April 2007 Archives

• Tori Amos - American Doll Posse – Each of the 5 persona on the album have their personal blogs, more details at the wikipedia page for the album (May 1).
• Groove Armada - Soundboy Rock – Unpredictable (May 10 US release).
• Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight – Highly anticipated. 4 years since Meteora; too long a wait. They seem to have dropped the Nu Metal sound, I am not sure I like that (May 15).
• Black Book (Zwartboek). Paul Verhoeven’s new war time drama/thriller playing in last year of WWII in the Netherlands. Betrayal, tragedy and revenge. 8.0 rating at IMDb ( No release date for the US, but May 1 at Amazon UK).
• Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno). A dark, amazing movie. Ranked #1 for 2006 and #45 all time at IMDb. It is not too late to see it in a theater. Too bad New Line doesn’t produce HD DVDs (May 15 - US).

Today at noon Swami made the transition to Dr. Swaminathan Sivasubramanian at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. In most European countries the doctoral defense (promotie in Dutch) goes with a lot of protocol and pomp & circumstance. A very specific dress code, with two secundants who need to be able to take over in case you faint during the defense. Your thesis committee, who are called "opponents", will try to make you a sweat a little. Even though it is mostly ceremonial I remember being nervous as hell when I had to defend my thesis; it is a lot more fun to watch than when you have to go through it yourself. Swami did well.

More pictures when I am back in Seattle.

Congrats to Scott Berkun for sending his "Myths of Innovation" book to the printer. Scott has collected an excellent set of recommendations for his book; among others JSB, Guy and me. It is well deserved; I read a beta version of the book and I was impressed.

It is very different from Scott’s first book "The Art of Project Managment" which I consider to be the standard professional work for project management. That book was a very personal story, with best practises and Scott’s extensive PM experiences. In this book Scott uses the voice of innovators through history to tell the story of the myths of innovation for him. It is a very clear story; solid research and lots of documentation. It would be a good read for your next offsite with your management team. Highly recommended.