Welcome to my weblog, which I use for keeping track of interesting stuff. It serves as my basecamp for the exploration of the Internet, the "Blogosphere" and life in general.
There is something about all those “awards” being created. Oh yes inflation that’s the right word for it. Too much awards, so almost anybody can win one, decreasing the average value of a received one, although it may be very well deserved.
European Excellence Award
As an example: only recently ING’s Second Life project called Our Virtual Hollandwon the European Excellence Award in the category of Corporate Media (subcategory Blog). The irony is that the award was not won for the Second Life project itself but more for the total communication package, including the weblog and the communication with the community (hey, maybe even for the wiki that we used!).
Vote for ING’s first corporate blog in the Blogger’s Choice Awards! But now there is an other reward to discuss: the Blogger’s Choice Award.
Although I feel that the award winner here, because of the setup of the award, will be the one with the biggest community to mobilize and vote, I still very much like to highlight ING’s first corporate blog.
The blog My Cup of Cha, live since July 2006, is written by Jacques Kemp (Chief Executive Officer ING Asia/Pacific and David Garceran Nieuwenburg (Regional Head of E-Business), two of my colleagues from the Asia-Pacific region.
What is so special about this project, is the “let’s do it” mentality. You might well appreciate the internal hurdles facing an external social media project done by a financial institution. Well, these guys just (carefully) took the brave step and went on and opened up for a conversation, highlighting some of the work on other social media projects and even commenting on ING’s strategy now and then. All with an Asia flavor and style to it.
So, if you feel like it after reading this, please follow this link to the awards site, register and vote. Thanks on behalf of my Asia-Pacific colleagues.
This morning I finally decided to give IE7 a go after being bugged by the Windows automated installer a for more than a year. But, it did not work out…
Something really seemed to go wrong with CPU usage at 100% all the time. An unworkable situation. Must have been my fault (on the laptop everything work find), but for me it was the tipping point to do what all of my blogger friends have done long ago: switch to Firefox.
I do not think I will ever look back: what a speed!
The only thing that puzzled me, and made my wife (a shared PC!) a bit worried, was the fact that our work webmail looked awfull in Firefox. Of course: do not blame Firefox! The issue is Microsoft Outlook Web Access, which obviously does not spit out compliant code.
The solution was not far away though via Google. The IE-tab plug-in came to the resque and makes it possible to show the webmail application in IE in a Firefox tab. Easy!
Martin Kloos, a Dutch Web/Enterprise 2.0 and social media consultant, posted some nice questions about the unofficial role that some people acclaim for themself Enterprise 2.0 evangelist within orgnisations.
Funny enough, the reason for the post was Martin reading in my Linkedin profile the title “Enterprise 2.0 Evangelist at ING Group”.
Here are a few of the questions and my (translated) answers in italics:
How can we define the role of unofficial enterprise 2.0 evangelist?Well, for me personally it means I have seen the E2.0 light, read a considerable number of articles on the topic, blogged about it regularly, commented here and there and last but not least did a lot of thinking on how to get E2.0 adopted in my work environment. I also actively try to connect E2.0 like-minded people in our organisation, to share my believes and to give a good example I write an internal weblog on E2.0, in which I blog about case studies from other organisations, about results of our own experiments (e.g. via interviews). Sometime I also pose questions to start-off a discussion. Next to the blogging, I actively participate in E2.0 related projects and act as sort of internal social software consultant (people really know where to find you when you start blogging!). Finally, after work I surf the Internet for E2.0 related experience and try to contact fellow evangelist in other orgnisations.
How come that these roles are still unofficial?Well at my work that is simple: apart from “grass root” experiments, some of which started already in 2005, there has until now not been a budgetted project related to E2.0. By the way, I do see some change on the horizon.
Shouldn’t these roles be officially acknowledged within organizations, given the sheer impact of Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0?That would be very nice, because now the majority of my effort is happening after my official hours (while commuting and at home). But how does one define an evangelist, when seen from the perspective of an employer? By the way evangelists exist on many fields, not only E2.0. Personally I believe that if internal blogging will be succesful one day, we will see the automatic “emergence” of evangelists of all sorts. That will help identify these people and with their recognition.
What other web 2.0 / enterprise 2.0 related roles can we define in this unofficial domain?One role that has helped us a lot is a person with some Intranet server space and some technical assistance (tweaking MediaWiki and Wordpress).
By the way Martin keeps two versions of his blog (how do you have time for that?): in Dutch and in English:
As you might now, I am very much trying to evangelise my collegues at work on the advantages of Enterprise 2.0. So I have been writing an internal weblog on the topic since August 2006. The point is that more and more interesting material pops up on the Internet I would really like to share. But also with colleagues without Internet acccess or without having to point collegues to a file that opens up in another application. Yes, I really like that embedded Slideshare format in the blog!
So I would like to use those nice Slideshare presentations, but I would want to preserve the flash format and navigation buttons. Is that possible somehow, via downloading some files (content + player)?
Actually, I have been online for about 3 weeks or so, since returning from my holiday in France. Private stuff, a busy work schedule and keeping up (well trying to!) with all stuff brought on to the Internet, kept me from blogging so far.
But I have to admit, and I may not be the only one, that 3 weeks off-line tends to clear your thoughts a bit about what is really important and what is actually just “nice-to-have”. To be sure, back at work I found out I have not lost my passion for evangelising Enterprise 2.0. More on that later. Other things have got a somewhat different priority such as Second Life. While I still love the place and the thought of spending time in there, I need to realise that you cannot “create a world” with only 1-2 hours in-world per week. Idea’s enough but for now I will leave them for someone else to pick up.
It could be my age (37), but “follow your passion” has been the main theme crossing my mind lately. What would it be like to earn your money with your passion? What are the possibilities inside my current company and what about elsewhere? Big thoughts that warrant special attention, focus and time.
The whole of the Netherlands (as well as parts of Western Europe I read) is in an emergency situation because of the current storm.
The Dutch Government even opened a special website, but…it offers no info as of this moment (see image). Edit: the site is up and running now!
The site of the Dutch Railways is barely reachable, probably hit by an enormous amount of people trying to find out when trains are going to ride again.
So, here I am at work, waiting for my train. Staying on the train station was not an option, because of the danger of flying building material (it is under construction).
Jeremy, a long time Yahoo employee, even went on to go a bit further in his reactions and detailing the working environment. He end his post with:
I’d love to see what other Yahoo’s think are strengths and weaknesses are (in general terms only—we don’t want to get anyone in trouble).
This must be one hack of a transparent and open company! To say such things in public certainly wouldn’t be appreciated by some bosses (mine included). Or is this a carefully created marketing campaign for new personel?
Comment | posted Sep 1, 10:01 pm on Sep 01, 2006 |
category: Work
All content on this weblog is presented on my personal account, representing my own views, and as such does not necessarily reflect the views of my past, current or future employers.
But now there is an other reward to discuss: the Blogger’s Choice Award. 
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Comment | 
posted Jan 20, 10:16 pm on Jan 20, 2008 |
category: Blogging
/ Work
