i-Nexus -- Random Thoughts In Motion

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Clean at the Marriott

2008-08-08T20:51:00.002+02:00

So here I am checking the room if I have everything packed... and what do I find under the bed? It made my day (ok, I do realise it may have been there since the last century).

World statistics

2008-04-30T09:29:00.003+02:00

I don't really believe their "updated in real time" claim, but still, interesting yet scary figures are to be found on the World statistics site (link here).

So true: relationships between the advertiser and the consumer

2008-04-10T12:51:00.003+02:00

From BringTheLoveBack, found through the Muse blog.

Hm, I think this is also what the relationship between the customer and the agency is like sometimes.

Mobile advertising the shanghai way

2008-04-01T17:24:00.003+02:00

Here I was, standing at shore of the Huangpu river, quietly overlooking Shanghai, when this came floating by.

Now, there are a lot of screens already all over the city: huge LED billboards on buildings, LCD screens in taxi's, plasma screen in subway stations, gyms and whatnot. You name it, they have a screen with advertising in or on it.

So when the whole city filled up, someone had the genius idea to throw a huge LED screen on a boat, put some ads on it and take it up and down the river. I guess this qualifies as "mobile" advertising. Or visual pollution if you happen to be in the mood to stroll by the water and take in the city views. Nothing is sacred any more.

Passing through China

2008-04-01T03:46:00.003+02:00

Well, I'm not exactly passing through China, but rather visiting Shanghai for the Intel Developer forum. It's an interesting city, and with a population of 18 million people there are actually more people living there than in my own country. Go figure. Actually, that could be a scary thought... or a comforting one, if you take into account the saying that "No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, 1.3 billion Chinese couldn’t care less." To be honest, it might be up to 1.4 by now as the 1.3 figure was almost a year ago. Oh, and did I mention that they likely have the largest online population too now. Well, almost.

On board of my KLM flight was also a Dutch delegation on a one-week china trip. Follow their journey on marketingfacts.nl (Dutch only).

On a side-note, It was a bit of an adjustment to see all those people smoking everywhere again, as we've had so many bans on smoking in Europe, that it's hard to imagine that many smokers all over the place again. I was also surprised that I didn't see that many fancy new cars all over the place... mabe I was just in the wrong district.

Trevi fountain

2008-03-13T15:23:00.001+01:00

Over in rome on business

How I lost my faith in wikipedia

2008-03-02T21:40:00.004+01:00

I used to be a big believer in wikipedia and looked up references and information on it for, well, just about anything. Up until now, when I experienced firsthand how factual information can be removed and you're left in the cold when you'ry to do anything about it.

Here is what happened: I'm a member of an official federation (International Krav Maga Federation in Belgium if you must know), so I added a link to the federation's belgian site on the Krav Maga page on Wikipedia at the end of January. After all, we're an official federation, so no harm (note: I didn't remove any links to other federations, not even "competitive" ones. We all want to be known and it's a free world.). One week later the link was removed (by someone from another KM club in The Netherlands, but that's beside the point). I mail the owner of the page and the one who deleted it, and asked for explanation. None received. "OK, an error", I think, and I place the link again (after mailing the helpdesk at wikipedia what to do). It gets deleted again, this time by another user, and I get what seems like an automated comment that I shouldn't place links, and that if I do it again it will be considered "vandalism" (really!). That kind of puts me off ever wanting to contribute anything there again.

Actually, the exact post is:

"The external link(s) you placed in one or several articles, have been removed. Although we appreciate your contributions to Wikipedia, we strive to keep the number of external links at Wikipedia as low as possible. Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia, and not a collection of links to other websites. We prefer that you add any relevant encyclopedic information to the articles themselves. Thank you for your understanding. Adding the link again without any discussion in advance may be regarded as vandalism. You may provide links like these to various portals on the internet.

Let me take that reasoning apart.

"We appreciate your contributions to Wikipedia." I don't think you appreciate it at all, because you just delete my contribution without ever inquiring or even pretending to check.
"Keeping external links as low as possible". There are four at the moment, including the link to the Dutch IKMF federation and another Belgian federation (VKMF). But yet our link is not allowed. Can someone define what is "as low as possible"?
"We're not a collection of links", translation "we don't like to send people off to too many other sites that may have information you cannot find here"?
"You may provide links like these to various portals on the internet". Done that already, just thought it would be a good idea to add the information also to wikipedia. You know, people tend to go there because they still believe it's a good source of unbiased information.
"We prefer that you add any relevant encyclopedic information to the articles themselves."Like hell I will mess in that system again. True, I'd prefer to update the article itself with a paragraph of information about the different federations active in the Benelux, but now I won't because I don't feel like making the effort to just have my stuff deleted again by someone who doesn't agree, or being banned from wikipedia for trying to add to the system. Don't want to be a vandal.

Over at CrunchNotes they seem to have experienced the same:

"While wikipedia appears to be open to all, I’ve seen numerous examples of changes getting immediately deleted for what appears to be political reasons rather than the pursuit of pure knowledge. And I’ve also seen people be attacked for making changes that appear to be factual and correct. The TechCrunch listing on wikipedia has a number of errors. But there is no way in hell I’d ever think about fixing those errors. The wikipedia community has completely intimidated me to the point where making a change to that site is unthinkable. So I do think Wikipedia needs to be fixed."

I couldn't agree more with them. Sadly. The system is flawed. Well, maybe not the system, but it has not accounted for human nature.

More on the International Herald Tribune and The Register.

Nokia Morphing

2008-02-29T21:26:00.003+01:00

Ok, impressive. I didn't think they had it in them anymore (I've been a Sony-Ericsson convert for a number of years now), but the Nokia Morph concept looks very interesting.

From the press release: "Morph is a concept that demonstrates how future mobile devices might be stretchable and flexible, allowing the user to transform their mobile device into radically different shapes. It demonstrates the ultimate functionality that nanotechnology might be capable of delivering: flexible materials, transparent electronics and self-cleaning surfaces."

More here on nanotechnology and the future of mobile phones. Now to make it come true.

Will we be matched by machines by 2029?

2008-02-18T21:52:00.004+01:00

Tagging on my previous post on "shift happens", ever serious site BBC Machines states that machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029. And we'll be having nanobots inside our bodies.

Click here for the full article.

Shift happens

2008-02-18T21:08:00.005+01:00

.. and it is still happening. At an ever increasing pace. Check out the presentation.

| View | Upload your own

"Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational power of the human brain." I'm especially interested in this one; I should be around to witness it. Let's just hope that supercomputer doesn't turn out to be Skynet.

Here is the original "Did you know 2.0"

Read more at Shift Happens

*Update*
There is also a Shift Movie in the works. Watch it here.

We have come a long way since 1996

2008-02-18T00:08:00.000+01:00

Since 1996,the WayBack Machine site has been archiving about 85 billion web pages. I've gone in and looked at the history of my site ... boy, have I come a long way too. :-)

Over at this site someone went in and looked as some big brand names like MacDonalds, CocaCola, Pepsi and Lego. It's "interesting" to see how primitve websites were back then in what we seen now as the stone age of the Internet (but which very exciting and cutting edge at the time.)

