Ik ben vanavond naar Gent M geweest, er kwam iemand uit Manchester praten over 'smart cities' (en ook iemand uit Gent over de Waalse Krook). Smart Cities, ge zou denken dat dat gaat over hypertechnologische dingen als perfect afgestelde verkeerslichten en op-tijd-rijdende bussen en metro's maar niets is minder waar: het gaat over mensen die iets willen doen voor hun stad en die daarin ondersteund worden. Zo simpel kan het zijn.

Eén van de dingen die ik frappant vond: hoe evident een master plan lijkt te zijn. Het werd even aangehaald maar er werd daarna niet verder op ingegaan. Logisch, want de hier beschreven smart cities groeien min of meer organisch. Iemand die iets geniaal bedenkt en anderen die komen helpen. Maar dat master plan, dat zette mij aan het denken.

Binnenkort zijn het bij ons gemeenteraadsverkiezingen. Typisch schrijven partijen daar een mambo-jambo partijprogramma van 30 bladzijden (te lang mannekes, te lang) voor. Simple comme bonjour. En dan, BAM, de (sociale) media: "Bart De Wever en Patrick Janssens: hard tegen hard", "JVDL: keizer van Oostende", "Siegfried Bracke is nen urk".

Hallo, kunnen we ons even focussen op wat belangrijk is bij verkiezingen? Dat is niet de evil opponent, maar wel: welke dingen willen jullie tijdens de legislatuur realiseren, hoeveel gaat dat ons kosten en is dat wel haalbaar?

Zo moeilijk kan dat toch niet zijn?

I'm writing this from my iPad while I actually should be packing for our annual Into The Wild hike. Yesterday I finally finished the specs for an event calendar. It's not so funny to see how quick things can get complicated and how hard one has to fight to make things simple again...

After work I went to get the meat for our BBQ later today in Germany and then I rushed to Knokke. Rushing isn't that easy when there's a shitload of crappy drivers in front of you!

Knokke must be one of the furthest away outskirts of Belgium and god knows why they put it there. Probably a metaphore for 'only the persistent get what they want'. In this case: a testdrive with the Renault Twizy.

The Twizy is a futuristic car the size of a motorcycle. It's not that futuristic as Messerschmidt and BMW built similar cars right after the second world war but it runs on nothing else but electric power. It can reach a top speed of 80 km/h and brings you 80 à 100 km far with a full battery. Don't try to do Brussels-Knokke-Gent-Brussels with it, you won't make it. It takes around 3 hours to fully charge the batteries. Basically, it's only good for soccer moms with one child as there is only one seat behind the driver and not even room for a soccer bag. Hmm. Ok, it's only good for city yuppies with 7.000 euros to spare.

Afterwards, I networked a bit about building apps and then I drove to Ghent, an hour later than planned. That's what plans are for...

1. Went to the gym. I like how my triceps are coming out but I hate how I can't seem to do enough sit-ups. Why aren't 60 enough? :-(
2. Had some insightful talks about love.
3. Summer's coming, baby! Rain may be pouring down every once in a while, but summer's coming!

1. Used HousePricer for the first time. Somebody offered more. :-/
2. Got the plans for our next Into The Wild trip. 3 nights of hiking in Germany!

1. Drove to Brussels to party to Bicep. They were great. Got reunited with a friend I've lost track of, which was nice too!
2. Crashed in my bed around 3am.
3. Went back to Brussels to have my first beers of the weekend with a friend who came over from London.

1. Had an epic breakfast at the Astoria.
2. Enjoyed the jacuzzi once more. So great.
3. Built an AM radio downtown Ghent.
4. Went to work on Wander but got frustrated by the Facebook integration and went on to build BelSonar instead. (We're going to the Off Sonar parties in Barcelona.)
5. Had a nice dinner at Grade.
6. Went to Fredo's birthday party Miami Nights 1978 at the SMAK museum. Oh, and mister DJ, thanks for playing Prince's DMSR!

Went to Ghent, checked in in the Astoria and enjoyed the jacuzzi. Had the infamous fries from 't Blauw Kot (they're great!) and went to party & play a vinyl DJ set at Twitch. Didn't go as well as the week before in Sioux, but hey, can't have it all.

Work bitch (bis)

Work bitch!

Went to Tweetmeetleuven. There were some interesting presentations, especially the one by Saïd El Khadraoui (about solving the several traffic problems faced here and abroad) and the engineering student who wanted to solve the bikes getting stolen problem.

I also had a discussion with Yves and Olivier about companies that are not getting "it" and who're trying to use social media as a push channel instead of using it as a tool to listen and improve their service. We wondered why that would be, despite companies spending thousands of dollars on hiring consultants for social media workshops, despite paying millions of dollars for supposedly smart CEOs. And then we got interrupted by a blonde wanting to talk with Olivier...