Koen’s blog

The Fred Factor is a rather small book that gives the details on how someone can, by its own motivation, get the extraordinary out of something rather common. The book gives an explanation of how the behaviour of someone can change when and if they commit to it. Some of the topics in the book are rather obious, but re-reading them every once and a while makes one reflect again on how we sometimes can go the extra mile and make a huge different.

We all have values. This book is about making sure that we don’t forget about these values when we are doing our job. Let’s all care and have a little Fred in us..

This book is worth the reading.

Koen

The Fred Factor: How passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary

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customer service,
motivational,
motivation,
business,
success,
self-improvement,
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Fred Factor

Vandaag brengt De Standaard een artikel onder de kop “Belgie is twaalfde beste land om in te leven“. Geen idee of dat na een splitsing van BHV of na het vormen van een andere regering zal wijzigen

We blijken slechts een van de achterliggende klassementen te leiden: het televisiebezit. Een mens vroeg zich af waarom we FC De Kampioenen bleven heruitzenden, maar nu we weten dat 99,8% van de huishoudens een TV hebben, begrijp ik dat er misschien nog 1 belg is die een aflevering heeft gemist…

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televisie,
belgie
kwaliteit,
ranking

IMG_6967_edited-1

Originally uploaded by Koen – kblanqua

Deze foto heb ik genomen op een reis naar Chicago aan het begin van de zomer. Blijf die wel leuk vinden…

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foto|
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chicago

Microsoft heeft gisteren via een persbericht meegedeeld dat ze een duidelijke wereldwijde steun hadden gekregen voor de OpenXML standaard. De waarheid is echter een beetje genuanceerder, zoals terecht opgemerkt wordt door Alec in zijn blog vandaag.

Microsoft heeft inderdaad doorheen de laatste weken verdere steun gevonden voor haar voorstel om haar open document formaat te standardiseren. Echter, onvoldoende om de standaard ook te laten goedkeuren door de internationale gemeenschap.De mededeling dat nu het pad geeffend is om op termijn toch naar een positieve stemming (en dus standardisering) over te gaan, blijkt ook wat te optimistisch. Microsoft, en met haar vele anderen in de technologie-wereld, hadden gehoopt om met Open XML een tweede open standaard te kunnen hebben, naast het ODF, dat voornamelijk door de open source wereld wordt gevolgd. Pittig detail, dit ODF heeft haar ISO standardisering al even op zak.

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technology,
Microsoft,
Open Standard,
OpenXML,
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ISO

Hi all,

I’m back on my way to fly to another destination today. The trip leads us to London, where Gartner is hosting the yearly summit on collaboration, portals and content management.

Portals, Collaboration and Content Management

For an innovator and technology scout as me, Gartner is one of those opportunities to discuss parts of our research and the outputs we’ve received in the contacts with our customers over the past months.

All organisations have increased needs when it comes to collaboration, portals and alike. Most companies still struggle to keep up with the rapid changes in these fields. We’ve been very successful over the past years in building practices with customers, to deliver added value in collaboration to their customers, and this conference is one of the many reflection points to ensure that we are still on track.

I participated to this same conference last year and had some good updates there, so it is clear that expectations are high. I’ll keep you posted here and in our customers’ community.

The delay

The trip itself started with a strong delay in Brussels. While I am writing this blog, our British Airways Airbus 320 is parked on an outside stand on Brussels International Airport. When the plane was pushed back and the crew tried to release the plane from the small vehicle that pushed us back, it turned out to be impossible to disconnect the plane from the pole that makes the connection.

The head of the cabin crew announced that the best way to live this delay was by opening the bar. So the crew is now busy serving us a drink. The pilot announced that the engineers brought in the big hammers and it turns out that, if flight control is not dramatically changing our flight pattern, we will get to London with a little over an hour of delay.

It was a relief to be updated by the crew in such a consistent manner. We had an update from the flight deck on the status, planned actions and consequences to our timing. In the (literally) hundreds of thousands of air miles this year and the associated delays, this one could serve as an example to many other airline companies. To complete a tma (tutor marked assignment) for my MBA, I was looking for an example in customer service and see… delivered. (Dear people at BA, don’t see this as an invitation to have me live any more delays, even if I appreciate the care-taking)

I’ll enjoy my free drink, sit back and hope that I’ll be soon enjoying the journey!

Koen

Tags: travel,
BA,
British Airways,
technology,
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delay
Customer friendly,