(post summary: linkedin news, the week in bullets, backyard philosophy!)
Dearest readers,
Yesterday I made my 400th LinkedIn connection. Yes, I know there are people with zillions of LinkedIn connections, but mine are special. I’ve actually had contact, outside of LinkedIn, with each and everyone of them. In most cases the contact has been in person, in some cases even involving beer, and in the others the contact has been sufficiently significant, by my metrics of course, to warrant a real connection. Whatever the case may be (how many times have I used the word “case” so far?), reaching this milestone has made really happy, and this again warrants a great big thank you to each of you little coloured dots! The visualisation below shows my complete network, where I’ve labeled each cluster with the place or institute it’s most associated with: My LinkedIn network, visualised today. If you're not in there yet, connect with me man!
You can also try out an interactive version of this map, or make your own.
The week in bullets
- On Monday I had the privilege of attending the Yes!Delft Network Event 2011, secretly also the opening of their beautiful new building. Yes!Delft is an incubation centre where startups, once approved by the board, can find affordable office space and a number of other facilities, including for example advice and financing, that startups require. The show was really impressive, with multiple giant projection surfaces and super lighting, a number of VIPs (Maxime Verhagen amongst others) and a 3 or 4 of the involved starters doing their elevator pitches. It was great to see that through Yes!Delft, my little city is turning into such a startup innovation hub.
- On Tuesday I attended a day-long course on drafting an ERC Starting Grant proposal. For those of you not in the know, this is a super-prestigious research grant of up to 1.5 million euros that can be requested from the EU. Logically the rejection rate is also sufficiently high, so wish me lots of luck. Better yet, explain to any family or network members that you might have in Brussels that they should give me the money and get it over with.
- The rest of the week was spent in meetings. I’ve come to the conclusion that the number of contiguous meetings in my programme is just about the strongest determinant for me getting unhealthily bad-tempered. By the end of Thursday I was ready to start breaking things, by Friday I was in my denial stage. A meeting now and then is fine, especially the inspiring ones during which you come up with some awesome new idea, but having them all back-to-back is just dangerous.
- Almost as if karma felt that it should compensate in some way for inflicting meeting hell on me, the weather on Saturday was absolutely perfect, and perfect weather means BBQing! The BBQ was even more perfect, filled with scorched meat, beer, wine, good friends and great conversation. Fortunately nobody was raptured.
Backyard philosopy
There are two issues I’d like to discuss with you.
The first is the following realisation I had this past week, a slightly different incarnation of another recurring thought: At any one time, you can do exactly one (1) thing only. This has at least two implications:
- Don’t panic. Life is just a long sequence of these single things strung together. Just keep on doing them.
- At any time, do make sure that you pick the best possible thing to do at that moment.
The second issue is not really an issue, but an inspiring quote I came across recently on the interwebs:
If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not ‘studying a profession,’ for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
There you have it kids: Work hard, try new stuff, remember to fall on your feet, and live now.