I love to write. I get a kick out of it. That’s why I write on this blog for example. Except for the last couple of weeks when I haven’t been writing here as much as I wanted to… Why? Look below for a preview. My lines are needed elsewhere for now. But more explanation will follow! This week!

That Americans want to do everything to get elected we knew. We also knew that most Americans don’t even bother to vote. This group of American celebrities tries to get people to vote. Funny sometimes, but also a bit ‘preachy’. But I guess Americans need that?

There are a lot of social networks on the web right now. If you want you can be ‘connected’ to the entire onliny community in no time. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Plaxo you name it. One of these social networks is Naymz. Naymz calls itself ‘next level’ of networking. Based on background and reputation people should get connected.

I was once invited by someone but never really looked at the website since. I’m sure it’s a great tool and I really believe in the ‘reputation’-thought, reputation is very important these days, but there are too many social networks I’m in. I focus on a couple of them, Twitter, Linkedin and Plaxo.

Today I landed on the site again by coincidence (well coincidence… I received an e-mail) and started clicking around the website. It looks a lot like other social networks but has one smart trigger. Your ‘reputation’ is being shown by giving you a grade. The more you ‘do’ on the website, the higher your grade. And whatever way you want to look at it, everybody wants a higher grade. So you start looking around what you can do to get that higher grade. Off course you make make new contacts and upgrade your profile, but apparently you can als get an higher grade by ‘upgrading’ to a next level.

Now is ‘upgrading’ almost never free of charge, but in this case it clearly says "Upgrade for Free!". So hell, why not, I’m not Dutch for no reason after all. And that’s where it went wrong.

Althought Naymz ‘promises’ that you can upgrade for free, this is not true at all. After one click on the Upgrade-button it immediately becomes clear that the upgrade is far from being "free". You can choose between two kinds of subscriptions: one for $9,95 per month and the other for $95,50 per year. No other choices…

At such a moment I’m finished at a website. If they would have ‘honestly’ let me know on forehand that an upgrade costs money I would have minded it a lot less, but this is actually trying to trap you into buying an upgrade. I don’t like that.

No more Naymz for me. I’ll stick with Twitter, Linkedin and Plaxo for now. If you want to connect with me there you’re very welcome to connect:

Plaxo: http://basvandenbeld.myplaxo.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/basvandenbeld

See you there!

[lang_nl]Ik ben net terug van twee weken vakantie. Helemaal (nou ja bijna helemaal) offline geweest. Dat kan erg lekker zijn. En je doet er goede ideeën op. En sommige dingen vallen op. Zo viel me als projectmanager van internetprojecten weer eens op dat projectmanagement overal terugkomt. Niet alleen bij de bouw van een internetsite. Projectmanagement is bijvoorbeeld ook het goed managen van een vakantie. Regel je je zaakjes niet goed zal je vakantie tegenvallen. Regel je het wel goed heb je een leuke vakantie.

Ik ben dus net terug van vakantie. Het was heerlijk, maar op een aantal dingen had ik mijn ‘projectmanagement’ misschien wat beter kunnen doen. Ik kwam tot tien dingen die je kan leren van op vakantie gaan die gerelateerd zijn aan het projectmanagement rondom de bouw van een internetsite.[/lang_nl][lang_en]I just returned from two weeks holiday. Completely (well almost) offline. That can be very relaxing. You think of some good ideas and some things stand out. For example, I noticed as project manager of Internet, once again, that project management is everywhere. Not only in constructing a website. Project Management, for example, is also the proper management of a holiday. If you don’t manage your things your holiday will be a disaster. Manage it really good and you’ll have a great holiday.

So I just got back from holiday. It was delicious, but on a number of things I maybe should have done my ‘project management’ better. Therefore I came up with ten things you can learn from going on holiday related to project management around the construction of an Internet site:[/lang_en] Continue Reading »