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Een nieuw schooljaar gaat weer beginnen

Vanaf maandag begint voor mij (en vele andere) het derde jaar en laatste jaar van de driejarige van Phoenix Opleidingen in Utrecht. Deze opleiding is voor mij echt een belangrijke verdieping van mijn coaching. Waar ik vroeger pas op de plaats maakt omdat het dichtbij kwam is datzelfde punt nu eerder een startpunt om echt aan de slag te gaan. Mensen een eerlijke spiegel voorhouden en hun te helpen om vanuit het verleden op zoek te gaan naar inzichten en leerlijnen.

In deze opleiding wordt een integratie gemaakt van Neuro-Linguïstisch Programmeren (NLP), Transactionele Analyse en Systemisch werken. Rondom vijf uitgangspunten van zingeving, identiteit, autonomie, heelheid en integratie wordt je als persoon flink onder handen genomen. Wat super leuk is, is dat de opleiding een mooie mix tussen theorie en praktijk is. Meerdere keren per opleidingsdag mag ik aan de slag als zowel begeleider als client. Zo leer ik super veel over mezelf.

Na het eerste jaar (ik en mezelf) en het tweede jaar (ik en de ander) staat nu ik en de groep op het programma. Daarin gaan we aan de slag met onder andere persoonlijk leiderschap en team-coaching. Ik heb er veel zin in!

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Hallo alweer wereld

Na een langere stilte wil ik mijn blog weer leven in blazen rondom thema’s als Agile, AI, Behaviour Driven Development, Digitale werkplek, Coaching, Persoonlijk leiderschap.

Je ziet een mix van verschillende IT en ontwikkelingsgerichte thema’s

Veel plezier

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PICNIC2011 Poster Project

At the PICNIC site I found this slideshow on the posters for the upcoming festival, some very nice posters! Great work!

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The 80/20 rule for Social Media

Yesterday I had a very nice discussion on the application of the 80/20 rule (aka the Pareto Principle) on social media. The nicest application of this rule is by Timothy Ferriss in the 4 Hour Workweek. He states that 20% of your customers take up 80% of your time. So you need to lose these customers to save 80% of your time. Social Media is all about conversations, this will mean that 20% of your network will take up 80% of your time on social media. Unlike the example of the 4 Hour Workweek, this is a good thing. In social media you want to engage with as much of your network as possible. Hopefully the 90-9-1 rule which segments your visitors in 90% ‘lurkers’, 9% contributors and 1% creator is a low estimate and 80/20 is more applicable!

What do you think?

(the elderly gentleman in the picture is Vilfredo Pareto, courtesy to wikipedia for the nice picture)

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Quitting Internet?

Today I read an article on The Next Web, titled “Could You Quit The Internet?”. We had an interesting clash of the generations last weekend at home. On sunday there were four of us sitting at a table and three were occupied with their iPhones. Obviously the only one without an iPhone reacted ;-). If you had looked at the situation from a distance ot would have appeared really awkward, but I think you might recognize it. I am afraid I was one of the three people using my iPhone and I am not proud of it…

There is a continuing discussion in society about the ever increasing usage of internet and mobile phones. The recent book Alone Together By Sherry Thurkle sheds some phychological light on this issue. It seems strange that we are getting less social the more we are using social networking sites.

Can you disconnect completely like Jim Stolze did a few years ago? For me it is very hard and my life and work is getting more intertwined with internet usage. What is the effect of social media on your real social life?

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PICNIC and Social Media

Yesterday I completely forgot to blog, sorry guys! But yesterday was a nice day. I had a nice conversation about social media and we planned a social media strategy workshop. For me social media is all about conversations between real people with passion. We are going to use the POST methodology from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (of Forrester Research).

After this nice conversation we had an internal project team meeting discussing a infographic metaphor we are using for our EIM Scan results. During 30 minutes we really made progress and my colleague worked hard to produce a great first concept we discussed with the client today. During the discussion again we made some very nice progress. Most important: ownership of the infographic is already shifting to the client. Infographics are a very good way to communicate results and help to conquer the last barrier for information value: interpretation!

Yesterday I had to catch up on the Apple WWDC 2011. With some great news on Lion, iOS5 and iCloud. I am really looking forward to downloading Lion directly from the App Store!

Today I registered for PICNIC 2011. A few years I have followed this festival/conference online because I was always to late to register… But this year will break this tradition, so I already have my e-ticket in my inbox! The entourage, people and subjects are very interesting and I hope for some great inspiration from other ideas and concepts. Watch this video from PICNIC 2010 about Instrumenting the city: Data is King by Charles Weigend.

 

Instrumenting the city: Data is King – Andreas Weigend – PICNIC ’10 from PICNIC on Vimeo.

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Visualizing Information

Today I was in a workshop where we encountered some discussions on interpreting information. Interpreting information is done by the brain. We can only display information in a way that enhances interpretation. Visualization helps interpretation and increases the value of information. Today I encountered this great TED video, with great examples from Amsterdam during Queensday! Thanks to @jasperdevalk for the tweet about this video.

[ted id=1152]

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Energy and distractions

Today I was preparing for an EIM workshop. During the afternoon my brain felt like it had run dry. Inspiration was completely gone and nothing came out of my fingers. At 17:00 I went home. Because I spent the whole day at the office I was by bike. After five minutes biking I was having good ideas that I worked on later this evening. I regret that I did not go home earlier. This made me less productive than I could have been.

The other lesson was about noise and distraction. When you need to concentrate on your work every distraction needs to be eliminated. This means no email, no phonecalls and also quietness around your workplace. There is enough evidence that multitasking complex tasks is not possible but we switch tasks and lose a lot of time in between! This emphasizes the need for concentration booths at our office or to work in another quiet space like home or a library.

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Being More Productive with David and Tony

Last weekend I read a conversation in HBR between David Allen and Tony Schwartz. David Allen is the creator of Getting Things Done, a list-driven productivity approach. Tony Schwartz is the CEO of The Energy Project, he boosts productivity through the science of high performance. The conversation was very interesting and inspiring. David Allen describes his ideas as the uncovering of the strategic value of clear space. To be creative you need space and freedom. The techniques of GTD ensure you get this freedom and space. One big lesson of GTD is to start the day with the most important task for that day. In the morning you are fit and fully charged to do the task. The Energy project focusses on the energy needed to perform. There are four dimensions of energy that we all need: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. An important first lesson of energy in the physical dimension is to work intensively for 90 minutes and then take time to recover. The basic idea here is that life in essence is not continuous but it is rhythmic Think about your hart rate, muscle movement and breathing. If these are all rhythmic, you should work with the same concept. Another lesson is that sleep is very important, this is known since a long time but still to many people do not sleep enough and are less productive than they could or should be!

Today I started the day with my most important task and my feeling when I was finished was super. The day was succesfull from the start. Do you get the same feeling when you start with email?

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EIM scan preparation

Tomorrow I am co-hosting a first EIM workshop in a series of three. Today I worked on the hypotheses for the scan, this means putting into words what it means for an information domain to be in a specific maturity level. An information domain can be ‘customer information’ or ‘expertise knowledge’. The domains that are included in the EIM scan are specific for each organisation as they depend on strategy. Another aspect that is very important in this workshop is a clear view on the proces and information flow. I worked up some examples for 5 process flows to be discussed tomorrow. A colleague of mine will be present as well to work on infographics of these flows.

My main concern is how to capture all valuable input during the workshop 😉