Brandstories, verhalen als marketingtool

Deze site gevonden op internet. Op deze site staan allerlei verhalen achter de merken (brands) die de verschillende bedrijven gebruiken als marketing instrument. In het kader van brandmanagement natuurlijk wel zo leuk!

http://www.gloed.nl

Hans

Centraal Achmea in (uit) de bocht

Deze connexion bus kwam ik in Utrecht op het station tegen. Ik kon het niet nalaten om deze met mijn Sony Ericsson W800 (2.0 megapixels) vast te leggen. Werkelijk een geniale reclame... ik vraag me af hoeveel mensen zich al rot geschrokken zijn toen ze deze bus voorbij zagen rijden.

Hans

Who's the guy with the lamp on his head?

You are surely a crazy crew!

And...you're probably wondering why Richard is wearing a lamp on his head!
More photos on my Flickr.

Really enjoyed seeing all of you again.

Etentje 04-10-2005 Utrecht groep

Etentje 04-10-2005 Utrecht groep
Originally uploaded by Richard Vielvoye.

Het was weer erg gezellig in Utrecht. Eva, mooie plek uitgezocht !!!!

Foto´s zijn beschikbaar, zie:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21832011@N00/sets/1299746/show/

In Maart 2006 gaan we naar Rotterdam.

Gr,

Richard

Wikibooks to offer free eTexts for education

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikimedia - and Wikipedia, said he believes the Wikibooks project is representative of the changing landscape of information and services in the digital age.

"I think that Wikibooks and projects like it will challenge licensed textbooks in the same way that Linux [the open-source computer operating system] and other free software and licensing models are challenging the software world," said Wales. "I don't know where it's going, but things are definitely changing."

Read the article from eSchool News Online.

Could be something for Gradz to think about in the long term...making text available in affordable formats, reducing one of the costs of education.

Route van Utrecht CS naar Oudegracht

Route van Utrecht CS naar Oudegracht
Originally uploaded by Richard Vielvoye.

Ik had de vraag gekregen om de route van Utrecht CS naar de Oudegracht op de blog te zetten. Bij deze wat de NS zegt:
(10 minuten lopen)

--
U vertrekt vanaf de Moreelsepark
na 70 meter rechtdoor, Moreelseviaduct
na 30 meter rechtsaf, Willemsplantsoen
na 210 meter rechtsaf, Geertebolwerk
na 410 meter linksaf, Geertekerkhof
na 110 meter linksaf, Geertestraat
na 100 meter rechtdoor, Geertebrug
na 30 meter rechtsaf, Oudegracht-Tolsteegzijde
na 30 meter bent u op uw bestemming, Oudegracht-Tolsteegzijde
---

Definitieve locatie en tijd etentje

Beste mensen,

Hierbij de locatie en tijdstip van het etentje.

Waar en wanneer
Vrijdag 4 november om 18:30 uur verzamelen bij:
Balkan Grill Boro
Oudegracht 63
3511 AD Utrecht
030-2316940

Dit schijnt een plekje te zijn aan de grachten van Utrecht. Erg lekker en erg gezellig.

Wie ?
Voorlopig heb ik de volgende namen:
* Richard Vielvoye
* Eva Metz
* Steven Ilsink
* Hans de Boef
* Mark Geubbels
* Colby Stuart
* Karel de Kroon
* Nanda van Raalte

* Michael gaat niet mee omdat hij nog op vakantie is.
* Van Angelo heb ik nog niets gehoord.

Vragen en contact
Bij vragen en contact tussentijds: Richard vielvoye: 0653-653201


Groetjes,

Richard

Identity 2.0

Briljante presentatie over Identity 2.0. Wat is de toekomst van het web, hoe dit gaat lopen wat betreft informatiedeling.

Zie: http://www.identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/oscon_videos/oscon_wmf_lg.html

Gr,

Richard

Eten in Utrecht

Howdie.

Eten is definitief op 4 november gepland in Utrecht.
Tijd en locatie exact wordt nog nader bekend gemaakt.

Gaarne aangeven of je definitief mee gaat.

Groetjes,

Richard Vielvoye

Naamgevings drama ...

Nu we toch binnenkort weer gezellig gaan lopen doen, wil ik graag nog weer wat olie op het vuur gooien:

Een nieuw voorstel voor de naam: gradz

Gradz staat voor: Gezelligheid Raakt Alle Dagelijkse Zaken.
Maar bovendien staat Gradz natuurlijk voor graduates. (En dan ben ik nog lang niet ;-))

Hihi ... tot soon!

Informatiefiltering

Hallodie allemaal,

Ton has wrote a nice piece about filtering information
Check out his blog.

Gr,

Richard

http://www.zylstra.org/blog/archives/001797.html

Many companies are discovering the real gold in knowledge management

Here is an article on the limits of Knowledge management:

"In the last few years many companies have used the internet and other new information technology to link professionals across the globe to share documents or compare data. But many are discovering that the real value in knowledge management is in sharing ideas and insights that are not documented and hard to articulate. This undocumented, hard-to-articulate knowledge is what has been called tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1958). A group of systems designers for a computer company tried to share their knowledge by storing their documentation for client systems in a common database. They soon discovered that they did not need each other’s documentation. They needed to understand the logic other system designers used — why that software, with that hardware and that type of service plan. They needed to understand the thinking of the other system designers. A petrophysicist trying to interpret unusual data from a deep sea oil well needed help from a colleague who had seen similar anomalies and could help him think through how to interpret it. Only in the course of the discussion were they able to understand the anomaly. A geologist faced with an array of new seismic tools needed to know which would be most useful in his particular application. A product development team at an auto company found through their internet that another development team had developed and rejected a design ideas similar to one they were considering. They needed to understand the reasons for the rejection and get feedback from the other team on the approach they were considering. A sales manager working with a particularly difficult client needed to know how sales managers for other product lines had dealt with that client. In all these cases people needed tacit knowledge; knowledge that was not documented, that their peers had never previously articulated, and that needed to be thought about to be shared (McDermott, 1999a)."

