I am a EO member (simply the best Entrepreneur Organization in the world)  since 2001. Twice a year EO members gather together for what we call "Universities" -  Once in a lifeteam learning experiences with great speakers, great venues and really cool people from all over the world. I've been attending over the last years many interessting EO Events like Dubai, Marrakech, LA, Washington, Kuala Lumpur, Zurich and others. This year, for the first time ever EO Germany welcomed over 350 people for a University in Berlin. Marcel Otto Yon, Clemens von Beust, Birgit Hass and Karl Funke hosted the event  and created one of the best Universities ever. The grand finale of the 4 day workshop we had in the famous 1936 Olympic Stadium. 65000 seats for 350 people. If you are an entrepreneur and want to learn from peers make sure that you contact Karl and join EO.

This is for everyone who's thinking about starting a company, everyone who still believes in crazy ideas that will change the world...and of course to everyone who's part of startupweekend Germany, initiated by Cem.

First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then you win.

-Ghandi-

Music and aural elements: how and why can they be used for internal corporate communication? I looked into this question last year while writing my diploma thesis entitled “Music in internal corporate communication”. The task of incorporating music and aural elements into an internal corporate culture has proven to be much more difficult than it seemed to be at first. If music is to be used in a corporate setting, there are numerous aspects which need to be kept in mind to make sure that both employee and employer are satisfied.

As it was, it took me all of a year to arrive at that conclusion. It all started when I was looking for a suitable research topic for my diploma thesis. At the time, I hadn’t yet found a subject area which truly piqued my interest. Then, while searching the ‘Net, I came across a research position on a topic that immediately caught my attention, namely “Music in internal corporate communication”.

Eureka, I thought. I’d found a topic that I was interested in, and which also happened to be one that had not yet received a lot of attention by students in my discipline.  I submitted an application for the position, and was accepted immediately. I started my research right away, working with the support of an agency which helped me with research and in suggestions for drafting an outline.
As my research progressed, my attempt at examining the topic from the perspective of communication management proved to be an extremely difficult task. Not only did I have to examine the aspects of functional music, it was even more essential that I focus on determining which roles music and other aural elements can play in corporate social networks and communication processes.

It turned out that by focusing my thesis as I did, I was treading radically new paths for my course of studies and my own skills. The practical result of being a pioneer was that I had to delve into completely new academic disciplines, and continually work at convincing my professor of the validity of my approach and hypotheses.

Unsurprisingly, the research and writing process was fraught with a plethora of irritations, not to mention stress. Despite the difficulties, however—ranging from a lack of professional literature on the topic (the greatest obstacle) to differences of opinion with my readers (the second most serious) to a lack of time—in the end I was able to write a thesis that while not earth shaking, is one I’m proud to show others, and which may well help shed some light on the use of music and aural elements in internal corporate communication.

For more information:
http://www.ac-g.de/
http://www.audio-branding.de

“…any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

Douglas, we really really miss you! But thank you for all you gave to us...especially the fish ... and Arthur :)

Today I had a question regarding my flickr account, so I looked for the "contact" form to post my query.  I changed my mind after I saw this:

Yet again I was asked today to define the term WEB 2.0 and because my inquisitor was a professional investor with little technical background I felt compelled to come up with a good, crisp and non-technical answer.

The investor in question also passed on a little humor, that has been running around the net, in that she inquired drolly whether she would loose twice as much money investing in WEB 2.0 businesses as she had done by investing in WEB 1.0 businesses.

It came to my mind that this piece of humor is unfair because  a  particular feature  of well constructed WEB 2.0 businesses is that they tend to have low variable costs  (particularly marketing and capex).  The perfect response then hit me as I mused on this point... so I said... " Oh no thats the difference right there! WEB 1.0 was all about BURNING cash whereas real WEB 2.0 businesses are all about EARNING cash!"

So lets all earn it rather than burn it in 2007!

Happy New Year!

I am on my way to Le Web 3. The program sounds not too boring and I am curious to see who else will make it to the capital of baguettes and Gauloises rauche. Alex already sent around a "let´s meet on sunday"-message. The funny thing is that none of us speaks french and we all are hoping getting there in time...Loic somehow was quite relieved that 55% participants are non French.

Let´s meet in Paris :)

Click here to see a photo at full resolution

This is a picture of Neil our Chairman and he is part of a story of how openBC worked for me personally.

