Bundestagswahl - Wahlprogramme

Have a look at:
http://www.bundestagswahl-bw.de/wahlprogramme1.html?&tx_vgetagcloud_pi2[pages]=1825%20&tx_vgetagcloud_pi2[keyword]=Wahlprogramme

Here you find a great short overview of the political party programs for the Bundestagswahl in Germany.
So take the right choice and vote even if the vote for the European parliament was much more important - which unfortunately very few people realize. 80% of all political decisions are taken on a European base and only 20% nationally. The national parliaments mainly implement the European laws into national ones.

Loriot - The broken-down TV / Der kaputte Fernseher

One of my all time favourites from Loriot (in German):



And what do we learn again?
Stop wasting your time with unreflected TV consumption!
The average German watches 3h TV per day (source Alex Wunschel) - isn´t this crazy?
Think about the great things you can do in 3h.

Wonderful good night story from Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen

You just have to watch this wonderful story about penguins & more (in German):



So keep on working on your strengths and keep your mind open!

Nice introduction video to twitter

If you still have no idea what twitter is, have a look at this video:



There are some more introduction videos from this user on youtube, which are quite nice, like the one on RSS.

What am I using twitter for?
-getting nice little bits and pieces of information from interesting people,
-putting down interesting little things that come accross my way between my blog posts (like when I am watching TV, reading a book or listening to a podacst),
-using direct messages to chat with some of my personal contacts,
-letting my twitter followers know, when I have posted a new post on my blog (automatically by the service of http://www.zone.de/), and
-asking questions to my twitter followers (and I am getting great and instant responses - I think this is even the best benefit of twitter)

So start twittering today. My twitter user is jekel and you can also see my latest twitter tweets on the right side of my blog. You can also use the link below the tweets to follow me on twitter directly from my blog.

Great movie: The proposal / Selbst ist die Braut

You have to watch this great movie:



Nici, Nina and me were laughing nearly the whole time. It is an extremely funny and also romantic movie. I love female managers :-)

Great Sixt campaign with Ulla Schmidt

I love the smarties from Sixt :-)

Additional link & blog on Beyond Budgeting from Niels Pfläging

Niels Pfläging gave me another great link on Beyond Budgeting (see his comment on my prior post):
http://www.bbtn.org/

Niels Pfläging has also a great blog, which you can find at:
http://www.beyondbudgeting-transformation.org/blog/3

Thank you very much again for your great input Niels. A great example of sharing knowledge!
My wife (she is professor for strategic controlling and marketing http://www.fh-westkueste.de/en/home/department-of-economics/about-us/personen/professoren/nicole-jekel-phd.html) and me are very much looking forward to your new book.

Beyond budgeting free download of the German book

One of my favourite books on budgeting is beyond budgeting, by Niels Pfläging.

I now found the full original version as a free download at:

http://www.controllingportal.de/Fachinfo/Budgetierung/Niels-Pflaeging-Beyond-Budgeting-Better-Budgeting.-Ohne-feste-Budgets-zielorientiert-fuehren-und-erfolgreich-steuern.html

If you want to go more deeply into the concept of beyond budgeting, you should also have a look ot the following sites:

http://www.beyondbudgeting.org/

http://www.bbrt.org/

http://www.iioe.eu/fileadmin/files/conferences_seminars/3b_Morlidge.pdf

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Budgeting

So keep on rethinking the way of doing business every day!

You can subscribe my blog via e-mail now

If you want to subscribe my blog per e-mail, just enter your e-mail address in the box on the right top of my blog. You will then always get an automatic e-mail, when I have posted something new on my blog.

New features on my blog

I have added some new features to my blog:
-comments: please let me know your ideas and comments
-twitter: my latest tweets on twitter, my user on twitter is jekel
-blogroll: my favourite blogs I am reading regularly (by the way with the google reader)
-labels: categories to easily find things on my blog
-Albert Einstein quotes on the bottom of the page: one of my favourite out-of-the-box thinkers

And if you want to learn how you can also add these features to your blog on blogger.com, have a look at this video:



So keep on sharing ideas following my personal mission to develop myself and others.

