infoarch

So I recently met a new colleague who had worked at Merck & Co. and shared his experience with using a expert finding and knowledge sharing platform. He reached out to me to find out if we have a comparable platform, so he could use that to meet his needs. I was curious which platform he had experienced. But he wasn't sure. So I googled a bit during our call - of course I told him I was googling, I don't want to be rude and divide my attention between him and the web... - and there is was. A clear blogpost from 2009 about Merck's experiences with an internal knowledge sharing platform. It also described the underlying technology. What's so special about this? Several things: The power of (Google) search. It still continues to amaze me how easily you can type in a few words in a search engine and find what you're looking for. In this case what I was looking for popped up in the first three results. The power of blogging. I found what I was looking for...

Just yesterday my dear blog turned 7! I thought I'd write a short post to celebrate this and to also share with you that I'll be blogging more this year. Wow, 7 years I ago I started blogging. And I can still feel the lump in my throat after hitting the 'publish' button. I was nervous what everybody was going to the think about me blogging. My bosses, my colleagues and all the people out there. Even after 7 years, it still is a thing to send out my musings via the interwebs. But I must say I've always enjoyed doing it. And I love getting positive and negative comments on the posts. The last years have been busy and blogging has been slow. But I have been blogging, for instance on the Dutch blog Frankwatching . And I hope to start blogging soon on MarketingFacts , another great Dutch blogging platform as well. More blogposts will show up on my own blog as well. So, happy birthday, my dear blog! I still love you and will show you more love this year.

Back to blogging! Man, I really missed it and have tried several times to get back into the habit of blogging regularly. Typing a few lines of text, but never finalizing the post and hitting the ‘publish’ button. I’ve been wondering for some time why I could cram out a post and I now think I’ve found the source. As I’ve mentioned I’ve been very busy with all kinds of projects. I’m happy to say that almost all projects have been going and are going great. It’s a joy to work for clients and help them improve their communication and knowledge processes using web technology. But there’s this one project that is not going right. It’s been going wrong for months and just when you think the project is back on track it derails again. You’ve probably been there. To me this is my creative blackhole. Loads of thinking and energy is poured into this project. Every little detail is thought over. Sucking away creativity and therefore also time to blog. Horrible but true. Of course there...

Just a short post to celebrate my blog's 7th birthday (which was officially yesterday...). 7 years... I must say time flies . I still clearly remember when and why I started blogging . And how scared I was to publish my first post. As mentioned the previous year wasn't my best blogging year and I hope to do better this year. In any way I still enjoy blogging. It's a great thing to me that we have platforms to easily share what we think with each other and that we can interact with anybody in the world who is willing to read what your write. Thanks to you all for following, reading and commenting on my blog!

Oh how I love blogging, but what a horrible blogging year I’ve had… Just 24 posts in 2013 … What happened? Well, I’m happy to say I’ve been very busy. I think 2013 was my busiest year ever. My personal life has been busy. Little David was born in August and my two others boys are growing bigger of course. Furthermore we have plans to move to the middle of Holland, sold are house and are looking for a new one. A lot of time and energy went into my new role at the company I work for, Entopic . It was my first (complete) year as ‘manager Projects’, responsible for the people in Projects, ‘acquisition’ of new assignments and actually working on them. I really enjoyed the previous year, but found it left little time for reflection and slack . On the other hand I learned a lot for the work I did for clients. You should see the draft section of my blog: many one or two line draft posts about topics I’d like to share my perspective on. Topics like: intranet strategy, intranet des...

Recently I had to travel to Brussels several times. That’s a 2-3 hour drive by car or train from the city I live in. I usually travel by train. But with our little baby popping up any day I thought it would be best to take the car. The great thing about commuting by car is that it takes me from the front-door of my house to the front-door of my client. But that’s about it. I have to sit in the car for a long time and do practically nothing. It gets even worse when the commute is prolonged by 1+ hour because of traffic jams. This got me wondering about commuting and productivity. The great thing about traveling by train is I can do things. I can read, work on documents and presentations, make some calls, etc. It costs me some extra travel time, but the work I can get done makes up for it. (Of course, there are environmental reasons to mention here as well, but I’ll leave them out of the post for now.) On the other had, what I hardly do in the train is sit back and think. Or lis...

