We’ll be migrating Tech IT Easy from wordpress.com to a self-hosted solution these coming days, so I won’t be posting much, I don’t think. In the mean time, here are a few things flying through my head.

Men can’t get away with this !!

Jason Kottke pointed me towards an anti-fashion-industry trend lead by some women: the wearing-one-dress-slightly-altered-day-in-day-out-trend. Somewhat jealous, because it seems so efficient (and thus manly), but I don’t think men can get away with doing something like that, do you? Then again, men also don’t look quite as attractive…

Factors influencing the ‘virtual office’

I’ve heard several stories of entrepreneurs setting up their companies that they can operate it independently from a location, and if you’ve read some of my posts on “designing companies” and mobility, you know that I feel very strongly about doing something similar. In VAT-law, there’s the rule that you can’t locate your VAT-payments to a VAT-friendly country if you’re doing significant business in the VAT-unfriendly country. I’m guessing it’s quite similar with virtual offices. If your business activities tie you to a particular location, than that is a ‘tax’ that you have to pay.

Since there are plenty of smart tax-lawyers around who know their way around the loop-holes, perhaps it’s time for some ‘expert-consultants’ that help entrepreneurs become location-free?? The 4-hour workweek guy comes to mind.

On building (corporate) Knowledge Centres

I grew up in a library, one which my father built, so I may have a different perspective from people growing up in the more digital, paper-free world. But, to me, libraries are magical and comforting. One of the first things I did, moving to Luxembourg, was to move many of my books here (with more on the way) and asking my boss whether we can set up a library.

More broadly, a library to me stands for building and storing knowledge, whether for individuals or groups, and is a source of creativity, innovation, and also trust. Large consultancies are most famous for doing such things and if you saw the virtual universities some of them have train their staff, you’d be amazed.

No great point to this story, except that I hope that as an entrepreneur/manager/CEO you’ll also consider how to improve the lives of your employees sometimes, as well as consider that your company, which is essentially a living organism, will only benefit from having more knowledge inside of it.

On that philosophical note, I.. am.. out.

Vincent