Flexible

I know it's not common policy to "promote" articles or websites here. But I just wrote an article (in Dutch) on a flexible working environment. And I mean on a national scale. Many arguments are always given that we cannot fire people easy enough, and that that's bad for innovation.
Well, there are several views on this, and if I read that 33% of all employees changed job in the period 2000-2002 (not the best economic times here in the Netherlands), it seems we are pretty flexible. Or are we? And do these people that changes jobs, mostly young and highly educated professionals, not hamper innovation as well, by changing so much and so fast?

NDSM Wharf Amsterdam

Yesterday Bob, Minne, Claudia and me attended a party regarding the official release of the final building permits for the NDSM Wharf; one of the last havens in Amsterdam for all kinds of freestyle initiatives... a place where culture meets art & business; all off the beaten track, but real gems in themselves. With initiatives like Cellspace, KunstStad, Skatepark and many others where lust for life, business and experimenting go hand in hand! One of the last breeding grounds in this city is saved for now from the corporate developers by interim manager/director Lex Brans. Kudo's Lex!

Ideabroker's 5th @ OpenBC Euromeet Rotterdam

The latest, longest, loudest and most interactive Ideabroker sofar, happened at OpenBC's Euromeet in Rotterdam Thursday last . With 8 pitchers attending, of whom 6 where actually in the race, we started with our two time winner Simon den Uijl from Epyon who set the pace.. and ended with Gamica's Bart Groothuijzen. Jury and Public Winner was PCA Mobile's Patrick Rodijk;he won a bottle of Fizz, some consulting and insulting hours from Result Strategy (thanks Jan Karel) and Lunatech (thanks Keith) and a 2 year subscription to OpenBC! (thanks Bob). Second Place was for Bas van de Haterd from MysteryMailer and third for Maurice Brand of Re-turn. Fourth came Nathaniel Stott from Luchtnet, and a shared fifth place for last minute entry Mathijs van Zutphen of Direct Democracy and Robbert van Geldrop from BackupAgent with Jack Snijders of Easy Sport Diving closing the ranks. The jury had a tough time and whilst discussing the winners there was a public voting going on in the Ideabroker Arena thanks to the cool equipment of our hosts Digital Port! It was very, very late when the noise died down and all went home.. Eternal thanks to Keith Wallace from Lunatech and Ayman van Bregt of the Rotterdam Connection for organizing and scouting all those cool young guns! We've got standing offers for Ideabroker events at: Emerce Eday Amsterdam, Mediaplaza Utrecht, Zoetermeer and Paris...so see ya'll soon somewhere!

9 ways to manage innovation

Ideabroker concentrates on new innovation. New ventures, entrepreneurs, etc. Big companies can buy these innovations, because they themselves usually lack the capacity and structure to be truly innovative (with the exception of a few). This is good (If KPN had been innovative, Boris would never have sold them HubHop), but there are ways for a company to be a little more innovative. This is a nice article about that. Many open doors are kicked down, but still...

8,5 mil for techno starters

EZ has reserved 8,5 mil for techno starters. The first part of this money went to incubator 3+, an initiative in Eindhoven (even further south then Breda). It has to help 150 techno starters in Brabant, from which 15 have to grow to more then 25 people in 5 years. When is the ideabroker incubator starting with this subsidy?

Ideabroker's 4th Event in Breda

Deep down south is the land of fairytales and breadcrumb trails that'll lead you occasionally to.... Ideabroker! Hosted by Syntens this time, (thanx Jeroen van Ieperen !) and organized by our very own Bas van de Haterd (thanx dude!) we had a blast! 25 People attending and 6 brave young souls with inspiring ideas presented their case. A surprising mix of very different ideas passed the stage. But before the pitches we had an inspiring presentation about entrepreneurship and networking from Prof Wim Hulsink of the Erasmus and Wageningen University who's ending statement: "the endless Sea" you'll find below. Needless to say we had winners and runners up , there are no losers at Ideabroker's: If you got the courage to present your idea in front of those hungry Elfs and Trolls that made up this time's jury, men you've got balls! Kudos to all! The Saints took our first price: a (hand-nicked by Bas) precious bottle of red from the cellars of Dad van de Haterd (thanx Dad) plus a 2year subscription to OpenBC (thanx Bob!) with their mobile game presentation, second prize was taken by Usersown with their route related dinner service optimization tool "Uplan", a shared third place by Albumservice.com-online album printing and Innergy's Creation's the Bizz Buzz-a lowcost narrow casting employment initiative. Runners up where Gamepoints with their concept for a new in-shop game platform at your local snackbar, and Eyegate with their LCD in shop advertising solution for small businesses. It was sooo good this time, that even long after Syntens closed the doors at 22h, half the crowd lingered on, in heated and/or inspired discussions on the doorstep, without anything to drink!!!
Next up: Ideabroker Rotterdam tomorrow Thu 23th june @ OpenBC's euromeet hosted by The Rotterdam Connection 20h at WTC Digital Port. Just follow the crumbs...

