Eloge de la conversation en entreprise

Bertrand Duperrin explique dans un remarquable billet le risque de retour de bâton dans l’utilisation des mots clefs du web 2.0 lors de session de présentation de la chose devant un public non averti. Le motif : il peut y avoir une dissonance rédhibitoire dans la compréhension de l’auditoire.

Parmi ceux-ci le mot Conversation. Bertrand pose ainsi fort justement le problème :

Allez expliquer à un manager qui, depuis des années, fait tout pour réduire la perte de temps et de productivité due aux bavardages, qu’il faut désormais que ses équipes discutent, conversent et, pire encore, que son rôle est de stimuler le tout, et regardez son faciès se décomposer peu à peu.

5 pistes pour réconcilier ce manager avec la conversation.

God bless http : Sir Ken Robinson

(Ok it’s shamefully easy to blog about TED presentations (again and again and again), but hey this is, again, awesome stuff).

Sir Ken Robinson explains how public education system all around the world educates people out of creativity. British wit and creativity insight at its best.

God bless http : Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity

“I am a … writer”. That’s how it starts. . Elizabeth Gilbert is a bit of a romantic comedy character : studying and living in NYC, she used to write in magazines and did quite a few different things for a living (cook, waitress, etc …) until she wrote a New York Times best seller : Eat Pray Love. Not very good critics but tremendous success – romantic comedy indeed.

In this talk she speaks about creativity and how to lighten the burden of genius in each of us.

Baseline : in ancient Rome, artists HAD a genius that came and visit them. With Renaissance, human is put right in the center of the universe : artists ARE genius. This is a mistake which put a huge pressure on artists shoulder and doom them with anxiety, hence the very high numbers of artists that died before their time.

It’s like asking them to swallow the sun.

20mn of empowering witty wisdom to bring art and creativity back at mortal human reach. (I facebooked it a while back but I feel more comfortable heavymentaling it as it fits here nicely).

Alain de Botton – A kinder philosophy of success

Brilliant speech by Alain de Botton, on success and failure in modern society carreers – via Signal Vs Noise.

Alain de Botton is a Swiss philosopher living in England. It is not just because he also was born in 1969 and has lived in both Zürich and London : I like him because of his very pragmatic approach of philosophy, which I’ve discovered a few years ago reading The Consolations of Philosophy. The latter suffered very hard critics mostly reproaching him for trying to democratise philosophy. But critics never really like it when philosophy tries to simply talk to regular people, do they ? Anyway …

Logic+Emotion: Thinking Visually

Logic+Emotion: Thinking Visually.

Sharing knowledge in an efficient way is a key subject for any knowledge worker.

When I read old fashion documents (pile of text without any effort on the style, the structure, the visuals) or attend dry old styles presentation (ppt with hundreds of bulllet points per slides), that makes want to sleep/cry/kill.  I can’t help thinking about all the time wasted – for both the writer/lecturer and the audience.

Great post by Armano who may get a bit annoying with his 2.0 hysteria, but who is still one of the best whenever it comes to illustrate concepts and thinkings in a nice and efficient way.

Philadephia, March 18th 2008

(c) AP Photo / Alex Brandon – Boston Globe

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I’ve never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted the firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that, in fact, we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

I can’t remember in my whole life a single person embodying so many hopes. Good luck M. President.

Jason Fried Web 2.0 Keynote – Be a Software Curator

How many of you are in software? You’re lucky. All you have to do is type. You don’t have to worry about physics. What you work on is easy to change. It’s not like you’re building a house. You can build software anywhere, in your house, in a plane, inside outside. Doesn’t matter you can build software. You’re lucky you can do all these things.

Watch Jason Fried @ Web 2.0 Expo. 20mns on why you should take care of your software product as a curator does for his museum : keep things out.

Check out report by Kris Jordan Jason Fried Web 2.0 Keynote – Be a Software Curator | Kris Jordan.

Fast food for thoughts : innovation

The aim of this new serie is to propose quick (errrm…) and synthetic overview of a key concept of the IT industry, based on various media and quotes.

Lately, I have spent some time googling around for some innovation inputs and it took me a while to gather all this material. So this comes as some sort of digest.

Scott Berkun (again and again !) has been the constant inspiration of this digest. He will lead us through this bulletin with this brilliant video of his lecture on the topic @ Carnegie Mellon (50ish minutes – recommend to view after reading the post).

Also featuring : Brad Bird (Pixar), Steve Jobs, Douglas Merrill (Google), Linda Naiman, DHH (37Signals), Kathy Sierra (Head First series), etc … 

David Heinemeier Hansson @ Startup School 08

Big up to the great OMNISIO service for offering amazing video for Startup 08 conferences. Great web app, no question why Google bought this startup.

David Heinemeier Hansson is a partner at the 37Signals start-up extraordinaire.

In this presentation (A Secret to making money online) David goes through the business model and beyond that, all the basic principles that have guided 37Signals to become beyond the very successul company, a genuine example for the whole industry.

This is amazing stuff. Do yourself a favor and spend these 35 minutes with DHH, this is priceless in particular if you’re in the startup business.

Nos métiers électroniques 2.0 – Présentation

J’ai eu la “chance” d’être licencié économique en début d’année. Cela m’a donné l’opportunité de rencontrer un certain nombre des acteurs majeurs de mon industrie (informatique) dans ma région (Bordeaux).

J’ai été frappé par le peu de connaissance de mes interlocuteurs de SSII (directeurs d’agence, ingénieurs commerciaux) sur le Web 2.0 et de ses technologies sous-jacentes.