Many of you have seen that I am a passionate photographer as well as a networker, what you probably don't know is that I learned over 30 years ago on a type of camera called a rangefinder.

Now Leica camera have produced a digital rangefinder camera the M8 and it is simply the best piece of technology I have ever owned bar none it beast every gadget I have hands down it is better constructed than my swiss watch and looks cooler than my MacBook and it is more functional than my Ipod.

I have had this camera on order  for over a year at Leica bei Meister in Hamburg and even the talented Mr Meister could not procure one soon enough for me. So I turned to openBC and found that Leica have several active members on our site.

I shamelessly name dropped Neil, who used to be a Leica Board member, and I promised that I would only use my new M8 to do good works :-) and the good folks at Leica listened and Yesterday filled my order through Martin Meister.

Yes I got the camera early because I was able to use my network of people to assist me and this is the point  openBC allowed me to do something which I could not have done before and it allowed me to do it in a way that was not intrusive and that has built up several new friendships and new connections and I will be a loyal Leica customer for ever now.

Here is the power of networking and everyone is happy.

If you want to see the photos from the new M8 Just click here Flickr / Liao and if you would like to read a more passionate review of the M8 just go to my review page here Tech Reviews   

Thanks again Leica for improving my quality of life and thanks Neil for letting me name drop you in the service of one of my passions.

That´s a good start into the week.

You Are 52% Cynical

Yes, you are cynical, but more than anything, you're a realist. You see what's screwed up in the world, but you also take time to remember what's right.

tag: openblog

Don´t you ever wonder why most of your job interviews are either boring or funny?! Leaning back and thinking about the job interview I had, little trailors start playing in my head. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I remember a job interview where I was grilled by two bad men in black take ons. They asked me over and over the same questions, like “What would you do if I threw your concept into the bin?” or may favorite one “What would you do if a journalist calls?”. Uhm, start crying?!

I was sitting there for about 1,5 hours answering the same questions. Sweating and annoyed (this combination doesn´t let you look good). They never had a look at my bio nor listened to what I´ve said. Days later the boss called asking me if I liked the interview. I said no and he said “Fine, when do you start?”. I turned the offer down. I felt good.

I had my funniest moment in a job interview, when an HR person asked me – out of the blue – what my partner would say about me, if I would be a moccasin. Hehe. If I would be whaaaat?! You mean a single one, or a pair?!

My initial thought was I had a starring role in hidden camera. I glimpsed at the person who was leading the department and he looked like “whaaaat?!” as well. Okay, you have to know that my partner and moccasins fit together like the pope and a Hillary Clinton suit. The picture in your head is not really working, right? My brain was totally confused and I was close to bursting out laughing.

The imagination was just too funny. “Daniela is a very comfy moccasin. I once bought her, because she was reduced and I needed a pair of her.” Hey, what else would a man say about a pair of shoes?!

My good manner and the atractive position prevented the damage. Now it´s me who´s sitting on the other side of the table looking for great people to welcome them to our team.

And that´s why I never ask you about moccasins.

tag: openblog

Did anyone watch all these (101) movies and can he lable himself as a movie literate? I was impressed by the list film critic Jim Emerson compiled ... and I am pretty sure that more great movies like Starwars are missing.

Here comes my top 17 out of his list:

Alien
Bonnie and Clyde
La Dolce Vita
E.T.
Easy Rider
Fight Club
Frankenstein
From Dusk till Dawn
The Godfather ("...are you talking to me?")
GoodFellas
Lawrence of Arabia
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Pulp Fiction
Rebel without a Cause
Schindler´s List
Some Like it Hot 
Starwars
Taxi Driver
Vertigo

Popcorn anyone?

(Thanks! kottke)

PS: maybe we should do a list of "best gadgets ever" or "inventions of the universe" as well?

I was pretty much enthusiastic, when we launched the personalised RSS feed the other day. I really love things like that. They make my life more comfy. Fabulous!

So imagine me sitting in front of my laptop, being all exited and looking forward to get this feed running, no one could have stopped me from installing this new little awsome feature. And guess what, it didn´t work. Me, still exited and far away from being disappointed, searching the whole office to find a geek telling me how blonde I was. Well found one, he didn´t agree on the fact that I´ve a lack of technical understanding and installed it.

