kalm, nieuwsgierig, vastbesloten
Belangrijk voor mij, mogelijk irrelevant voor jou
He had already ended his life when I first caught on to his music, and this is a cover (original by Leonard Cohen), but ever since I first heard Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, it has sent shivers down my spine. And it even sometimes makes me cry.
This song encompasses everything a great song needs: wonderful lyrics, great melody, hooks, and nerve-racking delivery.
Careful, do not listen to this song too much!
[spotify:track:5qv0ohJV2QNwga79jLNDYQ]
Yesterday, I asked you to tell me what to write about.
But I also mentioned that some topics were already coming up that I personally find interesting. I decided to use this blog to investigate these topics publicly, as I believe that these question are not just restricted to myself. I expect that my writing on these topics might also interest and/or inspire you.
And I am not just talking about financial worth or value. Obviously, coming up with a concept like Twitterfountain.com and championing Speakonomy.com might (and should) lead to financial gains in some form, but they are expressions of something deeper: my creativity.
As Clay Shirky references in ‘Cognitive Surplus‘, information is not very valuable in itself. Knowledge is, and the ability to combine information and knowledge is what makes us the creative species we are.
So, wherein lies my knowledge and creativity? What makes people appreciate me, and turn to me for specific questions or challenges? That will be topic number one in 2011.
If we define ‘work’ as the things you do in order to create a living, I love to work. At my company (De Ondernemers BV) we do very exciting stuff, and I get to work with marvelous people as well. But I also work to love, and live. I need to set time apart for my girlfriend, family etc. I need to be able to kick back and reload. Just making lists in a GTD-app is not enough.
In 2011, I would like to further investigate how to create an ultimate work/life balance.
This feels like a risky subject, because in my world of reference, it has all sorts of mushy, non-factual connotations. But it is the ultimate driving force in everything anyone does. It drives my passion for music, and as a result my interest in what happens in the music industry. It drives my need to come up with new, innovative concepts for events and speakers. But I believe I hardly have scratched the surface of truly understanding what drives me.
What do I love? What do I love doing? How do I express that love? I will try to find out in 2011.
I would love to hear your thought on these topics. Leave them in the comments.
This blog has been around (in various forms) since 2006. Initially, I blogged (in Dutch) about stuff related to Nieuwe Garde, eventually this turned into a regular personal blog with the occasional update.
For the second part of 2010, I used this blog mainly to share interesting articles I found in my various RSS-feeds, hoping that you would appreciate my curation of these articles. In the process, whatever interaction I had with you, my reader, disappeared from this blog and moved mostly to Twitter. This, I think is not exactly what I wanted.
So I am considering how to proceed from here.
First and foremost, I guess I will have to provide you with information, either self-generated or curated, that interests you. For you to take an interest, I believe the content of this weblog need to be of apparent interest to me. If I write about stuff that I care passionately about, that energy will shine through and attract readers.
Some topics are coming up already, I will post on that pretty soon.
Secondly, I need to foster the conversation better. I decided to do this by replacing the existing WordPress comments-system with Disqus, an tool that brings all comments and related tweets into one conversation. But that’s just the technical side of it. The re is a more important thing I think I need to do.
But most importantly, I think I will start the conversations differently. I will start to ask questions more, instead of only sending my opinions into the world.
So here it is, please leave your feedback below:
