What happened and happens now in New Orleans, because of the hurricane Katrina, is pure horror, the hell on Earth. Again, a natural disaster, which is now hitting the US, after the Tsunami, and a lot of others…

Some much flooding. Homeless and dead people now (perhaps more than 20’000). A disaster…

I was *very* impacted by the thoughts of Russell in one of his last posts.
It is not the time for politics, critics or controversy. But, on the other hand, I think that we have to face the brutal reality…

I’m sorry, you can’t blame the people of New Orleans for living there, like some people have online. Everyone in the Bay Area – in most of California really – live on massive earthquake faults. Saying we shouldn’t live in this beautiful area because some day we might have a natural disaster just doesn’t work. What does work is preparation, as the catastrophe in New Orleans has shown us.

I won’t start in on the systemic problems where the poorest people were the ones that were not able to evacuate before the hurricane, and were essentially ignored for 24-48 hours after as well. Under President Bush the poverty rate in the U.S. has risen to an incredible 12.5% of the nation. We’re now watching the consequences of that massive number.

Found in the Wikipedia, just to confirm the input of Russ:

Evacuation issues.

[…] Evacuation was mainly left up to individual citizens to find their own way out of the city. Officials knew that New Orleans has the lowest percentage of people with cars of any major city in the United States. A 2000 census revealed that 27% of New Orleans households, amounting to approximately 120,000 people, were without privately-owned transportation. Officials also did not take into account the fact that New Orleans has one of the highest poverty rates in the United States at about 38%. These factors prevented many people from being able to evacuate on their own. Consequentially most of those stranded in the city are the poor, the elderly, and the sick

I hope that the US nation, with the help of other countries, will begin to manage the next steps better than now. It is *so* dramatic…

My heart goes out to all those involved in the disaster.

Donate now.

Gordon is organizing a survey about blogging and its impact and link with knowledge management. It takes about 5 minutes to answer this short survey.

It really helps if you could invest this short amount of time! Thanks in advance for your help.

http://www.adenquire.net/pd5g0022/

It is a very short survey (3-5 minutes) about the influence of weblogs on knowledge work. We think that it will help webloggers to understand, what they really do.
[…] Be sure, the scope of the questionnaire is academic and non-profit. The data you submit are kept strictly confidential and anonymous.
[…] P.S.: The summarized results of this survey will be published on our website

http://www.ku-eichstaett.de/Fakultaeten/WWF/Lehrstuehle/OP

If you are reading my blog for a while, you know that Seth Godin is a great source of inspiration for me. In fact, not just for me ;-)

Seth already gave one of his book for free – The Bootstrapper’s Bible (pdf still available here) – and encouraged his readers to host the file. Done. And quite succesfull: the pdf file was downloaded exactly 2’100 times from Dec.2004 till Aug.2005.

Seth made a second eBook called KnockKnock available…and again, incited his readers to host the pdf file. The book is a kind of “how to” in the field of … building websites ;-). Worth a read.

Knock Knock is now available for you to read for free. It’s a short take on how to use the new online marketing tools to make any website work more effectively.

You’ll notice on the second page of the PDF that there’s a link that makes it easy to contribute to the Red Cross. I hope you’ll take advantage of that.

I have already talked about gVisit here and here. You know, the service which allows you to visualize where your visitors are coming from. After a donation (what you want), you can see your last 100 visitors on a map. Without donation, that means completely free, the service is limited to the last 20 visitors.

It is really funny to see how far this simple visualization is *much more* concrete as the ones based on reporting tools (to my mind). I am each time impressed by the quite international geographical distribution of my visitors. Yes, I mean you, my dear readers ;-) Not really a question of ego, more a small shock each time I have a look at the visitors’ maps. Which are, again, a more concrete materialization of the traffic….

It is also funny to observe the different distributions on my blog, quite “US-loaded”, and on my website, which is more “European-loaded”.

didierbeck.com visitor map

didierbeck.net visitor map

[via CICLOPS]

This unprocessed image was taken during Cassini’s close approach to Enceladus on July 14, 2005.

The image was taken with the narrow angle camera from a distance of approximately 103,230 kilometers (64,140 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 50 degrees degrees. Resolution in the image is about 610 meters (2,020 feet) per pixel.

Can you believe that? An English company called sprayonmud is selling … mud in spray, in order to … Ok, have a look at the FAQ:

What do I use it for?