Now, what I realised was, that my feedreader (feedreader.com) doesn´t work perfectly. He`s a kind of web1.0 feed reader I guess. I can see the people who´ve recently visited my contact page but not where they´re coming from. Mmmhm?

After talking to some of you I realised that there are probably better solutions available. Which feed reader is on top of your list? And did any of you had the same hassle as this little RSS chap?

PS: using a PC btw

I wasn’t angry, upset, depressed, frustrated, argumentative or even out of control… Imagine this. It’s time to go home from a fabulous 4 day Entrepreneur Organisation event. 1 hour sleep. 4:30am wake up call. Marrakech. 6:00am air maroc flight to Casablanca. ½ my bags are missing – my friend had no wake up call. No laptop. No notebook. Casablanca airport 6:47am. No stationery shop. No internet. Assuming I’m on the 11:30am air maroc flight to Barcelona I wrap my raw silk scarf over my face and conk out across the 3 steel chairs. It was either that or the plastic mattresses in the dark prayer room.

Feeling a little groggy I make way to the gate 20 minutes prior to departure. No flight. What!!! I have to make the Air Berlin flight from Barcelona to Hamburg for a photo shoot 8:00am Monday morning. Next air maroc flight I’m told is at 4:30pm.

If you’ve ever been to the transit counter at Casablanca airport you would liken it to a street circus act. Dozen’s of eager spectators circled around a couple of performing out of control staff. All options exhausted. I retreat once again.

10 hours in transit 26 passengers make their way to the 737 plane including one man on crutches who has to struggle down the stairs and on the bus and up the stairs again. Sitting. Waiting. Sleeping… 1 hour later.. nothing. No announcements. No idea what is going on. Alas! I peep out the window and observe a car pull up to the stair case. It’s the air hostess. The German man sitting next to me cannot believe his eyes that such an event would hold a plane up. Jets full blast. We finally take off. Arrive into Barcelona. Miss the flight to Hamburg. The hotel booking machine doesn’t want to play either and crashes as I’m about to pay.

28 hours later I’m back in Hamburg. Miss the photoshoot and totally fascinated about this adventure.

Reading my emails.. I learn that our keynote presenter Nigel Risner had the same experience. Here is what he wrote:

I arrive at the airport look for my flight to Madrid. I can't see one so I check with the staff who tell me there isn't one. Me being me I tell them to start looking because I have a ticket that's says there is one. He looks at my ticket and says there is one from Casablanca which is what my ticket clearly says. Right now I realise I am in big trouble. There is a film crew waiting for me. A business which has put its trust in me to sort them out. In the past I would have lost my cool. Blamed the world and said every swear word in the world. The question now is: What needs to happen to get me back somehow by tomorrow morning?

Well Nigel gets back on time thanks to his super speedy PA. I get back not quite on time and have a story to tell.

San Francisco is a great place - even when it rains. Together with Zhiyi Yu, Bill Liao and Andreas Weigend and a few friends of Andreas we ended our trip to the TED conference at the famous Rubicon restaurant in downtown. We had just too much fun, lot's of different red wines from all over the world. Now sitting at SFO Airport looking at the 747-400 I am really looking forward to the flat bed and some rest. The last days have been quit exhausting.

This morning I read a well written German article about the dark side of Web 2.0 and the end of privacy. Call me a jerk, but who thinks they can stay anonymous on the net?

The privacy settings on openBC protect your privacy on openBC, not on the entire internet. On openBC you decide what information is seen on a peer-to-peer level.

But, and this is a big "but", if you once entered the internet you are always a bit more transparent than you think. I would not say you are x-rayed, but you are quite visible.

I am absolutely transparent online and offline. I grew up in the former GDR (German Democratic Republic) and probably all the people around me knew me much better than my parents. Instead of focussing too much on the dark side about Web 2.0, I try to take care of my online profile, or brand :), with the support of blogs, social networking platforms, flickr and others.

Maybe that is a big comfort: At the end of the day all the information we can access online doesn’t mean anything. It’s the mashup of information that seems to give us an impression about others.

If we have not met in person, curled up with a coffee and shared our life stories I can still say: you don´t know me.

A message from Daniela that was.

"Die dunkle Seite des Webs", Fiete Stegers

I am not a big fan of news watching in terms of traditional media as I find the focus on the negative to be very wearing.

