They were both right, of course.

It is easy to discard anything you are good at as nothing special. You make something and when someone praises you it sounds unfair. You reply “Well, I don’t deserve credit for that. It didn’t take any effort. I just happen to know how to do that”

If you are talented (and everybody is) the things you ‘know’ don’t seem that special. You just know things and they seem to come natural. Why brag about it?

Please do brag about it. Make a list of things you can do. Brag all you want.

You might think “everybody knows how to do that”. Chances are you are wrong. What you know (and the combination of things you know) is special and extraordinary. Often we say “As we both know…”. In most cases, we DON’T both know. Even when it seems logical to you that what you know is common knowledge, it probably isn’t.

The girlfriend in the story above knows her boyfriend very well. One of his talents is that he knows how to prepare a good dinner. Didn’t seem to take much effort. Doing what you like doing never feels like work. Although she was dividing what had to be done by input (the chores that take effort) he was diving by output (the result of all the chores put together).

What are your talents, skills and what unique knowledge do you possess?

My parents….

You can imagine how extremely jealous I am of my best friend Daniel J. Ashes who traveled to the US a few weeks ago with a few friends (Joey Elgersma, Achmed Akkabi, Jim Aasgier and Nasrdin Dchar)  to meet with Obama. I begged him to take me with him but that just wasn’t possible. The only thing left for me to do is watch these photos and dream:

All the photos:

I just did a presentation here which several people filmed and will upload to Youtube later. Other speakers were Matt Mullenweg and Timothy Ferris. As you can see we are having a very good time…

Other speakers at Greek Blogger Camp will be Timothy Ferris and Matt Mullenweg and it will take place at the fabulous Ios Palace hotel which is located on the golden sand beaches of Mylopotas. No, I am not complaining.

UPDATE: just did a small interview for z24 about Facebook entering the Dutch market and will be a guest tonight at Business New Radio in their ‘Electronische Eeuw‘ show.

“Your city is remarkable not only for its beauty. It is also, of all the cities in the United States, the one whose name, the world over, conjures up the most visions and more than any other, incites one to dream.
Georges Pompidou

This Sunday Ernst-Jan and I will get on a plane, sleep for 11 hours, and then wake up in San Francisco. We will attend the O’Reilly Web2Expo and every party we can talk our way into. We will be staying at the Handlery Union Square Hotel

Our itinerary on Tripit.com

You can follow our itinerary on Tripit.com. In fact; I invited so many people to my TripIt account (via the one-click LinkedIn import) that a few days ago I could crash the TripIt server just by visiting my profile. This what the Tripit helpdesk mailed some of my friends:

Apparently, someone you know was so gung-ho about TripIt that he started inviting all his friends. :) This seems to be causing real performance issues for the invitees and him.

Forget about the Digg effect, here comes the Boris effect!

Is it Blogable or Bloggable?

To do a little promotion for The Next Web Blog we decided to print some stickers. I made a few drafts and asked everyone in the office to pick out the best one. Everybody liked the “This object has been marked: BLOGABLE” one so I ordered 1000 of those. Then when they arrived someone asked me “Isn’t Blogable spelled with two Gs?”.

Oops…

Since then I have talked to a lot of people and have googled the issue extensively. The consensus seems to be that Bloggable should be spelled with two Gs. Fortunately for me even native english speakers seem divided on the issue so I think I will get away with it. People who don’t notice the spelling error won’t mind. People who do notice it have an extra reason to remember it.

Parties and events:

Here is a list of all the parties and events we are planning to visit. Have an interesting start-up that should be featured on our blog? Don’t hesitate to approach us and tell us all about it.

What: Pownce Brunch
Where: Dottie’s True Blue (522 Jones St)
When: Monday, April 21, 11:00AM -
Info: pownce.com/DigitalKNK/notes/1817275/

What: Pre-Web 2.0 meet-up with Flickr, Moo
Where: Kate O’Brien’s (579 Howard St)
When: Monday, April 21, 5:00PM – 8:00PM
Info: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/469348

What: British beer tasting & European networking
Where: Hiller Aviation Museum (San Carlos Airport)
When: Tuesday, April 22, 5:30PM – 8:00PM
Info: crossingtheocean.net/seeda/hiller_event.html

What: GAB and Blogtropolis launch party
Where: Gray Area Gallery (1515 Folsom St)
When: Tuesday, April 22, 6:00PM – 11:00PM
Info: www.grayareagallery.org/

What: Official Digg Meet-up
Where: Mighty (119 Utah St)
When: Tuesday, April 22, 6:30PM – 11:30PM
Info: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/471398/

What: Ignite Web 2.0 Expo SF II
Where: DNA Lounge (375 11th St)
When: Tuesday, April 22, 7:00PM-
Info: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/467652/

What: Web2Open Takeout Dinner
Where: Yerba Buena Gardens (4th/Mission)
When: Wednesday, April 23, 6:00PM-
Info: www.eu.socialtext.net/web2open/index.cgi?schedule

What: Evolve – Chi.mp and Mashable’s Web 2.0 After Party
Where: Mighty (119 Utah St)
When: Wednesday, April 23, 7:00PM – 10:00PM
Info: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/467885/

What: The Big Open Y! Party
Where: Yahoo! Brickhouse (500 3rd St)
When: Wednesday, April 23, 7:00PM – 10:00PM
Info: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/469035/

What: South Park Crawl
Where: South Park (Brannan / Bryant / 3rd / 2nd St)
When: Wednesday, April 23, 7:00PM – 10:00PM
Info: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/454850/
Leverage Software at the Crawl: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=23295987864

What: Web2Open
Where: Moscone West
When: Wednesday, April 23, 8:00PM – 11:00PM
Info: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/467423/

What: Booth Crawl
Where: Moscone West
When: Thursday, April 24, 4:30PM – 6:00PM
Info: en.oreilly.com/webexsf2008/public/schedule/detail/3484

What: After Hours Event
Where: Marriott (55 4th St)
When: Thursday, April 24, 6:00PM – 12:00AM
Info: en.oreilly.com/webexsf2008/public/schedule/detail/4238

What: Web2Open
Where: Moscone West
When: Thursday, April 24, 8:00PM – 11:00PM
Info: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/467423/

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.

For people who have been following me here I also have a special discount. If you want to visit the conference and have been reading my blog and want a good discount contact me or leave a comment here and I will send you a special promo code that will give you a very good discount on the normal €750 price.

There is an interesting discrepancy when it comes to the price of the conference. It seems that most people in the Netherlands think it is expensive and people from the rest of the world find it cheap. It is true that similar conferences are easily priced at three times ourprices and so we think the price is more than fair for a two day conference.

But I think it has to do with the relative cost of everything. People from other countries spend a few thousand on airfare and hotel and then the €750 seems relatively low. People from the Netherlands take their cars or the train and so compared to their additional cost the conference seems expensive.

Either way, we hope to meet you all at the conference in April!

If you look at a higher resolution photo you can actually see me smile. Back next week!