What became very clear for me in a short time that there is not much interest in a professional organization. So after struggling for a few month last year, I turned my attention to other things, mostly to work, and starting my business.
This year however I had a lot of free time again – see my previous post -, and picked up the thread.
It is definitely a difficult endeavour. Most of the local business analysts I contacted last year has expressed no interest at all in the initiative, but this time I had more results.
I am not sure how successful this will be, I have hopes, and have gathered some support, but I am well aware of the possibility of failing spectacularly.
But no matter what, I will keep on trying so I can say in the end: I did what I could.

Why form a local chapter?

IIBA has the stated goal of advancing the profession of business analysis by providing standards, best practices, and a supportive environment including meetings, conferences, webinars, and finally, a certification for those interested.

The local chapter would do the same on a local level, promoting the necessity of the BA profession, hosting conferences, meetings and providing a venue for local? professionals to exchange knowledge and ideas.
In my experience a much needed thing.

If you happen to be a business analyst or an IT person working in Hungary, and you would be interested in helping us, please contact me.

Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly , from publisher Tim O’Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.

I usually like the books of Seth Godin, and sharing is caring, so I downloaded, started to read it and decided to put it up here. The book has over 71 thought provoking chapters, with some photos spread around – focusing on children, education and Room to Read – and beside the having a great content, it shows a very useful initiative, which I think deserves the “eyeballs”.

Below are my favourite chapters, with some samples – in case I have to persuade you to check out a free ebook.

Elizabeth Gilber – EASE

The world will still need saving tomorrow. In the meantime, you’re going to have a stroke soon (or cause a stroke in somebody else) if you don’t calm the hell down.

I don’t know who and where said it, some reformed movie hero probably – “All my life I was chasing everything and I missed everything”. We dictate a speed which is needless and useless most of the time. Where are we running?

Howard Mann – CONNECTED

We walk the streets with our heads down staring into 3-inch screens while the world whisks by doing the same. And yet we’re convinced we are more connected to each other than ever before.

We have friends all over the globe, yet we don’t know our neighbours. So immersed in global events we have no idea what happens in our streets.

John Wood – EDUCATION

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.
The second best time is now.

Education is a ripple. And there are too many still waters in the world.

Mitch Joel – COMPASSION

“It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”
We spend more than 50% of our lives at work. Why would anyone want to wake up in the morning and go to work with that attitude? If you don’t make it personal, and if you don’t make it count, what’s the point?

Should we really leave ourselves at home when we go to work?

Jeff Jonas – CONTEXT

When information is evaluated without context—regardless of highly sophisticated analytics, an infinite amount of compute, energy or time, little if any relevance can be established with certainty.

When information is evaluated without context – it’s not information. It’s just meaningless data. I have 500 HUF in my pocket. That’s no information to you unless you know current prices in Budapest. Without context, it is not information.

Chip and Dan Heath – CHANGE

We’re wired to focus on what’s not working. But Murphy asked, “What IS working, today, and how can we do more of it?”

Indeed, talking about what does not work solves nothing. Concentrating only on the symptoms won’t give you a solution. And CHANGE links so nicely to CONTEXT. Without CONTEXT there is no information. Without information, we can’t find a solution.

And more. 82 pages with short, thought provoking chapters. The book is free, and freely distributable – through Twitter, Plurk, website, whatever, write your review, your thoughts, your comments.

And after you have read it, share what you liked.

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The full story of Uganda: A little goes a long way can be found on the website of Frontlineworld, and there you can find the full length video – but that site does not allow embedding, and the stream is slow and freezes every few seconds, so I got it from causecast.org instead.

The Wizard of Waukesha, Lester William Polfuss has left the stage. But not before he gave us the Les Paul , the first multi-track recording, the world’s first commercially-produced reel-to-reel audio tape recorder and a lot of good music.

Your guitar – or at least a cheaper version – gave me countless hours of pleasure and joy. I would like to thank you for that.

Rest in peace, Les Paul. You made this world a better place.

The ORG “Sound of Copyright” Conference that took place in the European Parliament last week is over, and there are concerns still, as news-mail I received today shows .

Consumer groups, musicians, academics and industry stakeholders, together with a cross party panel of MEPs, hit out at the “fairy tale” of copyright term extension at the ORG “Sound Copyright” conference in the European Parliament last week.

One by one speakers rubbished the proposal to extend copyright term as outgoing ORG Executive Director Becky Hogge pointed out that “All the evidence shows that the term extension directive will do very little and almost nothing to help the poor performer and everything to line the pockets of the world’s record labels.”

You can see the opening speeches by Becky (1) and by Pekka Gronow (2), sound archivist and professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Helsinki. Professor Gronow’s account of the conference is also available on his blog (3). We’ll update you with more video and speeches very soon.

(1) Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzcm43pABBE and Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4_t9m6tRyI
(2) Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T3D-HYnIAc and Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFtuGn2S74I
(3) http://blogit.yle.fi/node/2625

Next week the Legal Affairs (JURI) committee will likely vote to push the proposal to a full plenary vote in Parliament in March against fierce opposition (4) from the representatives of 42 consumer rights organisations (BEUC), 29 privacy and civil rights organisations (EDRI), over 650,000 library and information professionals worldwide (IFLA), ?ORG (UK), Consumer Focus (UK) and the EFF (US). ?With this in mind we urge you to contact your MEP (5) either in Brussels or at their home constituency and let them know why term extension should be rejected.

