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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Europalia - Expositions


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.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Les différents sentiments : pourquoi ?

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 ?

Second Night of Pecha Kucha Brussels

Yesterday (Jan 20th 2008) we attended the second pecha kucha night organized in Brussels. As last time, it was great. When Mr Nandi announced the last presentation, I was thinking : Already ! Time is flying when you are having fun.

Some of the things I've written down:
  • Joannes Vandermeulen, archaeologist & user experience expert:
    • Story telling is important and specific to the human race because "Stories are alternative futures"
    • Within 10.000 years, we will "Travel less but wander more"
  • Jan van den Bergh, Boondoggle:
    • The basis of Brand management is to master your customer database
  • http://www.flyinggrasscarpet.org/
    • Those guys have ideas and they work to make them true
Some Links :

Photos du salon de l'auto

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


Friday, January 18, 2008

Test du lecteur e-paper Cybook Gen 3 de Booken

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."

Thursday, January 17, 2008

WikiPad : a great Notepad + Wiki tool !

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/

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Citation of the day

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. (Marcel Proust)

L'arme de communication d'aujourd'hui : le story telling

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:

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The web becomes my desktop

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.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Natalia Meets En Vogue Shaggy Sportpaleis Antwerpen

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.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The best negotiation ever

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.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

I just registered to the next Pecha Kucha Night

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/

Monday, January 7, 2008

Sunday, January 6, 2008

La politesse, ce nouveau luxe

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 ?

Friday, January 4, 2008

Unconference

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

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Happy New Year 2008

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 :