Wow, after exactly 10 days offline (umh, a record for me ;-), I’m back home and in some hours, in my office. Incredible, for some hours, I was here, on the beach:

Dear friends, I’m out for the next 10 days :-)

Next post on 15th June. Have a good time!

BetaNews is celebrating its 6th birthday, it was launched on 1st of June 1998! This birthday is linked with the launch of a new web design, very cool to my mind. I really like this site for its huge and uptodate information and articles delivery.

Interesting to compare the current design and the one of 1998 :-)

Today, 6 of June, it is the 60th anniversary of the D-Day, the beginning of the Allied invasion, the so-called Operation Overlord, the beginning of the end. The last time, we were quite overwhelmed by information concerning the World War II and the D-Day. On one hand, thanks to this anniversary, we re-activate our thoughts concerning this period of our history. And that’s surely a good point. On the other hand, we see that we are loosing, with the time, all the direct witnesses of the World War II and their testimony.

I don’t like Mr. Bush, I don’t like some actions the US did in the last time BUT, with a lot of emotion, I would like to thank so deeply our American, English and Canadian friends, who fought for us, for France, for the World, for Liberty. A lot of them died or were injuried. A lot of them were volunteers. We are all indebted for their sacrifice. And we have all a duty of memory, do not forget to explain this to your children, including the Holocaust. My God, it was so…I don’t find the words… I am sorry for some of the pictures below but, that’s our history, our reality, guys.

Lest we forget that….

…more than 55 million people died during these 6 years. Fifty-five million peole… It’s about the current population of France today, annihilated in 6 years.

Lest we forget that…

…about 6 million Jews were systematically murdered, 1.5 million of these were children. This represents 2/3rds of the European Jews and about 1/3rd of the worldwide Jewish community at this time. 6 million people, it’s about the current population of Austria or Switzerland, annihilated in 6 years, 1.5 million children. My God, 1.5 million…

Lest we forget that…

…Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed with atomic weapons. 100’000 people were killed immediatly in Hiroshima, 74’000 victims and 75’000 injured in Nagasaki.

Two days ago, I put the “Atom valid” logo away from my blog because I became an error while trying to validate my own atom.xml. I first couldn’t manage to find the problem and, after a discussion with Laurent, it was clear that I had a “strange character” in two posts I made with w.bloggar, which I was testing for a while.

Actually, it seems that I inserted these “strange characters” by making a copy/paste. I must say that I am really pissed of by this kind of application’s behaviour: this copy/paste HAS TO copy only the pure text, without taking any other characters….

[Via Holger]

Steve Gillmor interviewed Evan Williams on 20th of Mai, the conversation is transcripted in this eWeek’s article.
They pincipally talked about the new version of Blogger. Some interesting points:

• definition of profile linked with a user
• new tags in the templating language, eg IF statements
• posting content through emails
• Google’s sign-on strategy across Gmail, Blogger and Google
• the utilization of redirection for the comments (which are stored by Blogger): they are redirecting to avoid a Page Ranking propagation from the very good blogger.com’s PR and to avoid spam on comments
• RSS and atom ecology

[Via Loïc]

Good idea from Loïc (this is not just working with Textpad)! I’ve added a Google Free Site Search on the right side of the blog.

You can find the needed information to do that here. Again, a good point for Google ;-)

Hey, again a Google Dance since yesterday evening! I’m very interested in observing the evolution of my different PR’s during this Dance because of the migration of my web-hosting provider. And the way I choose to “force” the search engines’ migration.

The results are still moving a lot! Let’s see tomorrow :-)

The two components of the vision framework

Core Ideology = Core Values + Core Purpose

Core Values are the organization‘s essential and enduring tenets – a small set of timeless guiding principles that require no external justification; they have intrinsic value and importance for those inside the organization.

Core Purpose is the organization‘s fundamental reason for being. An effective purpose reflects the importance people attach tothe company‘s work – it taps their idealistic motivations – and gets at the deeper reasons for an organization‘s existence beyond just making money.

Envisioned Future = BHAG* + Vivid Descriptions

* BHAG (pronounced bee-hag) = Big Hairy Audacious Goal

BHAG is a 10-to-30-year objective – like a big mountain to climb – that serves as a unifying focal point of effort, galvanizing people and creating team spirit. It is crisp, compelling and easy to understand.

Vivid Description (of what it will be like when the organization achieves the BHAG) Vivid Description is a vibrant, engaging, and specific description of what will be like to achieve the BHAG. Think of it as translating the vision from words into pictures, of creating an image that people can carry around in their heads.

Defining a good BHAG

Five criteria of a good BHAG

1. Are set with understanding, not bravado.
2. Fit squarely in the three circles of the Hedgehog Concept.
3. Have a long time frame – 10 to 30 years.
4. Are clear, compelling and easy to crasp.
5. Directly reflect your core values and core purpose

What are your Base Camp

Core ValuesEnduring tenets – guiding principles – to adhere to no matter what mountain to climb. These never change.

Core PurposeThe underlying “why” you climb mountains at all.

BHAGThe specific mountain you are currently trying to climb.

StrategyThe route you intend to take and the general methods you intend to use to reach the top of the that specific mountain.

Base CampsIntermediate objectives to the top of the mountain. If you have a ten-to-thirty-year BHAG, these would be three-to-five-year intermediate goals on the way up to the mountain.

TacticsSpecific methods for climbing the sections of rock and ice that confront you right now. These would be analogous to detailed annual plans for getting things done this year on the way to the five-year-goal.

A lot of discussion this year and last year about the mix of both functions: CEO and Chairman of the Board. Knowledge@Wharton published an interesting article in its last release (19 Mai – 1 June).

Interesting in the way that some people by Wharton think that there is no evidence the separation between the CEO’s and the Chairman of the Board’s position improves corporate performance. Actually, 377 companies of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index are still managed by only one person as CEO and chairperson.

Michael Useem
Many people would believe that, if nothing else, you diffuse power to some extent and decrease the probability of a scandal by separating the chairperson and CEO positions. But that doesn’t mean you will have great business results.

Whenever you have a company where the founder is still in the company, like Siebel, he may have given up the CEO title, but don’t kid yourself, he’s still running the place. That’s a split in name only because his personality is such that he is unlikely to stay out of it. It’s similar to Microsoft. Gates and Ballmer split roles, but they had been a team for a long time and they’re still a team. The split changed responsibilities, but Gates still plays a day-to-day role, especially in product development.