Belbin Team Profile test

At a team meeting in Suresnes (Paris) I was introduced to the Belbin method of testing individual team members personality to create a complete team profile.

In essence any team needs to cover all of these personality characteristics: Plant, Shaper, Coordinator, Implemeter, Resource Investigator, Monitor/Evaluator, Team Worker, Completer/Finisher, Specialist.

After the meeting I was asked to enhance the flip-chart which grew (I am a plant!) into a complete questionnaire with chart and everything.

Therefore if you fancy taking the test, try out the following spreadsheet (click on the link). At the bottom after the chart is a PDF attachment, describing the details of the characteristica as well as the strenghts and weaknesses.

Let me know your results...

Weller's auctions

Herbert, my Swedish colleague, told me about Weller's auctions the other day. Basically every Tueday, they have an auction of unwanted retail items.

These items can be returned goods, factory refurbishments etc. that are completetly fault free but possibly without box.

I have had a look at the auction items and they include everything from trousers and socks to LCD TVs and agricultural machinery.

The auction is in Chertsey, which isn't far from Kingston at all.

I would like to go there one day and check out all the fab items you presumably can get at bargain price.

Visit to Paris

After an early start to the day and a long days work did I manage to get to
enjoy Paris.

This morning I managed to sort out a biometric passport to France,
P.E.G.A.S.E
This consist of a chipcard which is associated with your fingerprints. When
you enter the contry you enter a secure box and apply your fingerprints. No
need to queue for passport control anymore.

Nicole, rocking at Knebworth

Nicole has in her capacity as marketing executive for Kinetic Partners been working long and hard on arranging the company's presence at the Hedgestock event at Knebworth 7-8th June 2006.

5% good weather and 95% hard work made Kinetic Partners presence such a success that they were even featured on CNN! (click the link to see the video clip).

Also the BBC and New York Times covered the event.

With the World Cup also launching that week, Nicole decided their theme should evolve around the footie and thus she hired a fake grass carpet and two football tables. With the main price being 2 tickets for the WC semi final, there was plenty of interest in taking part.

Knebworth is well known for hosting massive rock concerts, Robin Williams played there around 2 years ago, which basically resulted in the collapse of the public transport in the area by the sheer number of spectators travelling at the same time.
This time it was the Who's turn to play and they performed their first live concert in 2 years for the people in the hedge fund industry, who all paid GBP 500.00 in entrance fee for the exhibition. The proceeds went as a charity donation to the Teenage Cancer Trust. (which is tax deductible in the UK for the contributing company - nice one).

Legitimate music download

At the time of our wedding, I was looking into downloading some important Danish tracks that could be played at the wedding.

There are a number of Danish providers, such as TDC Musik and Bilka Musik where you can find the Danish artists that you can't find abroad. They both accept international creditcards as long as they have been issued in Denmark!? so what is the point?

This negative experience put me off music download for a time and only here the other day did I decide to give it another try.

I decided to give the English equivalent of Bilka Musik a try, Tesco, Britains largest supermarket chain. All went well and at GBP 0.79 per track it seemed reasonable. I chose 5 popular songs and entered my credit card details for the charge, GBP 3.95.

I managed to download the WMA formatted files. As the HiFi in the lounge is connected via the KiSS DVD player to the PC, I got my self ready for a blast. I managed to find the tracks and pressed PLAY... Error - the files are subject to Digital Rights Management....

If you consider an average CD to contain 13 tracks and cost 12.99, I would think that by paying GBP 4 for 1/3 of the number of tracks, it would be fair to asume I can play my music in the car, on the DVD player in the lounge, on the PC etc. etc.

Nothing has changed SONY and Billy Bob Gates have got it as they want it. You are guilty as sin of trying to copy music and that is it. Theoretically they should take legal actions against anybody downloading legal music, because that is at the end of the day what is happening... It is the same as restricting a Renault Clio to drive faster than 30 Mph because it is a car designed for driving in towns and do shopping and you can't have genuine intentions by taking it on the motorway...

The world is controlled by a bunch of short sighted fat cats. Just remember how the national mail companies where complaining about danger of collapse when the email was invented. No one was to send a letter anymore. At the end of the day their roles have changed because people are buying box after box of goods on the internet which is then sent by mail and thus they are still making great revenue. (The fact that the fat cats aren't cost-contentious and thus making losses because of bureaucracy is not the stamp buyers fault).

Same scenario is now happening with the music industry; only that the music industry is retaining their profitability as people are so buzy filling up their prestigious MP3 players with rights managed music such that they don't have time to dispute the fact that they lock themselves down. The last 2 years Apple's iPod has been the thing. Nokia is now launching their new N91 and in essence that means that all the gadget addicts that has to have this one instead now have to purchase their music all over again...

It is great however to see how Gnarls Barclay's Crazy song is stirring up some sheit by reaching number one without releasing a CD..

TV License for you PC ?!

It was with great interest I read my Danish news paper, Politiken Online, today. DR, Denmarks Radio, the national equivalent of BBC and SABC, have managed to get approval for legislation which grant them the right of charging TV license fee if your PC is capable of viewing DR news and media.

All liable media are charged as a non-optional package of DKR 2,150.00. At least most Danish households are already having TV and radio and thus it is not going to be an additional expense, which is probably how they managed to get the legislation through. In the event you do not own a TV or a radio, you will now have to pay license because you have a PC!!! I am sorry to say that I don't see the why having a PC for doing internet banking, gadget shopping or publishing a web site is any of DR's business....

Any other business reporting to shareholders would have to create a secure domain where you by entering credit card details would be granted access to the chargeable material and thus it is a mystery how DR has managed to justify this ludicrous charge. Who said there is no longer a monopoly in Denmark?

The question is whether you get a rebate for a dial-up modem as opposed to a fast broadband connection? Furthermore you today have the benefit of being able to review archived material but the good stuff is always removed after 4 weeks - is that going to change now that people are paying for having access?

In essence this is just another tax to a suffering business and I suppose the next proposal is for TV shops with window displays to pay license per pedestrian walking by their windows?!