Where is Marc Wallis?

2008-02-15T23:09:00.005+01:00

I ran into my friend and colleague Marc Wallis again at the Mobile World congress this year. Why would I care to mention that on a blog you ask? Well, because exactly one year ago (ok, give or take a couple of days) we were exchanging ideas on blogging, and I showed him how I blogged from my mobile phone (I think I actually explained it to him again this year, but that's beside the point).

So he went on to register a site to track himself, got a blog account, and started to take pictures of wherever he was on his travels.

And so the whereismarcwallis.com photoblog was born. Happy first anniversary, Marc!

Blogging over at the Mobile World Congress

2008-02-14T12:46:00.002+01:00

I'm officially one of the bloggers at our Technology Blog over at the Mobile World Congress.

So go over there and see what we're thinking about the new technologies we see at the show.

Spotted in Barcelona

2008-02-09T17:37:00.001+01:00

Mobile WiMAX demo

Party over at google's place

2008-01-21T13:02:00.000+01:00

Who would be on the invite list if there was a party at Google's place? See if you can recognize them all.

Link through Flabber.

They key to life is ... running and reading

2008-01-21T11:41:00.000+01:00

Wise words from Will smith: Running and reading are the key to life. Look here as he explains why.

Found through StrongLifts. Have a look there for his analysis. I'm off to running now. ;-)

Wired on the iPhone history

2008-01-15T14:33:00.000+01:00

Wired's report on the history of the iPhone and its impact on the US carrier market.
Read more here

Wildbeaming

2007-12-27T10:05:00.000+01:00

It's all about getting people to notice you, so here is a nice video of how they did it by wildbeaming, a form of beamvertising. Pretty cool. Limited to cities though.

Video also available on YouTube

101 dumbest moves in business

2007-12-20T13:45:00.000+01:00

It's list time again ... check out the 101 dumbest moves in business for 2007.

Hack the planet

2007-12-20T10:16:00.000+01:00

Something I had to share: Wired has come up with a list of 10 rather "special" ways that people are working on to save our planet.

Taking Lifehacks to the max.

Flashback: The Double Life

2007-12-12T23:48:00.000+01:00

For years, I've lived a double life.
In the day, I do my job - I ride the bus, roll up my sleeves with the hoi-polloi.
But at night, I live a life of exhilaration, of missed heartbeats and adrenalin.
And, if the truth be known, a life of dubious virtue.
I won't deny it - I've been engaged in violence, even indulged in it.
I've maimed and killed adversaries, and not merely in self-defence.
I've exhibited disregard for life, limb and property, and savoured every moment.
You may not think it, to look of me, but I have commanded armies, and conquered worlds.
And though in achieving these things I've set morality aside, I have no regrets.
For though I've led a double life, at least I can say - I've lived.

Yes, it's the immortal PlayStation ad. Check it out on YouTube and look here for some analysis of it.

The Abilene paradox

2007-11-22T10:10:00.001+01:00

The previous post on the Asoh defense led me to another real gem, the Abilene paradox.

Where I work, they have something called "disagree and commit". It's a good principle if it works, and when there is ample time to discuss, as this post explains. It tends to get a bit scary when the discussion bit is omitted (by fear of displeasing management or whatever the reason may be), and people end up with the Abilene paradox. This is a paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group's and do not raise objections. Scary, isn't it? The paradox is usually inllustrated by the below story:

"On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it." The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon."

Sounds familiar?

The Asoh Defense

2007-11-22T09:57:00.000+01:00

The Asoh Defense is real simple:
If at first you don't succeed ... just admit it. "Yup, my fault, I f***ed up."
Not something you ever really here in the corporate world, do you?

Click here for the story behind the Asoh defense.

The part where they link it to the organizations really hits home. In a lot of a corporate cultures, the reality is more that of "crime and punishment"; something goes wrong and the great game of “Scape Goat” starts where everyone runs and hides while trying to find someone to be "it".

Through MetaFilter.

Dumb moves on facebook

2007-11-17T21:43:00.000+01:00

Imagine telling your boss you're off for a family emergency.
Imagine going to a halloween party instead.
Imagine posting a picture of you at the party on facebook.
Imagine your boss also being on facebook.
you can imagine the result here.

Was the Matrix wrong?

2007-11-09T21:35:00.000+01:00

Troed made an interesting comment yesterday: statistically there is a high probability that we are all avatars. Welcome to our self-chosen Matrix... Read all about the debate on the simulation argument website

The site is a debate about the possibility that we may be living in a simulation. A brief introduction is in order. The paper on the site argues that at least one of the following propositions is true:

i. It is possible that a civilization could create a computer simulation which contains individuals with artificial intelligence.

ii. Such a civilization would likely run many – say billions – of these simulations (just for fun; for research, etc.)

iii. A simulated individual inside the simulation wouldn’t know that it’s inside a simulation – it’s just going about its daily business in what it considers the “real world”.

Then the ultimate question is – if one accepts that points 1-2-3 are at least possible, which of the following is more likely?

a. We are the one civilization out there in the universe that will eventually develop the ability to run AI simulations? Or,

b. We are one of the billions of simulations that has run? (Remember point iii.)

While you're at it, take some time to read the simulated reality wiki.

I did get a funny feeling when reading Troeds post on the Matrix ... I don't think I would want to spend my life in a pod, no matter how good the reality. I think I'd end up taking the red pill. But then again ... how would I know? (Remember point iii.)

WiFi Positioning systems

2007-11-08T13:21:00.000+01:00

Today I came across Skyhook's Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS). It' s a "location platform" that uses the native 802.11 radio in your PC (or even your smartphone) to deliver accurate positioning.

After installing the Loki plugin from the loki.com site (actually a product of Skyhook Wireless), my laptop is now able to find its position thanks to a triangulation using WiFi access points around me (provided that the region has been mapped by Skyhook), and I can use it for driving directions or finding businesses in my surroundings. No hardware needed, just a plugin for the browser. And ... it works indoors and outdoors, handy when you're sitting in an office or a hotel room and trying to find your way around.

Skyhook calls it a "metro-area positioning system" that leverages Wi-Fi instead of satellites or cell towers to deliver precise location data supporting the growing market for location-based services.

Word of the day: Fat Finger

2007-10-23T21:55:00.001+02:00

I came across it during a presentation of one of the portfolio companies at Check Point: a Fat Finger. No, it's not an extremely thick finger (although it could be, technically). A fat finger is:

1. A specific kind of typo where one stroke presses two keys instead of the intended one.

excample,
the z was pressed along with the c

2. verb, the act of performing a typo. Often used when referring to password typos. See Fat Finger Disease

"I thought the server was down, but I just fat fingered my password."
"You didn't get my email? I must have fat fingered the address."

thanks to the Urban Dictionary.

Time for a bore-out?

2007-09-27T21:49:00.000+02:00

Irritable when returning home from work? Drained of emotion? Well, then you could be suffering from ... bore-out. In this article two researchers describe the phenomenon and how people end up there.