The 4 hour workweek from Timothy Ferris

If you have not read the 4h workweek from Timothy Ferris: DO IT NOW!
It is one of the best books on personal productivity and far beyond that I read within the last 2 years. You can find it at:

in English:
http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307353133/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250758349&sr=8-1

in German:
http://www.amazon.de/Die-4-Stunden-Woche-Mehr-Zeit-Leben/dp/3430200512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250758294&sr=8-1

It is about how you move from being efficient in life (what I think I was in the past) to getting effective in life, meaning doing the right things. It is about how to organize your life so that you really live it. Life is not about geting a millionaire, it is about living like a millionaire and Timothy shows, how he changed his life to achieve this.

Timothy Ferris has a lot of great stuff on the internet. You can find him at:
http://fourhourworkweek.com/

He also has a great blog, which you can find directly at:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/
The title of the blog is experiments in lifestyle design, which is perhaps the best description of what his concept is about.

To give you a first impression about the concept, have a look at this youtube video:

Great explanation of the German Riester-Rente

For all my German friends, who still have no glue how the Riester-Rente works, have a look at this:



So what is the summary?
Still confused, but on a higher level :-)

Many thanks Christine for this great link!

Triathlon-team in Hamburg

If you are living in or around Hamburg, you just have to join the Triabolos



We have a lot of fun, really excellent trainers and it makes definitely more fun to train together for the project ironman. In addition all the triabolos who are not in the race are usually cheering for the active team. You always have cheering yellow triabolos during the race - holding up banners with "push yourself" and "180 is no heartbeat". This really pushes you forward!

More at http://www.triabolos.de/ and we are already more than 300 triathletes.

Interaction with your audience

If you want to see how real interaction with your audience works when you are presenting, have a look at this cool video from the World Science Festival 2009:



Many thanks Thomas for this great link - keep on sharing great inspirations - across nations and cultures!

Cloud computing

Have a look at this great video on cloud computing:



This was really a sales guy who pulled this together - Very focussed on customer benefits - Great!

Smart marketing of 7-eleven

An iPhone application developed for 7-Eleven Sweden combines a store locator with coupons for a free coffee and biscotti. After downloading the app, users plug in their phone number and receive a unique coupon code on their iPhone. To claim their coffee, they just show the code to a 7-Eleven clerk; no purchase necessary. The coupon is only valid once, and free coffee in April will be followed by free ice cream in May.

The application, developed by Stockholm-based digital agency Lonely Duck, was downloaded 2,500 times in the week it launched—a considerable number given the size of the Swedish iPhone community, and enough to place it in the top 10 of free app downloads.

7-Eleven hasn't launched the app in other markets yet, but it's a smart example for other iPhone-loving retailers to follow: don't just help (a relatively affluent group of) consumers find your store, but give them a good reason to visit and spend money while they take you up on your generous offer.

Website: www.7-eleven.se

Isn´t that cool?! I found this on one of my favourite blogs on entrepeneurial ideas:
http://www.springwise.com/

The cider house rules / Gottes Werk & Teufels Beitrag - John Irving

One of my all time favourite books and films is The cider house rules / Gottes Werk & Teufels Beitrag from John Irving.

http://www.amazon.de/Gottes-Werk-Teufels-Beitrag-Irving/dp/3257218370/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249935188&sr=8-1

This is definitely a must-read book and must watch movie ....

Der Vorleser - book & movie

One of the most touching books I read this year was the reader / Der Vorleser from Bernhard Schlink. You find it at http://www.amazon.de/Vorleser-Diogenes-Taschenbuch-22953/dp/3257229534/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249934006&sr=8-1

The movie is one of the rare literature adaptions I was not disappointed of after reading a great book.

So both is very touching.

The womanizer - cool film

Yesterday I watched a really cool movie: The womanizer.



It is super funny, but with a very deep message.
It is about a super cool but superficial womanizer who discovers the real love in life.
Definitely worthwile to watch.

TweetDeck for organizing your twitter feeds

A you might have realized, I also started to twitter. I find this extremely valuable. Just to give you an example: Last friday, I posted a question on twitter, concerning a tool for building closed social communities on the web. And guess when I had a super answer? Saturday morning by Alex Wunschel - THE man on social media in Germany.

