[via Seth]

Good illustrations from Seth Godin of the “First who, then what” idea of Jim Collins.

I can’t think of one world class service organization (whether it’s someone selling million dollar computers to corporations or Starbucks) that has figured out how to replace great people with great systems.

The best organizations have principles and guidelines and even, yes, scripts. But time and again, they fall back to, “Use your best judgment” or “Do what’s right for the customer” or “Make something magical happen” or “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.”

When a hotel chain empowers a maid to spend up to $500 to make it right (using her own discretion), that’s not a system, that’s trusting great people to do the right thing.

The problems with systems?
1. if you rely on them too much, your people stop trying, and your hiring people realize they don’t have to get such great people.
2. sooner or later, it’s going to get copied by the competition. It’s a lot easier to copy a system than it is to get great people.

Yes, if you can automate it in a way that increases satisfaction, do it right away. Use an ATM system instead of the front desk at the hotel. Use an automated wake up call system. But then put the money you save into wonderful people at the concierge desk.

Today, Google is celebrating the birthday of Vincent Van Gogh (30 March 1853) with this beautiful logo.

[via BetaNews]

While some artists battle online file sharing networks, others have embraced the new market for digital music. Bruce Springsteen is launching the first single off his upcoming album, “Devils & Dust,” exclusively on the Internet via AOL Music and Apple’s iTunes Music Store.

“Devils & Dust” won’t be available in stores until April 26, but will feature special content using the DualDisc format, which functions as a CD on one side and a DVD on the other. Apple isn’t the only company shoring up exclusive tracks; Microsoft recently announced it had signed Mariah Carey to debut her new single on MSN Music.

[via BetaNews]

Google will acquire Urchin, the web analytics company. We are using Urchin for a while, really a great tool, very stable and performant, lots of functionalities, far better than WebTrends.

Google announced late Monday it will acquire Urchin Software, a developer of analytic solutions for Web sites. Urchin produces tools to track the performance of marketing, examine the user experience and optimize content. Google intends to offer the tools to Web site owners and marketers as an enticement to use its services.

“This technology will be a valuable addition to Google’s suite of advertising and publishing products,” said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president of product management at Google. Google expects that the acquisition will close before the end of April. The terms of the sale were not disclosed.

The press release of Urchin.

The Beaches

Surprisingly, we found at St.Barths some of the most amazing beaches we have the chance to visit, including the ones of the Seychelles. There are 14 beaches on the island, all very beautiful and different from each others. We particularly liked two of them : le Gouverneur and Saline.

Accomodations

Generally speaking, no accomodation is really cheap on this island… On the other side, a very high quality of service and beautiful buildings. So it remains somewhat coherent. About half the beds which are available at St.Barths are privately held (villas and apartments). There are a very few number of hotels on the island, all very well integrated in the landscape and…very small. The largest hotel has 76 rooms, the others have half of that.

This destination is completely different as the other Caribbean places :-)

After the great Mixed Tape 5 released in January 2005, Mercedes launched the sixth version of its Mixed Tape last week.

With Mixed Tape 06 Mercedes-Benz presents a brand new instalment of its hugely successful free music compilation: until the 17th of May 05 we invite you to explore, download and enjoy 15 exceptional new tracks by outstanding international newcomers at http://www.mercedes-benz.com/mixedtape.
The current compilation opens with Berlin’s latest singing sensation Maximilian Hecker and his stunningly moving pop gem “Full Of Voices”.

In view of the global music scene and true to our maxim “intelligent tracks from around the world” Mixed Tape 06 also introduces Japanese-American Nu Soul discovery Doob, four exceptional artists from the innovative Yosoy label (situated – spiritually and geographically – between Peru, Frankfurt and Malaysia), as well as Berlin’s club favourites Jahcoozi, comprising members from London, Israel and Germany.

Dassault launched its new Falcon 7X mid of February 2005. This plane – really beautiful – is a very important milestone in the virtualization of the concept, prototyping, tests, model and production of the Dassault’s airplanes. A very good example to my mind, how a piece of software can totally change the way an industry is working.

For the first time with the Falcon 7X, Dassault could save the required investment due to the first three prototypes which are normally used as validation and test platforms. The three first Falcon 7X will be simply….sold!