Oh, and the manager is usally to blame. It goes something like this: boss refuses to delegate work, underlings end up with more mind-numbing tasks, stop asking forresponsability after a while, start to just let the good times roll, and do low-intensity tasks while surfing the internet or doing other fun stuff with their new free time at the office. Eventually though, self-esteem goes dow, the boss ends up with a burn-out and some of his underlings end up with a bore-out. No happy end here.

Be sure to ask yourself the 10 questions at the bottom of the article to determine if you suffer from a bore-out. And if you do, it seems you have only 2 options: come clean with the boss or get the hell out of there.

There's another article here, also at the Times that continues on the same topic. Statisitics suggest that 15 percent are under-challenged, do extremely little and suffer from bore-out. No problem, that means there are still 85 percent top performers there. Well... not really. According to Gallup, "three in five of us are “not engaged” – dutifully turning up to our place of work but lacking any energy or enthusiasm."

Found in The Times.

Jules Winfield

2007-09-22T22:46:00.000+02:00

Guess what character from the Tarantino Universe I am...

You scored as Jules Winfield, Wow, you are the ultimate cinematic badass. You are Jules Winfield from the masterpiece that is, Pulp Fiction. You are a Bible-quoting badass. You get philosophical even when you're about to blow someone away. You talk a lot. You are intense, and get angry easily. You are coolest guy there ever was.

Take the quiz here.

Found through Claudia

En route over greenland

2007-09-17T22:34:00.001+02:00

View of Greenland from the plane. I'm missing a few icebergs...

Infomania and ADT

2007-09-09T23:02:00.000+02:00

Intel recently published "Infomania", a paper on e-mail overload, over at firstmonday . Although the topic has been reviewed on the internet numerous times, this paper talks about some real life experiences from within Intel.

For example, did you know that a typical Intel knowledge worker receives 50–100 work–related e–mail messages each day. Not much you say? True, but then take into account that these mails often continue to accumulate, adding to the workload: messages need to be read and disposed of, i.e. even more uninvited work generated by those messages, reducing time that people can devote to their primary work.

More numbers: "on average, knowledge workers can expect three minutes of uninterrupted work on any task before being interrupted. Sources of interruption include e–mail, instant messages, phone calls, text messages, co–workers, and other distractions. The majority of these distractions are attended to immediately." Immediately! It is estimated that this fragmentation of the workload adds up to a cumulative time loss that can run as high as 25% of your work day. As a result "The combination of these phenomena has led to a state where employees are so stressed and overwhelmed that their ability to function is seriously impaired, and their quality of life and job satisfaction plummet." Sounds familiar to anyone?

"While e–mail is a legitimate – and vital – part of today’s workplace, much of it simply isn’t. Intel employees spend an average of some three hours per day processing e–mail. About 30 percent of messages (one million per day) are unnecessary. The unnecessary fraction consumes about 20 minutes every day. That’s fully paid time not devoted to useful work, spent creating, forwarding, opening, reading, and processing messages whose real value is less than the time consumed."

Problem impact areas are:

Direct loss of productive time
Reduced mental capacity
Disappearance of quality "thinking time"
Breakdown of organisational processes (going from plan-drive to interrup-driven)
Reduced quality of life

My favourite quote in the article: "Today, the only time we can think is when the flight attendant orders us to close our notebooks prior to landing."

P.S. The ADT in the title stands for "Attention Deficit Trait", a term coined by professor Edward Hallowell, who asserts that the cognitive impact of Infomania causes people to work well below their full potential.

Found through ClearContext, who in turn found it at the IT@Intel blog ... or how the world turns.

I will never trust a horoscope again

2007-08-27T23:47:00.000+02:00

Not that I did before, but after seeing this movie everyone should think twice. It's one of a series by Derren Brown about how people get tricked. The techniques used in the move are called cold reading and the Forer effect.

Found through Flabber.

Halo 3 Science of Play

2007-08-24T19:03:00.000+02:00

For all those (other) Halo fans out there, here is an insight on how Bungie Studios is working on the testing of Halo 3. Well worth a read.

We have come a long way. I wonder if they ever did game testing like this on PacMan?

Source: Wired

The Encyclopedia of Business Cliches

2007-08-24T17:17:00.000+02:00

I'm going for a win-win situation here. Oh, how I always marvel at our business clichés.

The 12 kinds of ads

2007-08-23T23:45:00.000+02:00

Apparently, there are (only?) 12 kinds of ads in the world.

That is, according to Donald Gunn, once a creative director for the advertising agency Leo Burnett.

An excerpt from the article in Slate:

"Though his position implied expertise, Gunn felt he was often just throwing darts—relying on inspiration and luck (instead of proven formulas) to make great ads. So, he decided to inject some analytical rigor into the process: He took a yearlong sabbatical, studied the best TV ads he could find, and looked for elemental patterns.

After much research, Gunn determined that nearly all good ads fall into one of 12 categories—or "master formats," in his words. At last year's Clio Awards, I saw Gunn give a lecture about these formats (using ads mostly from the '70s and '80s as examples), and I was fascinated by his theory. I soon found myself categorizing every ad I saw on TV. It was a revelation: The curtain had been pulled back on all those sly sales tactics at the heart of persuasive advertising."

Rent a Tank

2007-08-23T23:14:00.000+02:00

If you ever get really bored, you can always go and rent a tank.

Have a look on YouTube to see what you'll get for your money. I can think of some other creative uses!

Polar Rose versus IDPS (IDentity Protection System)

2007-08-23T23:06:00.000+02:00

Everybody puts their pictures online. Picasa, flickr, you just name them. But what if your friend puts a picture with YOU on it online? Cue the IDPS (IDentity Protection System), a sticker you wear that "tells" a camera taking a snapshot of you to blur out your face.
(Found at the YaHoo Design week.)

If it works, this may be a good thing, because at the other side of the spectrum, there is Polar Rose, a browser plugin that lets you discover who is in any public photo. They're in beta right now, but just imagine someone having a picture of you, and then using Polar Rose to find pictures of you all over the internet (even the ones you don't know of, and/or don't want others to know about).

New Krav Maga Instructors for Belgium

2007-08-14T11:36:00.000+02:00

The proud, the few, the sweaty. After 20 days of intensive training, a new batch of Krav Maga instructors got their instructors diploma from Gabi Noah.

Find out where to train in Belgium on the local IKMF site.

Brighten your day

2007-08-01T21:48:00.000+02:00

Over at Zen Habits is a post of 75 things that brighten your day.

Some of my favourites:
1. Listening to good music in the car.
2. Taking a long, relaxing shower.
3. A good novel.
3. Walking on the beach.
4. Being lazy on a Sunday.
5. Getting a massage.
6. Taking a hot bath.
7. The feeling after a good workout.
8. A clean desk (not gonna happen).
9. A fresh snow (I want to go ski now!).
10. watching the ocean.

Thanks for pointing it out, Bnox. And what are YOUR top simple pleasures?

What is on the bookshelf today

2007-07-23T21:25:00.000+02:00

Thanks to iBert, I came across Shelfari, a virtual bookshelf where you can share with the world what you're reading, and at the same time see who else is reading the same books and what they think of it.

Here's my bookshelf.

