via Seth Godin

What kind of people are you hiring? Are you sure you are looking at the right kind of persons?

Most fast-growing organizations are looking for people who can get stuff done.
There is a fundamental shift in rules from manual-based work (where you follow instructions and an increase in productivity means doing the steps faster) to project-based work (where the instructions are unknown, and visualizing outcomes and then getting things done is what counts.)

And yet, we’re still trying to hire people who have shown an ability to follow instructions.

via Joi Ito

I am sick, at home, and … thinking ;-)
Just read this post from Joi Ito. Great!

I’m reading The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler. In it, they suggest that we should focus on pursuing happiness as our goal in life and the we should be careful to make a distinction between happiness and pleasure. […]

We then realize that we need to develop patience to build compassion. Our patience grows by being challenged by annoying or hurtful people and events. It is these people and events that ultimately are our teachers. We should learn to cherish and be thankful for these annoying things, because without them we would not grow and become even happier. […]

Compassion vs greed is something that we’ve been talking a lot about in the context of amateur vs professional. I think that compassion and the happiness one gains from giving and sharing is one of the fundamental driving forces of the sharing economy just as greed and the “economic man” are fundamental elements of capitalism and neo-classical economics. I think that in order to really understand how the sharing economy works, we need to understand how happiness works and what makes people choose compassion over greed.

We often make decisions which involved trying to decide which decision will make us happier. Often, we mistake pleasure for happiness and make the choice that may be more pleasurable instead of the choice that would provide more long-term happiness. The Dalai Lama says that just framing questions to yourself in terms of what will give you more happiness and making a distinction between happiness and pleasure will help us make the right decisions. […]

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I would like to come back to our last trip to st barth in February/March 2007 more in detail. Why? Just because it was too fantastic and I would like to share parts of this moment with you. I will bring different posts in the coming days concerning this incredible experience.

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Introduction

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the places and moments that take our breath away.

Our last trip to St Barth beginning of March 2007 was a real “hit”. Our best holidays ever… As usual, difficult to explain exactly why it was so. On the other side, if you cannot have extraordinary holidays in St Barth, it will be difficult for you to have fun somewhere else ;-)

Again, some important very positive good points which are speaking for St Barth.

The weather

The weather was absolutely fantastic this year. During 18 days there, we had about 2 hours of rain. After the rain, it is quite clear why you need a 4-wheel car on St Barth… The roads, when wet, are very slippery! So, we had about 30-32°C during the day, 24°C during the night (which is very comfortable for having dinner and smoking some cigars on the terrace ;-), 27°C in the sea (we got the impression that the Atlantic side is a bit colder than the Caribbean side, but not sure).

I haven’t published any statistics of didierbeck.com since some months, mainly because nothing special has happened during the last months (on this side ;-). No real active blogging means … no increase in traffic. Quite logic ;-)

Actually, after a decrease till September last year, my blog is again gaining in traffic.

And April 2007 was my best month ever with 506’371 hits, 114’267 pageviews and 66’081 unique visitors, which have generated 15.65 GB of data transferred. Actually, I had already more unique visitors (more than 80’000 in Mai 2006), but with less hits, pageviews and data transferred. I must have a deeper look at the structure of the traffic, something is changing there.

via Jeremy Zawodny

Jeremy from Yahoo has published a very interesting presentation about the “Web service APIs: The Landscape and Opportunities”. Worth a read. You can find the pdf-presentation there.

Dear all
We are going to Le Croisic – France for one week. I need fresh air and to see and feel the (cold) ocean to re-load!
Take care!

via science photo gallery

A marvelous picture of a ladybird by Syred Andrew.

Coloured scanning electron micrograph of a seven-spot ladybird beetle (Coccinella septempunctata) hovering over a flower. The ladybird’s outer wings are strengthened into a hard covering (red) which protects the delicate flight wings underneath. In a scanning electron microscope (SEM), the specimen is scanned with a beam of electrons, creating photograph-like images with an exceptional depth of field. The raw black-and-white image has been naturalistically coloured on computer.

via st.barts online webcam

Today 11:23am (local time), current weather is quite cool at St Barth.
30°C (86°F), humidity 63%.
Too bad I am not here now, but have a look, good for our eyes and mood ;-)

Our colleagues and friends from occam capital have finally launched their corporate website! Good news, also because Marc (Goldberg) has “lost his voice” in the blogosphere ;-)

Occam Capital focuses on high-growth information technology-enabled companies companies with at least €1M€ in yearly revenues. The firm invests in europe, and has global investment and operating experience from investments in the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The firm offers significant European expansion assistance to companies and global expansion assistance in the United States and China.