Thanks to the blog of: Institute for Collaboration, Creativity & Culture

Hans

BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit

The BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit will be held October 17-18 in NYC.

According to Chris Shipley, it's time now "to get down to business" - the Business of Social Media.

In the blog, they're asking people to participate in the Blogging in the Enterprise Survey. Give it your attention and you just might win a NanoPod.

People have already started to contribute to the blog. I noticed that someone has mentioned Nev's Podcast interview with Jeremy Wright about Wright's new book, Blog Marketing.

I am going to track what's going on during the summit. Last year was very interesting because it was so fresh and everyone was learning everything. Wonder what this year will hold.

Voorstel voor eten

Beste (oud)studiematen,

Peter, Eva en ik hebben zitten bedenken dat het wel weer tijd wordt om met elkaar te gaan eten.

Voorstel is:
Vrijdag 4 november, Vrijdag 11 november of zaterdag 19 november.
We willen het dit keer in Utrecht doen (Eva zoekt het tentje uit)

Kunnen jullie aangeven of:
a) jullie uberhaupt meewillen
b) welke dagen jullie allemaal kunnen

Groetjes,

Richard

Voor de financiële met humor onder ons

Even korte uitspraak die ik vond in mijn literatuurstudie voor mijn scriptie:

"Toen ik om de begroting vroeg kreeg ik vage ramingen. Mijn ervaring is dat vage ramingen meestal leiden tot hele duidelijke budgetoverschrijdingen".
So herkenbaar.

Start colleges

Na een lekkere vakantie gaan de colleges dan toch weer van start... Wie volgt welke colleges? Ikzelf volg International Entrepreneurship op maandag en donderdag en Organisatie-inrichting op vrijdagmiddag. Met dat laatste ben ik uiteraard erg content (het vervolg in de krater uiteraard..). Groet, Peter

Wiki server hit by hackers

You cannot access the wiki right now. The wiki server has been breached by hackers.

They seem to have only messed with the index files, which Ton is currently rebuilding. As soon as Ton and Rob can access the data bases through the server again, they will check to make sure that everything is ok.

Ton will keep you apprised of the situation. Until then, there is nothing else we can do.

Book review

Last week I finished reading the following book: 'De Orka Award - De kracht van positieve feedback' or in English: 'Whale done! - The power of positive relationships' written by Ken Blanchard.

The book is based upon the trainingmethods used by the trianers of Sea World Florida to train the killer whales (Orka's). They use positive feedback to make them do what they want. Or to put it simple, reward them when they do it correct.

Ken Blanchard used their knowledge and transformed it in simple rules you can apply to achieve the same effect in your personal and professional relationships.

Read it and find out how simple it is to change your behaviour towards others with better results! I try to use it in my relationships and I must say it really works, some difficult relationships really improved.

KenBlancard
De Orka Award - de kracht van positieve feedback
ISBN: 90-254-1763-9

Explosieve groei weblogs

Bron: Emerce
Het fenomeen weblogs groeit tegen de klippen op. Uit berekeningen van The Blog Herald blijkt dat er wereldwijd meer dan 70 miljoen weblogs zijn. Nederland telt alleen al 600.000 bloggers. Elke seconde wordt er op internet een nieuwe weblog aangemaakt, zo onthulde Technorati (dat online een index van webblogs bijhoudt) afgelopen week. Volgens Technorati komen er iedere dag circa 80.000 blogs bij. Het aantal gebruikers per land verschilt echter sterk, zo blijkt uit de cijfers van Blog Herald. In de VS zijn er tussen de 15 en 20 miljoen weblogs, dat waren er vorig jaar nog 3,5 miljoen. Zuid Korea telt 15 miljoen webloggers en China 5 miljoen. In Europa loopt Frankrijk voorop met 3 miljoen bloggers, Groot-Brittannië komt aan 2,5 miljoen, Spanje aan anderhalf miljoen en Polen aan 1,4 miljoen. Nederland heeft 600.000 bloggers. Dat zijn er veel meer dan in Duitsland, waar volgens de laatste tellingen 280.000 weblogs zijn, tegen 7500 een jaar geleden. In België is het aantal bloggers nog bescheiden: niet meer dan 100.000. Opvallend is dat van de 70 miljoen weblogs er 63 miljoen zijn ondergebracht bij de acht grootste weblogdiensten. Xanga bedient 40 miljoen webloggers, MSN Spaces en Blogger hebben respectievelijk 15 en 14 miljoen gebruikers. Weblogs worden ook voor adverteerders steeds belangrijker. In de VS is inmiddels een speciaal netwerk opgericht – Blogads – dat als intermediair tussen webloggers en adverteerders fungeert. Tussen de adverteerders bevinden zich vooralsnog geen grote namen. In Nederland gebruikt een groeiend aantal weblogs Google Adsense om inkomsten te genereren of om de kosten te dekken. Henkjan de Krijger van de op een na grootste Nederlandse weblogdienst Punt.nl ziet echter een sterke toename van betalende webloggers. “We hebben er 20.000, ongeveer de helft van onze 40.000 gebruikers. Die betalende gebruikers mogen zelf advertenties voeren.” De Krijger wil vooralsnog geen advertenties aan zijn gebruikers opdringen. “Weblogs zouden een heel goed advertentiemedium kunnen zijn, maar men vergeet dat maar een klein aantal gebruikers echt actief is en advertenties niet altijd doeltreffend zijn.”

