so figures that Lawrence Lessig did license his book “the future of ideas” under Creative Commons. You can download it here. Lawrence has been one of the key persons in the Creative Commons movement, he is a great speaker and his writing does set important landmarks in the understanding (and realization) of what is happening to information, creativity and innovation in these oh-so-modern days. I suggest you put this on your laptop, take it into the week and read it.

From the realms of our awesome living room (honestly, I so love our new apartment!), I “found” Tom Peters, Author, Trainer, “Management-Thinker”. The website is full of content – not just stuff, content! – and he is giving away a lot of things for free, amongst that: His complete Powerpoint-Decks and many PDFs, almost small books/essays.  Right now I am diving in this stream of new information, adding books to my amazon wishlist and thinking of ways to integrate those ideas into my daily work. For example: How can I make the Institute (the place inside Capgemini I am working for during my first three months) a PSF – a professional service firm – that makes its customers go “wow”? I am currently working on a new internal print ad, so I might be able to integrate the new idea right now. Read this (also free, also from Tom Peters) for an idea of what he means with PSF. Don’t be put off by the writing style – it is very much like listening to a very energetic speaker, rather than reading a book. But the content, as I said, CONTENT, the flood of ideas, is worth a second look/read. Possibly a third.

I am gonna iron some shirts, then go for a quick weekly review, and then all is set for another great week.

Getting some sleep. Definitely. I am pretty tired, yesterday was long. All in all the week in Berlin was good: Three new people on the team, two new leads (=coaches/bosses), new assignments, lots of fun. But work is work, and work sometimes is quite time consuming

What else matters? The small good moments. Laughing with my colleagues. Receiving a letter from my godfather in the mail when I came home today. Finding great ideas on how to present data (Edward Tufte).  Watching the sun set over Berlin from the 10th floor.

As Tine is in Marokko, it is a  work/xbox/books weekend for me – I have quite a long list of books to read here, and while I am at it, I could finally finish organizing the library (just in case that boredom REALLY hits)

GTD in consulting – well, doesn’t that sound like an interesting proposition!
Unfortunately, I just had the idea to write such an article. Today, I presented GTD for my colleagues, and they quite liked it (did it old school with a flipchart, that was fun), so I might try and look for specific applications in the consulting life.

Anyhow, this week was crazy, this is why I did not post. I took over part of an existing assignment on Monday night, and since then is has been an intensive ride. I had to get into the topic, up to speed, see what has been done, what needs to be done, and so forth… luckily, both the colleague I worked with and the colleague whose part I took over were very helpful and enabled me to find my place – still, transaction cost was high, and so the hours were long… my toughest week so far, but rewarding as well: Our lead valued our efforts, and today we can deliver a good final result to our customer, which means that I can start the weekend with  no open loops and a fresh mind

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This book has given me many good ideas. Malik defines management as a profession. As a profession, he identifies, a manager has specific core tasks and core tools that, if executed and applied correctly, build a solid base.

Especially when talking about the “toolbox” of the manager, Malik makes many points that every worker, regardless of leadership position or not, can apply. If you want a down-to earth look on what makes a manager – what is essential for being good in this profession, regardless of industry and culture – this book is highly recommended.

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