We focus on fast growing companies in the following sectors

• Homeland Security
• Information Technology (hardware, software and services)
• Media, Ecommerce and Telecommunication
• Banking and Financial services
• Industry and Aerospace
• Technology-Enabled Services

We invest in all the European countries from Israel to iceland…

Congrats to Laurent, François and Marc (who they are) for this launch and the announcement of their investment in Mandriva.

Since about 4 months now, I have discovered the Hublot watches and the Hublot company and brand. Quite an interesting story. And a very good example of an emotional brand linked and strongly represented by its very charismatic CEO, Jean-Claude Biver. Hublot is bringing high-rage watches internationally (top-range watches are defined in Switzerland by their price, i.e above 8’000 to 9’000 CHF).

Jean-Claude Biver is one of those rare men who have genuinely left their mark on Swiss watchmaking. He is born in Luxembourg on 20 September 1949, and his family moved to Switzerland when he was 10 and he became a pupil at a school in Saint-Prex. He continued his education at the Collège de Morges, then at Lausanne University. He arrived in Le Brassus with his degree fresh in his pocket.

The birthplace of fine watchmaking, the Joux Valley was to have a profound effect on his life. He fitted in very quickly, living near a farm which, years later, would become the headquarters of Blancpain. He married in the valley in 1979.

Jean-Claude Biver worked hard to hone his skills from 1975 when he joined Audemars Piguet. He moved on to Omega, in Bienne, where he remained until 1981 and that year, with his friend Jacques Piguet, he bought the dormant Blancpain brand. […]

Ten years after its creation, the company was flourishing. Despite this, the two partners decided to sell, to protect the company and enable it to develop in a balanced manner. Nicolas Hayek and the Swatch Group bought Blancpain in 1992, but Jean-Claude Biver remained as Managing Director and joined the board of Swatch until end of 2003.

Jean-Claude Biver is undoubtedly enjoying is new challenge as a CEO of Hublot watches with a seat on the Board.

Hublot has launched the new and very innovative “Big-Bang” collection in 2005. These watches are 44.5mm diameter watches, always with a so-called “fusion approach”, that means that there are very different types of materials used, as for example ceramic, titanium, kevlar and rubber. Actually, the brand Hublot was the first watches brand which has used rubber for making the straps (in this high-end range of the watches segments). Huge immediate market success. And what for a success:

• Revenues 2004: 26 mio CHF
• Revenues 2006: 96 mio CHF (and about 116 mio CHF of orders which had to be delayed)
• Revenues 2007 (forecast after Baselworld): 270 mio CHF

Hublot is manufacturing about 17’000 pieces per year. It is generally speaking difficult to find an Hublot watch. The jeweler’s shops have normally just some pieces in stock (4 to 8). If you are ordering a watch, you will have to wait about 8 months before receiving it, perhaps now longer after the BaselWorld event ;-)

The website of Hublot is also quite interesting (see below). It consists on a Big Bang watch in the background, which is giving the hour and the date. This website is receiving about 9’000 unique visitors per day (i.e. 270’000 visitors / month or more than 3 million visitors per year). The main communication media used is the video. You can find a lot of short videos (with a majority of them with Jean-Claude Biver ;-), plus a so-called “Hublot TV”

Another innovative marketing process was launched by Hublot with their sponsorship partnership with the UEFA Euro 2008 event, which will take place in Switzerland and Austria! It is the first time that a luxury watch brand is supporting a sport as football (our European soccer). Hublot is also, more traditionally in this industry, sponsoring sailing activities (America’s Cup and Luna Rossa, PalmaVela).

This one is my preferred model, the Big Bang Black Magic: