Team work in a Roman Galley

I liked the analogy of a roman galley to describe a project or undertaking heavily dependent on team work.

There is not only a need to have a clear vision and destiny of the trip, but team members need to work together towards the common goal.

1- Team members need to acknowledge that they are all on the same boat

2- The target needs to be clear, specific and motivating for all team members

3- The effort needs to be balanced: the team won't work if some are rowing much harder than others

4- The team needs to work with an agreed rythm

If these conditions are not followed, there will be a tendency for the galley to run in circles and probably never reaching the goal.

Make good use of Events: Share!!

Sharing is a powerful external communication tool. It really is. The information sharing exercise that happens in events nowadays (see entry for W3C -Multilingual web workshop ) is very interesting and adds additional value to the data and information presented by the speakers.

People add information, comment and even correct notes from others... all in real time.

But that is not all to it. What about those who cannot join the meeting? What about your clients who could learn from the same things you are learning at the events?

You can use that sharing exercise to communicate, to engage with your clients, to establish a better relationship.


Not everything happens in the context of your office.
Attending events, networking, meeting new people and sharing can help your business more than you think.

W3C-Multilingual Web Workshop

It's so nice not to need to take the plane sometimes to join an interesting International meeting.
We are so lucky in Madrid to get all these interesting people, all important key players of the localization and internationalization industry. Companies like Mozila, Microsoft, Facebook, SAP, BBC, and many more all concentrated in one room. I was so lucky to get accepted in such an interesting forum. The European Commission is financing this event, hosted by the "Universidad Politécnica de Madrid".

The events social reports are available at:
http://www.multilingualweb.eu/es/documents/madrid-workshop/social-media-reports

I disagree with Tom Peters - "How dare I!" - Ups...

I was sent a very small video yesterday where Tom Peters talks about the importance of, not only quality time, but also quantity of time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata_player&v=3cgn7qtwMh8
"You are your calendar".
I actually do not completely agree. I agree with the fact that if something is vital for you, that activity has to be one of the most important ones. However I strongly believe in quality time, and more specifically the importance of focus... effort spent focusing on a specific activity. It could be that other activtities take more time in your calendar, but important activities must have a 100% focus and commitment.