Marcel van Marrewijk's Blog, page 64

Henk Jan Beltman is nog lang niet klaar met Tony’s Chocolonely

Originally posted in MaatschapWij Magazine.

De missie van Henk Jan Beltman klinkt simpel: een wereld waarin 100% slaafvrije chocolade de norm is. Maar dat is lastiger dan het misschien klinkt. De cacaoketen wordt gedomineerd door een paar wereldspelers, is moeilijk te doorbreken en de speelruimte is klein voor fairtrade chocolade. Iedereen let op z’n portemonnee: zowel de choconsument, als de chocoladeproducent.

Maatschappelijke kosten

Van een chocoladereep die wij voor €2,50 in de supermarkt kopen, verdient de boer uiteindelijk maar ongeveer €0,12. Het bedrag dat aan het einde van het jaar op zijn loonstrookje staat, komt meestal niet veel hoger uit dan €1.000,-. Met een gezin van gemiddeld 6 personen komt dit neer op minder dan €1,- per persoon per dag. Een bedrag dat ver onder de armoedegrens ligt. Dat leidt tot heel veel ellende, waaronder (kind)slavernij op cacaoplantages.

“Als we met elkaar afspreken dat geld een betaalmíddel is, waarom zien zoveel bedrijven het dan als doel?”

Het moet anders, met fairtrade chocolade

Met Tony’s Chocolonely is Henk Jan vastbesloten om chocolade te veranderen. Hij wil laten zien dat het ook anders kan door het goede voorbeeld te geven met de fairtrade chocolade van Tony’s Chocolonely en hoopt hiermee andere (grotere) chocolademakers en verkopers te inspireren ook hun verantwoordelijkheid te nemen. Hoe? Lees meer over de missie van Tony’s Chocolonely.

De missie naar 100% slaafvrije, fairtrade chocolade vereist een bepaald soort karakter en doorzettingsvermogen. Wat drijft Henk Jan en wanneer is hij tevreden? Hij vertelt erover in dit openhartige Purpose People videoportret.

Video by: Jeppe van Pruissen 

Text by: Joost Marsman

 

The post Henk Jan Beltman is nog lang niet klaar met Tony’s Chocolonely appeared first on Seats2meet.

Technological trends for 2019 (analytics). Part 2.

This article is a continuation of the “Technological trends for 2019 (analytics). It covers the remaining three categories: Robotics, Virtual reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) and Cloud Services and provides a comprehensive conclusion on the topic.

4. Robotics

Probably most of us have seen these movies where robots are used as domestic servants, but there’s still long way to walk until idea of multifunctional home use robot became popular in practice. First of all, because of the cost per unit as there’s no mass production making it affordable for common households. Secondly, because of security and legal basis matters. But technological science already suggested us demonstration of outstanding progress by presenting to the world probably the most famous and popular humanoid robot Sophia. She wasn’t created for domestic purposes, the fact about smart interactive robot thrilled many people. She even became the first robot who received citizenship.

Even though this is something huge and attracts global society’s attention, such project these days can still be named as a very exclusive. Most business goals are set up for developing not capable on decision taking robots, basically used for industrial needs or some mechanic activities, where accuracy or risk reduction are required.

Talking of industry, let’s look through International Federation of Robotics’ report shared this October and illustrating worldwide industrial robot’s supply.

So, if you remember the demographical data, that would be like 1 industrial robot for each city with roughly 12200 citizens worldwide by year 2021. Not talking about countless number of different purpose robots. Keeping in mind that we are on rather early stage of producing robots in general, that looks already something, isn’t it?

Main supply is currently produced by 5 main markets in the world: China, Japan, Republic of Korea, United States and Germany. All together they manufacture around 73% of all robots made in the world.

International Federation of Robotics also shared statistics about growth in services of professional robots. Number of sold robot units (for medical purposes, logistics, etc.) in 2017 year increased +85% and in year 2018 it was +32% per three quarters.

Also, it seems that there’s increasing demand of personal and domestic robots for 2019-2021 years. Number of household robots is expected to be +39,5% (unit sales) and number of entertainment/leisure robots +10,7% (unit sales).

