via seth godin

If you are one of my regular reader, you know how far I like Seth Godin, his inputs and thoughts. But this time, it is even much more accurate to what I am experiencing with the ecenter team since some days. Have a look at this “sheepwalking” post, one of my preferred post ever!

It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. […]

Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep?

And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless.

And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) […]

When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff.

And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. […]

The biggest step, though, comes from anyone who teaches or hires. And that’s to embrace non-sheep behavior, to reward it and cherish it. As we’ve seen just about everywhere there’s been growth lately, that’s where the good stuff happens.

Impossible to tell how *far* and how *deep* I totally agree with Seth :-) Time to show that we are *not* sheepwalkers.

via Matt Asay

Harvard Business School seems to invest some research-time in the Open Source area, and more specifically in the field of Corporate investments for Open Source projects.

This research first categorized the more than 100’000 projects from SourceForge and eliminated the non-active ones. So, at the end, we are talking about 1’135 projects, which are splitted into categories in this way:

Original file here.

Then, the study is bringing the Corporate investments per category:

Original file here.

It is *impressive* how far the Linux projects are concentrating so many investments… No real differentiation in the investments…

[…] That said, it is useful to have a wide range of investment flowing into a concentration of projects (Linux, Xen, etc.) such that de facto open source standards are created. This frees up investment – proprietary or open source – to innovate elsewhere in the IT stack.

Still, I’d like to see vendors thinking more broadly about their development strategies. Oracle is doing this with its investment in the JSR-170 standard (content repository), perhaps as a counterweight to Microsoft’s SharePoint (proprietary repository). So, it is happening, however limited it may be. I’d just like to see more thought go into investing in Funambol/Sync4j (ensuring that email isn’t locked up by RIM/Blackberry), DimDim (finding clever ways to expand product boundaries with web conferencing), etc.

[…] Too bad very little of it is getting heavy investment.

via Apple

Umh, be careful if you are using iTunes and you want to migrate to Vista…

[…] Apple recommends, however, that customers wait to upgrade Windows until after the next release of iTunes which will be available in the next few weeks. […]

If you are upgrading from Windows XP or 2000 to Windows Vista prior to the next release of iTunes, here are a few steps that will improve your experience when syncing your iPod or playing iTunes Store purchases once upgraded to Windows Vista.

1. Deauthorize all iTunes Store accounts.
2. Enable Disk Use on all iPod models.
3. Uninstall iTunes.
4. Perform a clean install of Windows Vista (Highly recommended but not required).
5. Reinstall the latest version of iTunes.
6. Open iTunes.
7. Choose Authorize Computer from the Store menu in iTunes.

Ok, ok, I *have* to tell you that I have bought my first Apple gadget. I am really not a fan, generally speaking. The issue here was…the iPod nano. Pfffu, what for a cool player! I must say, I was also a bit fed up of winamp after some years of extensive usage, no evolution anymore since months…. I have tested the MS Media Player, without being convinced.

So, the first step was to have a look at iTunes (Windows XP, v7.02.16). Impressive. Very easy and coherent approach, with a lot of good functions, and specially the possibility to extract CDs very easily (I was an user of CDex for years), also to high-quality MP3 (bit rate: 320kbps, highest VBR, sample rate: 48kHz). On top, I could extract some CDs I couldn’t manage with CDex because of the CD protection (for example, Gorillaz Demon Days). The management of Playlists and the presentation of the different lists (artists, albums, etc.) is really very cool.

The second step was to have a look at the Apple Store. Outch, again, great, very efficient e-commerce website (also compared to amazon for example), so easy and fun to use… I bought there a iPod nano 8GB black, with a cool laser engraving :-) The meaning of “I am on eleven” must be linked with the movie “Final Stap”, but nobody knows it, excepted the musicians.