(4) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2009/01/21/consumers-citizens-and-information-professionals-around-the-world-unite-to-condemn-copyright-extension/
(5) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/10/07/make-sure-meps-hear-your-views-on-copyright-term-extension-get-in-touch-today/

MEPs are coming under increasing pressure from industry lobbyists now claiming parity with countries with longer copyright terms as a justification for term extension, despite the European Commission ?denying that ‘comparative advantage’with longer terms was a basis for the extension (6 – See P. 11, 12.). Show your MEP our cartoon “How copyright extension in sound recordings actually works” (7) and get them to sign our petition (8) and reject copyright extension!

(6) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/uploads/commission.pdf
(7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kijON_XODUk
(8) http://www.soundcopyright.eu/petition

IP watch covered our event (9), and Cory Doctorow writing in the Guardian (10) echoed the chorus of concern and disapproval already voiced in international press from the International Herald Tribune (11) to the Financial Times (12).

(9) http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1403
(10) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jan/26/cory-doctorow-copyright-law
(11) http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/24/opinion/edbaldwin.php
(12) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba280756-ca07-11dd-93e5-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

Our cartoon “How copyright extension in sound recordings actually works” has also been translated into French (13), Italian (14) and Spanish (15), with versions appearing on Facebook and Blip TV. Now reaching a total of 30,000 views it hit the top 10 most popular political videos in the week that Obama was elected! Tell your MEPs to reject term extension now! (16)

(13) http://www.framablog.org/index.php/post/2009/01/25/allongement-droits-artistes-musique-majors-europe
(14) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LprDgb8LFaY&feature=channel_page
(15) http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkbwCugQdc&feature=related
(16) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/10/07/make-sure-meps-hear-your-views-on-copyright-term-extension-get-in-touch-today/

If you can, try to contact your MEP and voice your concern – if you have – and urge him to represent your, the voters interest, not that of the Record Label Lobby.

What does it mean? Basically, they intend to double the term of copyright for sound recordings, extending it to 90 years – that’s about 3 generations.

That would mean that a song written in 1960 will not go into the public domain until 2040 – and you can’t make and copy your home video legally if in the background you can hear this music, for example.
Or, as is the case, you can’t get some of these legally until 2040, as about 75% of the music ever produced is not available commercially.

The Term Extension Directive has been condemned by Europe’s leading intellectual property research centres, studies proved it counterproductive and basically a bad idea.

Nonetheless, the European Parliament is going forward to vote on it – and if they have to choose between the no-name customer’s right or the recording company profits I think we can see the winner here.

Now, let me share with you an e-mail I’ve received from the Open Rights Group.

Dear Sound Copyright petitioner,
The European Parliament is set to vote on whether to double the term of copyright in sound recordings. Sound Copyright invites you to register your concern at an event on the proposed Term Extension Directive, on Tuesday 27 January 2009 in the European Parliament in Brussels:
http://soundcopyright.eventbrite.com/
This flawed Directive has been unanimously condemned by Europe’s leading intellectual property research centres. The European Parliament must address the mounting concerns of consumer groups and copyright users if they want a modern, workable intellectual property policy.? Please, if you can, come to Brussels and register your concern. If you can’t make it, please invite your MEP to attend on your behalf.

Looking forward to seeing you in Brussels,
Becky Hogge
Executive Director, Open Rights Group

===Sound Copyright News===
How you can help the campaign:

1. Come to an event on 27 January in the European Parliament in Brussels to hear academics, musicians and activists discuss the Directive with a roundtable of MEPs
   http://soundcopyright.eventbrite.com/
2. Invite your MEP to attend the 27 January event on your behalf (you can get their contact details here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members.do)
3. Invite your MEP to sign the Sound Copyright petition
   http://www.soundcopyright.eu/petition
4. Ask your MEP to watch the Open Rights Group’s cartoon “How copyright term extension in Sound Recordings actually works”
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kijON_XODUk

===

Spread the word: How copyright term extension in sound recordings actually works
The Open Rights Group and animators Eclectech, whose work has included pieces for Friends of the Earth and No2ID in the UK, have produced a short animation explaining “How copyright term extension in Sound Recordings actually works”. Check it out at the link below and show your friends and your MEPs why term extension is a really bad idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kijON_XODUk

===
Andrew Gowers hits out at “out of tune” term extension.
The former editor of the Financial Times, Andrew Gowers, hit out at the UK Government’s? suggestion that they should consider a copyright extension as “out of tune with reality”.? Gowers original evidence-based review for the UK Government concluded against extending copyright.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba280756-ca07-11dd-93e5-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

Well, seems times are achanging, and now Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo! advises Steve Ballmer that Microsoft should really, really buy Yahoo!, pretty please.
See, after Yahoo! running around, trying to make a business with everyone they could find, finally they come back, as the prodigal son, sending a bright eyed message to Microsoft: You should buy us, just say the word and I am at the table, with pens in hands.

Isn’t it just pathetic?

And should Microsoft buy Yahoo!? Would it make sense – maybe, although not many were convinced that Yahoo! would help Microsoft with the internet business -, or would it be just burning money?