Remember me? I'm the guy who used to blog regularly here, but has been silent for some time. Man, what is going on? Happy to say I wasn't silent on Twitter and Google+ ... But I must say not blogging feels bad. For some time I was wondering if I was out of ideas to share. I know this is not the case. I have many draft blogposts waiting to be finalized for publication. Bu the main reason for not publishing them is time. I never put blogging in my schedule. I would just blog whenever I felt like it and had time to think and write. But my working (and private) life has changed lately. Not just in the number of projects I'm doing, but also juggling them in my head. I think that's the most important reason for not blogging. I need time and brain cycles to churn out posts. And it was not there or I didn't make sure it was there. Maybe I need to underschedule more? Anyway, I plan to blog more regularly. I'm simply inserting time to blog in my schedule and see if ...

How do you feel when you’re under pressure? Can you get things done then? Can you think? I was wondering how you cope with pressure, because I’ve been very busy lately. So busy, I hardly have time to blog (and tweet)… Which is not good. In the past I’ve written about how important slack is for work in general and specifically for social stuff, like blogging. We need time to reflect and think things over. Time is needed to write things down and publish blogposts about what we do and think. What I find is that when slack leaves my time schedule, I have a hard time keeping up blogging. However important I find blogging, it’s one of the first things I stop doing. So, how important to me is it really, I wonder? Should it be part of my weekly time schedule? However, on the more positive side,  you may know, I use the ‘Getting Things Done’ methodology to stay efficient and effective. I’ve been under pressure many times, but I never let go of GTD. It really helps me plan my task...

Wow, time flies when you're having fun, right? I was planning to blog about my blog's 6th birthday, but simply forgot because of some interesting (and more important?) work I had to do. Six years ago I decided to start blogging! I remember the first time I clicked on 'Publish'. Man, was I anxious/curious/scared what would happen next. Actually, I still feel those sensations every time I blog. It is scary  to share your ideas publicly and have them read, reviewed and scrutinized out in the open. But, in my experience, it has also always been great fun. I met lots of new people via my blog, I learned  a lot from all the interactions on and around my blog, and it's a great way to structure my thoughts. So, expect me to continue blogging in 2013! Last year the number of posts I published went down. You decide if that's good or bad. And if it says something about the quality of the posts. A big reason for less posts is the job I have. I've been very  busy (and ...

It’s that time of the year again when we look back and evaluate the year that has passed by so quickly. And lots like to make predictions for the year to come. I don’t want to share my predictions and my ponderings on the previous year. It has been an exciting year for me though. Many interesting projects, many interesting interactions with colleagues, customers and you. I moved from being a senior consultant to manager, visited interesting conferences, had discussions about and changes to the company I work for, etc. I’m just happy to have a great job, in times when many are looking for a job. I would like to thank you for the previous year. For reading my blog, thinking about things I’ve shared with you and the interactions we’ve had here and elsewhere. I’m looking forward to 2013 and hope you are to. I wish you and all your loved ones happy holidays!

I really enjoy going to conferences. Listening to other people’s or organization’s experiences helps me think. Good talks and breakout sessions inspire me and trigger me to try the approaches as well. Bad talks help me sort out what my convictions are and what my approach would be. Conferences are also great for meeting up with people I already know and meeting new, interesting people. In short, conferences help me learn. One of the great use cases for social media is conferences. I really enjoy social media before, during and after conferences. Before conferences social media is great to find out who’s coming and what other people are expecting of the conference. Letting people know you’ll be at the conference gives people who couldn’t attend a way to experience the conference anyways by following your tweets and blogposts. After conferences social media is great to evaluate: thank the conference organization, provide feedback about the conference and thank participants. Social m...

Recently listened to this keynote by Euan Semple at the 'State of the Net' conference. I thought it was a very good and insightful talk. It puts social media into perspective and helps you think about the underlying concepts of the internet. Semple basically starts out with the difference between the old(er) web 2.0 and new web 2.0 world. In other words: it started with blogging and now we have Facebook and Twitter. I like how he tells about how nervous he was when he published his first blogpost. (I can relate to that...) But goes on to stress how important it is for us personally and for organizations to find their voice (- remember the Cluetrain Manifesto ?). We have to move away from the industrialization of our worklives. On the other hand Semple acknowledges that asking people to say what they think, should never be underestimated. It's a big step for many. Semple wraps his talk with a nice quote from David Weinberger : Love is what makes the internet hang t...

Just a short post to point to my lastest posts for Frankwatching . All posts are in Dutch and some have been posted here on infoarch as well. Waarom is intranet zo simpel? Social Business, stapje voor stapje vooruit Van intranet naar digital workplace: trends 2012 De blogosphere van 2011

My first post this year is to celebrate my blog's birthday! Wow, 5 years ago I started to blog . And although blogging (who said it would be...?!) hasn't always been easy I still enjoy it. I started blogging to have a way to think out loud. To write my thoughts and ideas down and connect with other writing elsewhere in the blogosphere or on the Net. My main goal was to speed up my learning by not only reading interesting books, articles and posts, but also by publishing my thoughts, questions, doubts and learnings based on my reading. And I must say it really helped. It definitely also helped to become more connected and visible in the communities that I'm interesting in. Social media in general, and social networking especially. But also: communities, social business, enterprise 2.0, knowledge management, intranet and content management. One thing I'm wondering about is if a blog truly is a conversation platform. I know there are blogs that show it is. But my b...