Idee voor gebruik van de Wiki

Binnenkort gaat een aantal van jullie starten met de laatste fase van de studie: het afstuderen. Dit lijkt mij zeker niet de makkelijkste periode en volgens mij raakt men in deze periode ook snel los van je medestudenten en verdwijnt de band met de school ook vrij snel volgens mij.

Bestaat er behoefte om de wiki te gaan gebruiken als workspace voor jullie afstudeeropdrachten? Op deze manier kunnen we nog enigszins contact houden met een ieder en zijn opdracht en belangrijker, dan bestaat er de moglijkheid om actief een bijdrage te leveren.

De wiki lijkt mij een goed medium om dit te doen. Animo?

RSS Reading Strategy Revisited (2)

Ton Zijlstra continued ....

Today David Weinberger admits he can't keep up with reading.
I would like to. I really would. I like it and I like you. But we're now well past the point where any of us can keep up with all the blogs worth reading from the people worth keeping up with. Even with an aggregator. I just can't do it any more.
The truth is, I probably haven't read your blog in weeks. Months maybe. And I don't expect you to have read mine.

Well, I don't read all of his and your stuff either. Don't stop writing however! Because I do value the conversation I feel we are continuously involved in, even if that sounds silly when both of us don't read the other's half of the conversation.
As I said before in How do you use RSS?, I don't read everything that ends up in my feed reader. I skim all postings unsorted to get a general feeling of what's up in 'my neighbourhood' of the blogosphere, and some other parts of 'town' as well. I look for patterns, for what we all are talking about. If something is important to a number of you, enough to write about it, than it might be important for me too. That is when I might start reading individual postings, to see if it is relevant to me now.

I also have a list of questions and points that are already relevant to me. That is the stuff I write about, and I also read all individual postings that seem to be relevant to that. I don't feel guilty about that, as David seems to have done.
It is the way things work. First you get a feeling for what is up. You contribute what is relevant to you and on your mind in the here and now. And then engage those in direct conversation that seem to hold interesting views on the stuff that is already on your mind, and the stuff that they brought to the table and attracted your attention. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
It is what we do meeting on town squares, in the pubs, the salons, at parties, at the family dining table. It is what happens in communities of people. And the 250 people whose thoughts are in my feed-reader are my social community in much the same way. I don't feel guilty when I skip a pub visit (although I used to do ;) ). I am sure that the party was great, and the conversation excellent. But it is not about the conversations I miss out on. It is about the value we create in the conversations we do have, and making the most of that. That is what counts.

So when you come up to me and ask if I have read your posting xyz, the most likely answer you'll get is "no, but I remember seeing a few items about that pass by" or you will get a real genuine "yes". Chances are then that I've already linked or bookmarked it, commented on it, written about it, e-mailed or skyped you, or referenced it face to face.

How Do You Use RSS? (1)

Ton Zijlstra heeft een aantal interessante postings gedaan op zijn blog http://www.zylstra.org/blog/

Deze postings zijn voor iedereen die te maken heeft met informatieoverload interessant. Dit is ook in een notendop datgene wat een aantal van ons besproken heeft tijdens het pow-wow event met de Dutch Connection.
--------

Lee Lefever asks What's Your RSS Reading Strategy?

I need to make two remarks before answering Lee's question.
First, I think information overload does not exist. Our usual information strategies are failing us because they are based on information scarceness. In order to deal with the new information environment we find ourselves in, we need to change our strategies. That is why Lee's question is an important one. We need to learn from eachother to find out what works for us.
Second, I increasingly treat information as a landscape I move around in. This info-landscape lies over the physical one. Information as a landscape shapes much of how I treat information, and try to build my own information strategies.

Ok, RSS.
250 feeds, 2 readers I read about 250 feeds, and the number is growing in bursts. After each burst of growth, the number levels off somewhat while I familiarize myself with the new people who's feed I read.
To read RSS I use two feedreaders. First and most important is Lektora. A web-based reader that stores all content on my local drive. As I read often while on the train this is very important. The second reader is Bloglines, which I use while away from home, or when my laptop hasn't got connectivity. I also use this to show others what I read. The feeds in Bloglines usually are somewhat behind what's in Lektora, as I use Lektora most.
Two approaches to readingAs the number of feeds grew, my reading behaviour has changed.
I used to read all postings everyday. Now I have two main approaches. One is to simply browse through the feeds to get a feeling of what is going on, what themes are getting attention. To detect patterns. Because I try to see RSS feeds as parts of a conversation (I subscribe to people not feeds), listening to what these voices are telling me, is using my social network as a filter, a community filter. Gossip 2.0, so to speak. In this mode I hardly read any specific postings, and if I blog something because of it, it is triggerd by patterns I see.
The other approach has its starting point in myself. Whatever I am currently working on or interested in, questions I am exploring etc. (such as information strategies right now), trigger reading specific postings, commenting and blogging.
Filling the landscapeAll my feeds are still thrown on one big heap, but with 250 feeds that is becoming less usefull. If information is a landscape, I am currently experiencing my feedslist as a landscape with too little distinctive features. So now I am playing with lumping feeds roughly together (a group of hills there, a wood there) while rigorously trying to avoid categorization. The latter would destroy the ability to look for patterns in the entire list of feeds. I'm in the middle of this stage now, and I will let you know when I find a modus that works for me.

