What a year! 2009

2009TAX: Transparency and channels

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

Transparency and channels

Yes, I will begin from the conclusions of this series- before presenting the third part of the “what if” section- the Hitchcock’s way.

If you read the previous two articles in this series, you probably you understood what is the missing part in my “what if”.

We saw the technological infrastructure (i.e. what is available), the possible guidelines for introducing a streamlining and (increased) intergenerational fairness (i.e. the policy, or “strategy outline”, if you prefer).

In this third part, surprise surprise, I will merge the “how” and the “who”.

The articles in this series, TAX2009 (either 500 or 1000 words long), will start with some “what if” brainstorming around the consequences of current technological and social trends, and then use the same prism to analyse current events.

In December 2009, the articles will be mainly of the “what if”/brainstorming variety.

As usual: if you have any comments, contact me on Twitter or on Facebook.

Enjoy!

This article: creating a new tax without a new bureacracy- and with improved privacy rights

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2009TAX: Time, space, taxation, bureaucracy

Monday, December 14th, 2009

No taxation without representation.

But is our tax system really complying with that basic right?

Or are we taxing people who have no voice into how the money is spent?

Of course, I am referring to transnational taxation, a.k.a. pollution and other physical/financial practices, but also to the debt burden that we are bestowing on future generations to pay for our current needs.

The articles in this series, TAX2009 (either 500 or 1000 words long), will start with some “what if” brainstorming around the consequences of current technological and social trends, and then use the same prism to analyse current events.

In December 2009, the articles will be mainly of the “what if”/brainstorming variety.

As usual: if you have any comments, contact me on Twitter or on Facebook.

Enjoy!

This article: linking time, space, taxes and bureaucracy for a fairer system

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2009TAX: technological infrastructure

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

No taxation without representation.

But is our tax system really complying with that basic right?

Or are we taxing people who have no voice into how the money is spent?

Of course, I am referring to transnational taxation, a.k.a. pollution and other physical/financial practices, but also to the debt burden that we are bestowing on future generations to pay for our current needs.

The articles in this series, 2009TAX (either 500 or 1000 words long), will start with some “what if” brainstorming around the consequences of current technological and social trends, and then use the same prism to analyse current events.

In December 2009, the articles will be mainly of the “what if”/brainstorming variety.

As usual: if you have any comments, contact me on Twitter or on Facebook.

Enjoy!

This article: how technology could affect our taxation system

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Public procurement 2.0

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

In the private sector, e-procurement has been on the table well before the Internet became accessible.

I will focus only on ICT procurement: from computers to consulting, to any associated services and infrastructure.

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Fair weather friendship

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

If you read newspapers from around Europe over the last few days, you found an almost unanimous “thumbs down” on the choices for first European President and the first Foreign Affairs Secretary (it will be clear later why I use “alternative” job titles).

It is quite funny: the consensus bridges the Euro-sceptics and the Euro-nationalists.

Personally, I believe that the Euro-sceptics do not realize that the train already left the station, and now the issue is only how fast and where it will go.

As for the Euro-nationalists: do you really believe that it is possible in the XXI century to rebuild a Charlemagne-style empire?

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What’s coming next :)

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

As I wrote few days ago, I prepared few short articles.
I will alternate between technical and non-technical abstracts.
Each article comes from a simple consideration: for all the talking about “continuous improvement”, few organizations consider what is needed to seed innovation and self-sustaining improvement.
If you visit the CMMI website, beside books, whitepapers, and reports on technology, [...]

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Pattern-based visual decision making

Friday, November 13th, 2009

I think that Edison said: innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

As over the next two years it is currently planned that I will not have time to do my usual consulting activities, beside for some activity online, mainly pro bono, I started over the last few weeks to share some material that I had planned to use in my services or with my partners.

This short preamble will be in each article.

If you manage to turn something to a practical use- good luck: you will have to do the 99% missing!

And now, we can move to today’s article.

XXI century managers who started using mobiles over the last few years, and are now just kids, will probably better equipped to interact with a visual approach.

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What would you like to read about?

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Well, this short post is really for my current subscribers and twitter followers (on @robertolofaro and @aleph123, or people linked to my business/pro-bono facebook profile.

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The Future of IT – 04/04 Itinerary

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Few weeks ago, when I published the article “The Future of IT”, I was planning to write something about technology.

But, as most bookworms turned practitioners, I know that a white page is tempting.

Most writings about the future are actually the typical side-effect of an attempt to find order within chaos- notably when it is an unknown chaos that you are trying to describe.

This article is published in four parts (no more than 1000 words each).

Of course, I tried to keep it readable- no more than 150 to 250 words per section.

This is the fourth article: itinerary.

You have read about my target future and the present. How do we move from the present to the future? It depends from where you are now. Therefore, I will outline an example, i.e. monitoring online positioning, that could inspire other applications.

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from cacao pods to cocoa nibs – and beyond

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Not too long ago, I wrote that I would have posted online my real-time mind-maps: or, my outline of any conference that I attended.

Well, I discovered yesterday that today is an holiday in Belgium.

And yesterday evening I attended a conference on the science of chocolate.

First and foremost- thanks to the RSC for organizing it, the BSB for being the guest, UGent Cocoalab for the presentation and… Molitor for the dégustation (and also the providers of the “liquid” side of the dégustation)

This article is not a mindmap- but, as I share a passion for chocolate with many of my online friends, I had promised before and after to post a short article.

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