BiB (i.e. Back in Business)

2007-07-23T21:10:00.000+02:00

OK, so I neglected the blog a little bit... OK, so I neglected the blog a whole lot lately, committing virtual suicide on the blogosphere.

but now I'm back, with a new job and all. I'm now part of the new and exciting world of venture capital in my new role of marketing and events manager for Intel Capital in EMEA. That's the venture capital department of Intel in you're really in the dark on this.

Live from Jameson distillery

2007-05-22T21:37:00.001+02:00

Live from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station

2007-05-11T04:01:00.001+02:00

A shot of the helicopter outside of the hangar. The attendees of the ICAP CEO Summit got a nice surprise with the visit to the Miramar base (for you movie buffs, this is the one where the movie Top Gun was shot).

WikiYou WikiMe

2007-05-10T19:25:00.000+02:00

"a collaborative biography of every person on earth."

WikiYou .. coming soon?

Time to meet ... Ram Shriram

2007-05-10T19:12:00.000+02:00

I'm at the Intel Capital CEO summit this week. One of the interesting speakers there is Ram Shriram from Sherpalo. He is a founding board member of Google, for one, and made some interesting remarks while on stage.

Rather than type them all out here, just follow this link to Olaf de Senerpont Domis' article. He is covering the conference on his blog, The Deal.

Mashable: Web Startups and the Lying Liars that Lie About Them

2007-04-21T23:48:00.000+02:00

This one is so funny, and oh so true. Just had to post this list of Web Startups and the Lying Liars that Lie About Them from Mashable.

10 semi-truths Mashable uses "for the sake of brevity, hyperbole or just plain laziness".

1. “It’s the X of Y!!” Wherein X represents a hot service with $25 million in VC, and Y represents something that has no fathomable relation to X. Example: Cheese is the YouTube of foodstuffs.

2. “it’s entering a crowded market” Truth: this is the 21st frigging social bookmarking site I’ve reviewed this week.

3. “it’s lightweight version of X” Truth: site has less features than your browser’s About:Blank page.

4. This one may “gain traction” - A Mashable stalwart. Truth: I have no clue whether this startup will take off, but if it happens, I called it!

5. “it’s very alpha”. Truth: site is less reliable than MySpace, a fact that should defy the laws of physics.

6. “it needs more work”. Truth: if there was a state before alpha, pre-alpha, and super pre-alpha, this site would be it.

7. “it has failed to gain traction” - Truth: pwned.

8. “a social network with XX million users” Where XX is a totally fictional number the founders made up, and we took it as fact.

9. It’s The XYZ Killer!! - Wherein XYZ represents an amazingly popular one-of-a-kind service and the thing doing the killing launched today on a server in the 13 year old founder’s bedroom.

10. “?” Ah, the question mark, the ultimate lie! Printing an unsubstantiated rumor from a stranger named Dave is bad journalism. You might be wrong. But put a question mark after it, and you called it either way! Suggestions: Digg Acquired by Donald Trump?, Metacafe Worth $1 Trillion?, Queen of England Reads Mashable Daily?

Don't believe the hype

2007-04-06T16:46:00.000+02:00

ComputerWorld's list of the 21 Biggest Technology Flops where they "fondly recall 21 overpromoted products and technologies that utterly failed to live up to their hype".

This one ties in perfectly to my previous post. Let it be a warning…

Second Life

2007-04-06T09:51:00.000+02:00

Yes … Second Life … The NextBigThing. Everyone's been writing about it frantically. Except for me. Because I'm not a believer. I have seen hypes come and go, I have seen companies rise to fame and disappear into oblivion. And I am not convinced by SL. Sure, it has the majority of they hype now, but there are others out there, working diligently to take its place, biding their time.

People tend to forget that online communities have been around in one form or another over the years. BBS, IRC chat, ASL pages, online communities ... SL is just another 3D virtual world that builds on the desire of humans to form communities and interact with one another. And there are others out there. Some have even been along longer, like ActiveWorlds. Look also at There, whose engine is being used by MTV to create their own virtual world. Even the owners of gaming consoles will now get their own virtual world, with Sony's Home coming to the PlayStation.

As for me, I simply don't go into SL because I can't even get all the things done in my First Life, including the online part of it like IM, games, keeping up with all the mails, RSS feeds, blogging and more. No reason for me to spend even more time in my Second Life. Personally, if I had some time I'd play World Of Warcraft because I'm more into adventures than just building myself another "second" life.

For those interested in more, have a read at Björn Joos' vision here (sorry, it's in Dutch only).

And if you do want to hang out in virtual worlds, take your pick from the list on Virtual World Review.

All this made me think of The Matrix again, the biggest virtual world of them all… a red pill, anyone?

2007-03-20T09:26:00.000+01:00

Two interesting articles in the Smart Business Strategies (SBS) this month.

One about getting Belgium to the 10% online ad spend level by 2010. The IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) in Belgium has recently launched a campaign to get the online ad spend up to 10% by 2010. Good job from Alain Heureux, but ... only 10?

Another article a bit further on talks about the declining impact of commercials, namely TV-commercials. SBS quotes research from the UK that more and more consumers try to avoid commercials, namely television commercials. Other research indicates that 65% of americans males use their digital tv recoders specifically to zap through ads.

Isn't it time someone woke up and smelled the coffee?

The average lifecyle of a CMO

2007-03-20T09:10:00.000+01:00

23.2 months. That's how long a CMO (Chief Marketing officer) tends to survive in a company. That is less than 2 years... doesn't seem long at all does it? More on that here.

If you're a CMO, you might want to go read BtoB's take on how to survive: Be indispensable. Increase financial focus. Be willing to experiment.

Off to the mountains

2007-02-18T22:50:00.000+01:00

Snapshot from our ski trip in Val Thorens.

Live from 3GSM

2007-02-15T13:23:00.000+01:00

Worker bees in the backroom.

Benelux Event Awards: and the winner is

2007-02-04T11:55:00.000+01:00

The Benelux Event Awards (BEA) are given to the best campaigns by a jury of event marketing professionals. I was lucky enough to sit in that jury, where we judged over 30 cases to end up with the below list. We looked for events that had that something extra, that went beyond merely executing a customer briefing. It was good to see to see there were so many agencies participating, and to see the level of creativity in them.

An overview of the nominees and winners who got their prizes at the BEA event in the Zaventem SkyHall:

Field Marketing
Nominee - New World with Fruitella
BEA Award - Promo Sapiens with Dodge

Incentives
BEA Award - Guava with Centea

Product Launches
Nominee - Minotaur with Peugeot
BEA Award - Quest with Niko

Press Events
BEA Award - B-art with SN Brussels Airlines

Customer Events
Nominee - XSaga with Robeco
Nominee - Guava with Nokia
BEA Award - Minotaur with Schneider

Personnel events
Nominee - Event Masters with Fortis
BEA Award - Event Masters with GB

Commercial events
Nominee - Bananas with Gouden Gids

Cultural and public events
Nominee - Navajo with Masterfoods
BEA Award - UC Belgium with JAGA (Burning Man)

Price of the Jury
Eventives with Mastercard

Price for Event with the highest ROI
Guava with Opel

Don't watch this trailer

2007-01-28T13:09:00.000+01:00

OK, do go and watch it then right here and click on the video.

Great idea to incorporate a trailer in a "blog".

