- The biggest impact on my professional life had David Allen with Getting Things Done. In the past 2 months, I implemented this concept both in my personal and my professional life and am very happy with it. My mailboxes are constantly down to zero (although my @Action folder still has around 10 mails left) and all my "stuff" was processed into projects and references. I will continue to use and refine my individual version of this concept in 2008. There is still a lot of work to be done to be more efficient, but the foundation has definitely been laid in 2007.
- I learned plenty of "entrepreneurial" things in Founders At Work. It’s an excellent book full of interviews with great people that I can recommend to every entrepreneur. There are hundreds of lessons in this book that you can learn from, but probably the most important lesson was: You have to do it your own way :-). The other learning was: Inspiration is great for motivation! Sometimes when I felt a little depressed and overwhelmed I read an interview in this book and it helped me a lot :-).
- Learnings of (1) and (2): Books enrich your life in a great way. So don’t forget to have one or two books with you when you’re going to be on the train or a plane. I learn about most of the books that I read from blogs or magazines. I’m also looking forward to YOUR book recommendations – please leave a comment :-)
- I fell in love with microblogging. I’ve just made a backup of all my 260 twitter-messages and this filled 11 full pages in my word-file (it’s also a great summary of the places I’ve been and the things I’ve done in 2007). Also make sure to subscribe to my twitter RSS-feed or to the free SMS-notifications. I mainly use twitter when I’m traveling, so please call or SMS me when I’m in your neighborhood.
- Facebook surprised me. I’m not spending to much time on it since the business value is not very high yet, but it definitely has the potential to become my #1 social network. My #1 network is still XING, since my main interest right now is business.
- Web Services can have a big impact on the personal life. I never watched more DVDs than in 2007, mainly because Exsila made it so easy and cheap.
- I should have been more hospitable to some of my guests. Sometimes I was a little too self-involved. A big sorry & mea culpa!
- I learned a LOT about Silicon Valley from Robert and my first trip. I learned that I don’t like 7th street/market street in SF, I learned that Palo Alto and Stanford are WONDERFUL and that it’s everywhere the same story: You have to FIGHT for it – no matter what it is!
- I fell in love with Kiva and the idea of micro-investments.
- I can’t keep up with all my RSS feeds. Its impossible! I accepted it. I’m no full-time blogger and I made my peace with it. I also apologize that this blog isn’t as frequently updated as it used to be. Same story here: I’m no full-time blogger and I made my peace with it.
