[Via Loic]

A French Employee’s Work Celebrates the Sloth Ethic



This article will improve again France’s image abroad.

“Her employer of 12 years was not amused. Irritated that she identified herself as an Électricité de France employee on the back cover of her book, company officials wrote her a stern letter accusing her of inattention at meetings, leaving work early and “spreading gangrene from within,” just as her book advocates. They demanded that she appear for a disciplinary hearing, though the original Aug. 17 date has been pushed back to September. That’s because Ms. Maier is going on vacation.”

I’m again completely shocked by the growing abyss between this kind of lazy people and the rest of the world.

I was this week with some Romanian colleagues and i was totally impressed by their willingness to develop themselves, their company and their country. I mentionned this example to them, to explain that they are *not* the only ones who have to fight against bureaucracy and laziness. They laughed a lot…and that’s perhaps the only positive point about this story.

I hate having to pay taxes for this person, her boss and her company. and I do not want to know how many state employees are working in this way…

Conclusion: steps of a successful change process

1. Creating credible managing support: select strong personalities who have visible, public commitment for the change team and support of change
2. Establishing a need for change: make clear the reasons of change driven by threats or opportunities (or both), the need for change must exceed its resistance
3. Developping a vision: develop a widely shared and understood vision, describe the desired outcome of change
4. Mobilising commitment: try to motivate as many promoters and multipliers of change as possible, communicate, communicate, …., with doubters and opponents
5. Handling emotions and resistance: there are no change processes without resistance, work with resistance not against it, re-negociate the psychological contract
6. Making change last: celebrate early wins, integrate change initiatives with other key projects and with the actual management practices
7. Anchoring the change in the culture: alterations of culture aspects is almost a prerequisite for a sustaining change, be aware of the "hidden rules" of your organization

—————

Source: G. Müller-Stewens / Ch. Lechner

My hoster OVH had some problems since yesterday (noon – GMT+1:00). Now it seems that they fixed the problem. It was the first issue within about three months, the support and the information flow worked well.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

As you perhaps know, even though NTFS is more resistant to fragmentation than FAT, it can and does still fragment… This situation is incredibly stressed if you are developping some softwares. So, as manager or developer, we are confronted with this annoying unresolved disk fragmentation problem.

The first discussion was to know if the Microsoft built-in defragmenter can solve this issue. The answer is clearly no. If you have already used it, you know what I mean. Then, we normally had to buy some Diskeeper licenses. We already tested this tool, without being convinced… Laurent, as a Microsoft .NET MVP (Most Valuable Professional), received a free-of-charge license of PerfectDisk from Raxco. We had a look at this product (see below) and … decided to buy it (normal price for a download version for workstation) for different (we think ;-) good reasons. You can find some information in the Data Sheet.

The first feedbacks of our users are very good!

PerfectDisk features not present in the Microsoft built-in defragmenter

PerfectDisk features not present in Diskeeper

PS: so or so, a company which is working for Gibson (yes, Gibson is using PerfectDisk ;-), is a good company!

Do you know the Sting‘s DVD: “…All this time”? You should. And I cannot express my feelings better than Soaring Heart….

Sting is an artist in the truest sense, May 13, 2002

This review has been locked up in my heart for a long time. It is one of those enormously emotional products I love that I feel inadequate to review; however, that is the best reason for reviewing it. I believe most people know that this concert was held in Sting’s home in Italy, that he and his gifted band had been practicing for less than 2 weeks and that they had to decide whether to go on and do the show knowing of the horrific events of that day (September 11, 2001.) Besides the music, their discussion of this decision is one of the highlights of this DVD. “Fragile,” dedicated to the victims is the opening song and it is played and sung PERFECTLY with tenderness, respect and musical brilliance. The entire DVD sound and picture quality is second to none I’ve ever seen, the songs are slightly different than we’ve heard them (more jazzy/bluesy) and it is a change that shows how much Sting has grown as an person, not just an artist. The band he has put together is entirely and impressively gifted, coming from around the world–Brazil, Argentina, Algeria, France, England, North America and more. Each one adds to the magical eclecticism of the music and atmosphere. They comprise an entertaining and interesting group of musicians to watch AND listen to.

[Via Rodrigo]

Two things about Firefox (I already posted here concerning this great browser):

1) Mozilla released the version 0.9.3 of Firefox.

2) Mozilla Firefox won two awards at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo: Best of Show and Best open source solution.

[Via vowe]

Mercedes-Benz is releasing every 6-8 weeks a so-called Mixed Tape, which is a “blend of exclusive MP3s by new, international artists”. The Mixed Tape 02 has just been released, featuring 15 brand new tracks as part of a free and legal download compilation. All styles are represented. The MP3’s quality is ok (192kbit, 44,1kHz stereo). Good experience ;-)

Changing paradigm in leadership styles

Change in behaviour

A real deep change in behaviour is a very long path.

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Source: G. Müller-Stewens / Ch. Lechner