online video recording service

I stopped watching regular tv, as there is a lot of crap on the screen the few times I want to watch tv. In addition, it gives me a lot of time, which I can use much better. But as there are sometimes really good movies and documentations on tv, I subscribed to http://www.safe.tv/

This is an online video recording service which costs approx 10€ per month. For this you can progam the major channels from every internet-PC. So you also resolve the issue that you forgot to program something when you are on the road. In addition, you can subsribe to a newsletter with very good recommendations and you can configure your own interests and get an individual tv-program overview with direct recoding links in it. I also configured an e-mail alert, sending me an e-mail every time a movie with one of my favourite actors is coming up.

You can watch the recordings either online (from everywhere in the world) or you can download them to your PC. You can then watch them on your PC (mine is connected to my tv) or you can burn the recordings on a DVD.

So all in all a great tool for selective TV consumption. So control the media and not the other way round!

For all marathonis: Start Triathlon!

Dear marathoni-colleagues within my family & friends: you definitely have to start triathlon.

I just had a great triathlon in Hamburg, which went far better than I expected (especially for the swimming part, which is my weakest discipline). The audience is overwhelming - 100.000 people cheering while you are giving your best (you can even hear them in the water) ... and the finish ... the second best feeling in the world ... just have a look at the pictures ... and join me next year in Hamburg!

New google search options

When you are using the English version of google (wich you can change in the options tab) you have a new options button with the search results. It does not work with the German version, yet.

The two best options are the wonderwheel and the timeline. With the wonderwheel you have a structural map of related search topics. This allows you to search a whole research area and gives you a lot of interesting links. The timeline shows you the search results by year, which helps in judgeing how relevant and recent the search result is.

Have a go - I love these new functions.

E-books for iPhone from Barnes & Noble

For all of you who have an iPhone or iPod Touch:

Barnes & Noble offers a free e-book-reader-SW for these gadgets (and also for other platforms).

You can find it, together with a lot of e-books at:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks/download-reader.asp?cds2Pid=28549

The great thing (besides being another cool app for the iPhone) ist that B&N offers the e-books extremely cheap (opposed to the Sony-partners and Amazon with its Kindle).

So check it out and use another chance to pimp your brain!

Google Moon

How cool is this ?!

Google has updated its Google earth with a lot of content on the moon.

Have a look at this youtube-video, showing what is offered and how it works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHJ77RsnFXI&feature=related

So let´s fly to the moon ...

Take your SW with you on your USB stick

Do you sometimes have the problem, that you need a software on another PC than your usual one? I sometimes have the problem, when I am using public PCs or PCs of colleagues.

Have a look at http://www.portableapps.com/

You can install a lot of very useful applications on your USB stick and take them with you. I have even a webbrowser and an e-mail-client on it. The nice thing is, that I have all my bookmarks and e-mailaddresses synced to the stick, too. Most of the programmes are even freeware.

In addition you can also use the tool if you do not want to destabilise your windows installations with too many installed programmes. I use e.g. Gimp as a graphic tool from my USB stick on different PCs.

A lot of programmes are now working without installations from USB sticks. When you have installed the protableapps-SW on your USB stick, you can easily add more applications to the menue. The easiest way is to just copy them in the applications-folder on your USB stick and the next time you plug in your USB stick, the menu has added the SW - just great - have fun with it!

Free Silbermond concert in SPO

I just got another great info from my dream-wife Nici.

On Friday, 31.7. there will be a FREE Silbermond concert during the Kite World Cup in Sankt Peter Ording. The spot is cool anyway - it is the spot where Nici and me learned kiting and with the world cup guys and Silbermond, this will be a great weekend.

More infos at:

http://www.st.peter-ording-nordsee.de/aktuelle-informationen-fzevents.html?&tx_ttnews%5btt_news%5d=68&tx_ttnews%5bbackPid%5d=1264&cHash=d1b6cc166f

So see you in SPO! You can find me easily there - I am the guy who is pulled over the sea on his belly by his kite :-)

Great material on effective learning techniques

Nici just remined me of the great material that our PhD university (School of Management at the University of Bradford) has on its webpage at:

http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/management/external/els/informationsheets.php

NLP/Trinergy blog from Roman Braun

My NLP trainer also started a blog. It already has a great video, titled "Did you know?" on it and everybody who knows Roman, knows that we will see very inspiring content on his blog.
Roman is also very active on facebook, so have a look at him and his trinergy team.