Grades posted????

Hallo,

Hebben jullie al een mail van het onderwijsburo gehad voor het cijfer van SBM??Ik namelijk niet?

Colby: heb je de cijfers doorgegeven???

Ik hoor het wel!

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag

Michael

De AGBS-mates

De AGBS-mates
Originally uploaded by Richard Vielvoye.

Misschien is de alumni-vereniging nog niet helemaal actief. Maar de factor gezelligheid gaat wel door. Hier Richard, Leon en Mark. Alledrie trotste AGBS-ers.

Mark goes wild on wedding

Mark goes wild on wedding
Originally uploaded by Richard Vielvoye.

Mark was aan het eind van de avond niet meer te houden op zijn bruiloft

Mark en Linda op Bruiloft

Mark en Linda op Bruiloft
Originally uploaded by Richard Vielvoye.

Het is gelukt. Mark en zijn vrouw Linda zijn getrouwd. Mark liep de hele avond met een glimlach op zijn gezicht.

Nog 1 nachtje slapen...

En dan is het zover, Mark!

Ik hoop dat het een mooie dag gaat worden.

Vakantie-ervaringen

Zoals jullie weten ga ik volgende week trouwen en ga ik daarna lekker even op safari in Kenia.

Ik ben benieuwd naar jullie vakantieplannen, maar nog maar naar jullie ervaringen. Deze informatie is zeker bruikbaar bij het boeken van toekomstige vakanties. Ik zal ook zeker mijn ervaringen met Kenia met jullie delen.

Voor nu wil ik de mensen die nog tentamens moeten maken veel succes wensen!

Keep the blog alive!!

Ton at Reboot 7.0 in Copenhagen this weekend

Ton Zijlstra will be in Copenhagen this weekend at Reboot 7.0.


He'll join other well known bloggers and people fascinated with social media. Maybe we can get him to post something about his adventure there and what's new.

De interviews in WMV-formaat

Beste Alumnicollega´s,

Aangezien ik geluiden heb gehoord de video met de interviews (het rm-filetje) niet door iedereen te openen was, heb ik het ook nog eens geconverteerd naar een Windows Media File, zodat het door iedereen te openen is met de standaard Windows media speler.
Nadeel is dat het een groter bestand is geworden (13 MB). Maar een aantal van jullie die het fimpje wel hebben gezien, vonden het zeker de moeite waard om even te downloaden.
Dus DOWNLOADEN.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~vielv66/Alumni.wmv

Groetjes,

Richard Vielvoye

Een gezellige vrijdag

Gisteren heb ik de mooie stad Amsterdam vanuit de grachten mogen bekijken. Maar niet alleen ik heb hier, met een biertje in mijn handen, van mogen genieten. Ook Richard, Minouque, Leon, Jack, Jan-Hein en Angelo waren van de partij. Nadat het ´s middags hard begon te regenen zijn we een kroeg ingedoken (volgens mij De prins).

Het feit dat de NS weer eens tegenwerkte heb ik niet echt bewust meegemaakt. Ik wil nog even kwijt dat ik het geweldig naar mijn zin heb gehad gisteren. Dit moeten we vaker doen ....

Op dit moment wil ik iedereen veel succes wensen met eventuele tentamens. Tot op de BLOG!

Groeten,

Mark

Systems Thinking & Practice: Diagramming

Ran across this online tool from The Open University and thought it might make an interesting concept development resource

It helps you map out concepts and create a visual dialogue for them.

Managen van vrouw is managen relaties

Was nog leuk artikel tegengekomen. Gaat uiteindelijk toch weer om het managen van relations±
geschreven door Jos Burgers
Saturday 14 May 2005
Mijn vrouw is gek op aandacht en nu zoek ik iemand die dat van me over kan nemen. Iemand aan wie ik dat met een gerust hart over kan laten. Diegene aan wie ik het ga uitbesteden moet natuurlijk wel doen alsof het van mij afkomt. Anders werkt het natuurlijk niet. Ik wil haar voor geen goud kwijt, maar dat aandacht geven, dat vreet echt tijd.

Kijk, een aantal zaken heb ik inmiddels al ‘geoutsourced’. Met de bloemenwinkel in het dorp heb ik al afgesproken dat zij mijn vrouw voortaan elke veertien dagen verrassen met een bloemetje. Altijd op vrijdag om vijf uur. Net voor ’t weekend. Want dan werkt aandacht het beste. En een bevriend direct marketingbureau gaat haar voortaan uit mijn naam maandelijks een kaartje sturen met iets van ‘Ik hou van jou’. Maar dan steeds in andere woorden. Anders is het natuurlijk niet echt. Ik heb voorlopig een contract afgesloten tot eind 2008. De lokale slijter stuurt voortaan jaarlijks op onze trouwdag een fles champagne en de Sligro half december een kerstpakket.

Maar ja, nu moet er ook nog iemand af en toe spontaan iets aardigs tegen haar zeggen. En daar zoek ik dus nog iemand voor. Ik weet niet of u erg opkijkt van mijn actie, maar voor veel bedrijven is dit echt de gewoonste zaak van de wereld. Zojuist viel uit een vaktijdschrift een brochure over ‘Outsourcing van customer care’. Ofwel, in goed Hollands, hoe besteed ik de zorg voor mijn klanten uit aan derden? Het gaat om een heus jaarboek, vol met ‘outsourcepartijen’. U kent ze wel. U belt uw bank, verzekeraar of energiebedrijf en krijgt die niet aan de lijn. Nee, u krijgt een bandje van een landelijk call-center met een menu waarin niets staat waar u trek in heeft. U wacht al dan niet geduldig op een telefoniste, maar zodra u haar te pakken heeft is de vreugde van korte duur. Ook zij blijkt u nooit een echt goed antwoord te kunnen geven.

