This is the personal blog of David Dekel elaborating on his daily life as an interim manager in Amsterdam and on his role as the CEO of Endeavour Enterprises N.V. The idea is to illuminate managerial aspects and challenges with a fresh view at daily events, blended with criticism, a little cynicism and some humor.
An old Chinese saying claims that even the longest voyage starts with a simple step forward. Let’s just hope this is a step in the right direction.
Enjoy the ride.
I have landed at Schiphol Amsterdam airport a while ago onboard KLM / Air France Bowing only to discover that my new suitcase was seriously damaged. Expecting the usual hour delay in order to make the necessary complain, I headed to the KLM service desk.
KLM Airfrance service desk at Shiphol Amsterdam
At the desk I realized about 15 Poole waiting to report their lost or damaged luggage, so before taking my place at the queue, I approached the ground stewardess to be sure this is what I needed to do. The stewardess confirmed there has to be a report filed for the event but directed me to the business and first class next office although I flew coach.
I was assisted almost immediately and the next stewardess that was already informed and have stated that my suitcase was of a new model and they did not have such thing yet.
A last minute and unexpected travel to Paris led me into the Hilton Waldorf Astoria Trianon Palace.
Location Waldorf Astoria Trianon Palace
Location is somewhat problematic since the hotel is located outside Paris just next to Versailles palace, Chateau de Versailles.
There is a direct train from St. Lazaer to a station located 15 minutes’ walk from the hotel. If you are looking for a centrally located hotel, this one would not be your first choice. The problem is not so much the distance which is about 35 min ride from St. Lazar, it is mostly the connection between a tram, train and the bus (two, to be exact) or taxi you would need to reach the hotel.
The Hilton Budapest is not located in the city centrum. In fact it is located on the high hill on the other side of the Danube the part of the city used to be called Buda. Looking across the river uphill from Pest, the Hilton Budapest is located next to the castle you see on top.
This Hilton should not be confused with Hilton West End located on the Pest side.
Two issues are actually canceling this minor Fact out:
The Hilton Budapest has a special taxi that gets you downhill and across the river to the Four Seasons hotel area for a price roughly equal to 2 euros.
The other issue is that the area of the Hilton has some good restaurants and bars and the huge Mammoth shopping mall is located 10 minutes’ walk from the hotel. One thing one should keep in mind, that going downhill to the shopping mall area is one thing. Climbing by foot that sharp angle uphill, especially after a full Hungarian dinner, is by far easier said than done.
We had a discussion today at SES London (Search engine optimization yearly conference for online strategies) concerning buying links or paying for links.
If you are a SEO / SEM professional, you have considered that option more than once and as we say, no one is holy…
Google by the way, strictly forbidden that.
Patrick Altoft, Director of Search, Branded3 had a presentation today on the subject and here is his suggestion for buying links from a link provider:
Never ever do that! The reason is that Google is probably aware and familiar with the sites the link seller offer and already categorised them. In fact, a link from a Google marked suspicious site could really damage a target website. There are knowing stories of webmasters begging link sellers to remove bad links.
Despite the temptation, it is highly recommended NOT to use the service of all these Asian or local firms offering you hundreds of links.
Having said that, I just thought that the links sellers should seriously consider the following revenue model:
Sometimes, the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment.
Forget about iPhone 5, for the time being at least. What was expected to be the iPhone 5 unveiling became just an iPhone 4S announcement.
Despite the speculations and the hopes, there would be only few minor changes an the next iPhone that is rightly though called iPhone 4S.
To majority of technology and apple admirers, this is probably the disappointment of the year. Which by the way, we have a recommendation of new spelling to the word disappointment: Di(4s)sappointment.
Our major question, despite the obvious is: how Apple being aware of the high expectations, has let that happen.
While people politely cheered in the audience, Apple’s share price plunged 3 per cent.
That official iPhone 4s release probably looked great when they did it, but now, facing the disappointment, it looks much less appealing. However, here it is anyway.
As iphone 5 is about to be announced, many people are trying to make guesses concerning its design and features.
The following youtube video that present a new iphone 5 concept gained more than 20 million views in less than three weeks.
Iphone 5 features
The iphone 5 features presented in this video are a bit too early for their time, but maybe something to aspire to in the next version. Iphone 5 features, whatever they may come up may not be that surprising, I am afraid. It may be slimmer than its predecessors and have one or two new gadgets or features, but no breakthrough is expected.
The new iPhone 5 is speculated to be loaded with new features like video chat on 3g and 4g face recognition and extreme downloading
This iPhone 5 may be equipped with a speedy dual core A5 chip processor and a faster graphic chips that can deliver higher video resolutions (5-9 times better) and amazing “still” images when taking pictures, it will make multi-tasking a lot faster.
We, however, have some minor basic requests, although clearly aware this is too late for iphone5:
A much stronger battery, a bigger screen and solve the damn Flash problem… is that too much to ask?
This is a guest review from the perspective of a guest who was extensively involved in hotel and tourism management, staying as HHonors VIP gold status.
Visiting ITB in March, one of the largest travel fairs in the EU, was a Greta excuse to get back to hotel Hilton Berlin and have a taste of its new design as it was recently renovated.
Check in & out
Hilton Berlin room
Upon request, I was sent to the new executive lounge located at the ground floor at the place the Thai restaurant used to be before.
Endeavour, the space shuttle named after the same Endeavour as our company, is naturally, of great interest for us. Endeavour’s last space voyage started today. The next voyage of the last of the shuttles will be Atlantis’ after which the shuttle space program would be terminated.
Endeavour blasted off on the next-to-last shuttle flight Monday morning under the command of Mark Kelly, the husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The wounded congresswoman watched the launch in private from Kennedy Space Center. As many as 45,000 guests jammed NASA’s launch site. The crowd outside the gates was estimated to be in the tens of thousands, if not more. It was the second launch attempt. Late last month, an electrical problem halted the countdown. Endeavour and its six astronauts will arrive at the International Space Station on Wednesday. They are delivering a $2 billion particle physics experiment. The mission will last 16 days. Only one other shuttle trip remains.
As the tabs war gearing to a new generation, Samsung had recently embarrassing accidents that are the hot issue on few tech blogs.
Samsung has launched few promo movies concerning its new tabs. Unfortunately for the company, two major events clouded the celebration and posed genuine concern.
The first was the company’s claim that the new tab is thinner than its rival, the iPad-2. A second check revealed that the new tab is wider than the ipad-2 two and the statement was wrong.
If this is not enough, a second event, this time on the web, YouTube movie to be exact appears with people commenting on the new Samsung tab. A closer look reveals these enthusiastic reviewers are actually actors.