The links are:
http://www.trinergy.at/nlp_blog/
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/roman.braun?ref=nf
http://www.trinergy.at/

Hamburger Jedermann

If you have a chance to be in Hamburg before 23rd August, you just have to see the Hamburger Jedermann in the Speicherstadt. Nici and me had a great open-air evening with a great ensemble and the atmosphere is very special.

The performances are each friday, saturday and sunday at 8pm. You have to be there at 6:00pm to block a seat, as they are in 3 categories, but without numbers. As they have some nice catering around, the waiting time does not get long. The best places are red category- right side. When you are there at 6:00pm and are one of the first to be let in at 6:30pm, you have a very good chance to get a place in the absolute center, where all the actors are playing in arms length to you.

By the way the dress code is casual. I think I was the only one showing up with a tie :-)

You can find more infos at: http://www.hamburger-jedermann.de/

McKinsey quarterly

McKinsey has a very good webpage and a very interesting newsletter with links to the most interesting articles. Even in the free of charge subsciption, the content is already high quality.

Check it out at: http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/home.aspx

Let McKinsey brain you!

Be great!

A wonderful inspirational youtube-video (with music-so turn on the speakers) which I want to share with you.

Be great!

Freeware to download youtube videos & more

You find great content on youtube and there is a great freeware-tool to download youtube videos, so that you can watch them offline, anytime or to use them for your presentations, when you have no internet connection. The tool is called free flv converter and you can download it at:

http://www.koyotesoft.com/indexEn.html

The easiest way to download youtube videos is:

-go to the youtube video via your regular webbrowser

-copy the web-address with CTRL+C

-open the free flv converter

-go to tab Tube Downloader

-go into the link field and paste the copied web-address with CTRL+V

-click + to add it and it will start to download the video

There are a lot of more conversion possibilities, this tool offers, incl. converting content for mobile devices. Have fun - I use this tool regularly.

Sending large files via e-mail

If you have the same problem, I used to have - not getting through e-mails with large attachements - have a look at

www.yousendit.com

You can sign up for a free account which allows you to send e-mails with large attachements via a server upload/download. It is very well integrated into outlook. Just download and install the outlook-plugin and configure it that all e-mails above 5MB are sent via yousendit. You can write e-mails as ususual (with the free version you can attach 1 document) and if it is larger than 5MB, the plug-in will automatically send a downloadlink to the receiver instead of the attachement. This is much faster than classic e-mails and large e-mails do not bounce back anymore.

So another chance to share even large digital content!

Great webpage on personal development

This is one of my favourite webpages on personal development.

www.hpz.com

Hans Peter Zimmermann has loads of high quality content on his page and he has a great newsletter, audio-podcast and even a video blog. He is definitely not mainstream and I am always very inspired by him.

German webradio

For all of you who are german and who want to listen to their favourite radio stations on the internet, check out

http://www.phonostar.de/

You can download a free webradio client from this page and pull together a list of your favourite radio stations you want to listen to. You can even record with the software. Really cool - see my configuration above.

New fotos on facebook

I uploaded a bunch of new fotos on my facebook-page.

www.facebook.com/thorsten.jekel

Have fun :-)

Flying with Ryanair in the near future

For all of you who are flying Ryanair, have a look at this :-)

My online profiles

You can also find me on the web on these pages:

German networking profile on Xing:
https://www.xing.com/profile/Thorsten_Jekel

International networking profile on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=9429447&trk=tab_pro

Photos on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/thorsten.jekel

Cool stuff learned from our daughter Nina

I am not the only digital scout in our family. Our daughter Nina is also great in finding cool things on the web.

Have a look at this:

http://bobsmade.blogsport.de/gallery/

This is the webpage of a joung student who paints shoes & more in a very individual way. Really cool - many thanks Nina!

THE man on web 2.0

For all of you who are german, THE man on social media is Alexander Wunschel. He really knows what´s going on and I already had the pleasure to discuss some ideas with him personally.

In addition (for the female readers of my blog) he is known for the sexiest podcast voice in Germany :-)

You find him at http://www.pimpyourbrain.de/

You can also find his podcasts on itunes. Just scroll the podcast directory within itunes, which you should do anyway, if you have not done this yet. There you find tons of high quality free of charge content to pimp your brain during your daily commute.

