Jane's blog

Over the last few months I have been more active in networking than ever. In the beginning when I started my social media accounts I had only some good friends connected. Over time those accounts started to grow with old-class and mates and lately I connect with interesting new people I meet. Today for the first time I realized I’m only connected to part of my family members. I was surprised by myself this thought hadn’t occur to me earlier. Back to my origin. Back to who I am and where I came from. In case you don’t know it already, I have a huge family. I have many aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. And some of those last ones have children now too! I’m proud of it. Let’s connect and be meaningful to each other, we are all family after all!

Your niece Jane

“A leader is best when people barely know he exist, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him. But a good leader, who talks little, when the work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves.”
- Lao Tse (老子), 600 BC

I would say this accounts for both business and personal contacts. Guiding people without them noticing. When people get to the point that they experience the feeling they have gained more freedom, they will be more willing to cooperate, initiate ideas, solving problems and working harder. I have seen some leaders still that publicly act like the big boss. Don’t get me wrong: It is good to be a leader, but I prefer the kind of type that besides authority also sees the importance of the social and human side.

Hola all! – Thoughts of today: I have a steep, unexpected and alternative learning curve. I know I consciously choose acquiring new skills by making quick progress in learning in a short time period. I think it has something to do with the fact that I have to take action when I know the motivation is there. If I let time pass by I know my motivation will simply disappear. It’s like the Dutch saying: “Het ijzer smeden wanneer het heet is!”. Also, I know that many times I take the alternative road to get to my goals. Even if people around me tell me it will be impossible or difficult. I always believe and hold on to the fact that there is a way if I just keep my eyes and ears wide open. In the last months I have set myself some goals I want to achieve in the coming period. Hard work, but worth the efforts! – Jane

How many do you share with your friends? Needles to say that the higher the degree of contact, the closer your relationship with that person is.

Just bought this book “Managing Business Change for Dummies” by Evard/Gipple to freshen up my thoughts and mind on this subject. I found it a very practical book on how to handle in variety of different circumstances. I recognize many aspects in the book. I’ve always found this topic very interesting and challenging and I know I have feeling for it. Convincing people that your way of working is more effective all the way from idea to realization to more professional designing the new possible structures of organization departments and step by step trying to get commitment among management. Very important lesson learned of the years is that there is always a bridge or intermediator needed in the process of a change. Someone who can translate or guide the change for those who still stick to the old situation and show resistance. All those people need is security and understanding. Only time and patience can heal that. Not everyone has the ability to do that. Also, keep looking for the positive aspects and don’t stay in the negative atmosphere like “We will never manage to do that!”. If you don’t, it will simply evoke more resistance. The choice is up to you.

Social networking sites.. I have wondered myself why we put so much time of our days in them. Also, I’m interested in discovering how people are using these, and -more importantly- whether they are using them in different ways. Some integration tools appeared in the last couple of months that allow you to post something in the portal and post it to all your separate sites. This has always struck me as an impersonal way of updating a status mainly because of this nagging belief I have that different audiences really don’t want the same message.

Twitter – in the main it is just noise. Apparently the mix of business, pleasure, commentary, links, reviews and randomness seems to work. I experience it like a soap series. You put on your television because you are bored, see what’s on. If it’s interesting then you reply. If not, you put it out and it will disappear from your profile – that’s how it works with the real time posts.

Facebook – ?I think I am concluding that it serves little point from a business point of view. From a keeping in touch aspect it might serve some point, however I’m fairly sure I don’t really have 500 friends and I expect a fair number of them couldn’t care less what I’m doing anyway. For me Facebook is purely to maintaining existing friends and maybe some new contacts, but certainly not a place to show off.

LinkedIn – Does anyone ever read status updates on it? If so why? What are they looking to get from it. It’s business orientated so linking Twitter to it is pointless for most Tweets, the groups I read are so slow moving as to be almost moribund. Also, I can’t believe that my hard-working co-professionals do have time to constantly check linked-in post during working hours. My own experience is that I only check it a couple of times a week. Very little compared to the more open to direct communication on Facebook. As on any site counts: the more traffic the more chance that there’s more and therefore probably useful communication.

All in all I’m not sure what this post is about now but perhaps it is saying treat individual networks? as just that individual, try to target the people you are communicating with information that is relevant to them and where they are reading it.

When I started my studies I didn’t quite realize what the impact of information is. Information is the core thing in business and even in our private life. If we lack information our brain is going to generate it’s own derived version of the truth. Therefore, important information needs to be communicated. It cannot be held privately. Companies are trying hard those days to structure information, which isn’t an easy thing to realize due to the complexity of restructuring business processes and the high replacement cost of legacy systems involved with it. In contrast what you learn in university, the majority is not willing to change to an improved environment. What holds them is the change in the way they work – Why would I swift part of my job to another? and Why do I need to report to this other person all of a sudden? – and the high cost of investment of all of this they have to make right now. What they don’t see is the longer they wait, the more the cost and frustration among people will rise. Good luck to those managers! Go for decision making and just DO!

Today we had a Chinese delegation coming over to our company. Since I’m the one responsible for China I had to prepare and give a presentation for this group. The best part was after we finished the formal part. My boss had arranged a lunch in the city center of Amsterdam which always works in improving the cooperation. So for one hour it was like we were in China, the food, the people, the alcohol not to forget! Those lunches always involve toasting on each single individual. Less is the keyword since you have to bottom up it ever single toast! Sounds straighforward but true: drinking shows respect. When you actively participate you show them your vulnerability, your willingness to be part of them, part of the group. This group cohesion is very important in the Chinese culture. I’m not going to tell you how my performance was in the afternoon. I figure you can guess it yourself!