Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

A few weeks ago I spent a few hours shoeshining (Story and Photos) at the New Tailor shop in Amsterdam. This Friday we are going to repeat the same event but we will start at 4pm and have some drinks with it too.

If you want to join us just leave a comment here so we know how much champagne to buy! And, free shoeshines by me for everyone!

Dutch Invitation:

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten komt schoenen poetsen

In navolging van de eerdere succesvole zaterdagochtendsessies kunt u aanstaande vrijdag 11 april van 16.30-19.00 uur kennismaken met en uw schoenen laten poetsen door Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, serial entrepreneur van ondermeer thenextweb.org, fleck.com en in het verleden V3 Redirect Services en HubHop. Onder het genot van goede espresso, de lekkerste taartjes en een glas champagne vertelt hij graag over zijn successen, flops en zijn voorliefde voor maatpakken van New Tailor. Laat u inspireren en kom langs!

De Amsterdamse vestiging aan de Honthorststraat 2a, tussen de Paulus Potter- en de PC Hooftstraat heeft die ochtend specifieke stoffen van alle Boris pakken voorhanden. Boris staat bekend om zijn gepoetste schoenen, witte hemden en flamboyante maar altijd geklede driedelige ruitpakken.

Boris: “Net als ieder ander heb ik een hekel aan netwerken. Dat schichtige geleur met je visitekaartje op een avond waar de meeste aanwezigen zich het liefst verstoppen achter een glas bier. Terwijl je koortsachtig probeert uit te vinden wat je in godsnaam aan iemand hebt dreunt diegene zijn standaard verhaal voor je af waarna je hopelijk zelf ook even mag. Helaas merk je na 3 seconden al dat je netwerkpartner ongeduldig over je schouder kijkt op zoek naar de volgende netwerk opportunity. Netwerken is net werken.

Me @ work:

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Dutch social network received a large investment yesterday. They couldn’t find the founders so the Dutch evening news decided to visit The Next Web Conference and ask a few influential Internet experts their opinion. Guess who they found… ;-)

Good NOS quality version:

Lousy quality Youtube version:

Today I will be speaking at Plugg in Brussels, Belgium. I’m a guest in the Entrepreneur Panel with these people: Simon McDermott from Attentio, Andrej Nabergoj from Noovo and Rodrigo Sepúlveda from Vpod.tv.

We will discuss these open questions: “conducting web business and raising venture capital in Europe, and how does it differ from the rest of the world? Without having the vibrant ecosystem in Silicon Valley, will Europe ever manage to produce multi-billion dollar internet companies? What do we have that the rest of the world lacks?

The panel discussion will be moderated by Colette Ballou from Ballou PR.

As of February 2 I will be a professional shoeshiner. That is correct. I will be shining shoes. I am following in the footsteps of James Brown, Alejandro Toledo and Malcolm X and millions of other shoeshiners. I have updated my LinkedIn profile to reflect my new profession too.

You can read the whole story here on the New Tailor blog, in Dutch:
http://newtailor.nl/blog/

What it comes down to: I don’t like ‘networking’ much more than anybody out there. I talked about this with the founder of New Tailor (who happens to make my suits) and I told him he had an excellent network of clients who I would love to meet. We also agreed that a regular networking meeting would be boring. I suggested that everybody hates to shine his shoes, maybe even more than networking, and offered to do that during a monthly meeting. While I shine shoes I will be able to talk to interesting people and I assume that shining someone’s shoes makes a bigger impression that just handing our business-cards.

So now it is official. I’m shining shoes.

I hope to see you on Saturday, February 2 between 10 and 12 at new Tailor in the Honthorststraat 2a (between the Paulus Potter- and the PC Hooftstraat) in Amsterdam. I will only do one pair per person and you will have to wear the shoes.

Hope to see you there!

Yesterday evening I presented the ‘Website van het Jaar’ award ceremony in Hotel Arena in Amsterdam. The organization received more than 1.3 milion votes in 14 categories. I announced all the winners on stage, had a little chat with them and presented them with their prize.

The big winner was Google.nl. For all the winners see the ‘Website van het Jaar‘ website. IPAN was the host for this event and paid for some for the drinks.

I took this photo 1 minute before we started. As you can see you don’t see much on stage which makes it hard to get feedback from the audiences. Still, we had fun and I could hear people laugh now and then. If you were there leave some feedback here. Always love that.

In the beginning of 2008 I will be handing over my title of ‘Chairman’ at IPAN to the next lucky guy. I have a pretty good idea of who that could be but in the end the members of IPAN will have to decide about that with their votes. I have been the chairman of IPAN for more than two years and it is time for a new team to take over now.

The official event where members will vote on the new chairman will take place in early 2008. But on Tuesday, December 4, I will host an informal farewell party during an IPAN Event.

Han Gerrits will ask me personal and tough questions in a special ‘All you ever wanted to know about Boris but were afraid to ask‘ interview.

I will also give away 30 personal presents to whoever is there and gets to me first after the interview.

So if there is something you have always wanted to know contact Han (han.gerrits at innovationfactory.nl) so he can ask me on stage.

Location: the Fleck bar in Amsterdam
Date: December 4, 2007
Time: 8pm
PS: If you are not a member of IPAN contact saskia@ipan.nl

Hope to see you all there!