Found through Brandactivation.

Try and avoid this in 2007

2007-01-28T12:01:00.001+01:00

The 101 dumbest moments in business, here on the Business 2.0 site. And for the marking folks, the dumbest marketing ideas from 2006 are right here (you'll need to click through all 28 of them).

The full list can be found here.

Is traditional advertising losing its grip?

2007-01-28T11:31:00.000+01:00

Is traditional advertising losing its grip? This article on MarketingProfs Daily Fix triggered the question again...

I have long ago become immune to most forms of advertising (I think ... let's not start about the subliminal influence). I don't recall the last time I clicked on a web banner. The only ads I look at in magazines are the ones with gorgeous women on them (hey, give me a break, I'm a guy) but I wouldn't know what they're selling. My guess is either Dove or some perfume. And don't even get me started on the ads on TV or the ones in the movie theatre I need to sit through before being able to view the movie I paid for.

But the question is: what does it get advertisers in return? Does P&G actually sell more detergent because of them? And if so, how do they calculate the impact of their ads? I'm curious, and sceptical about traditional advertising. How do you measure it reliably? How do you measure its influence?

Benelux Event Awards

2007-01-21T18:03:00.000+01:00

I spent the past two days in the presence of a number of other event managers judging the cases for the BEA (Benelux Event Awards). It's aways amazing to see what agencies can do if they and their customer get into the right level of creativity, be it with big or small budgets.

If you want to know who won which award, join us for the Awards Ceremony on February 1 in the Zaventem Sky Hall.

iPhone Trademark marketing

2007-01-13T13:16:00.000+01:00

Is the iPhone apple's or Cisco's? Well, Cisco has the trademark (and a product), but Apple used it anyway to launch their last device, the iPhone. So Cisco sued for patent infringement.

Through Scobleizer I found out about the Cisco blog on the whole trademark issue from THEIR point of view, which is an interesting read. They claim they were in talks and Apple announced the product without closure on the matter. And then there's this quote:

"If the tables were turned, do you think Apple would allow someone to blatantly infringe on their rights? How would Apple react if someone launched a product called iPod but claimed it was ok to use the name because it used a different video format? Would that be ok? We know the answer - Apple is a very aggressive enforcer of their trademark rights. And that needs to be a two-way street."

They do have a point there. Sure, companies need to be protective of their names and products, but it is sad to see all the trademark wars being fought.

Well, at least it generates Buzz for both companies. And a bonus for Cisco, I now actually know Cisco has an iPhone product and what it does: a Linksys handset for use with Skype and other services.

Fun from the Dilbert Blog

2007-01-07T20:49:00.000+01:00

Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) is on a good rant these days. Here's some excerpts from this latest blogs:

Concept Car

It's called a "concept car" because that sounds better than "something we pulled out of our ass and hope to someday shove up yours."

Vegetarian Says, "Bring it on!"

So we're designed as hunters. Unfortunately, we are very, very slow hunters.
Have you tried to outrun an animal lately? Those fuckers are fast. And I'm not talking about cheetahs and rabbits. I couldn't catch a motivated woodchuck. I suppose I could catch a panda. But I'd have to run to China to do it. And I could probably catch a turtle, although it wouldn't help much unless I brought my turtle opener.

Inappropriate Humor

Some of my favorite jokes involve people who got killed a long time ago:
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
"Easter is the day we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead, seeing his shadow and forecasting six more weeks of winter."
The "killing" part of those jokes doesn't seem so bad now because a lot of time has gone by. I'll still burn in Hell for comparing Jesus to a groundhog, but that's an entirely different issue.

Google

2007-01-07T15:00:00.000+01:00

Great stories on 365 Tomorrow. Take The 9 billion names of God for one.

"Here's the thing. Google has memorized who you are. It's memorized all of us, through those little forgotten bits that we leave behind like breadcrumbs. And what's more important, it's memorized it's own idea of you. Google is omniscient. It's omniscient and omnipotent. When it cached its cache for the first time, back in 1994, that's when Google realized what it was."
Gradually, it dawned on me what the man was getting at. "You think it's sentient."

"I know it's sentient."

"How?"

He smiled, but it seemed kind of empty. "Me and Google go way back. But what I'm saying is," he continued, "It knows us. All of us. It is us."

Link via BNOX

Microsoft and the blogging community -- another perspective

2007-01-07T13:12:00.000+01:00

Yes, it's been beaten to death all over the blogosphere, the story about Microsoft sending free Ferrari laptops with Vista to selected bloggers. Well, actually it was their PR company, Edelman. And I guess Acer was also involved (I don't think Microsoft had to pay for those notebooks either).

So I'm not going to beat it even more, just point you to this article on the Inquirer from Charlie Demerjian. I like how he puts it all back into perspective. Yes, they've done something stupid (send expensive hardware to bloggers who are not accustomed to getting packages like this at their door on a regular basis), but no, it's not a dirty trick this time. Review machines are sent out all the time to publications and no one ever complained about that.

The solution to Blogosphere disasters: hire Clo.

PS: The list of items The Inquirer is declaring here is pretty funny. :-)

Can we really change

2007-01-07T12:51:00.000+01:00

Back in 2005, Alan Deutschman wrote the article "Change or Die" for FastCompany. He recently completed a book based on the ideas from that article. The book is called "Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life".

I haven't read the book yet, but from his latest blog entry, it looks like an interesting one to read. Time and time I have seen that we are creatures of habit. Despite all the books on change management and the "change is good slogans", nothing much ever changes. Research from the book supports this: even though we all have the ability to change our behavior, we rarely ever do. Apparently the odds are even 9 to 1 that even if you really need to change, you won't. Not good prospects for those businesses that are in trouble. And for those who still remember their new year's resolutions: congratulations, because six weeks into the new year, 80 percent of people typically have already broken their New Years resolutions or can't even remember them anymore.

The good news is that it is possible to change. Well, according to the book it is. There are 3 critical keys - relate, repeat, and reframe - that can help you make (positive) changes:

Relate -- form a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope;
Repeat -- the new relationship helps you learn, practice, and master the new habits and skills that you'll need;
Reframe --the new relationship helps you learn new ways of thinking about your situation and your life

For more on that, read the updated article here or go out and buy the book.

Uh oh ...

2006-12-30T14:45:00.000+01:00

I guess this'll show me for completing some online tests...

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.
More to be found here.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

100 years of movie quotes

2006-12-27T17:55:00.000+01:00

Yes, I like quotes. they can be inspirational, motivating or just damn right funny!

So I need to share this list with you: the 100 best movie quotes of 100 years of moviemaking. I'm sure you can come with some more!

Build yourself a better body

2006-12-27T17:29:00.000+01:00

For the healthcare marketeers: straight from Wired Magazine, tips on how to improve your body.

Multi-Mindfulness?

2006-12-27T16:36:00.000+01:00

A while ago I posted an article on the misconception of multitasking. In it were a number of links to articles claiming that multitasking in humans wasn't all that wonderful. I tend to think they are right. They spoke of "being more in the moment", "tuning in", "thoughtfulness".... basically it all came down to mindfulness.

