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I read ‘TheTipping Point’ a long time ago. Then I wrote a short, boring blogpost telling you I read it. Recently I thought: I’m going to write a longer book review about Malcolm Gladwell’s book. In this way I can remember its contents more easily and, if you haven’t read it, inspire you to read it. Concepts ‘The Tipping Point’ was my first Gladwell book. I wanted to read it because of my interest in social media and social networking (- later his take on the effect of social media in revolutions was highly debated …). The book is not about social media and social networking (tools). It’s about the underlying concepts of social media and networking. And, as I’ve said before , those concepts are important to understand. Tipping What is the book about? The subtitle of the book is: ‘How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference’. In his own words: “ The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea, and the idea is very simple. … Ideas and products and messages and behaviors s...

If you're not from Holland, you probably don't know the largest walking event in the world is currently going on in Nijmegen , my home town. It's called the 'Vierdaagse' (in Dutch. Literally: the 4 day one) or 'the Walk of the World' . It's a great event for participants and spectators. The whole city of Nijmegen is flooded with people from all over the world (people from 67 countries participated this year!). Men and woman of 65 years and older have to walk 30 kilometers for four days to get a medal. Men younger between 16-65 have to walk 4x50 kilometers. And ladies walk 4x40 k's. Very long walks, that require lots of training, focus and determination! Yesterday I volunteered to give water to the walkers (- you may have noticed my tweets /here are some pictures ). I love doing that. It brings back lots of memories of the hardship and joy I experience walking 4x50 two years ago . It's great to see about 45.000 people walking by focused on reac...

Luis Suarez , one of IBM's well-known social media evangelists and email killer, has a really nice post titled "Forget social strategy, think social philosophy: Hippie 2.0 ". I hope you go ahead and read it. I'd love to hear your thoughts about his post (by leaving your comments on Luis' blog). I'll insert my thoughts here (that don't only apply to social media, by the way): Nice post, Luis! I agree talking about the underlying philosophy and/or concepts of social media is insightful and helpful. I find talking in this way to employees and managers helps. As an IT manager in the company I work for said: "When deciding to do an IT investment let's not talk about money/ROI first, but first make a decision based on the story." In your terms: The philosophy should make sense and be understood first.

Some time ago I blogged about a course I followed: Realistic Influencing . I promised I would write about day three as well. Here's my list of learning points: When in a discussion you have opposite conclusions look for facts and criteria (refer to previous post) you agree upon and/or have in common and starting talking from there. Remember to summarize someone's criteria when you think you see one and ask for feedback to see if you're correct. We all have several different voices in our head. You can give them names. Like my Einstein voice telling me to be creative, think out-of-the-box, etc. But this voice can have contradictory voice telling me to be pragmatic for instance. Talk about these voices out loud in a conversation, it helps people understand what going on in your head. It also buys you time. During the course we also looked at Hersey & Blanchard's situational leadership matrix. I really like that model. It's a great model to use to ...

Recently I went to a three-day course about 'Realistic Influencing'. I've been wanting to go to a course about influencing for some time. My role, as an information architect, is about influencing. And I'd like to know how courses about influencing try to help people be better influencers. I enjoyed the course and would like to share some learning points with you. Here's part one. 1. In the 1st place I like the diagram (inserted as a picture in this post). I like it's simplicity. And we went through all the parts of it and experimented with it. 'Facts' are things a person sees as real. His or her experienced truth. This don't not have to be the same as a fact, as we usually talk about facts. Like 2+2=4. As we know (and maybe even have experienced) some would dare say the equation is not true, not a fact either... The idea behind this model is to take the persons 'fact' as a fact. 'Criteria' are personal norms and values a person ...