Tag Archives: communication

Saying “no”

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via Seth Godin

This one is again a good one from Seth:

If you’ve got talent, people want more of you. They ask you for this or that or the other thing. They ask nicely. They will benefit from the insight you can give them.

The choice: You can dissipate your gift by making the people with the loudest requests temporarily happy, or you can change the world by saying ‘no’ often.

You can say no with respect, you can say no promptly and you can say no with a lead to someone who might say yes. But just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.

Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities.

Bonifacio 2009 – Part VI

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Palombaggia!

The palette of colours you can see in Palombaggia is rare : reddish rocks, white sand, very brilliant “parasol” pins, etc… And all in front of a clear sea, from which emerge small uninhabited islands ( Cerbicale islands ).

This delightful setting ( and protected ) is not without any consequence : in summer, the tourists are taking to the beaches from the very near resort of Porto Vecchio. All the more since the road which lead to are very beautiful, and the restaurants of the beach very welcoming.

On the sand, to regain quiet, you have to walk as far as possible ( the beach is very long ) or come soon in the morning….

Two different days, with two different radiances ;-)

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My Google profile

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As a lot of people during the last weeks, I have created my Google profile.

What is a Google profile?

A Google profile is simply how you present yourself on Google products to other Google users. It allows you to control how you appear on Google and tell others a bit more about who you are. With a Google profile, you can easily share your web content on one central location. You can include, for example, links to your blog, online photos, and other profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. You have control over what others see. Your profile won’t display any private information unless you’ve explicitly added it.

You can also allow people to find you more easily by enabling your profile to be searched by your name. Simply set your existing profile to show your full name publicly.

If you’ve been writing reviews on Google Maps, creating articles on Google Knol, sharing Google Reader items, or adding books to your Google Book Search library, you may already have a profile. See and customize your profile.

Quite easy. Let’s see with the time if it brings something new…

You can also find the profile of Laurent Kempé on Google profile.

LinkedIn vs. Xing

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Fast comparison between LinkedIn and Xing.

Xing

  • November 1, 2003 – 5 1/2 years old
  • 7 million members
  • 26’000 groups
  • 16 languages
  • 600’000 paying members
  • 240 employees from 22 nations

LinkedIn

  • May 5, 2003 – 6 years old
  • 40 million members, thereof 10 million in Europe and 800’000 in France
  • 300’000 user groups
  • 4 languages
  • 345 employees

My LinkedIn profile (member since March 2004, i.e. more than 5 years)

My Xing profile (member since November 2005).

The Innoveo LinkedIn profile and the Innoveo Xing profile.

Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.

Crazy compensation committees and CEO’s

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via Jeff Bussgang

I am just flying into a rage when I hear all these bonus and golden-parachute stories!

All these stories with these crazy CEOs that are doing a very bad job for their companies, which need to be helped by the government and are receiving billions to save their business. And, at the same time, are delivering bonus for themselves and their managers. This is just intolerable! Do not forget, these guys are not alone, there are “great” remuneration committees that are voting these golden-parachutes and crazy bonus. Why not talking also about them?

How can employees accept this kind of behavior? They are not acceptable.

We shouldn’t wonder why CEOs have such bad reputations today, when some are acting in this way, and just impacting all the other CEOs in a very negative way…

Very nice post from Jeff expressing this point of view more in detail:

Perhaps the most successful venture capitalist in history, Sequoia’s Mike Mortiz (backer of Google, Yahoo, Paypal, to name a few reasonable wins), said in a recent interview that one of the ways he decides whether to invest in an entrepreneur is how much they plan on paying themselves. Moritz views high salaries with immense suspicion. If the founder takes a modest salary (in start-up land, that’s typically $100-200k per year – well below even President Obama’s $500k cap), he knows they believe in the future value of their business. […]

Remember, entrepreneurs aren’t saints or selfless do-gooders. They typically work 80-100 hours per week for two reasons. First, they are PASSIONATE about their venture for the sake of the business and its impact on the world more than the money (“Ask me about my business and you can’t shut me up,” confessed my friend Scott Savitz, CEO/founder of Shoebuy.com, the other day). […]

