Virginia's New iPad

This Video is making its way through the internets. The lesson here: there *is* HOPE.

In Praise of Publicness

I've been listening to the "This Week in Google" podcast with Leo Laporte, Gina Trapani and Jeff Jarvis and their guests ever since Episode 1. I have become quite acquainted to the three of them and their views and insights.

Jeff Jarvis (visit his blog at buzzmachine.com) recently spoke here in Germany at the bloggers' conference re:publica. His roughly 1-hour speech on publicness vs. privacy titled "The German Paradox" is well worth the time. Invest it!



Oh. And it just so happens I just finished reading his book "What Would Google Do?" today. Also a very recommendable read.

16 days without a blogpost

It could have something to do with the fact that I have a whopping 7 blogs listed in my MarsEdit that I should be updating... I know, same old story, yadda yadda yadda of blogging gone stale. But this "personal blog" was never meant to be overly insightful or up to date. It wouldn't hurt if it were, though.

Or just practical. I found a neat setup for windowless rooms at a friend's blog today: Winscape gives you a room with a view.

Another friend is going through a week of documenting everything she does with a camera. You'd expect the pictures to be trivial, but they're not.

My mom's taken to blogging. A bit. I post her articles in the German blog.

Now that the weather has improved I'm back to taking more pictures. Some of those I've been posting to flickr. And Kati and I have been busy gardening in the castle garden.

All of that has been more exciting than blogging, though it doesn't hurt to share it here, too.

What do you want to be famous for?

I am currently rereading Tom Peters' 1992 "Liberation Management". I find Peters' style somewhat hard to digest but there are many morsels of insight in the book. The subtitle is "Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties".

Well, the 90s are over. Well over. But the tenets of "disorganization" and knowledge management are as important as ever in our increasingly nanosecond world.

One item I want to share is a quote of David Maister from his book "How's Your Asset?":

"As you think about your career, here are some questions to ponder: In what way are you personally more valuable on the marketplace than last year? What are your plans to make yourself more valuable in the marketplace than in the past? What specific new skills do you plan to acquire or enhance in the next year? What's your personal strategic plan for your career over, say, the next three years? What, precisely is it that you want to be famous for?"

Exactly. Skills. Need to keep learning. Learn new things. It's not enough to just be good at what you do and know now.