Since market expands and competition among manufacturers gets more intense, costs should become even more friendly for random consumer. And this is going to happen quite soon. It looks like robotic vacuum cleaners or lawn mowers will overtake from us big part of domestic commitments and instead we can have more time for our families of friends. Maybe this can even help to avoid rows about who is finally going to clean the home. Everybody happy and work is done. Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?

5. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

Another technological trend worth to be discussed is Virtual reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). Over recent years demand in development of these products is also getting acceleration. It went far more that only gaming. VR suggests agile solutions for business types like travel agencies, real estate related companies, medical simulations applied for healing processes and many others. For period of 2016-2022 year Statista draws promising forecast for size of VR and AR market worldwide (in billions US dollars):

As we can see, by 2022 revenue is expected to be almost 8 times higher to compare with year 2018. At present time you can find over 200 different VR headsets suggested by Amazon and countless number of AR mobile apps (probably one of the most popular ones was Pokemon Go game, which attracted mass of attention). Innovative solutions appear not only for entertainment purposes, but also as work tools to ease up many daily tasks, such as planning or representing.

6. Cloud services

Sufficient data storage capacity and easy access to essential information from any place sounds like fantastic opportunity for business to ensure smooth work processes. Cloud providing companies constantly make huge investments to cyber security and there’s a variety of tools created to ease this task up. Number of companies entrusting their data related solutions for cloud computing professionals annually grows. This is a proof that cloud services are still on the list of future technological trends.

According to Mike Wheatley’s article in Silicon Angle, worldwide public cloud revenue during 2019 is supposed to increase 17,3% in general.

Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are supposed to increase almost twice, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is predicted to be nearly three times more demanded by the end of year 2021. Many famous global market players, such as Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, etc., are investing huge resources into developing cloud computing.

Why are cloud computing services getting more and more popular? Answer is simple: they help to avoid data loss, it’s easy to access from anywhere you go, it’s scalable and save costs. These criterias are making service increasingly popular among companies’ decision makers. Most of new apps are built on Cloud Computing based systems. So, if you need to optimize your some of your work procedures – this may sound like a very convenient option.

CONCLUSION

Technological world is very agile and fast shifting. For random consumer it can be felt even in such small daily things as often upgrades for their mobile phones or PCs. Looking broadly, there are certain technological directions, where innovative solutions have high potential to grow because of their indisputable benefit for business development and final consumer. Also, for huge impact on making routine tasks easier and faster implementable, costs affordable and risks more manageable or predictable. No doubts that trends discussed previously will shape consuming habits and financial flows in coming years, but keeping in mind how dynamic is technological world, there’s still bunch of forthcoming innovative solutions stepping their very first steps yet.

 

The post Technological trends for 2019 (analytics). Part 2. appeared first on Seats2meet.

Nice to meet: Salam Noah, a refugee painter from Iraq

Let us introduce our dear friend of the Seats2Meet network – Salam. Coming to Europe as a refugee from Iraq, Salam has faced many struggles along his way. However, despite his difficult life journey, he succeeded at becoming a painter and continues to tell his story of an asylum seeker in his drawings. His goal is to tell everyone what it is like to live a refugee life, how he feels, and how hard it is to fight for a better and safer life. Salam has taken up painting while he is living in Greece and waiting for his family’s asylum case to be processed. At the moment, he has created over 70 paintings and had exhibitions in Switzerland, Spain, Washington, Netherlands, Germany and England. Salam also plays three instruments; Saz, Oud, and Guitar, and plays music everyday, as a way to express his feelings and frustrations. He compares his painting to playing music: “It’s just a way for us to express ourselves, to have our voices heard, and to show that we refugees, paint, play music, we are just like you, in the end, we are all just human beings”. You can see more of his work on Salam Noah ART and website: salamnoah.com

“I am 28 years old and I am from Iraq. I was living in Baadre village in Kurdistan, with my family of 14 members. We were living in difficult material conditions and were threatened because we are Yazidi, an ethnic minority. Despite of this, we managed to go to school and study there successfully. I studied for six years and completed the primary school. But then I had to stop studying because we couldn’t afford the fees. Also, I needed to earn money to support my family. Therefore, I started working in order to give my brothers and sisters the opportunity to finish their studies.

