Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

My presentation at Sprout ChallengerDay 2007

Last year I did a presentation during Sprout ChallengerDay on November 1, 2007. I talked about innovation, big companies and told an anecdote about how hard it is for big companies to innovate. More than 500 people were there and it was the first edition of the 'Sprout ChallengerDay' event. I just received the video and uploaded it so you can watch it too. It is a Dutch presentation but the main story is one I blogged about before in a post titled "Big Companies VS Small Companies on...

OpenIdea: Taxati.com

Someone once told me that there are two happy moment in the life of a boat owner: the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it. The rest is spent fixing, moving, cleaning and worrying about the boat. I noticed that most real-estate websites concentrate on these two moments (buy & sell) when it comes to home owners. All these websites try to make money when people want to buy or sell their house. That means that most people rarely need them. My upstairs neighbors just sold their house....

The Future of Web Apps: More Browsers

As broadband becomes ubiquitous it becomes more and more interesting to use online applications. Your data is safe and always available and you don't have to worry about software versions and back-ups. Recently I have started to move my important documents to Google Docs. The fact that is is so easy to work together on stuff without emailing attachments, losing sight of versions and keeping everything safe makes it a huge improvement over the old application/document model. I also use Google...

Learn, unlearn and relearn

About a month ago I received this quote in my inbox from Max Shapiro that I can't seem to get out of my head. "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." -- Alvin Toffler I think I'm still young but even I am sometimes overwhelmed by new technologies and get tired at the thought of having to 'unlearn' my old habits and 'relearn' another new exciting technique. They say you are never too old to learn...

Is This a Feature OR a Company?

I have often heard people (including myself) say "That isn't enough to build a company on. That is just a feature". In theory it is good to think about this. Is your idea or technology something you can build a company on or just something interesting that might be added to another company or product? But in reality things work differently. Yahoo started as a page with links to websites. Can you imagine that someone said "Yeah that is nice. But it is just a feature. You can't build a company...

Controversial is Good

On monday evening I made soup for 25 people. It contained broccoli, zucchini and other vegetables. To make the soup more special I added a little Truffle oil just before I served the dish. Truffle smells delicious and makes almost any dish special. Brillat-Savarin called the truffle "the diamond of the kitchen". Other people describe the pungent scent of truffle as similar to the scent of unwashed underwear. It has a sharp acrid scent to it and you either love or hate it. Michael Arrington*...

Arrogance VS Confidence

Entrepreneurs need to be confident and tenacious. But not arrogant or stubborn. There is a fine line dividing both. It is easy to mistake confidence for arrogance and the same goes for tenacity. Some entrepreneurs think they are tenacious but are simply being stubborn. I think a way to test if someone is being confident or arrogant is too challenge their ideas. A confident human being won't be easy to convince but he will likely take pleasure in being challenged. An arrogant person will...

What Am I?

I studied art from 1990 till 1997. During that time I made a lot of work and started a lot of projects. I still have lots of stuff stacked away at my and my parents house. Officially I'm an artist. That is what I studied. Sometimes I meet people I studied with and often they ask me, cautiously; 'So euh, do you do anything with art these days'. The question always confuses me. What they want to know is whether I paint, make sculptures and hang out in galleries. The typical art stuff. And I...