How is the blogosphere doing? Several post have been written in 2011 about it being dead . At the beginning of the social media revolution everyone was told to start blogging. Now, most think microblogging is enough, it seems. Twitter has become a popular why to (micro)blog. And other types of blogging are showing up, like Posterous and Tumblr . As well as photo blogs, like Instagram . Since 2004 Technorati publishes an overview of the State of the Blogosphere. Recently ‘The State of the Blogosphere 2011’ was published. I’d like to share a summary of this interesting report with you (as I’ve done in previous years). Who are the bloggers?  4114 bloggers were surveyed for this report (about 3000 less than in 2010). According to the research 75% of the bloggers are 25-44 years old. The level of education of blogger is high, mostly college and university level. Technorati distinguishes four types of bloggers: hobbyists (60% of the respondents), part-time and full-time prof...

I enjoy following Seth Godin 's blog. He has as inspiring way of pushing out short(er) blogposts and getting me to think. One blogpost about 'Talker's block' struck me recently. It struck me for two reasons. It related to the situation I'm in every now-and-then: writer's block. I'll have several draft posts, almost ready to be published, but they stay in the draft folder for too long. The other reason is: It's part of my work to get others to blog. And to my regret I see people starting to tweet and use Facebook, quite easily. Blogging, however, is a step too far for most of them. No, blogging is not for everybody. But some people don't start to blog because they fear writer's block. Or they're insecure about their writing skills. Or they fear for the comments others will have on their musings. Godin challenges you and me to get over it. He says: Writer's block isn't hard to cure. Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly,...

Food is not something I blog about. But I'd like to make an exception for  Blog Action Day . BAD11 is today! This year's topic is 'food' . I've joined BAD for a couple of years now. It's a neat way to focus some of our time and attention on a bigger cause. Food, there's lots to say about food. As a person who has always had (more than enough) food, I feel privileged and thankful. There are lots and lots of people in a totally different situation. Just think of what is happening now in Africa. And we know there are many more places in the world where people have little to nothing to eat. What can we do about that? For one, blog. The whole idea of Blog Action Day is to have many bloggers write about the same topic. Hopefully this will shift the world a bit in the right direction. The right direction being: a more fair spread of food over the world. On the hand I often feel helpless. Helpless about the fact that we know there are people dying of hunger...

Recently I started blogging for Frankwatching , a Dutch blogging platform about the internet in general. My first 3 posts are: Boekrecensie: The Intranet Management Handboek Foursquare is zinloos (voorlopig) Waarom is intranet zo ingewikkeld? Happy to say the last two posts have received a lot of good comments. I'll be translating the posts and publishing them on my personal blog as well. You can find my profile and post feed here .

Learning is an interesting topic. It's one of the main reasons I blog . Failing is also an interesting topic. I've blogged about it before. And I wondered: Is failure also one of the reasons I blog. I think so. Blogging helps me fail. I write things down, get things wrong, get corrected by comments, etc. I'm learning! Not too long ago Harvard Business Review published an interesting article about failure. It was written by Amy Edmondson and is titled ' Strategies For Learning From Failure' (April 2011). I'm not going to summarize the article for you (this time). But it's pack with great insights and learning points. For instance it explains how we are programmed to think that all failure is bad, what different types of failure there are (good and bad ones), how organizations can embrace failure and how leaders can build a safe environment for failure. I found the last point most interesting. I think embracing failure is a personal decision. In this c...

Wow, sometimes it takes forever to get a blogpost ready for publication... This is one of them. Sorry for the late post about 'the State of the Blogosphere 2010' , hope you enjoy it anyway. I've been blogging what I learned from the SotB for a couple of years now. Technorati's report on how the blogosphere is doing is   lengthy and rich. To my knowledge it's the largest piece of research on the blogging community. They started back in 2004. Besides collecting general data about blogging, this year's focus is on the female bloggers. Blogs are in transition, they say. The line between blogs, microblogs and social networks is blurring. Mobile blogging is the key trend this year. Based on the results of the survey and interviews they see great optimism about blogging. More and more blogs are generating revenue, more frequent blogging and more blogs are planned and more and more people say the go-to resource for news will be blogs. The trust in mainstream media ...