The late '00's and the early '10's of this century saw an eCommerce boom, first across the US, then across Europe and Asia. In our little corner of Western Europe, we saw the entrepreneurial Dutch start up eCommerce initiatives such as Coolblue and bol.com, which have turned into resounding successes. We saw the arrival of … Continue reading Belgium missed the eCommerce train once, and we are missing it again
Author: Ben Broeckx
Professor and academic director internal audit at Antwerp Management School - Writing about leadership, management and governance - Interested in any system that can be explored, analyzed and deconstructed. By day also Director Public Benefits & Public Affairs at Sodexo Benefits & Rewards Services Belgium.
The necessity and guilt of doing deep work
Today I was unsure what to write about. Which is interesting by itself. After all, there are many subjects that interest me and are of interest to me, there are many ideas sitting in lists in my Roam Graph (and yes, that is a shameless plug for Roam Research, do check it out if you … Continue reading The necessity and guilt of doing deep work
A leader’s role in leading a team
One of the key tenets of leadership is that you, as a leader, are responsible to first make sure that your team is capable of delivering. Now, that is a simple sentence, but implementing is is anything but. Let's look at that sentence again: "As a leader, you are responsible to first make sure that … Continue reading A leader’s role in leading a team
Injecting drive in our educational system
Previous posts focused on what is wrong with our current educational system. I am not breaking any new ground here, please read anything that the late Ken Robinson published in the past 20 years and you will find a much more detailed and developed set of ideas for the future of education. We are not … Continue reading Injecting drive in our educational system
Education based on intrinsic motivation
Yesterday I wrote about my frustration with the current state of our education. You can go ahead and read that post here, but in essence it comes down to the observation that our adherence to industrial-type education is failing to prepare us for the future. Now, preparing for the future is a broad concept, but … Continue reading Education based on intrinsic motivation
Flagging a creative effort – an awareness raising game on COVID
I'm awed when someone I know or worked with does something which in my eyes is amazingly creative. When a former colleague of mine at the cabinet of the then vice-prime minister, now prime-minister announced in our What's App group she and her sister had developed a COVID-19 turn-based board game which is aimed at … Continue reading Flagging a creative effort – an awareness raising game on COVID
Our failure to educate
I'm frustrated. I have opinions about lots of things, but I am frustrated about the current state of education in Belgium, and likely in other countries as well. What's my beef? Our post-industrial world still educates for an industrial environment. We are still trying to produce as similar cogs as possible that then need to … Continue reading Our failure to educate
Attention spamming
I don't know if you've ever been here, but I sure have, and something inside me tells me you likely have too if you have ever participated in endless online video meetings. Whether it is via Zoom, or Teams, I feel my attention dropping in meetings because of technology. And that is a problem. Let's take … Continue reading Attention spamming
Overvaluing authenticity
I enjoy the Design Matters podcast by Debbie Millman. I don’t listen to it enough, or all the time, but when I do, the conversations are often eye-opening. As was the latest conversation Mrs. Millman had with Seth Godin. In it, Seth Godin explained why in his opinion, authenticity is overvalued. What he said made … Continue reading Overvaluing authenticity
Mastery is about doing less
I've been using Readwise to go through the highlights in the books and articles I read. It takes away the administrative burden of creating reference notes and because I'm able to sync the notes with my Roam Research graph, I can start writing almost immediately. And it confronts me on a regular basis with ideas … Continue reading Mastery is about doing less