Ik citeer uit de brochure die voor me ligt. ‘Uitbesteding kan de flexibiliteit verhogen, de kosten verlagen en tijd en aandacht vrijmaken voor de core-business van uw bedrijf’. Ik wil het graag nog één keer uitleggen. Er is maar één echte core-business en dat is het vinden en binden van klanten. En dat doe je door ze welgemeende aandacht te geven. Van directie tot en met de man op de bestelwagen of de receptioniste. En als u daar goed in slaagt mag u gerust ook nog wat spullen leveren. Stroom, telefoontikken of een hypotheekje.

Steeds meer organisaties ontdekken dat en komen terug van landelijke grote callcenters en wat dies meer zij. Managers worden ook steeds minder afgerekend op resultaten en steeds meer op de tevredenheid van hun klanten. Is die goed, dan komen de resultaten vanzelf.

Oh ja, mijn vrouw vond dat hele uitbesteden niet zo’n goed idee. Hoewel ze ’t wel knap bedacht vond, dat wel. Maar nu zint ze op een plan om mij in m’n geheel uit te besteden. En dat was nou ook weer niet de bedoeling.

Jos Burgers
marketingadviseur Burgers Marketing b.v.

Digital Academic REpository - DAREnet

Check this out: DAREnet

Something for your alumni brand. Perhaps you should explore this and find out more. Could be a linked source - or a bridge to those "experts"

Balkellende in de uitverkoop

Voor wie wat te lachen wil hebben: Balkende is in de uitverkoop gegooid op speurders.nl.

Op zich verbazingwekkend dat er sowieso mensen bestaan die nog geld voor 'm willen bieden...

Goed boek?

Omdat ik nu wat vrije avonden over heb, heb ik weer wat tijd om eens een gewoon boek door te lezen. Van Steven heb ik vernomen dat de "Da Vinci Code" een aanrader is. Maar ik vroeg me af of jullie nog andere toppers kennen. Deze mogen zowel in het Nederlands als Engels zijn.

Grades Posted

You can find your grades here on old wiki. I didn't know if you wanted them posted to the new wiki, so I leave that up to you.

Really enjoyed the dinner celebration Friday evening. Where are the photos?

Have a wonderful summer!

When are we having one of the first 2CFO parties?

INTERVIEWS ALUMNI 2005

Afgelopen vrijdag hebben jullie allemaal (alleen Hans heb ik gemist) een interview gegeven over de leefbaarheid van een Alumni-vereniging.
Zie het resultaat. Aangezien ik niet zoveel tijd heb, heb ik snel ge-edit en het is een redelijke lage kwaliteit omdat ik rekening heb gehouden met jullie verbindingen (toch nog 8MB).

Ik ben benieuwd wat jullie vinden, en ik hoop dat we deze film over 5 jaar met elkaar nog eens kijken.

Druk op de titel om er heen te gaan, of plak onderstaande link:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~vielv66/Alumni2005.rm

Gr,

Richard

De weddenschap

Van het afsluiten van de weddenschap (zie vorige blog) is een video gemaakt:

* kleine versie: http://www.seedwiki.com/Accounts/Vielvoye_Richard_11976/weddenschap2.rm

* grotere versie: http://www.seedwiki.com/Accounts/Vielvoye_Richard_11976/weddenschap.rm


Watch and enjoy.

Weddenschap over de kop

Angelo (and the others who witnessed our bet),

Click on the link in the title, go to 'The film 2005, tumbling, crasch and trees Antoine Montant' and watch the evidence... (1:50, 2:20, 3:00, 3:30...)
Don't come back to me that this isn't 'over de kop' :D

For the ones who don't know what this is about, just watch a great movie about freestyling. You need a fast internet connection, the movie is 60 Mb!

http://www.parafilmproduction.ch/mai_05.htm

Review on Presence Michael

Review on Presence Michael

Herewith my review on the book Presence, I liked reading the book because of the fact that it makes you more conscious to think about everything around you and take things less for granted. This reminded me a bit about philosophy lessons I had participated quite a while ago. It was good to read this again because it is so easy to get caught up in every day hassle and then lose sight of things you might find more important.

One of the important things I got from the book is that you have to take distance from certain problems and that the picture becomes clearer when doing so. For myself I compared this with writing a paper and becoming blind for your own writing. When you take some time off you see the things that can be improved. Also when another person looks at it, it often improves through new insights. It helps to see the whole and takes you away from focusing only on a part.

Something I strongly recognized from the book in the example of designing a car was the way people handle in an organization and mainly focus on their on department, funny stuff and oh so true! How often does it happen that a department takes things that go wrong for granted and resolves them by throwing it over the fence to another department instead of seeking the source? I started searching for these issues immediately in my work and ways to cope with this without taking the problem further down the road, good stuff!

I thought about our brand whilst reading the part ‘Seeds Are Small’. This part goes about that becoming a great force does not mean that all aspirations must be grand. First steps are often small, and initial visions that focus energy effectively often address immediate problems. What matters is engagement in the service of a larger purpose rather than lofty aspirations that paralyze action. I think this describes for a part the problems we were struggling in the beginning; a great vision but the idea that we could not pull this of in the little time and with the limited resources we had available (“lofty aspirations that paralyze action”). Once we had things more clear (the brand architecture) and were making the first small steps to a less abstract level the brand came more alive!