To give your friends, family and neighbours the impression that you’ve just come back from a day’s shooting / fishing / off-roading / visiting friends who live on a farm / looking for a country retreat / anything but driving around town all day or visiting the retail park!

Incredible! It seems that there is *really* a market for this product. BBCnews published an article about sprayonmud in June, 2005.
Ok, so not a joke BUT … the reason why the product has some success is perhaps another one as to soil one’s car. Other part of the FAQ:

What if my number-plates get obscured by the mud?

You may be pulled over by the police and asked if you knew. As we’ve said above, the law says that number plates must be visible. If they are not, you could be fined but won’t, under present laws, receive any penalty points

Now, the things are clear…

Interbrand published its yearly global brands ranking by value for 2005. As usual, the results are quite interesting, have a look also at this BusinessWeek article.

Definition of the Brand Value

Brand Value is the dollar value of a brand calculated as net present value (NPD) or today’s value of the earnings the brand is expected to generate in the future.

Goal of this valuation

The purpose of these valuations is to demonstrate to the business community that brands are very important business assets and in many cases the single most valuable company asset. We also aim to make branding and marketing a key business issues that have direct shareholder value impact. Through 7 years of publishing BGB we have created the world’s most significant and influential brand and marketing survey.

Limitation of this valuation

The limitations (compared to doing a proper formal valuation project for the brand owner) are: that they are based on public data only; that there is no input from management (in order to maintain consistency); that complex multi-national brands (such as IBM or Shell) are better valued as a series of separate pieces rather than in one lump; that certain key brands are not listed; and that only a limited amount of time can be spent on any one brand. The main limitation is that they tell you how much the brand is worth but not what is driving brand value nor what would increase brand value going forwards.

Top 20

The Winners

1. eBay +21%
2. HSBC +20%
3. Samsung +19%
4. Apple +16%
5. UBS +16%

The Losers

1. Sony -16%
2. Morgan Stanley -15%
3. Volkswagen -12%
4. Levi’s -11%
5. Hewlett-Packard -10%

High-tech companies

Car producer companies

[via Loic – in French]

Loic is writing a book about blogging in a business environment and he is publishing parts of his writings on his blog (just in French ;-). Great experience. In his last post, he tells us how he organized one of the biggest European blog event, which ever took place: “Leg Blogs – Blogs and social software“. *Very* interesting to learn how Loic used a wiki and viral information/marketing for the organization.

Loic also told us that the second edition of this event – Les Blogs 2.0 – will take place on Dec 5 -6, 2005 in Paris. I will do my best to come this time ;-)

Update: have a look at this post of Loic (in English). The inputs are confirmed: Blog 2.0, Dec 5-6, 2005, in Paris, keynote speaker will be Robert Scoble, the most famous MS blogger.

As already discussed, I have tried gVisit.com for about 5 days. gVisit gives you the possibillity to visualize the location of your visitors (btw, without gathering any personal data) to your website by adding a small javascript piece of code.

Consequently, for the blogs, it doesn’t take into account your visitors who are linking your RSS/atom feed.

The service is free, which is great, but tracks only the last 20 visitors. After having made a donation, I have upgraded my membership, and now, gVisit is tracking the last 100 visitors of my blog and of my website.

Really great and exciting to see where you are all coming from. Wow!

didier beck’s weblog

didier beck’s website

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Piani and the Calanches

The UNESCO-protected site of the Calanches, 5km southwest of Porto, takes its name from calanca, the Corsican word for creek or inlet, but the outstanding characteristics here are the vivid Orange and pink rock masses and pinnacles which crumble into the dark blue sea. Liable to unusual patterns of erosion, these tormented rock formations and porphyry needles, some of which soar 300m above the waves, have long been associated with different animals and figures, of which the most famous is the Tête de Chien (Dog’s Head) at the north end of the stretch of cliffs. Other figures and creatures conjured up include a Moor’s head, a monocled bishop, a bear and a tortoise.

One way to see the fantastic cliffs of the Calanches is by boat from Porto; excursions leave daily in summer, cost €18 and last about an hour. Alternatively, you could drive along the corniche road which weaves through the granite archways on its way to Piana. Eight kilometres along the road from Porto, the Roches Bleues café is a convenient landmark for walkers.

[source: france-for-visitors]

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