The great thing about twitter (by the way my twitter-name is jekel) is that it is extremely fast and you get into a multiple-way communication to people, you usually have no direct access to (including twittering Obama - as you might remember). The bad thing is, that it is extremely difficult to keep it organized. This is where TweetDeck helps. It is a great free of charge tool to organize your twitter account(s) and you can even integrate your facebook account and the video service 12seconds (more on this in a later post) ...

Check it out at: http://tweetdeck.com/beta/

Online resources to learn languages

Here are the three best blogs on the internet to learn languages (many thanks the info Andreas):
http://www.listen-to-english.com/
http://www.thelinguist.blogs.com/
http://www.der-englisch-blog.de/

They all have a bit different approaches, but they are really interesting, going also into the cultures.

Another great thing is the daily english e-mail which you can register for at:
http://owad.de/index.php4
You get a daily language quiz with phrases, which you usually do not learn at school.
This is really great to really get into English.

My quiz from today was e.g.
* * * widow's peak * * *
Please choose the correct definition and click the link.
a) pointed hair at the top of the forehead
b) the end of a long and exhausting journey
c) the money left to a woman after her husband dies
Happy guessing! Paul Smith

To learn stuff, I am using memo coach as PC software. It is a great tool to learn nearly everything. It is working with the same principle as phase6 (http://www.phase-6.de/opencms/Homepage/) which is the tool that our daughter is using. I am hacking everything into it what I want to learn and I have integrated it into the autostart of my PC, so before I start my working day, I start with a bit of braining. You find the software at http://www.memo-coach.com/
Dr. Luise Maria Sommer, the author of the SW, has also a great podcast on how to train your brain. you can find it on itunes.

There are also a lot of great free of charge podcast to learn languages on itunes.
I use e.g. "Laura speeks dutch" to brush up my dutch, when I am in my car or o a run.
check it out at: http://www.lauraspeaksdutch.info/

So there are no more excuses for not learning daily ... and the great thing is that with all these new tools it makes really a lot of fun.

Basic Thinking Blog

Have a look at this great blog, covering a lot of topics for digital junkies like me:
http://www.basicthinking.de/blog/

This is also the blog where I have the pool jump from.

Definitely the coolest way to jump into the pool

Have a look at this:



I have not seen a cooler way to jump into a pool ... so let´s see how we will perform at our Triabolos summer party this afternoon :-)

Best regards from sunny Hamburg.

Literature festival in Hamburg

For all of you who live in Hamburg or have a chance to be here in September:

We have a great literature festival here from 9-19th Sept.

I have Karasek (12.9.), Lelord (14.9.) and Precht (15.9.) - all at 8 p.m. on my list.

They will present their new books which are all covering the real important issues in life.

So if anybody wants to join me, give me a call.

You find more at:

http://www.harbourfront-hamburg.com/

Speedreading

If you also want to increase the amount of stuff you can read, you have to go to Petra Lehner. She is doing excellent trainings on the art of photo reading. The training goes far beyond just reading faster. It is about learning to read in a completely new and relaxed manner. The picture might give you a first impression, that I am not talking about a classical speed reading training.

Out of my own experience, I can tell you: It works and if you love books, like we do, this will boost your reading capacity. In addition Petra is a great person.

You find more details at:

http://www.meta-mind.at/index.html

She also has a great blog on boosting your brain at:

http://www.meta-mind.at/Blog/index.html

So more chances to pimp your brain - take them!

Drive thru rap

And here comes the next rap - especially for you Oliver :-)



So next time we meet, I will stop by at your drive-thru before we have our cappuccino inside ... I am already in training :-)

A nice side note ... drive thru´s are called drive-in´s in Germany ... really funny like handy (for cell phones) or beamer (for projectors). My Tampa colleagues are always laying on the floor laughing, when I start my beamer :-) It is sometimes really funny, how we Germans try to use cool english terms and sightly fail with it :-)

Rapping flight attendant

I think I have to rethink the choice of the airlines I am flying with ... have a look at this cool guy from South West Airlines:



So Bernd, when will the video of your wife be online? :-)

Be flexible!

I found a great video today, enforcing two of my main mottos in life ...