The endless Sea...

If you want to build a ship,
don't gather people to harvest wood or draw alone,

Prevent that they receive plans, nor handout any tasks,
but instead teach them first the longing for the endless Sea.

Antoine de Saint Exupery

Narrated by Wim Hulsink Erasmus Universiteit R'dam for Ideabroker

Royal iPOD

The Sun reports even the Queen of England bought an iPOD. Is this the sign of total acceptance and the moment all ordinary people will buy one? Or is this a death stab to the iPOD, since it's not cool to have one anymore, if even that 79 year old woman has one.

Are You For Real?

Australia's Brewtopia lets its customers design their very own beer online in just 4 minutes. Brewed, bottled and branded with one's brand, event name, personal message or logo, for AUD 39.95 a case, including delivery. The bonus? A share in the brewery with every purchase. In their own words: "It's about Owning the Beer You Drink".

Brewtopia. The only beer company Built by the People to be OWNED by the People

The next step probably would be - groups of people buying and selling companies.

Belgium

I know it's not really innovation, but this is something I do want to share with you all. If we think the Dutch are narrow minded when it comes to being successful and making money, I recently found out that Belgium is worse. Read this article about "top dividends" (in Dutch), and of course my reaction on HRlog.nl. In short: in the Netherlands we complain about top salaries, in Belgium they are now complaining about top dividend payments. You are simply not allowed to be successful.

New PC

I recently bought a new PC and once again I found myself losing a lot of stuff I didn't even know I ever installed. Simple things like codecs for media players, stuff like that.

Would it be possible to create a program that simply goes trough everything that's installed at your PC, asks you if you want to take it along to your new PC / new install and if yes, burns it to a CD (possible multiple volume) and then installs it all in the new settings. So not just files and documents (or better: no files or documents), but program's, add-on's, plug-ins, etc.

To all you creative programmers: that's a challenge that would make the lives of many people easier.

Share!

Don't you hate those always recurring questions of narrowminded shortvisioned people about networking...both on- and offline: What's in it for MEEEE? What's the R.O.I. of all MY eeefforts?
Well, now you just send those buggers one of Skype's brilliant mini movies..or leave'm standing out in the cold alltogether..Upto you!
It's give, give, give first & recieve later guys!
Hey you Linkedin, OpenBC, Orkut, Soflow and all the other networks out there, make some of these yourself!! Presto!

The Netherlands needs more entrepreneurs

In this article (in Dutch) an open door is kicked down. The Netherlands needs more entrepreneurs. Ah well, it's good that every now and again some foundation says what everybody knows. Good thing that for once they do point to the right direction: we need to start at base point: education.

Ideabroker's Dynamic Duo

Ideabroker's Dynamic Duo
Originally uploaded by jankarel.

4th Ideabroker event: Breda Tuesday 21 June

Hosted by Syntens Breda
Kamer van Koophandel West-Brabant Mozartlaan 7
4800 DD Breda (076) 564 68 00
Organization: Bas van de Haterd & Ideabroker

5th Ideabroker event: Rotterdam Thursday 23 June

Hosted by The Rotterdam Connection/OpenBC
Digital Port Rotterdam
 Beurs/WTC
Beursplein 37

3011 AA Rotterdam

 T: 010-880 00 10

Organization: Ayman van Bregt & Ideabroker

Rotterdam Connection Info

Both events open@18:00 Start@18:30!!

Robotics@COA

Thanx to Felix Bopp Club of Amsterdam 's CEO for organizing a very cool evening filled with great speakers about robotic issues and robots..Indistinguishable from each other sometimes.. Especially Christian Bartneck had my special attention: he has a great and very diverse background and is deeply involved in social robots: try his questionnaire about your feelings towards robots, and then watch this cool flick! They're coming, but don't be alarmed: it's gonna be fun!