New website for Kainumai

For the past few months, my son and I have dedicated our efforts to crafting a new website for my burgeoning company.

Initially, we opted for WordPress hosted on Bluehost, but encountered dissatisfaction due to performance issues and security concerns. Consequently, we made the decision to transition to Wix, seeking a more streamlined and secure platform for our online presence.

It's now online: https://www.kainumai.com/

Enjoying the #tomorrowland live stream

No tickets this year so I listen to #oneworldreadio :

https://www.tomorrowland.com/home/radio

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from In JF's mind https://ift.tt/hYcq9ij
via IFTTT

IBM : 7 "Stop Talking, Start Doing" Commandments

IBM has launched a campaign called "Stop Talking, Start Doing" recently and I really like the little movies associated with it.

1. The first one is really great : EMERGENCY

I sometimes have the feeling I attend meetings like that...

IBM TV Commercial on Business Resilience (When it Rains)

2. The second one is about Social networking...

IBM TV Commercial on Collaboration/Social Networking (BFF)

3. The third one... is on FLEXIBILITY

IBM TV Commercial on Business Flexibilty (Quicksand)

4. The 4th one : GREEN...

IBM TV Commercials on Energy Efficiency/Green (Tree Huggers)

5. The 5th one: GLOBALIZATION...

IBM TV Commercial on globalization (Tour)

6. The 6th : GENERATING IDEAS

IBM: Ideating

7. The 7th : MANAGING INFORMATION

IBM TV Commercial on Information Explosion (FYI)


And there are some more on YouTube...

Note : if this page doesn't display well in your browser (I have problems with my IE7 on this page), go to the Youtube site here .Or use FireFox.
Note 2 : I found the problem : it was a flash plugin problem....

Business Architecture

Last week I had a course on Business Architecture and it was fascinating.

As IT Architect, it's quiet easy to jump from IT Architecture to Business Architecture. The Service Oriented Entreprise (SOE) concepts are very close to the SOA concepts, except that instead of organizing systems and functions, it's about organizing businesses (services, products, people, processes and technology). The methodology proposed by Niels Klinkenberg results in Business Architectures which look like those of IBM's Component Business Modeling (CBM).

During the course, I liked how the Growth Phases Model of Larry Greiner was used to explain that the agile business architectures of tomorrow are a network of highly entrepreneurial Business Units (called Domains) which are specialized, higly efficient (benchmarked), have to obey the corporate "Playing Rules" and have to add value to the company. This makes of Governance (Corporate, IT, HR, Financial...) a central success factor. How to govern a large company that needs to be agile ? To answer this question, you'd better first have a good idea of its Business Architecture...

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

When the wind blows in your direction

Yesterday I attended the Vlerick Winter Reunion and we had an excellent presentation by Bertrand Piccard. Bertrand Piccard is one of the two pilots of the first ever non-stop balloon flight around the world.

It's difficult to summarize all the concepts that were explained yesterday. Here are the topics I have written down. In fact I agree with most of the ideas of Bertrand Piccard and I believe I have already applied them more than once.

Don't fight against the winds, just choose the most favorable one
Bertrand Piccard explained that during this air balloon experience, he learned that trying to control everything (an air balloon, your life, your career...) does not automatically lead to success. You also need to stop and feel the possible winds, change your plans and follow the most favorable winds.

Pro-act
To be able to adapt to most favorable winds, there is a necessary mind shift which doesn't match our education. We have been trained to eliminate the unknown in order to come back in speed, control and power and work as a bulldozer to reach our goal. We have been trained to react and not to pro-act.

Communication
Decision taking when facing the unknown is a difficult task. If you take decisions alone, you face the risk of having too little objectivity. In the balloon decision taking was than the result of a discussion between the two pilots. The problem is that two people sharing ideas are not productive : or they have the same ideas and 1+1=1 or they disagree and 1+1=0. The trick is to avoid expressing ideas but rather sharing experiences. Those experiences being the necessary information for a common decision taking. It's a positive common bottom-up argumentation rather that a destructive top-down opposition of ideas.



In summary
"I wish I have the strength to change what I can change,

that I have the courage to accept what I can't change,

and that I have the wisdom to be able to make the difference between what I can change and what I can't change"


Also have a look at Bertrand Piccard's website here : http://www.bertrandpiccard.com/eng/index.php

2 New books

Last week, I received two books :

• Herman Van den Broeck - Le coaching, ça marque (Lannoo Campus)
• Ben Margolis - SOA for the Business Developer (MC Press)

Druivenveldrit - Cyclo-Cross in Overijse

Ce weekend se déroulait le cyclo-cross de Overijse. Vous pouvez lire mon mini photo-reportage.

What are your projects ?

Yesterday I heard someone on TV saying :

"A lot of problems in our society come from the absence of projects".

It's true. Nothing is more depressing than not having projects. When you don't have a perspective you don't think about your future, you only think about the past and how it was the good times. Instead, you should always look forward and catch the opportunities that the future brings. Working on projects allow you to have recognition from your peers and/or auto-satisfaction.

This statement nevertheless is maybe a bit too simple :

• What happens when you have tried many times to contribute to a project and you have failed multiple times ?
• Why should we always move forward ? Some people need to have projects, maybe other prefer not to have projects ? Where is the freedom ? (See the joke on the Harvard MBA)
  
• How can we find projects where everybody gets the "what's in it for me ?" question answered ? What if everybody wants to be the project manager ?
  

But in general, I agree with the statement. When I list my personal goals in life, I can identify the projects that I need to undertake to reach my goals. (By the way, my goals should be SMART, otherwise I'll never be happy).

So if the statement is true.: as human beings, we need projects.

The next questions are than:

• what are my personal projects which will make me happy ?
• what are my family projects ?
• what are my community/village/team/work projects
• what are my country's projects ?
• what the world's project ?

and for all those projects, why do we want to have those projects ? Are they for a good cause ? How do they interact with each other ?

It's up to us all to select the projects which add value, respect the people and the nature. Many projects don't help us and nevertheless we contribute to them... Let's try to step out of these.

JavaPolis 2007 - a good start

Yesterday I attended some sessions at Javapolis 2007.

The session Introduction to JRuby really gave me a good feeling.

Eventually an IT session - in addition to IBM's Proof Of Technology - where people are not afraid of showing the bits and bytes of IT. They are even proud of it.


For many years now, I have been told to "Talk Business", ROI, "Business Value", "Business Drivers", "talk the language of the business"... IT Bullshit level > 50%.

If the business wants to do IT without bits/bytes, I wish them good luck.

Yesterday I was very happy to see 400 people listening carefully to a Netbeans/Ruby/Rails demo! I was fascinating for me to see someone doing something real. THE REAL STUFF...

IT Bullshit level = 0%.

And once again I'll refer to this article : Why Decision Makers Need to Understand the Technology.

Yes, there is a T in IT ! Na !

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Yesterday I finished reading the last Harry Potter. This last book was really great ! It was really in line with the other books. It's a masterpiece !

New in my mind blog

A new blog to have more content on start.php...
Test with an image here ...


See you soon....