Getting it done?

You know what you want to accomplish.

You know how you'd like everything to turn out. The real question is, "what are you willing to make sacrifices for?" What are you willing to stand up for, bleed for, commit to and generally be unreasonable about? Because that's what's going to actually get done.

One model of organization is to find something that you're good at and that's easy and straightforward and get paid for that. The other model is to seek out things that are insanely difficult and do those instead.

"How do we do something so difficult that others can't imagine doing it?" is a fine question to ask every now and then.

"There are two types of genius. Ordinary geniuses do great things, but they leave you room to believe that you could do the same if only you worked hard enough. Then there are magicians, and you have no idea how they do it. Feynman was a magician"
-Hans Bethe, theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate.

Individualität im Personalmanagement ..

ist weiterhin der Schlüssel zum Erfolg!

sagt nicht nur perbit ..

Maßgeschneidertes Customizing schafft die beste Voraussetzung für einwandfrei funktionierende softwaregestützte Prozesse. Die Anpassung des Personalmanagement-Systems an die unternehmensspezifischen Gegebenheiten geschieht bei perbit präzise und schnell. Flexible Individualisierung ohne großen Aufwand.

.. sondern auch Dan Bricklin in 2014 in Bezug auf Microsoft..

“Microsoft came from engineers building things: programmers, programmers, programmers — and the hearts and minds of programmers mattered a lot to them. People want to customise things, make it right for what their problem is. It’s the difference between being a carpenter and being an architect — one size does not fit all.

Microsoft built systems that could be customised, so users could replace that part themselves and it listened to a lot of people and provided what they wanted, all the bells and whistles. People say you end up with bloatware and only 10% of the features get used by any user but that 10% is different for a lot of users. Apple went for smaller number of people and that’s OK because there’s Microsoft for the rest."

What's the point?

Occasionally, especially lately since I've retired, some people say something like this: "It's great that you still go to work every day, but I don't see the point."

The point is really simple. I'm a software developer. I decided that's what I wanted to do when I was in my late teens. I never ask myself why I do it. When it clicked for me at that young age, it was like it probably is for a person who plays soccer professionally, or who plays in a rock band.

We don't question the point of them doing what they do, so why would people question what I still do ?

I probably know the answer. They see software development and programming as a job. If you don't have to work at it, why do you still do it?

I never felt that software was a job. For me, strange as it may seem, it was a challenge. I had great stuff to do. And I'm not finished. So that's the point.

I've been doing it for years. To me, it's gratifying to have people use my software and for me to hear what they want and the problems they encounter so I can improve things. That's an awareness of data, and it informs what I do. These are puzzles that I love. To me software is like a performing art, it's never finished, always evolving. I do it even if I'm the only one using the software. But it's much much better if there are others, the more, the better.

"I think of software engineering as one of the few skills where you can create something new and exciting *every* day. There is almost no other creative skill that allows you to do that. And it makes many software builders true artists."
-Werner Vogels, Amazon Web Services.

Held des Tages, WM 08.07.2014

Miroslav Klose, Germany's leading goalscorer with 71 goals in 136 international games, he is the third player to score at four World Cup finals, -2002, 2006, 2010, 2014.

16 Goals in 23 World Cup games, (Brazil legend Pele and West Germany's Uwe Seeler both scored at the 1958, 1962, 1966 and 1970 finals.)


Germany have never lost a game in which he has scored.

A nearly forgotten jewel

Just back from a week in Dublin with Alan McCreery and Kathy. We stayed in Finglas once again, just like 1986 but in Clune Road instead of Ballymun Avenue. That was the year I found out that U2 were something really special. This song travelled with me all over Germany for the next few years on the car radio. Just today I stumbled upon a video from that time.  

Last Saturday (21.06.14) the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity gave Bono its inaugural Lionheart award for his work with RED. The award recognizes a person or organization "that, through innovative use of commercial brand power, has made a significant and positive difference to people or the planet."

Boundaries und Grenzen

One of the most popular home computers ever made was the Commodore 64 in 1982. The "64" was the amount of memory it had--not 64 Gigabytes or 64 Megabytes, but 64K. 

The thing is, the amount of available memory was right there, in the name of the machine. All the people who developed for the machine knew exactly how much memory it had. Any time a developer whined or made excuses about how little memory there was, he was telling us something we already knew, making excuses where no excuses were needed or welcome.

With unlimited time, unlimited money and unlimited resources, of course you might do something differently. But your project is defined by the limitations and boundaries that are in place when you set out to accomplish something.

You build something remarkable because of the boundaries, not without them.

Cloud Computing, Strategie Europe 2020

"One of the core messages we have been taking to the European Cloud Partnership (ECP) is the call to put data protection, ownership, and control, in the hands of cloud users. For cloud to succeed, and realise its potential, it is essential that customers own and control their data at all times. Recent news stories have brought this topic to the fore. Customers, governments and businesses, large and small alike, have concerns about the security, ownership and privacy of their data. If they are not addressed, these concerns have the potential to undermine the pervasive adoption of cloud computing and the resulting benefits to the business community.

At AWS we decided on day one (2006) to put this control in the hands of our customers. They own the data – they choose where to store the data and their data would never be moved to optimise the network. This means that European customers using the AWS Cloud can choose to keep their data in Europe. We also give customer’s tools and techniques to encrypt their data, both at rest and in transit, and manage their secret keys in such a way that it is the customer who completely controls who can access their data, not AWS or any other party. Content that has been encrypted is rendered useless without the applicable decryption keys.

I believe that many of the elements needed for cloud computing to be successful in the region focus on values that are core to all of us as Europeans. As a Dutchman, I hold European values in close regard - values such as the right to a fair and democratic society, and a strong protection of privacy and freedom. Cloud computing –done right– enables broad expression and realization of these European values, especially when combined with a business model that puts customers first. One of the key themes of the ECP’s vision document is the call for a cloud computing framework that focuses on customers and empowers Europeans.

According to a study from the center for economics and business research, the expected cumulative economic effects of cloud computing between 2010 and 2015 in the five largest European economies alone is around €763 billion. Analyst firm IDC notes the cloud economy is growing by more than 20% and could generate nearly €1 trillion in GDP and 4 million jobs by 2020."

- Werner Vogels CTO, Amazon Web Services.