecha Kucha Brussels
• The first Pecha Kucha Brussels Night : video

Ce dimanche 20 janvier 2008 nous sommes allés au salon de l'auto avec Thomas.
Quelques photos ici : http://picasaweb.google.be/jfdeclercq/SalonAuto

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."

'Making documents smarter' is de slogan van de start-up met hoofdkwartier op het Ladeuzeplein in Leuven'

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."

Yesterday 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:

• http://www.rue89.com/cabinet-de-lecture/storytelling-ces-histoires-que-construit-le-pouvoir
• http://www.creatingthe21stcentury.org/Jumpstart.html

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.