I put the question there to "take some time out. Think. Focus. Tune in. Be in the moment." Of course, I failed to do it myself. It's not easy, and your own brain hijacks you most of the time, jumping left and right. Conversations on the phone while typing? No problem! Unitl you miss half of the conversation and shoot off an email you can't understand yourself anymore.

Thankfully, I keep running into articles reminding me to focus, like this one at Creating Passionate Users.

Mashable's Social Networking Awards

2006-12-22T16:14:00.000+01:00

Mashable, a Web 2.0 blog focused on social networks is now accepting votes for their '06 Social Networking Awards. Have a look, and do like me to push the "Belgian" entry , vote for FaceBox. :-) Just leave a comment on this blog entry saying vote = Faxebox (or whoever you like more)... That's all.

And while you're at it, let me know here what social networks you hang out on. There seem to be so many nowadays, I'm loosing track of the ones that are really big and popular with people.

The name is Brand ... James Brand

2006-12-17T15:14:00.000+01:00

Of course, you know who I'm really talking about. Bond, James Bond. With the latest Bond movie, Casino Royale, hitting the theatres this quarter, Fast Company writes about how companies try to align with the "Bond Brand", hoping the attributes of Bond shine on their products. They sum it up nicely with "Men want to be Bond and Bond is the man women dream of being in love with." Gimme that Aston Martin, baby!

Sadly, I had a less satisfying experience with one of the companies trying to cash in on the Bond myth. As I was at the time in the process of buying a shiny new K800i, I noticed that SonyEricsson - as a sponsor of the latest Bond movie, Casino Royale - was coming out with a special silver limited edition version of the phone. Of course, that was what I wanted. The special version was going to be available for a limited time only, Q4 2006 to be specific. Ideal timing, but as you can guess by now, I had to buy a standard black K800i because I could not find the silver edition anywhere in Belgium.

I asked in about 5 stores and checked a host of internet sites. No one at the stores even KNEW about the existence of the phones. "Off to the source", one would thinks, so I contacted SE's online support asking where I could get these phones in Belgium. The answer: "we do not have any information about availability or prices, and we have no access to the data of dealers or distributors. Please check our website of ask in the stores" .. After which they gave me a link to their dealer locator. The one I had already contacted before I mailed them and who knew nothing about the phone. So, SonyEricsson in Belgium tells me they have no idea what their phones will cost or even if they're available in the country. Why even bother to have an office, guys?

A missed opportunity for SonyEricsson. It's not enough to create marketing hype, you need to follow through in all areas to make sure your products actually get to the customers.

PS if anyone from SE would happen to read this, it's case 70596715, and I never did get a satisfactory reply.

Great viral marketing from ... Durex

2006-12-12T17:08:00.000+01:00

OK, it's adult marketing, and I doubt anyone will really go and do this (be sure to tell me if you do!), but this is a great way by Durex to promote their stuff: Durex Dickerations. It's funny, memorable, and I wonder why on one else had ever thought of doing this. And it's just in time for Christmas too!

Working days: it's the result that matters. Isn't it?

2006-12-11T23:55:00.000+01:00

I remember the start of the work wherever you want movement. Telecommunting, flexible hours, hotspots all over the place, the end of traffic jams... We're not there yet. The majority of people still get up in the morning, stand in the traffic jams, and clock in at least 8 hours at their desks. So what happened? I've got my laptop, my mobile phone, and that's all I need to keep me going. Ok, throw in an always on broadband internet pipe and I'm really happy... even more now after we switched to iPass global roaming. This works great when travelling, you get to work from wherever you get the chance. But when in the country, I still do my desk duty.

Why is that? Company policy? Peer pressure about being seen in the office? Fear that people will slack off and work less instead of the same or more? In comes the example of Best Buy, who are changing to ROWE, which stands for Results-Only Work Environment where it counts more what you do instead of when you do it. Read more on it in this Business Week article.

Mental Fitness

2006-12-10T17:39:00.000+01:00

In my continuous search on the internet for interesting marketing and development articles, I came across the 'Ten part mental fitness program".

No really new things there, but a good reminder to keep your eyes on the future, developing a multi-year vision (ok, who has really done that already?), and most of all, to do it now, and continue doing it daily, even if it's only small things. A good read when you make your new-year resolutions... again.

Ponderings in a corner of the universe

2006-10-28T22:35:00.000+02:00

Ponderings in a corner of the universe is Matt's blog on everything that passes his mind. His latest posts have been a bit focused on his wedding, but there's some good marketing stuff there too. :-)

Walking the Talk.

2006-10-28T22:15:00.000+02:00

Fast Company has a short & sweet story on their blog of Leading Ideas: Don't Let Talk Parade as Action.

Doesn't it sound familiar, having read all those management books, talking about them, using the buzzwords for a while, and then having trouble actually putting them into practice, and running on to the next big idea?

Click on to the article for some tips on what to do about that!

What is the meaning of life?

2006-10-28T15:56:00.000+02:00

A question a lot of us ask ourselves at various stages in life.

Luckily, all the answers can be found here, on Wikipedia. Just take you pick. :-)
Or maybe the answer is as simple as "42".

Advertising overkill

2006-10-28T13:38:00.000+02:00

I guess this may be normal in Japan. PingMag talks about 10 tips for advertising in the Tokyo Subway, including MetroVista. I have to go there once to experience THAT!

The Power of Visualization

2006-10-27T18:11:00.000+02:00

In an earlier post, I talked abouth the power of context. Over at Presentation Zen, there's a great article about the power of visualization. Something to keep in mind next time you create a powerpoint slide full of text.

Swoosh! Who do you turn to when times get tough?

2006-10-07T22:14:00.000+02:00

I have just finished reading "Swoosh. The unauthorizes story of Nike and the men who played there". Even though it was a business book, it read like a novel, telling the story of Phil Knight and the men who worked with him to make Nike a billion dollar company.

What struck me most was that when you got closer to the end of the book, you could see how the company was transformed from a dynamic, creative (almost anarchistic) company into a corporate behemoth. I want to share the ending with you:

"The new leaders of Nike are not entrepreneurs like their predecessors. They are managers, very good managers - much better managers than their predecessors. The pain-in-the ass individualism that made Nike different is gone, but so is the spirit that made employees care. There are experts who would say that such a transition was inevitable, that every large company goes through a transition from entrepreneurs to managerq. But if times ever got tough again, which would you turn to? And, perhaps, just as important, who would you rather go to a ball game with?"

"Just do it?"

UPDATE: You might also want to read this and this article from Harvard Business School, which deal with when it is time for a company's founder to "move on" and hand over the reins to a new CEO.

Experiential marketing -- It's growing

2006-09-20T22:20:00.000+02:00

An international survey predicts that experiential marketing is "set to become major growth area in next five years" as senior marketers shift an increasing proportion of their marketing budgets towards it. From the survey, it becomes clear that marketing budget holders believe that experiential marketing offers considerable advantages over other marketing tools, especially in building brand loyalty and encouraging word of mouth recommendation amongst consumers.

Other interesting results from the survey:

Nearly all of the respondents view experiential marketing as an effective part of their marketing mix.
There is a general feeling amongst marketers that experiential marketing provides better ROI than other marketing activities used
Over three quarters of the respondents would welcome more effective measurement tools.

