OK, this is basically a test post to see if the automagic syndication is done right…

OK, this is basically a test post to see if the automagic syndication is done right …

(this should show up in my blog as well)

Embedded Link

Skunkworks, Reorganization, And Other Tactics To Excel In The Digital Age | Fast Company
Outside of the technology sector, most of the large companies that I encounter are startlingly similar.

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Catching up on time …

[Pretty embarassing, but it’s the truth … and there’s learnings inside]

Imagine me, Monday morning, 10:30 am, pretty relaxed, next meeting in late afternoon (did I say I was relaxed?) … and so there’s my mobile ringing – I pick up the phone and a nice lady from Integrata offices Düsseldorf is asking if everything’s OK?

OK? Why, yes, I feel OK? Sure …

“And you’re on your way, are you?” she said “You’re booked for this wiki workshop today, there’s three people waiting for you …”

“No, it can’t be, it’s Tuesday and Wednesday, tomorrow we start”

“[…] people waiting […]”

So I check my Google apps calendar (that says Tuesday & Wednesday), then I check my emails (Monday & Tuesday, MONDAY & Tuesday …). Now you get the idea and the knack of the story. How to handle this situation, given that teleportation ain’t ready? Short discussion in various back offices and it’s decided to do the Tuesday workshop anyway, and try to put it all into one big day. Smart decision it turned out to be … learning opportunities en masse:

Some of my learnings:

– one can easily rearrange travel arrangements with Deutsche Bahn, it may cost you a bit, esp. the reservation fare is lost but you get back most of your money

– you can’t travel one day in advance with the prepaid ticket, it says “Valid starting date onward for one month” – in my case starting date was Tuesday, obviously.

– Hotel rearrangements are mostly easy, but better done online, not over the phone. Especially when and because your hotel office clerk may not speak German perfectly.

– bringing flowers for the nice ladies at the Integrata offices helps a bit when showing up a day late (and I caused them some confusion, worries and intensive activity for sure)

and not to forget

– double check everything on Sunday evening (checking the calendar is NOT enough)

– I can manage to do a two-day introductory wiki workshop in one extended day, given some prerequisites are given (1. few, smart and nice learners, 2. smallish breaks in between, 3. a nice little group that discusses what is necessary / holds value and greps the basic stuff very fast and 4. a nice little group of smart and nice people that are willing to pull through with you). In the end we succeeded with the day but it’s strenuous – the normal two-day setup is much easier on everybodys nerves.

– offering beer to the eager learners after the intensive day of learning and discussion is an obligation (and it’s a pleasure, too – see points 1. and 4. above)

Oh, and one last thing – by means of my sloppiness fate I’ve won a free day of web surfing, reading up on industry trends, wiki updating, email list geekery, system backups, wiki gardening, and at least some blogging.

(I have been too quiet in here due to a variety of work and other reasons, spending my time mostly on the + side of the webs – I won’t promise anything, but I may do some syndication automagic stuff from there to here. Let’s see how this will work out)

(Sh*t happens, they say. True story. First time it happened to me that severely in – let me see – close to six years of professional consulting and geeking)

(Oh and please, somebody spot the irony that my free day is on February 29th)

¹ Photo by mararie on Flickr

Happy New Year from Stormy Shores

Dear Friends, Partners and Customers and yes, oh my dear extended social network,

as we’re reaching the end of 2011 I wanted to thank you all for your business and your inspiration.

2011 was a busy year for me – more coaching and training gigs than in past years, and a constant stream of consulting projects. I am still focused on helping companies (and the people inside them) grapple with the implications and challenges of Enterprise 2.0. Now, Social business means challenges and tasks in helping with the integration of technologies and platforms, but also – and dare I say more importantly – social business needs efficient implementation work to reach its goals. Things like widespread adoption, continuous business process- integrated and day-to-day use don’t come as naturally as we might have expected in the past. So this has taken much focus in 2011 and I am excited to continue this journey in the new year.

So as I’m grateful for all the projects underway and finished, lessons learned and wonderful stuff experienced I thank you for all the past year. I look forward to working with you in 2012 and wish you, your teams and your families a very happy and healthy new year.

Martin _ frogpond

CC Image by Joe Kovacs, who has much nicer images of Basel than mine – the sky’s pretty much the same anyway 😉

Hmmm, so far I don’t see am easy way to share something from a) the GApps reader…

Hmmm, so far I don’t see am easy way to share something from a) the GApps reader account or any other Google account for that matter to the +frogpond page?

Anybody knows a solution? +<a href=”https://plus.google.com/102235836543922327908″ class=”proflink” oid=”102235836543922327908″>Siegfried Hirsch to the help 😉

Reshared post from +Martin Koser

Well, hah … future in data … poor me is wrangling with the curation processes, ie. what do I want to spread via the GooglePage, or the GApps frogpond account .. and what rests with the personal account.

Hard to decide and organize at times …

Embedded Link

Your Future Is In The Data
The web is creating massive amounts of data every second of the day. Moore’s law states that the amount of digital information increases tenfold every five years. The social web is accelerating data. According to Cisco by 2013 the amount of traffic flowing over the internet annually will reach 667 exabytes.
An article in The Economist observed, we are at the point of an “industrial revolution of data,” with vast amounts of digital information being created, stored and analyzed. The rise of “b…

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Hacked (but recovering)

Well, I got hacked by not so nice people robots, informed about it by nice people (whose sites were hacked as well and who found me in their spammed link bait).

Yes, cleared the mess by now – and slowly recovering. Will see how this works out.

ps. I did have backups, nice long passwords, and a pretty current WordPress install. Will elaborate on this as soon as possible.

[Update: it’s been a nasty Spam Injection – ie. while normal users of this site didn’t see the spam links, but the Google bot did. With the help of the Googlebot Spoofer I was able to see the actual mischief, ie. links to all sorts of warez et al.

The actual spam wasn’t embedded in the posts (or the database) but was deposited in extra files on my server, hidden from plain first sight and referenced via an hacked .htaccess file.

The compromising access to the files was achieved via an outdated WordPress plugin – not one that I missed to update but one that seems to have degraded over time and development from WordPress 2.x to 3.2.x.

My fixes included a) kicking that stupid plugin b) fixing the .htaccess c) removing the spam repository files d) changing passwords everywhere (WP users, database, ftp access and e) some hidden sauce that I won’t blog about.

So hopefully this write-up helps others, namely those webmasters that I informed via Email about their compromised sites.