The part that interested me in particular, because of my managerial function, was the part about “Leadership: becoming a human being”. ‘In a world of global institutional networks, we face issues for which hierarchical leadership is inherently inadequate’.
Here they state that becoming a real human being is the primary leadership issue of our time and I totally agree with this.

Angelo's review of presence

There has been a lot said about the book and in my review I would like to discuss the possible consequences.

I understand why most of us like the book. It works liberating. There is more between heaven and earth. There is a lot of potential in us, yet to be discovered. On a small (individual) scale I think this is rather easy to understand. There is no context, no society with forces of conformity. To me the challenge is exactly this context. Our society.

To further explain this I would like to describe a marine research about white sharks. There is the example of Mark Marks a biologist that has taken an unconventional approach to studying white sharks. He has a passion of sharks, quite differently from the going opinion of society. So rather than confirming their beastly behaviour he wanted to ‘really’ get to know them. Instead of monitoring them from a cage he swims with them. To facilitate this he invented a new kind of scuba gear that enabled him to swim under water without the bubbles associated with the conventional gear. This way he would not distract the sharks with anything out of the ordinary apart from himself. It enabled to swim with them, in between them and study behaviour otherwise not possible. The research has provided a lot of new insides, even puts the great white shark in a different spotlight. Yet, the scientific community is not able to go through the U and continues to use the present perspective on scientific research. Mark Marks has since dealt with tremendous criticism rather than openness to this new approach.

People have started to look at (white) sharks differently and in a more positive way. Even the scientific community seems to slightly move (yet, there is a long way to go). It is his passion and believe in his unique view on sharks and method of research that has started to pay off. But how far would you be able to pursue your vision with so much criticism? Also bare in mind this is a high involvement subject. What if it were less involving/exciting?

So reflecting and new knowledge can easily lead to severe criticism or unwillingness to understand. The context that on the one hand constraints us, on the other hand offers an nice safe haven, which is comfortable for many. Sometimes sensing and presencing can be hard or even painful, confronting yourself with potential and limitations at the same time.

In my past work I also came (and have come) across resistance as a result of trying to go through the U with colleagues. Not easy and it meant a lot of negative energy and endurance to continue. It sometimes meant leaving a place to pursue my believes rather than conform to the existing ideas.

To take it a step closer, remember Colby’s way of teaching. Although I think I try to live the way described in the book, it took me quite a while to ‘accept’ this way of teaching and respond to it differently to what I was used to. But is was not only the teaching, how long did it take us (if we ever really managed) to see, define and play the roles we each could have and fulfill. To see parts as a whole...


What I am trying to say that in order to live you life closely to the way the book described, it would probably require the following:

Goals:you will need to explain again and again the way of your approach and the reasons for this approach.

Critcism:
Since most people have not been able to live the way described in the book, you may have to expect a lot of criticism or at least cynicism from your environment. This will require a lot of endurance to continue what you believe in, something in my opinion will be something really hard to fulfill or be the greatest challenge.

Passion:
Since changes do not occur over night it will need a lot of passion to convince people and conquer criticism.

Strategy
In order to continue the path you’re you first have to define it. Especially considering the criticism it is important to know where you’re going or else you’ll soon feel lost.

Context
If you want to be able to convince your environment, you’ll need to discover what makes them tick: what they are about, their feeling, agenda, etc...

Not fulfilling one or some of these criteria will make your path more difficult . Thinking this way in a surrounding of ‘presence’ thinking can wear you out. And then what. Do you continue or conform to the majority, because it is easier...

Now remember our classes and the path to building our brand...doesn’t it all sound familiar and didn’t we all discuss these issues? How do you look at this now with retrospect of reading the book?

I very curious in what way you think you will implement this in your life and whether you see the same challenges? How R U going to deal with it?

Wanneer eten2 besluit

De volgende personen hebben zich aangemeld:

Richard, Peter, Colby, Karel, Nanda, Eva, Angelo (misschien), Mark

Afgemeld:
Michael

Niets van gehoord:
Hans (maar die kon volgens mij niet) , Steven (maat die kon volgens mij ook niet ??)

Ik weet niet of Colby nog iets gereserveerd had bij het Stuivertje, anders alsnog doen (of waar dan ook).

We are going to have FUN !!

JA of NEE

Op dit moment is de Europese Grondwet het meest behandelde onderwerp in Nederland. Je hoeft de krant maar open te slaan en er staan wel weer een aantal interviews en advertenties m.b.t. de grondwet.

Aangezien ik er zelf nog niet helemaal uit ben (reden komt zodadelijk) hoop ik met onderbouwing van anderen tot een (wijs)besluit te kunnen komen.

Het feit dat we straks als eenheid naar buiten kunnen treden spreekt me aan. Een Amerikaanse minister (ben even zijn naam kwijt) heeft dit al eens mooi verwoord; " als ik Europa bel, wie krijg ik dan aan de lijn?". We worden niet gezien als een, omdat we niet als een eenheid naar buiten treden. Ook de gemeenschappelijke strijd tegen terrorisme is een sterk punt. Ook denk ik dat de transparantie door het wegvallen van de vele verdragen beter wordt.

Wat spreekt me dan niet aan? De wijze van besluitvorming brengt me aan het twijfelen. Goedkeuring bij 55% meerderheid, waarbij omvang van een land sterk bepalend is voor de "stemkracht". Landen als Frankrijk en Duitsland krijgen dan relatief veel macht. Het is maar de vraag of dat wenselijk is. De mogelijkheid om vervolgens uit de EU te stappen is dan wel aanwezig, maar is meer een theoretische uitweg. Ik verwacht dat hier in de praktijk geen gebruik van zal worden gemaakt.