So imagine my delight when my good friend Marco pointed me here;

Happy News

It is a bit US centric till you find the International section and still is a great relief for me from CNN

Especially since we have Yuka working for openBC in Japan (Welcome to the team Yuka) I particularly enjoyed the following article

:-)

Bill

Every now and then you come across a really nice piece of online humor that describes something you are in the middle of.

Our business intelligence process here is looking good and I am terrified it ends up like this....

The truth about IT consulting!

I am sure it won't :-)

So in order to improve our blog I am here at Lesblogs
in Paris and there are some very key messages here that are changing my view of the blogosphere.

There also seams to be quite a bit of tension between the various views on corporate blogs.

Key learnings from my question to Adriana www.mediainfluencer.net

Montior, Engage then Participate in the blogosphere

Obey the etiquett eg. never delete posts and comments.

Find your neigborhood find interested constituents.

Attention is a an expensive commodity so deliver value back when you receive it be altruistic as well as commercial.

Technorati Tag: lesblogs

So here is the question... at what point does a member list become a community or does it ever?

Our openBC community has a strong voice and some pretty clear opinions and it is vital and growing and I get a lot of feedback.

This has left me musing though on what is takes to create a new community?

Is there for instance an MSN community or are there just MSN users?

Is the face book a community or is it many groups of users?

I know what it took to kick off the openBC community and I know how much effort is required to maintain and grow openBC.

I have read a lot about communities and their constituents and I have many lessons learned (even recent ones) about what to do and not do.

Still the actually point at which a group of users becomes a community is a question that is currently occupying my mind and so I have decided to launch a research project into this area.

I am looking for a panel of international experts in the field of community so if you know someone who may be interesting to involve please put them in touch as I want to answer this question in order to serve our communities better.

One of my passions is transforming situations for people in a philanthropic way and I have been a supported of The Hunger Project for many years so it is great to see some of our openBC community forming a foundation Trestle Group Foundation that has similarly aligned goals.

I had the great pleasure of meeting with Nigel and Chris  who have set up a very cool new networking event in Vienna called Vienna hub which is operating in the true spirit of open networking which openBC is keen to support globally.

Thomas from Ecademy was also there and we had a very entertaining evening violently AGREEING :-) about network philosophies and the power of give - give networking.

I also heard that people are rumoring that Ecademy and openBC are going to merge and while I have nothing to communicate on that topic and I can say that Thomas and I agreed to do a joint event in the near future in England and that we may do others as well as Vienna Hub was a great success  ( although neither of us planned it )

Today I am in Sweden at the Fabulous SIME 05  run by Ola  and I have to say I am right at home here with keynotes by Mahesh and Lars and moderation by Bob :-)

I am looking forward to some very interesting talks and networking this evening so there might be some more gossip tomorrow.

I love Hong Kong and have done since I was a boy and so a few disconnected opinions.

Coolest Bar - Felix at the top of the Peninsula hotel

Best Barbecue Pork - Dynasty restaurant 4th Floor Renaissance New World Hotel

Best activity - Ferry ride to Central from Tsim Sha Tsui Cost 2.20 HKD

Best area for eating - Lang Quai Fong (no idea how to spell it)

Best Shop for Gadgets Special Mall 64B Nathan Road (See Ricky and or Alex)

I have a lot to talk about our China launches and will add this int he next few days when I am not about to board a flight.

I intend to ramble a bit now in the hope it makes me feel better.

I am sitting in the first class lounge at Heathrow terminal one, courtesy of my frequent flyer miles and the nice lady at the desk and some very good piloting by a British Airlines pilot who I really should get the name of and send some Xmas cheer.

I am shaky and a bit stirred truth to tell and  this is definitely my first blog entry under the influence of alcohol.

For the record the most important priorities in my life are my wife Kerrie and my three children Liam, Riley and Willow Rose.

I have just arrived in London en route to China for our launch ceremonies there for openBC with Dr Song our JV partner there.

Hot potato and leek soup coupled with a strong brandy has a very calming effect I have just discovered.

Some few hours ago I was shuffling down the gangway onto flight BA 971 in Hamburg and my main concern was the balancing the little bag of food they had given me (due to the catering strike)

An aviation incident is defined as an occurrence other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft, which affects or could affect the safety of operations.

So I am chatting to a really nice British couple,  the Newton's (and yes one of them is indeed a physicist), as we taxi out to the runway and everything is fine (though half an hour late due to rain) and then we are taking off ....