But we still have a long way to go. According to the survey, a lack of training or suitable measurement tools is holding the discipline back causing it to be seen more as a tactical tool rather than a strategic activity.

OK, the survey was commissioned by the MICE group, who may be a bit biased (after all, their name literally stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhbitions), but the report was created by an external agency, surveying brand marketers from a broad cross-section of industries and based in the UK, Germany, France and the US -- so the results should be quite trustworthy.

You can find the report here: www.experientialmarketing.org

MTGoogle or GoogleTV?

2006-08-07T20:03:00.000+02:00

MTV and Google have surely seen the success of YouTube, and how more and more artists are using that as a platform to get "online airplay".

Google will start showing content from MTV on its websites, complemented with video-ads of course (hey, money's got to be made somewhere). You'll also be able to download some MTV programs for a small fee.

The full press release can be found here (warning: lots of exciting blah blah to be found there).

Blink!

2006-08-07T19:06:00.000+02:00

FastCompany article about Malcolm Gladwell, the author of "The tipping point" and "Blink".

The part of "momentary autism" is worth a read. How often do most of us not make decisions in the blink of an eye, based on all of our prejudices? Sometimes right ones, sometimes totally wrong ones ...

Noteworthy quote: "only by accepting the risk of failure will you ever hit a home run".

Viral marketing: the Lenovo Tapes

2006-08-06T23:28:00.000+02:00

Who hasn't seen these?

Cool McDonalds Store Idea: Grab and Go Zone

2006-08-05T22:04:00.000+02:00

I came across the concept of the McDonalds "grab and go" Zone on Marketing Online. For all its simplicity and the fact that it must exist somewhere already, this is an ideal way for McD to cater towards singles.

Business Week had the whole story here. It is their first major make-over in about 30 years, but integrating the grab&go zone is what really made me think they did their homework on this one. It will feature tall counters with barstools for customers who eat alone, and it comes complete with plasma TVs to entertain them with news and weather reports.

More Lazer Testing

2006-08-05T22:03:00.000+02:00

I have been using the Lazer Granville the last weeks when driving the motorcycle, and still very happy with it. No discomfort from wearing it, not even with sunglasses. I'm just a bit scared that I'll rip off the plastic part on the top cooling fin when closing it.

On other helmets, there's extra cooling openings on the front. I miss them a bit sometimes, but to be honest, when driving a slow speeds, just flipping open the helmet is so refreshing I don't really miss extra cooling in the helmet.

Inevitable, I did get stuck in the rain with it once: no leaks, everything still visible and no fogging up. Peripheral vision is great, I can see lots of stuff out of the corner of my eyes. Now if only it would rain less over here.

The power of context.

2006-07-30T13:56:00.000+02:00

Design Observer had an article a little while ago about the power of context. One example given was about the use of bland typeface. Customers thought of it as 'too bland for our new logo', until they were told that this is actually the typeface used for Chanel … quite a powerful brand. Placed in the right context, the bland typeface suddenly made sense. Another example is that little design that looked like a checkmark, and which nearly didn't make it in the end. Luckily for the company, the founder of the company had the luck to admit, “I don’t love it. But I think it’ll grow on me." I think you know the company by it's logo:

No one really got it in the beginning … and it took years to build it. The official story can be found here.

Something to think about next time you want to create a new slogan or brand.

Update: great article on design and the World cup here at Presentation Zen.

Does money make your marketing less creative?

2006-07-30T13:50:00.000+02:00

Seth Godin blogged about marketeers and Money. his First and Second Rule struck a chord with me:

First rule: great product development and marketing almost always comes from organizations that don't have enough money. Having less money keeps you from trying to buy your way out of trouble.
Second rule: learning to live with less money means you will develop skills and resources instead of buying them. And it means that when you have less money (again), you'll be prepared.

This may be true as most big brand with big budgets spend a lot on (mostly offline) campaigns to splash their brand in people's faces. Not the most creative or effective way to spend your marketing dollars. And when the budgets go down, it's hard to all of a sudden step out of the spending model and get creative…

Testing the Lazer Granville

2006-07-17T14:20:00.000+02:00

I'm testing the Lazer Granville helmet on my Yamaha Fazer. Great helmet, so far. I have always been happy with the Shoei helmet I got, and never really ditched that one for the Lazer Revolution. The nice thing about the Revolution, and the main reason I use it when it's sunny, is the integrated sun-shield. Really good feature! The Granville doesn't have that, but it's lighter, and because it's a modular helmet with a flip-open mask, it's great for those wearing (sun)glasses.

Helmet courtesy of icemike.

Creativity in barcodes

2006-06-26T14:21:00.000+02:00

Or how to make creative use of even ... a barcode.

Are we too switched on?

2006-05-28T15:43:00.000+02:00

Tagging onto the previous post of making phones simpler again, here's an article from TheAge to make you think about the need to be connected all the time. You've doubtlessly all encountered it already, someone next to you talking away on their mobile about work, totally oblivious of the world around him/her. Or you yourself, taking that work call at home, or when you're on holiday. It seems we're never alone anymore, having our mobile phone or e-mail device always in reach.

So, are we getting more productive with this, or are we accelerating our own burnout by not having any real "downtime" anymore? There is a growing fear that in this "always connected" society, people will burn out even faster than before, being "on call" all the time, never relieved from the stress of work. It is a fact that our pace of work has increased: letters used to take days, but e-mail, sms, voicemail takes mere seconds, and people do expect replies faster and faster. According to some research quoted in the article, this isn't too good: it found that people can work at 100 per cent efficiency for 45 hours a week. The next 10 hours they worked, they fell to 50 per cent efficiency; and for any hours after that, 25 per cent efficiency…

The "good" news is that future generations may have it easier with this. Kids expect to be connected all the time, and they are using their mobile devices more and more.. It just may be the way of the future.

What do you do with your cell phone?

2006-05-28T14:58:00.000+02:00

Wired has an article out on how some people trade in their Swiss-army knife type smartphones for just the basic models, because all they really want to do is .. Phone with it.

Of course, carriers aren't too happy with that. They love for people to surf the web on their phone, download music and ringtones, take pictures and send the via MMS … all that infrastructure has to pay off you know. So they're now designing more user-friendly, easier to navigate phones. Remember the ipod, it's in the simplicity of the useage.

Read the full article here.

Multitasking ... the good, the bad, and the ugly.

2006-05-02T00:14:00.000+02:00

Ah, multitasking. It is rumoured that only women can do it, but men claim they can as well. I tend to think I can do it ... and I was proud of myself too. But then I came across more and more articles that questioned the value and the very notion of multitasking.

We're not computers, so conscious real multitasking doesn't make sense indeed (unconsciously, we can all multitask, otherwise it'd be difficult for us to think and breathe while walking for example). Conscious multitasking will always be very fast switching from one task to the other, so you may be able to write mails, chat online and hold a phone conversation all at the same time, but a good chance is that for most people, the phone conversation will be limited to "uhuh" when they're typing away on that mail... and that's not good.

