Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

The Next Web Awards: Not Your Usual Awards!

The Next Web Conference started an award (The Next Web Awards) this year. It is the ONLY award in the world that you get for future accomplishments. We selected a bunch of start-ups and people and nominated them for the different sections. But not only the award is different. The voting system is quite special too. You don't just vote once but can empower your vote. Vote in all 8 categories and we will double your votes. Use the 'Send a Friend' feature and we will again double your...

Ask the Entrepreneur: Egg or Chicken?

This morning I was having breakfast with Diederik Martens from Twones.com. A truck pulled up right in front of us and opened its doors. Inside must have been a few thousands eggs. A mother pointed to the car and asked her 2 year old son "What is inside the big car?" to which the little boy replied "eggs!". Diederik looked at me and said: "An Entrepreneur would have said 'Chickens'..." We got a good laugh out of that one, decided it was a blogable thing and then took this photo...

Not If Only But Despite

In 1993 I wrote, designed and published my first book. I wrote and published one more book and then I started my first company and eventually started blogging. And that pretty much sums up my career as a writer. But in 1993 I was pretty serious about writing and my books. The whole thing suited me well. People like writers. There is a romantic side to the whole writers thing that attracts, ehm, people. Anyway, when I was a semi-official writer I often spoke to people who told me they...

OpenOffice San Francisco?

Next week (3 to 10 May) Patrick, Arjen and I will be in San Francisco for a week. We’re going to meet up with some friends, show Fleck.com to a few people and meet some of the speakers for The Next Web Conference. And we will work there too. Our trip to London Open Coffee Meetup gave us an idea. After the Open Coffee meetup we had an appointment at Index Ventures’ office. Once that was done we we’re allowed to use the conference room as our office for remainder of the...

A Rainbow in the Dark

Nicky Zwaan is a dutch artist and friend of us. She invents/constructs/builds great works of art. A few night ago she constructed a real rainbow, outside, in the dark! Check the...

Revenge: ClosedEyeTalkers

Do you know what a Closed Eye Talker is? It is an arrogant person who closes his or her eyes when they speak at you. They blink their eyes just like the rest of us but sometimes one of those blinks seems to take 3 whole seconds or more. According to body language experts the person who does this would rather be in another place, away from you, and feels so superior that he doesn't even want to look at a lowly person like you. Or maybe they are just very tired or surrealists. More on that...

So proud…

We are in the city theatre of Amstelveen where Loïs is dancing in her first show. She is only 5. We are here at the balcony waiting for the show to start. 30 years ago I was a ballet dancer too. There were only 2 other boys and 300 girls. Admitting that I was a ballet dancer was a good reason to be picked on by all the bullies in school. But the yearly show was worth it. And now Loïs is dancing too. I feel like I'm suddenly part of another generation....

New Word of the Week: Blogable

Once you start writing for a blog you look at the world differently. Objects, events and people will be either 'blogable' or not. In the last few weeks I have heard several people use the word as qualification for things. When I tell a story at the office my partners at the office will say "Wow, Blogable!" and I'll know it was good. Turns out that it is a known word. Check it out at the Urban Dictionary:...