Business Quests in the Information Age

Who are you in The Matrix?

While doing some research I cam across a test that will help you determine who you would be in The Matrix. It's fun and it does remind me of more or less weird exercises often used in branding and communications workshops to facilitate the emergence and definition of a brand personality. That's based on patterns that we humans seem to have more or less hardwired into our systems. Carl Jung called them archetypes. Here's my result for what it's worth with a link to the site where you too can discover who your Martix character would be.

 

What Matrix Persona Are You?

You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You display a perfect fusion of heroism and compassion.
Take this quiz!

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Done!

Well, I guess it's done in the fullest sense of the word: the scrum master training is over and it's been an exciting couple of days with Jeff Sutherland and great participants. There was theory, there were facts (many) and there was also practice, where I got an opportunity to play with nice fun people like Nicolas and to benefit from the creative ideas of Denis, two team mates in a practice sequence that we blew away. One of the missions was to build a four story house of cards (that's where Denis creative use of post-its came in). Great fun. Here are the pictures.

The team's achievement (OK, the fourth level of the house is minimalistic, but on the other hand that was the description of the requirement in the story point, so why go beyond and take the risk of send everything crumbling down?) with Denis trying to hide behind a bottle of water ;-)

Nicolas, who's given us a great tip to properly achieve estimates: make sure you are absolutely clear about what "done" means... and that makes a world of difference both in terms of quality of estimates and in terms of making the interaction between team members really productive and uplifting:

The team's achievement with Laurent at the right hand side in the background. Laurent works for CRP Henri Tudor, Luxembourg's public research center, which means that Luxembourg had some serious proportion of the audience in this session of scrum master (there were 4 people from Vanksen Group, Laurent and myself - I count at least 50% from Luxembourg given the amount of time I spend there!).

Great to be in North America

First of all, I want to share with you something that has nothing to do with the post itself, that is my great excitement at being in North America for a week or so. I just landed and the welcome is really professional and at the same time very warm. Went through New York border controls where there was that smiling police woman who delivered a real piece of wisdom when I greeted her asking how she was: "I'm doing pretty good and trying to enjoy every moment 'cause one never knows when one will close their eyes forever".

Anyway starting next Monday I will be attending the AlwaysOn Media NYC conference, which I expect to be great. I am genuinely impressed with the way this conference business is being managed by Tony Perkins & team.

Remember Coke & Mentos? Watch this one!

Coke and Mentos experiments by Eepy Bird had been a great buzz with one movie having been watched over 5 million times just on Revver in the 5-6 weeks following May, 31st 2006, while Grobe and Voltz, the creators,  appeared on TV shows like "The Late Show with David Letterman" and NBC's "Today". Interestingly a couple of guys are trying to piggy-back on the success of the Coke and Mentos stint to generate some buzz for Carlsberg.

Mission statement up for grabs

In the glorious tradition of such fine human activities as the Bull-Shit Bingo, here is a mission statement which is up for grabs if anyone would dare use it in real life (I have actually seen a few mission statements that looked considerably worse, so perhaps this one would be an improvement now that I think of it):

"The customer can count on us to authoritatively revolutionize innovative methods of empowerment to allow us to conveniently build competitive content." - source: Dilbert Mission Generator

Skype for baby-sitting

Now, you can call us crazy if you want, but the point is that I am doing baby-sitting over Skype! A friend of mine had to go out for a quarter of an hour and his son is in deep sleep under my remote watch... How crazy can applications of technology actually get?

I can't wait for hologramic telecommunications to become mainstream, as stated in this awkward Cisco "ad" on YouTube: if you want audience "on the cheap" you should loosen-up you Cisco chaps and feed us something original / funny, unless you actually believe in aphorism (often attributed to William Randolph Hearst) that it is better to be receiving negative media coverage than none at all!

Youth's week at the finest restaurants of Belgium

A friend of mine who is currently attending evening classes to become a chef, sent me an email saying that the "Maitres Cusiniers de Belgique", a sort of guild of master chefs of Belgium, is organizing its yearly  "youth's week". Between September 18 and 23 young people between 18 and 23 years of age will be able to eat in the country's finest restaurants for a fixed price of 35 €/person.

I found that to be quite an effecitve way to do low cost public relations and to tease young people who are the future customers of top restaurants. Here's a link if you know someone who could be interested in  (and qualified for) the event.

"Recueil Désuet" : A dive in fantasy

Maya de Luna - "Recueil Désuet" on Jamendo

This is a great creation. I really like the way music and voices mix creating a strange and inviting atmosphere that prompts me to imagine fantastic landscapes and settings. It's lively, yet quiet and melodic... great discovery.

Football World Cup Ethnology

Football (soccer for my US friends) is not really my cup of tea although I enjoy "good" games (see below for my definition of "good"). The fact is though that soccer is interesting to analyze in order to get insights about the way we, humans, function.

I guess one can be quite disdainful with this very popular game, but in fact it is worth observing and thinking about it a bit more. Observing players, coaches, assistant coaches, the public, referees, journalists... gives us interesting insights into our human condition. It's a bit like the very funny ethnological observations contained in this slide-show that was sent to me by a friend. Download and enjoy!

Download Footballteamtactics_M_.pps

Now a few words about a "good" game...

A good game is one where:

1. players actually play football not theater
2. teams try to achieve their goals and create interesting situations not to destroy the opponent's game and waste time
3. referees apply rules with good old common sense not in a bureaucratic fashion...
4. the public has fun watching the game, not fighting and destroying stuff
5. human respect is part of the process because no "result" is worth achieving with violence

In a way a "good" football game is like a "good" company or a "good" government: focused on what matters to create better customer / user / citizen experience. And perhaps it could become better with less rigidity and conversatism: for example it may be time to start using technology for referees to make better decisions... In football too progress and innovation can be good.

Amazing how many things can be said about what the critics sometimes call a "stupid game where idiots push a leather ball"... Even the ball itself has its story and we humans like stories,don't we? That's certainly something the marketers of this event understood very well...

Les Temps Modernes : Musical modern times from Ehma (Belgium)

Ehma - Les Temps Modernes on Jamendo

I have been using Jamendo for over three months and I just love the musical discoveries the platform offers. My latest is an album called "Les temps modernes" by a band called Ehma who are from Belgium. Now, the funny part is that I live in Belgium but was able to discover Ehma only through Jamendo; in fact that is also the power of the web and I think it disproves the assertions of many who believed technology isolates people. Anyway, enough about the greatness of the web: go listen to Ehma because it's really worth it. Enjoy!