The size is definitely incredible, very thin, just…small :-) Actually, the biggest part will be so or so your earphones. In this field, I have read that the quality of the original earphones of Apple are not good. I have actually no clue as I am using my Shure E2c earphones. I am waiting for my new Shure E5c.

The iPod nano itself is super easy to use. So easy that I have to re-adapt myself a bit ;-) The sync with iTunes is working perfectly and fast, artworks of the albums are also appearing. The sound is really great. I could copy about 750 songs on the iPod (remember, I am using 320kbps MP3 with 48kHz sample-rate…).

The only negative point is that the iPod nano is not delivered with … a power supply. So, if you want to charge you nano when you are on holidays, do not forget to take with you your notebook. This is really an idiocy, a universal power supply costs about 30 euros, so Apple could integrate this in its package….

So, all in all, a great first experience with Apple products for a definitely not convinced “Apple-fan” :-)

Difficult not to think about the coming holidays, I must admit :-)

I have found a great webcam, pointing on the absolutely marvelous bay of Saint Jean (you can also see the St. Barths’ airport on the left side). The resolution is really cool, 1280×960 of pure happiness. An example of the weather today (midday):

[click]

You can find the webcam here.

-19 days :-)

via ecenter solutions blog

Nick, my Business Partner, just posted the last great news about ecenter solutions:

“What would it look like for an insurance carrier to do everything right with today’s technology?”

This was the question that Celent, the international strategy consulting and research company, asked itself in order to identify insurance carriers to include in their report published mid of January 2007. Helvetia insurance ebusiness platform was included in the report “Celent Model Carrier 2007 –

Case Studies of Effective Technology Usage in Insurance

for its “Services-Oriented Architecture to Enable E-Business and Reduce Development Expenses”. This platform was build and is operated by ecenter solutions with the initial support of Hewlett-Packard.

Find the Celent report here.

Cool :-)

…to me :-)

Pffu, 35 today, strange feeling.

…my wife, my son and myself will land (again!) here…

[click]

The beaches will be again so crowdy…

[click]

[click]

We will be very busy…

A touch of paradise…

[click]

Low temperature: 24°C, high: 28°C…

via Seth Godin

Wow, inspiring post, again, from Seth.

99% of the time, in my experience, the hard part about creativity isn’t coming up with something no one has ever thought of before. The hard part is actually executing the thing you’ve thought of.

The devil doesn’t need an advocate. The brave need supporters, not critics.

I had a look at the IBM results published here. Some quite interesting information about Big Blue.

Financial results 2006 (compared to 2005)

• Total revenues: $91.4 bn (+0.3%)
• Net income: $9.5 bn (+17.8%)
• Revenues and gross margin per activities:

• Services: $48.2 bn (52.7% of the revenues), gross margin 27.5%
• Hardware: $22.5 bn (24.6% of the revenues), gross margin 37.0%
• Software: $18.2 bn (19.9% of the revenues), gross margin 85.2%
• Financial Services: $2.4 bn (2.6% of the revenues), gross margin 54.7%
• Others: $0.1 bn (0.1% of the revenues), gross margin -13.2%

Some comments

• Stagnation of the revenues, compared to 2005 (+0.3%), but very clear improvement on the profit side (+17.8%)
• Hewlett-Packard is now “bigger” (revenues) than IBM ($91.7bn for HP vs. 91.4bn for IBM)
• IBM is now the second biggest Software company after Microsoft
• IBM is now clearly a Services company, with 52.7% of the revenues generated in this area. It is also important to note that the Services sector has the lowest gross margin, which is quite strange. IBM decided to push this part of the company because of the expected profit situation there…
• Based on the gross margin situation in 2006, IBM should intensify its acquisition strategy of Software companies in 2007. Cash is definitely here (more than $10bn)
• IBM has further on a quite complicated positioning on the Software market, with, in about all segments where the company is present, its own commercial products, plus some Open Source solutions
• IBM is still very active in the Open Source landscape (Linux, eclipse foundation). Some people are talking about investments above $1bn…