This fast complete virtualization of the conceptual process is based on a software developped by Dassault – Catia. Catia was developped at the beginning of the 70′s by Dassault Systems as a simulation tool. All airplane producers are using Catia, including Boeing and Airbus. 65’000 clients of Catia around the world in 80 different countries. With the last version of Catia, the engineers have the possibility to work directly with the numerical models thanks to 3D-glasses, at a 1:1 scale! This allows for example to check if all the technical elements are accessible easily by the technicians during the maintenance phases…. You can imagine the kind of optimization you can bring in the field of repairing processes. Impressive.

How complexe is it to produce an airplane as the Falcon 7X?
- 27 different companies are integrated and associated to the production process
- the conceptual phase required 18 months, with about 400 engineers from 7 different countries
- they all used Catia (with a central database called Enovia) to work on the concept
- the airplane is made of 40’000 elements, 200’000 fasteners and….25 kilometers of cables

Dassault Systems, with Catia and Enovia, defines a complete Product Lifecycle Management system for:
- the conception of the plane
- the definition of all the technical elements in detail
- the definition of the production industrial process with all the integrated partners
- the management of the final “put-all-these-things-together”
- the definition of the maintenances for the coming….30 years.

The numerical model is also used in the selling process. The potential client has an acces to the virtual plane, can choose the color and leather of the seats, the type of crockery and toilets, etc.

Great example of a piece of software which is changing the complete production and conceptual process of an industry.

Hi all, sorry for not having posted the last days, I’m ill since last Saturday, cannot do anything, beurk… See you in some days, I return to bed ;-)

Update: I enter slowly the normal world again….

General atmosphere

Very safe, I felt as in some small towns in Switzerland. The children are always welcome, also in the restaurants. The service level and customer orientation (restaurants, hotels, shops, etc.) is quite high. There aren’t a lot of people on the island and on the beaches, although we stayed in St.Barths during the high season. Local people are friendly and cool, also on the streets with their cars. The beaches are very clean. See the funny ashes they are using. Some tourists felt some kind of snobbish atmosphere. I don’t agree at all: all the people are dressed *very* informal and casual, sometimes that was really too much, specially in some very good restaurants :-) I didn’t see one tie during our whole stay. The local people and the tourists are really really very cool.

Getting to St.Barths

The principal gateway to St. Barths (SBH) is through Juliana Airport in nearby Dutch St.Maarten, where flights arrive daily from both the USA and Europe. International carriers arriving at Juliana include American Airlines, Continental Airlines and US Air from the USA, and Air France, Corsair and KLM from Europe.

From St. Maarten, WINAIR, Air Caraïbes, and St-Barth Commuter, make the ten minute shuttle flights to St. Barths(SBH).

Air France and Corsair also fly regularly from France to Guadeloupe.

From Guadeloupe, Air Caraïbes offers a few direct flights to St. Barths (45 minutes) and others via St-Martin departing at times meant to accommodate the arrival of the bigger planes from France.

Air Caraïbes also has sereral flights a week between San Juan and St. Barths via St. Martin. And new this season (03/04) Inter Island Express based in San Juan, offers two direct flight a week from San Juan to St. Barths.(SBH)

Locally based charter flights are also available. The airstrip in St. Barths is small, and pilots are required to have special training to land. For many, the landing, especially on a windy day, is an adventure in itself.

[via St-Barths.com]

Laurent is actively participating to the Microsoft .NET community for a while through his very well-known French information portal “Tech Head Brothers“. Microsoft has recognized his high competence and active participation to the spreading of the .NET technology with a Most Valuable Professional title since April 2002.

The management of this kind of community website is very time intensive, as you know. The content of the site is copyrighted in a simple way, not to generate money, but to keep the control of the content. A simple contact, a link to the original article and it’s already over. Simple, isn’t it?

Now, Laurent tells us in one of his post (English) that Mr. Patrice Harmegnies just copied one of Laurent’s article (in French) on his own website, without taking contact with him, without mentionning the author, without linking to the original article. Sorry, but that really sucks!

Patrice Harmegnies seems to be an IT professional and a teacher in the field of web technology….

Mr. Harmegnies, what for a dishonesty and impoliteness! Please respect first the work of the other people… Be a little more respectful with professionals who *really* participate to this kind of communities, who *really* invest time in sharing their know-how and please avoid to make this kind of shitty copy… Definitely ridiculous.