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On the 26th of April 2012, Mix-IT 2012 took place in Lyon. This second edition was handled by the same team as the first. As the internal organisation had matured, the team was more relaxed and the pressure only soared in the last days before the conference. The following paragraphs concern my own feelings and what I learned. This is not the Mix-IT team view, which is available on the Mix-IT web site. Organising an IT conference is a pleasant exercise, mainly due to the rewards of meeting passionate people and skilled speakers. Hereafter, find a list of points to address when you want to launch a conference and my current opinion related to Mix-IT.   Defined goals : If you just launched an event without goals in mind, being consistent in the organisation would be hard. Choices would be difficult to make and would lead to long hours of unproductive discussion. For me, the Mix-IT goals are: The entry price must be affordable to every IT guy. Even an unemployed perso...

Ecologist Eric Berlow illustrates how you can simplify an overwhelming infographic to a few elementary points.

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Using her story telling abilities, she shares a deep insight from her research. Think about this: 14:13: Vulnerability pushed, I pushed back. I lost the fight, but probably won my life back.”

May this new year, bring many sharing ideas and peaceful times. I wish you a awesome new year.

Update:  please find the xALEc Dashboard here .   xALEc is an ALE online open space using Google Hangouts every Monday 9:30 pm CET. Adrian, (@adibolb), Jaumes (@JaumeJornet ) and I had the first xALEc session on December 12th, 2011. The session was like a physical open space session: a great conversation, not focusing precisely on the proposed subject. We collected a few tips and answers to questions we hadn’t asked ourselves before the beginning of the session. So it works, and please find below some remarks and a few improvements to consider for the next ones. Twitter is the best place for sharing links before the sessions using the #xALEc tag. Sessions can be proposed anytime during the day. The session starts at 9:30 pm. Leaders may prefer to open the Google Hangout with extras, 5 minutes before the session, The language barrier will broken after 5 minutes of conversation (enjoy each accent). We are not there to speak English but to improve our Agile/Lean...

Update:  please find the xALEc Dashboard here . Last week, I talked with Olaf and Marcin about the possibility of meeting ALE guys online and sharing ideas and problems. But how could it be done? Using Internet communication tools for group conversations became a common practice a few years ago. Skype has been mainstream for this purpose for years. Due to its paid video offer for groups, only the voice system is really used. Google has proposed its Hangout system for a few months with a free video offer for groups. The availability of this function allows everybody to think about free group meetings online. Also, the facilities to use Google Documents in the hangout, provides a full online collaboration framework. Still to come, Google promised, a streaming facility for the people who want to listen to a conversation ( on air ). The open space format is finding more and more advocates in a wide range of communities and contexts. Future conferences will be more a mixture o...

A few days ago, a friend of mine complained about the lack of speed of his products’ user interfaces. Like many of us, he chose to build his user interface using an abstraction software framework. One year later, his products’ web pages are too heavy and his customers complain. It would have been nice not to live in a world where the top Internet giants focus continuously on speed. Without these companies, one second to return the result of a web page would be the norm and browsing would be a peaceful activity. While today, web pages are displayed in less than the blink of an eye (0,2-0,3 second), many desktop applications still seem incredibly sluggish. When you look at the data presented by Stoyan Stefanov at Velocity, you would understand 2-3 seconds to load a view is still acceptable, if the user is working only with your application. But, today most users are browsing and searching while using applications at work. If you listen to Marissa Mayer at Velocity, you will...