Kortom, wat is jullie mening? Ja of Nee?

Review Presence Karel

Presence

Finally I read the book Presence. Especially the beginning of the book was tough to read because I missed a structure in the story. After about page 80 I began to understand what points the writers (especially Senge) wanted to communicate to the reader of the book. The book brought me a different perspective to approach situations. I think I will use the knowledge learnt in class and through reading the book. The only thing that will be difficult is not to fall back in old habits and try to continue the new path op doing things.

The main issue that, in my opinion, the book wants to make clear is that humans are kept from seeing what is really happening because their way of life, and the environment they are living in, gives them an expectation of what would be the most “normal” thing to see, feel etc. We are prejudiced. The example of the plant in china where some businessmen of a western car manufacturer made a visit to see how the concurrent was able to run his plant extremely efficient was an eye opener. Of course when you read such a story the first that comes to mind is “That would never happen to me, I would have noticed that this is really the way they run this plant”. I believe that the example is very clear and extreme (when told a few years later) but that the essence of the story shows us how our sub consciousness is able to frustrate a clear view to what we really see. Our thoughts and interpretations of our surrounding area is probably very toxicated by our “wrong” or “colored way” of looking at things.

To accept the fact that we probably manipulate the things we see in our “world”, (or whatever that maybe) and to force a breakthrough in this way of looking to “the world” I think people need a drastic reset of their system. In the book Joseph Jaworsky tells the story of the 14 days with John where the last seven days where a solo event with an eleven direction ceremony. I did not have very much feeling with the ceremony Joseph (and Brian) described but I believe that it is a way to reset the whole consciousness of an human being.

Although I believe that it can be very precious to find out how life really is (I think ………..you will never know!) and find your “authentic self” it can also detach you from people. The impact of this consciousness and the effect on the behavioral aspects can be huge. Maybe that’s what Otto called “The sadness of separation”. The alignment with people within your environment can be disturbed. the example of the seventy years old prisoner that was released and committed suicide after a while is a very clear example of the fact that what you can find is maybe no so pleasant, is there a way back after opening yourself up?

The book does raise the feeling with me that success in business will be in reach when you’re able to distance yourself from the problem and to develop the capacity to avoid imposing old frameworks on new realities. I can find myself in this (pre) conclusion and think that the creative new way of doing things will be the way to find new business instead of the copying and mutating old insights. Let go the old framework and approach a new situation unspoiled

A way to do that is to approach a goal (what maybe later will not be the goal anymore) fragmentized. Cut the path to the goal in pieces and start building from scratch. Try to describe all the possibilities for a first step and choose the best alternative. From that (new) perspective do the same thing and so on. After finishing this process you may find out that the ending point is far away from the point where you would have expected to be before the start of the fragmentized approach. Within this approach it’s important to let go all the prepossessed best cases and view from the hart. I believe this way of working will be highly effective but I think it’s difficult to use this in a case where quick responding is necessary. I think that in stressful situations it will be extremely difficult not to fall back in a gap-analysis and then choose the path of quick results and low resistance. Observe, observe, observe, observe, discover……….invent and then…………produce.

In the cooperation with various people I learnt that even when ten people see the same thing they experience the things very differently. In lots of cases this results in conflicts because everybody is defending his way of seeing things. When the stadium of observe, observe, observe is translated as listen, listen, listen ………. People would be able to learn and respect others point of view and maybe combine the different translation of a situation into a whole better point of view, or a combined/converged point of view. In that case there will be synergy. That’s what counts.

The book reveals lots of opinions that speak out that our whole society is built on (maybe) wrong values. The only problem is that there is not a new story that is clear enough to give a widely understood story on which a whole society can build. I really believe that lots of our basic assumptions in this society are discutable. Changing the whole group is difficult.

Wiki link -->
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/agbs_kwiki_con/review_karel.cfm?wpid=187617

Steven's review of Presence

It is a interesting book. The theory of going through the U is interesting, but in my opinion it’s not very new or something like that. But it’s interesting. As in many books it only explains the theory and not how you can use the theory, that’s for your own interpretation. Like seeing from the whole. A lot of people in our class are struckling with that part. The book only tells us to see the whole and not how to see the whole. It could help if there were some instruments.

The other reviews have already spoken of the going through the U theory, so I would like to emphasize another subject of the book. For me the book was all about our future. The human being's are destroying the world at the moment. The world exists for billiards of years and in the last two hundred years we managed to make it a messy place. Mankind needs to go through the U collectively will it not all end with a Big Bang! (See page 121, The Marblehead Letter)

Experiences like Joseph Jaworski had in Baja made him come closer to nature. When that happens nature gives a present back to the human. Right now there is a big distance between nature and mankind. Wallstreet is ruling the world. It’s all about making profit, more and more and more … this is an unsustainable requirement. It’s is not possible to raise profits unlimited. Natural resources are emptying out. We have to come closer to nature again. But how?

The book doesn’t give simple answers for that. That’s because there are not yet any answers. But there are still a lot of questions to be answered. What’s the human pupose? Are we on the wrong track? With man gone, Will there be hope for gorilla?

Maybe this book is a start for shifting the whole?

Review book - Nanda

I liked reading the book from the first page. Although I did not recognize everything in the book. I mean, I cannot use all of it (I will read it again in a year or so), but while reading, you become more curious for the rest. I have to say that I waited some time (too long) to start reading it. I started really sceptical because I thought it would be ‘vague’. But that was a wrong first impression which came from the title and the color of the book. Stupid, but true. The first chapter, which started with the explanation about the wholes and with the example of the hands grasped me and made me realize I really would like to read the book.