Just recenty Alex & friends organized a great conference on podcasting. You find a lot of wokshop results at http://www.niche09.de/

This is knowledge sharing at its best - many thanks Alex!

Elevator pitch

Just recently Nicole and me joined a great socialnetwork workshop on the elevator pitch.

This was a real challenge as it was not only listening to a nice presentation, but doing an elevator pitch oneself.

After the workshop, I googled a bit on the topic and I would like to share the following interesting links on the topic with you:

http://www.persoenlichkeits-blog.de/article/139/elevator-pitch-oder-was-machen-sie-beruflich

http://www.arbeitsratgeber.com/elevator-pitch_0245.html

http://www.kundennutzen.ch/elevator-pitch.php

http://www.gruendungszuschuss.de/networking/elevator-pitch/beispiele-aus-wettbewerb.html

http://video.google.de/videosearch?q=elevator%20pitch&oe=utf-8&lr=lang_de&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:de:official&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=de&tab=wv

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=elevator+pitch&aq=f

And the next day I joined a Toastmasters workshop. This is a great way to train your public speaking capabilities in English. I was challenged again by John Holway, who is very enganged in this inspiring network. By the way he is a great guy to have fun with.

You find more infos at:
http://www.toastmasters.org/ and http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toastmasters

So get out of your comfort zone and work on YOUR elevator pitch :-)

Gandhi on change

Du musst selbst die Veränderung sein, die du in der Welt sehen willst.
You have to be the change, that you want to see in the world.
(Mahatma Gandhi)

City backpack on wheels

For all of you who know how the shoulders hurt after a full day city trip with a backpack, this is the solution: Today I bought a Kipling Sausalito backback on wheels. It is not the greatest backpack when you are wearing it on your back, but you can do so. The great thing about it, is that it has inline-skater-wheels which makes it really easy to pull it though the city. It even looks better in reality, than on this picture and you can take off the monkey :-)

Great tools for great presentations

Thanks to my wonderful wife Nicole, I have another great link for you:

http://www.slideshare.com/

On this page you find great presentations which you can even download as pdf and powerpoint files. This is really sharing knowledge. I already donwloaded loads of charts from there.

One of the best books I have ever read on presentations is Presentation Zen, from Gary Reynolds. If you want to learn more about his ideas, check them out at:

http://www.presentationzen.com/

You can find all the great images that Reynolds is using in his book at:

http://www.istockphoto.com/

This is a great site for very affordable high quality fotos & more, which you can use for your presentations.

For fotos I also use www.flickr.com which I think you all know.

Cool cocktail bar in NY

When you are in NY, you definitely have to go to 230 5th avenue / 27th street. The rooftop garden is wonderful. You are surrounded by all the great NY skyscrapers. And from midnight on you can go one floor deeper to dance.

Mindmapping Tool

The mindmapping tool I am using on my PC is Mindmanager 8.0.

You can find it at: www.mindjet.com

It is as great tool to organise ideas and to link content which you have on your PC.
I also use it for instant note taking during conferences and meetings.

Triathlon

For all of you who share my passion for Triathlon here are some great weblinks:

great videos and infos:
http://www.triathlon-szene.de/index.php
http://www.tri2b.com/68--aktuelles.html

an interesting blog:
http://www.myroadtokona.at/

and if you want to learn how to swim like Michael Phelps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcqPE53ZMEk&feature=fvsr

And for those who are not addicted to THE CHALLENGE yet, you will be when you subscribe to the ironman-channel on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ironmantriathlon?blend=1&ob=4

Many thanks to my triabolos-friends for all the infos and great help. If you happen to life around Hamburg, you just have to become a member of the triabolos. A great triathlon club. And the best: they have a rookie program for triathlon starters. This was a great start for me as triathlon is definitely more complex than running alone and even if you think you know how to run (which I thought), they will train you on how running really works. It is also a great community of cool people around Ingo Wetzel. Check them out at http://www.triabolos.de/

So keep on running used to be my old saying in my marathon times. Now it is keep on swimming, biking and running!

Getting a cheap netbook

My Vodafone cell phone contract was due to prolongation and this time I chose a new option.