So you might imagine now, which mottos I am talking about:

1. Be strict on your goals, but flexible on your means!
- actually, most people are dealing with their goals the other way round, giving up their goals, when doing the same stupid thing over and over again does not bring them to their goals
- so the message is, don´t give up your goal, give up the non-working strategy and try something new!

2. Grow by modelling excellence!
- you do not always have to reinvent the wheel to get excellent results
- just watch out for excellent performers in the discipline and copy them
- copying is nothing bad - as long as you do not forget to mention your source-stay fair!

So keep on rethinking the way you are doing things daily ....

.. as Richard Bandler said: "If you are doing what you have always done, you will get what you have always got!"

Safety dance - Men without hats

one more of my all time dance favourites ...



... so keep on dancing !

Be different or die!

... one of my mottos is BE DIFFERENT OR DIE! and there is a great video on this ...



When do YOU start to think different ?

Half as much - sylver - great dance track

One of my favourite dance & sing in the the car tracks ...



... you should see me singing loundly in my car ... I love to sing together with great music ... unfortunately it is not on one of our singstar DVDs for our playstation - or perhaps good for our neighbors :-)

Good morning CD

This is the CD I am listening to nearly every morning, while I am getting ready for the day. It is a great motivational NLP CD with a lot of very positive and motivating inductions. I am also using it for meetings and trainings (as background music before we start the official program).

So check it out at:

http://www.amazon.de/Guten-Morgen-%C3%9Cberfluss-NLP-Programm-erfolgreichen/dp/3893859381/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249637731&sr=8-1

Book and videoblog on Youtube for business

I just read a great book from Michael Miller on how to use youtube for business.

You can have a preview of the book on:
http://www.amazon.com/YouTube-Business-Online-Video-Marketing/dp/0789737973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249601910&sr=8-1

The author also has a great videoblog, which you can find at:
http://businessvideoblog.blogspot.com/

Rollercoaster at Tivoli Copenhagen

Whenever you have a chance to go to Copenhagen, don´t miss the Tivoli entertainment park - and especially the Deamon roller coaster. My daughter and me took it 4 times last week :-)

Have a go ...

DU bist Deutschland!

This one is still very current ... especially for us Germans ... even if the campaign is now some years old. Let it inspire you!

Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling

My favourite song at the moment ....

Atze Schröder im 3* Restaurant

One of my all time favourites from Atze Schröder for my German friends :-)

Randy Pausch´s last lecture

This is a very touching speech about what really is important in life - achieving your childhood dreams - by a young professor with 3 little kids who knows that he has only some weeks left to live.

You can also find the original last lecture in full length on youtube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

It is 1:16h and worthwhile watching every second ...

Ironman - THE challenge ...

Be careful ... you will get addicted to it ... like me :-)

Wonderful song ....

What you can do with your iPhone

You have no idea what you can do with your iPhone, until you have watched this video :-)

What is networking?

This is a great short video on what networking is all about and if you want to connect to me, you can find me on:

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

Great training on internet marketing

If you want to learn how to really use the Internet as an effective marketing tool, you have to book the tempus workshop on strategic internet marketing. The trainer, Sanjay Sauldie, is THE man on this topic. Today I learned a lot of really practical things after Sanjay reprogrammed our minds on the paradigms on internet marketing.

The link with the detailed info is: http://www.tempus.de/seminare/verkauf-und-marketing/strategisches-internet-marketing.html

Sanjay also has a great video newsletter & more on internet marketing. Check it out at:

http://www.internetmarketing-newsletter.de/

Tool to autosummarize information

I already worked with the Mindmanager-add-on themreader in he past. This tool produced mindmaps out of pdf-files. I used it to scan articles for their relevance.

Mindsystems has now significantly improved this tool. It is now called context organizer and you can use it to summarize documents and webpages in different formats. It even produces word lists and you can make annotations. A eally great tool to boil down the information overload to the essential information required.

See the video at : http://www.mindsystems.com.au/products/contextorganizer/tutorials/coint/

to understand the concept and how it works. I don´t want to miss it anylonger.

Enjoy your iPhone

And here comes the ultimate iPhone application :-)

Watch it out at https://www.hottrixdownload.com/iphone/