On top of my changed vision of live because of some personal experiences during last year, for me the book confirmed this only more to me. The going through the U description is very useful in this. Look at the whole thing and use the important part to make the next step. Start at the basis, solve a problem by taking the core out of it and solve that or learn from that. Let the ‘work around way of thinking’ and the ‘this is how I see it’ go, even when you don’t know you use that way of thinking. Think deeper, different, see the whole. Try to let the ideas you are raised with, the way you think the world works and be creative.

I do believe that getting older, getting more experience in life will help you understanding more and more the meaning of the book. In my opinion the meaning is that you have to try to let go what you think you know and see the whole. The book brings this in relation to the ‘kenmerken’ sense, presence and realize. Use your feeling, try to think of new ideas, try to think in another way and combine this so you can realize it. Do not dive into the details, but also, do not forget them.

In this class of Strategic Brand Management and also in the class of Marketing Management, I saw Colby trying to show us / teach us / let us realize that there is another way to look at things / problems / life. For example, the ‘scenario thinking’. Sometimes I thought, why are we doing this or that over and over again or what a strange example is she using in relation to what we are working on. Now I realize that that is her / a way to teach us to see things from a really different perspective and to make us really think and work for the way we do things. This keeps you away from only looking at the purpose. (Thinking out of the box). But I still think it is really hard to see what part of the process is the whole, because in the end, everything is connected to each other and there is only one proces.

I will give an example about what reading the book did for me. It is a small example, but it describes what it did for me, how I tried to start thinking out of the box. I am working on a ‘Europese Aanbesteding Kantoorautomatisering’ (do not know how to say that in English). For this, we have to deliver a very detailed and correct requirement document. We were trying to describe in detail the requirements of the services (dienstverlening met betrekking tot beheer). This is very difficult, because while writing, you go deeper and deeper in detail and loose the overview. So after reading the book, I looked at the text of the requirements again and try to see it different. Of course there must be a description of the services, but I realized it is all about emotions. In the end I skipped most of the text we already wrote for that part and replaced it by ‘weinig sores, veel plezier’ in relation to the services I expect from my supplier.

I always say, ‘the only thing that counts is the result and not the way you come there’. I will change that into: ‘the result counts, but there are a lot of different ways to come there and you should try to dicover /see the whole (from a distance)’.

Even een idee....

Beste mensen,

Even een idee dat door mijn hoofd schiet.
Als ik kijk hoe veel (kwalitatief goede) reacties de 4 bookreviews nu al heeft opgeleverd, we moeten definitief een aparte blog inrichten voor de boeken die we gelezen hebben en in de toekomst gaan lezen.

Mark, ik weet bijvoorbeeld dat jij het Chaos book laatst hebt gelezen. Kun je hier wat over schrijven ?

Creates value for us.

Gr,

Richard

Book review on the Wiki

Hi Guys,

As some of you noticed, Mark and I have created the space for everybody to place their review on the WIKI. Click on the name of this post and you will be directed to this page.

Hans

To 'U' or to me...

My review of the book Prescence.

It took me a rather long time to really reed the book. At first I was very skeptical about the book for multiple reasons. First, it was an American book, of which generally not impress me. This book unfortunately is not an exception to this ‘rule’. Second, the beginning gave me a creepy feeling, a very abstract high-level book about something. However it did tough me and gave me very useful insights.

The scientist
What made minds like Einstein of Edison invent and/or develop their world-renowned inventions and theories? The relativity theory of Einstein turned out to be correct long after his dead. How could he be so sure that his theory was right, without the ability of proving it to others?

They had the ability of letting go. As if they were working in space, they had the mental ability to let the problem float into open space. This enabled them to see the problem from all angles and various distances.

In the book (page 85 – 87), they used the example of two types of scientists. The ‘good’ scientist and the ‘real’ scientist. Both equally intelligent, still real scientist is the better scientist. For he in contrary with the ‘good’ scientist has the ability of looking at the problem from a distance.
During Idols Henk-Jan Smit one of the jury-members used the X-factor, for the real talented singer. The real scientist feels breaths and lives science.

Seeing
“We all accept reality as it is presented to us”. Fragment from the movie ‘The Truman Show’. The authors used this fragment as an example to explain what seeing is all about. We only see what we want to see from the point of view that our parents gave us.
We can never “see” everything, there is always more to “see”, because not everything is directly visible. Like the work done to build the house and all the workers needed to build it.
To be able to “see” one must focus on the generative process, otherwise we are never able to “see” because we are only focusing on just a part of the process.

Going through the ‘U’
The book is all about going through the ‘U’. Going through the ‘U’ as described is this book is means getting in touch with the core and using that feeling / experience to go forth. On a personal level, it is shifting from materialism as a single luck factor to inner self as determent for level of luck. The examples above for me are describing going through the ‘U’.

Both examples show that the solution lies in looking at the problem as a whole. On page 211 the example ‘shifting the burden’ is used describing an aspirin relieves a headache but it does not address the fundamental problem. Going through the ‘U’ In this case means, shifting from incident solving (one time event) to problem solving (generative solution).

Personal insights
Although I knew that Rome was not build in one day, solving the fundamental problem requires more than just looking what goes wrong. Something that made me realize that I had to work harder to be the person I want to be.
It also made me more aware that problems I encounter on a professional level where the result of solving incidents instead of solving the problem. This insight made that I became happier in my work.