Instead of replacing my cell phone (which still works fine), I chose to get a netbook for € 49.

I chose the Samsung NC10 and it is great. YOU have a very good keyboard, a bright non-glossy display to even work outside, an integrated high speed GSM-module (no USB Stick or PC card hassle), wifi and an integrated webcam. It is small to carry and you can work for 8h with one battery load. The processing power is of course less than with my other lenovo-notebook, but it is absolitely sufficient for any usual communication and office work. Even videos are playing on it and I am not a great PC-gamer anyway. So to sum up: a great gadget for long flights and when you are on the road.

You can have a look at it here: http://shop.vodafone.de/Shop/business/handys/mkey-1075-propid-prod231878/netbook-samsung-nc10.html

Twitter blog and book

This is a great blog on how to use Twitter:

http://twitterhandbook.com/blog/

The book twitter revolution from Warren Whitlock and Deborah Micek ist also great.
The book was actually my starting point to find this blog.
The book is a very comprehensive start into Twitter and its many applications to the private and business context. It is also an interesting read, as it was partially produced with Twitter collected content.

You find the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Twitter-Revolution-Marketing-Changing-Business/dp/1934275077

Very inspiring scocial media tool and definitely far beyond from being only a toy for freaks.
There are a lot of smarties on twitter. Be on it now - I will be shortly.

Getting online free of charge at Starbucks in the US

You know, that I love Starbucks and one of the reasons is FREE WIRELESS LAN. In the US it is a bit complicated to get wifi-access in the Starbucks stores, but this is how it works:

-get a free Starbucks-prepaid card in the store
-load it in the store with at least 5 US$ (you can use this completely for purchases at Starbucks)
-register the card online at www.starbucks.com/card (you have to use an US address-be creative)
-register for att wireless (the registration will direct you to this automatically)
-from then on you can use wifi for up to 2h a day free of charge in any US Starbucks

Have fun - I am posting this from a Starbucks in NY.

Full text PhD-Thesises online

For all of you who are doing their PhD or DBA, this is a great link:

http://www.ethos.ac.uk/

You can download up to date PhD thesises in FULL TEXT als pdf. Most of them are even free of charge. This is far better than spending hours in the library.

Thank you so much again Marc for this great info!

18 miles of books in New York

All of you who know me a bit better, know that I am an absolute book-junkie. So when you have the same addiction, you definitely have to go to Strands bookstore in NY, Broadway/12th East.

They have a lot of current management books and nearly all the all time classics and most of them are from 3 to 15 US$.

Everytime I am in NY I am at least 3-4hours in there and I come back with tons of new books.

http://www.strandbooks.com/

New York shown by New Yorkers

There is a volunteer organisation in New York, bringing together New Yorkers, who love to show foreigners around their city, with visitors. Make sure that you make an online reservation at least 3 weeks in advance and you need to give them a fixed phone line in NY. It is free of charge and for sure a great way to see the real New York.

The link is: http://www.bigapplegreeter.org/

I was lucky, that one of my fellow-PhD students is a New Yorker, so it was great to see some parts of the real New York. By the way, when you are in NY, you have to go to the oldest bar of the town, which is http://www.mcsorleysnewyork.com/

It is directly at St Marks in Greenwich village - which used to be Klein-Deutschland, as my NÝ-friend Ted told me. Thank you so much again Ted!

Canuing in New York

A totally different way to explore NY is going on a canu. There are 3 boat houses in NY and the best thing it is FREE OF CHARGE. You can go any time to paddle near the pier (which is not too exiting) and they offer 3h tours every saturday and sunday morning at 8 am (which is great).

The link is: http://www.downtownboathouse.org/

You find the upcoming schedule of tours on this webpage.

Crown of the Statue of Liberty is open again

On 4th of July they reopened the crown of the statue of liberty in New York, which was closed since 9/11. So when you are in NY for the next time, make sure to get your tickets in advance. Currently, they are sold out until September.

The link is: http://www.statuecruises.com/ferry-service/welcome.aspx

Welcome to my new blog

Dear friends,

this is my new blog. My idea is to share all the interesting things I am learning every day.
Lifelong learning is too wonderful to just keep it for oneself. My personal mission is to develop myself and others. So I love to share my insights with you and I am very much looking forward to your comments.

So keep on sharing ideas.

Yours

Thorsten