They want to prove to their investors and employees that the risk they took in investing in them and joining their cause will pay off. Why don’t Fortune 500 CEOs feel the same way? Why is it that they don’t view their role in life to prove to the shareholder that buys their stock in the public market that they took a worthy risk and they’ll be darned sure it pays off? Instead, they think it’s culturally acceptable to take outsized pay packages and perks that no educated, rational shareholder would ever approve if given the chance. […]

The behavior is in such stark contrast to what’s going on in the small business, job-creating end of the economy, it’s absurd. The public is understandably outraged. I am too. That’s why I’d fire all the compensation committee heads and turn the reigns over the start-up CEOs. […]

Twhirl v0.9 is out!

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The new version of Twhirl is out after a good organized and dynamic private beta phase. You can download it here.

This version is very stable, no problem to attend on this side.

I’m quite a fan for a while of Twhirl as a Twitter client. Now, it allows also to broadcast your messages to Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. through the ping.fm service.

By the way, do you know this ping.fm service? Really great! It allows to publish centrally and to push your messages to the different “status” services of the main social networking websites. Worth a try, it’s free!

twhirl

Below, some information about Twhirl.

Twhirl features

  • multiple Twitter, laconica, Friendfeed and Seesmic account support
  • runs on Windows and Mac OSX (and Linux)
  • notifications of new messages across all of your accounts
  • shorten long urls easily (using snurl, twurl or isgd)
  • post images to TwitPic
  • search tweets using Twitter Search and Tweetscan
  • timeline filtering
  • groovy color schemes to personalize your experience
  • automatically checks for new versions

What’s new in Twhirl v0.9

  • spellchecker (currently English only, can be deactivated in settings if you use Twhirl in other languages)
  • your Twitter @replies will display even if you are mentioned in the middle of a tweet – don’t miss anyone quoting your name
  • share all your updates to all your favorite social software via Ping.FM support: Twhirl now posts to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more
  • follow any topic in near-realtime: searching for a term or a brand and then activating it as a saved search it will bring all future mentions of it into your timeline
  • record a video and post it straight to Twitter, then get your Seesmic video replies and follow the video conversation
  • get new Seesmic replies and videos in realtime thanks to XMPP support
  • support for bitly url shortnener with stats and history
  • support for direct messages and favorites on laconica/identica

Actually, I’m using Twhirl as micro-blogging client, without being a seesmic user ;-)

Have a look also at the video from Loic, showing how Twhirl is working.

Marten Mickos, former MySQL CEO, is to depart Sun

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via 451 CAOS Theory

It seems that SUN will not communicate on that, but Marten Mickos, the former MySql CEO, is leaving SUN, after about 1 year… I remember one of my post in February 2008 with some explanations about the “why” of this merge, directly from Marten. Outch. Something didn’t work as planed there.

Some more information below.

I just got news that Marten Mickos, former MySQL CEO, is to depart Sun amid a reorganisation of its infrastructure and database business units. Don’t expect an announcement from Sun on this, but the news is confirmed.

[…] Marten will be transitioning out of Sun by the end of the company’s (current) third quarter.

Marten’s departure is a big loss for Sun and follows quickly after the departures of Monty Widenius and David Axmark.

[…] Matt Asay is right, Marten’s departure “is likely to lead to an exodus among MySQL’s deep talent pool”. This needn’t be a complete disaster – the same thing happened at JBoss and Red Hat has recovered from that, but this is going to be a serious test for Sun’s ability to maximize on the potential of MySQL and its other open source assets.

Matt also writes that “Mickos was the backbone of MySQL’s rising revenues, as an open-source pragmatist and visionary. He was the face of MySQL, but also of the rising open-source industry.” This is true, and for that reason I hope it’s not too long before we see him taking charge at another vendor.

Good luck to Marten, hope to see him asap in a new role!

Innoveo Skye – Product strategy workshop

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Yesterday and today, workshop with the Innoveo Management Team near Zurich for refining and documenting our Innoveo Skye™ (content, scope, roadmap) software solution for insurances (front-end and distribution).

More information there about Skye™.