Then we aren't, in fact we are screeching to a shuddering, skidding, smoking, screaming halt in the middle of the runway (did you know Hamburg airport has a runway apron webcam?).

Now can anyone tell me why on earth people build airports with runways that cross at the ends like Hamburg or Chicago O'hare?

So as we sit there in the sudden stillness we notice a plane landing on the cross runway which we were about to cross ourselves.... "exactly how far into take off do you have to be before you can't stop" I think?

So I give genuine thanks to British Airways for having pilots trained well enough to abort a take off instead of continuing on and I have to ask what was air traffic control doing today in Hamburg?

How close did we come? How can I tell? I'm just thinking "its dumb to have runways that cross at the ends and that this kind of design in an invitation to an accident" (OK I turn into an engineer in stressful situations - Ugly and true...) .

So the pilot calmly informs us that the take of clearance had been revoked shortly after it was granted and I reflect  that  shortly is a bloody good thing cos longly would not have worked for me.

Then our pilot informs us that there is nothing wrong with the aircraft, which is nice, and I am thinking that "the aircraft may be fine and my underwear on the other hand...."  nearly not fine at all and I personally am very very far away from fine.

So we are all wondering why it is that everyone of the crew are calm does this sort of thing happen a lot?  Are they used to it? You hear the term near miss and you think that was lucky and then you are faced with it and suddenly you feel grateful to be alive and sick that you nearly weren't.

So fully alive and back to why can this happen and a little research turns up this Document on runway design and please notice type D the "intersecting runway". Are we so comfortable that air traffic control can prevent accidents that this kind of layout is OK? HELLO? It is just me?

OK so I am calm now, taking a deep breath.... As I said I am glad to be alive and well and I love my family and my friends and my business and The Hunger Project in roughly that order.

With grateful thanks to BA and some trepidation to Hamburg airport and its designers.

Bill

Etre finished up last night with a gala dinner and yes despite rumors to the contrary I do own a tuxedo.

The Mayor of Athens is obviously very switched on talked to many of the guests. Alex was in his element  going from table to table, as ever the charming and caring host, thanking everyone for their participation.

Alex is a class act who really knows just about everyone and he also has an encyclopedic knowledge of the whole technology space globally. As a super connector you have to admire his abilities.

He did pause for another quick photo as well I think Maria, not me, is the one making him smile though :-)

Today we welcome a new member to the team :-) Lars and Daniela have this morning become the proud parents of Helene Laetitia Hinrichs who was born this morning 51cm 3530g and all completely gorgeous!

Let us all join Daniela and Lars in celebrating their little miracle! :-)

Pictures to follow....

And with apologies to the Bard:

As a any parent will takes delight
To see their active child do deeds of youth,
So we, now blessed by fortune's dearest might,
Take all our comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
We make our love engrafted to this store:
So then we are not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That we in thy abundance are sufficed
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look, what is best, that best we wish in thee:
This wish we have; then ten times happy we!

Coming up this weekend is another of my favorite networking events which is the European Technology Round Table Exhibition I have found in the past that this event run by Dasar and their ebullient CEO Alex Vieux to be a really amazing opportunity for networking and as I have said before I enjoy greatly meetign people and bringing the together.

I will be trying out the remote posting technology to the blog this weekend that I use to do my own blog to see if I can offer some of the flavor of the event to you while I am there in Athens.

This year is a first for us as we are also providing some of the technology behind the scenes with our white label solution providing the Etre Insider site.  If you are also going to Etre please connect to me in the Eyre Insider site.

Anybody who has read the tipping point will know the theory that the influencers in society come in two broad flavors;  mavens who build social capital with what they know and connectors who build social capital with who they know and of course there are varying degrees of each tendency in all of us.

Now I am these days more of a connector than maven and still I cannot resist the mavenish impulse to share the new things I have discovered particularly if they relate to either business and scientific knowledge and or new technology (read gadgets).

Anyway for some time now I have been capturing these outbursts on my openBC forum where I have sections for reading lists, book reviews and mobile technology reviews. I have as lo finally worked out how to do a link in typepad so you can now read about my frustrations with my latest gadget which is entitled So Close....