Fastcompany recently featured an article, telling us to STOP multitasking. The author talked about the downside of multitasking he discovered, claiming that with all that multitasking, we loose "thoughtfulness", the ability to really focus on a single conversation, think about something deeply, rather than have the mind wandering off and thinking of the next thing to do. Workingsmarter takes a comparable angle in this article asking us to be more in the moment, because when you multitask too much, you loose the ability to be in the moment, to block out all the rest and concentrate on a single task or person. At Slackermanager they call it the art of tuning in.

So let's give it a try. Take some time out. Think. Focus. Tune in. Be in the moment. And let me know if it works.

If you're a follower of David Allen's Getting Things Done system, try adding that time to your weekly review ... or just take a walk.

Indoor Jetski World Championship

2006-04-23T19:14:00.000+02:00

Admit it, it does sound strange, doesn't it? Jetski, ok. World Championship, still ok. But racing indoors with jetskis? Is it time for a reality check?

Mr. IceMike from Lazer gave me the chance to go and watch the World Championship Indoor Jetski in belgium recently. I have to admit, it was a lot of fun to see those water monsters racing around in a huge pool (3 million liters of water), not to mention the spectacular stunts those guys were able to do on their machines. Check out the album on Flickr for my little report.

Oh, and in this picture here, he really IS upside-down.

Too many managementh theories?

2006-04-23T13:46:00.000+02:00

Are there too many managementh theories?

You would think so if you looked at this site.

ValuebasedManagement.net contains a list of all know (and likely some unknow) management theories conceived over the ages. Now you'll never be without an answer anymore in those strategic meetings. You'll find short descriptions from the Ansoff Product/Market grid to the "Two Factor Theory" from Herzberg. All you ever needed to know about management theories but were afraid to ask.

Increase your productivity, use multiple monitors.

2006-04-23T13:40:00.000+02:00

Can you increase your productivity by using multiple monitors? I'm pretty sure you can.

I've been using 2 monitors simultaneously for a while now: the one from the laptop and an external screen. Two screens allow you to easily compare documents, or look at an excel sheet while writing a powerpoint presentation, or easily copy/pasting between two documents. Or having your mail program and instant messenger open in one screen al all times if you're a communication addict like me.

So does this really increase productivity? According to Microsoft, it does: their research has shown that using 2 monitors can increase your productivity by 9 to 50 percent! Impressive, isn't it?

If you want to find out more about what Microsoft is doing in this area, check out their VIBE site (VIBE stands for Visualization and Interaction for Business and Entertainment) or read this article from the NY Times online.

So ... what does your workspace look like?

The very successful brand manager

2006-04-16T23:47:00.000+02:00

So you want to become a successful brand manager? Then the very successful brand manager website is something for you. It shows you how to tell your boss you now have his/her job. It shows you how sleeping with your employees will motivate then. It shows you the usefulness a of a golf cart intern … and for those who didn't get it yet: it's all sarcastic… well, I hope. Maybe the candidates for the Apprentice coul very well use it.
Be sure not to miss the brownnosing section!

The site was created by ad agency StrawberryFrog. But I'm still not sure why.

IM-Bots: where are they?

2006-04-16T16:51:00.000+02:00

Those of you who've spent some time on IRC chat networks probably remember the different kind of 'bots" there: programmes designed to provide some fun (triviabots, statbots) to outright flooding of the chatservers. And now chatbots are back, albeit in an evolved way. They have become smarter thanks to enhanced AI (Artifical Intelligence), they are ready for more serious applications, and they're targeting your instant messengers.

Some online helpdesks are starting to deploy services that allow you to interact in a more or less intelligent IM conversation with a robot that has access to the support database of that company. You can interact with them through websites as well as instant messaging (IM) services. IM users simply add the name of the IM bot to their buddy list the same way they add "real" people. The AI on thee bots is quite good, so the people talking to them almost feel like talking to real people (whereas what they're really doing is just sending queries to the underlying database).

These systems can also be used within companies as a way for employees to look up information without browsing countless intranet pages. They can even connect to online databases and pull information on movies, stocks, weather, news …. Just about anything you can store in a database. ActiveBuddy, for example, sells pre-built IM bots that can connect to corporate directories or human resources databases so that employees can get their information faster and without calling HR people (ok, you may find this a sad evolution, but that is a whole new topic about the loss of human interaction).

Try it out for yourself, and add the Encarta chatbot to your MSN: encarta@conversagent.com. While you're at it, give the SmarterChild a try too: smarterchild@hotmail.com (just be warned, the smarterchild one also has targeted advertising that it throws in as you talk to it) . Another one you can have an online chat with is Jabberwock.

Of course, there is also a link to marketing. AOL has used ActiveBuddy's IM technology in the past to promote the Lord of the Rings Trilogy for sweepstakes, with a contest where you can use AOL's IM to talk to the "RingMessenger" and then ask it (him?) questions about the locations of the "Rings of Power" you need to win the sweepstakes.

Two of the companies making these bots are Conversagent and Vayosphere, if you're inclined to have a go at it for your company or marketing campaigns.

Happy IM'ing!

Upgrade my living room

2006-04-07T22:07:00.000+02:00

People have been talking about the digital living room for years, but nothing much ever happened. I think the times may be changing. I've been surfing around, and seen this nice Sony system (which means I may have to come back on my self-imposed Sony-ban) as well other think anq quiet system from companies like Acer, Dell, Fujitsu. Doubtless more are to come. All part of the ViiV wave and the mediacenter push.

The more I look at my patched together living room entertainment system, the more I long for one of these all-in-one systems. There's a cable mess connecting the television to the video recorder, the X-Box, the DVD player, the amplifier, some cables dangling to plug in the MP3 player or notebook if needed, but no connection to the hard disk which holds all the pictures and music. Can't wait for the new systems to come out at a good price-point. Does anyone out there already own these? Are you happy?

Blog tip: Steve Pavlina

2006-03-30T23:22:00.000+02:00

I started reading Steve Pavlina's blog a while ago, as part of the GTD (Getting Things Done) blogs I'm following.

It's a blog worth reading, where the author talks about interesting topics on personal development. If you're into this, pay him a visit … now.

Dare to dream The Impossible Dream

2006-03-28T22:32:00.000+02:00

Late 2005, Honda launched "The Power of Dreams" (click on "watch he TV ad"), a 2 minute television commercial featuring an actor riding and driving on the music of "The impossible dream". The ad symbolises Honda's evolution, but at the same time creates an emotional link with the brand.

The soundtrack used in it is actually quite powerful, the theme song from "The Man of La Mancha" (yes, the play/movie about the life of the famous Don Quixote). Read them and judge for yourself if they inspire you or not:

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

The Power of Dreams. thepowerofdreams.com

... What is your dream? Are you fighting for it?

Get rich quick schemes: become an event planner?

2006-03-26T13:13:00.000+02:00

Remember those "get rich quick" schemes? Well, they also exist for marketing related jobs like event organisers. Check out this link: money-op.

"No previous experience required, all you need to be able to do is: write down a list of tasks, delegate them to others, read at a ninth grade (or better) level, get along with people" ... and you can do it all for $29.95. I really wonder how many people fall for this? I'm in the events business, so before you get any ideas ... it doesn't really work like that.