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How do you get things done? Do you have a method you follow? I’ve written about this before . A lot of times actually. The trigger to write about it again is my continuous surprise how little people have a method to work productively. Actually everybody has a method, at least implicitly, and sometimes it’s pretty OK. But often I see people struggle. Usually this is because they don’t have a productivity approach and/or there are all kinds of loose ends in their method. I follow the ‘Getting things done’ productivity approach by David Allen . I follow it fairly strictly and revisit the books quite regularly to see if I can do better. I read ‘Getting things done’ for the first time when I was about two years into work life. I was struggling. I had a method, but it wasn’t working. I wasn’t in control and often forgot to do tasks. ‘Getting things done’ was a revelation to me. After reading it I thought: This is it, everybody should read this. This should be a mandatory course at univ...

We love shiny new things. The latest hype, oh, let's talk about it! But is it really new or does it just have a new name? Just think about how we talked about 'groupware software' back in the day. Nobody calls it that way anymore. We talk about 'collaboration software/tools' now. The same goes for 'web 2.0'. Nobody says that anymore. We call is 'social media' now, although I'm sure we'll have a new term for it soon. A last example (as I could list many more examples): everybody is talking about 'digital transformation' now. Before that all the talk in town would be about 'social business' and before that it was called 'enterprise 2.0'. Definitions are important. It's all about being clear about what we mean. What I don't understand though is the way many present something as completely new while it clearly isn't. The term is different, but the underlying theme is the same. That's why I...

In little over a month the next edition of the SocialNow conference will be held. Organizer and good friend Ana Neves has been working hard on putting another great program together. And I'm honored to be the host of the conference again! So I hope to see you there. SocialNow is a special conference. I wrote about previous editions (and I still need to blog about the last one...). SocialNow is special for different reasons: For one it's a well-organized and thought-through conference. The conference organizer works in this field, knows what businesses are looking for and what conference visitors need to get value-for-money. The conference has a unique format. There is not one conference in which you get great keynote talk and discussions combined with real demo's of tools based on actual user stories in a business context. The conference is not only for people/companies looking for a new internal social tool. I find that the demo's also help you define a...

Last week I blogged about 'Reaching out' . I tried to explain why I think it's so important, especially in organizations. This led to another thought. It's something that I came to see during my previous life as a consultant, but actually already knew while working in a large company. It's about 'shipping'. To me shipping is about delivery results. The weird thing is that I find most people think about results as being a huge results. So many don't deliver results at all. They think and talk endlessly about what the result will be. But never really produce results or versions of the result. And this thinking and talking usually happens in small groups. To others it seems that nothing is happening. As a consultant I was hired to deliver results. I remember the great clients I've worked for that were absolutely thrilled results would be delivered, every 1 to 2 weeks. Progress! Some of them were capable of doing so by themselves but didn't ha...

We need more people that reach out to others. As people are social beings, you would expect 'reaching out' would come naturally. The strange thing is about the time we are living in, is that we learn (again) that this doesn't come naturally. Just look at the state of politics in this world, especially the uprising of the populist movement. And the web, deliberately made as a platform for connections and building bridges, shows this as well. We've all heard of being 'alone together' on the web and the 'filter bubbles' we all like to live in. The web often looks like more of a shouting-at-each-other platform, than a platform for connecting and networking. I see this inside organizations as well. I've worked for quite some organizations and one thing that strikes me is how small the number of connectors is in organizations. People that bridge gaps between individuals, teams, department, business units, office locations and the outside world. The int...