Now if you are not a member of openBC you will not see much by clicking the links above so do take a minute to join if you have not already, it is a relatively painless process and best of all its free, so just click here

So despite years of successful connecting I am still also a maven and cannot resist finding out a juicy new piece of information and then spreading it around, so here I am blogging away. I suspect that  blogging really offers the mavens of this world a much stronger voice than they have collectively had before. Any comments?

A big that you to everyone who has suggested project management software several of the suggestions look like they will be excellent and the more efficiently we can manage our development process the better we can make the software.

On the upside I have several great new contacts from our London event and I am looking forward to our Chinese Launch events later this month so if you know people in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing let them know to  keep an eye out for us after the 25th.

One thing though I have had several more people try to connect to me without giving a reason why and unfortunately I never confirm connections from people I have not met unless they give me a compelling reason to connect.

Bill Liao is back in the office after various trips around Europe. To our advantage he just flew in from Switzerland after visiting Sprüngli and bringing with him THE BEST chocolates in the world - "Cru Sauvage".

Every December to March Sprüngli harvests a very special crop of the finest cocoa plants in the bolivian amazon area. Sprüngli harvests smaller beans giving the cocoa a more intense flavour. The cocoa beans are refined with fresh cream and enrobed in rich dark chocolate and gently dusted with cocoa powder. The taste sensation is just as Sprüngli says it is, begining with a gentle, flower-scented bouquet, unfolds to reveal a fine espresso aroma and closes with a wonderfully sustained vanilla finish - divine!

I personally can't thank Sprüngli enough for bringing this delight into the world and I can't thank Bill enough for bringing it into our office, giving each one of us a moment of bliss!

One of the great things about working for openBC is I get to attend lots of networking events and to meet lots of users.

Many of the events I attend are run by and for  industry leaders and this is the case with today where I attended a though leadership forum on convergence run by Price Waterhouse Coopers, Nokia and First Tuesday Zurich.

I can say that the overwhelming opinion of the room which consisted of industry leaders such as Nokia, Yahoo and Swisscom is that convergence is focused on the users and that voip 2.0 and voip 3.0 is coming and will be a key component of the way we interact with machines and each other in the future.

The other impression I get is that people are really searching for the next wave of innovation and that we have not seen anything yet!

Finally I heard the best explanation of the value f the Skye acquisition by eBay and it has more to do with micro payments than voip.

Today marked the passing of a wonderful human being who I knew for far too short a time.
Heinz Richard Böse 22 July 1913 - 3 October 2005 was the grandfather of Lars and one of the best people it has been my privilege to meet.

Lars certainly inherited much of his entrepreneurial skill from his grandfather as well his warmth and charm. A better role model I do not know.

I was welcomed into Herr Böse`s home with warmth and good humor and will never forget the times I spent happily in Blackenese looking out at the river and soaking in the feeling of acceptance in that august persons solid presence.

Herr Böse was also a business powerhouse and was still active in the family business and always provided guidance and leadership. He also patiently explained to me once (despite my poor German)  how proud he was of Lars and his business achievements.

Let us express our solidarity with Lars and his family at this time.

I include a favorite verse that expresses the depth of the loss;

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crépe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was our North, our South, our East and West,
Our working week and our Sunday rest,
Our noon, our midnight, our talk, our song,
We thought that he would last forever: 'We were wrong'
The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
So few have met one that was ever this good.

So I spent today in that special place called project management as I am responsible for openBC product development and I must say having reviewed several dozen strategies for creating prioritizing feature development I am no closer to finding a good solution so roll on Oktoberfest where I am anticipating drowning my development worries temporarily in large quantities of excellent beer and failing that I might instead drown one or two of the sales people of project management tools that do not make their products multi lingual or cost effective.

I am looking for a good solution for on line priority management if anyone out there knows of one :-)

One of the things that I have always enjoyed is finding diverse cultural things in either unexpected places of in unexpected amounts.

For instance I remember being delighted by finding an Indian restaurant in Tokyo where the staff all spoke fluent Japanese with a delightful Indian accent.

Lats night we had a great time enjoying Dim Sum at Man Wah restaurant on the Reeper Bahn in Hamburg with Mahesh from India, Xinyu from China, Anju from Switzerland and Maria from Australia.

There is a kind of power in diversity in taking the time to explore new combinations of the worlds rich heritage of people and experiences which keeps me wanting to grow openBC globally.

A simple diner with friends is enhanced by the crossing and mixing of distinct cultures and becomes the basis for a new understanding.