Ten years later, after they all graduated and got jobs of their own, I decided to continue my studies. But because it had been ten years since I left school, I was not allowed to go to school anymore. That is why I started to study at home. I was studying hard and working at the same time, with no teacher to teach me. Unfortunately I had no money to pay the teachers, as I gave all the money I earned to my family. However, I didn’t give up and continued to study on my own. Finally, after many years, I completed high school. I was so happy that I couldn’t believe it, because my dream finally became true. All of this was thanks to my mother. She supported me the whole time and pushed me to continue my studies.

Because my average was not very high, I couldn’t go to University yet, and had to wait one more year. But after that year, I was finally accepted to the Faculty of Education and Arabic in Kurdistan. The University was far from our home, about one hour’s drive away, and I had to pay 220 US dollars for the car driver every month. This amount was too much for me, but my brothers told me that it was important that I complete my education. They said: “You stopped your studies because of us and now we want to help you achieve your dream”. I finally went to the University, and I was very proud of that. I finished my first year, and I was one of the best students. I was also in the top ten list for the second and third years.

The fourth year was to be my last year. I only had two more months to graduate. But one day, when I came back from the University, I heard my family talking that we had to leave Iraq and go to a safer country. When I heard this I was in shock and couldn’t believe it. I knew if we left, I would not graduate and make my dreams come true. But I had no choice, I had to go with them.

The decision was to leave, but first, we had to find a way to collect the money to make the journey. Because we are a big family, we needed a lot to pay the smugglers. We decided to sell our house to a smuggler who promised to take us to a safe country in Europe. Our house, the house we had built with our own hands, and which we had worked on for two years, day and night. We had dreamt of this house for a long time. It was the only thing we had, and now we had to sell it. My father found a smuggler and told him: “We will give you our house if you take us to a safe country”. The smuggler accepted the offer and we sold him our house. We also had some goods and furniture in our house which we sold too. Because we were under the pressure to leave as quickly as possible, we had no time to bargain properly and sold our goods very cheap.

Then we started to prepare for the long journey ahead. I went to my University for the last time, to say goodbye to my friends. I told them that I was sorry to leave, but I had no choice. There were tears in my eyes when I left the University, because I was about to give up on my dream.

On the 9th of February 2016 we traveled to Turkey. We stayed in Turkey for about a month, trying to cross the Bulgarian border six times but we couldn’t. The family was tired and suffering, and we decided to find another way; to try crossing the sea by boat to Greece. We spent one month trying to cross, during which we suffered physically and mentally. After trying three times, we finally made it and we reached Lesvos Island on the 6th of March. We stayed in Mytilene for six days, and then we were taken to Ritsona Refugee Camp. We had been in Ritsona Camp ever since. We didn’t have money for a boat, so some of our relatives gave us about €25000.

My father and mother, with seven of my brothers and sisters were relocated to France on the 20th of September. But I was married and coming with my wife. One of my brothers was also married with a son. Both our families were considered independent from my parents, and so we were not relocated with them. After 6 months five of us were also relocated to France. Now we live in a village Forbach close to German border.

 

The post Nice to meet: Salam Noah, a refugee painter from Iraq appeared first on Seats2meet.

Tired of unproductive meetings? Try these 5 steps

This guest post is by FreeAgent, award-winning accounting software for all your small business needs.

Meetings. They’re essential, a necessary evil even, but when they’re done without a proper structure or rules, they can seriously hinder your business’s productivity. What can you do to ensure your meetings improve the way you work, rather than hinder it? Here are five things to consider that could help you run more effective business meetings.

Make sure there’s an agenda

Meetings without clearly communicated goals can be less productive (and take more time!), so make sure you’re clearly defining your meetings in advance to avoid any wasted time or effort. This article explains the importance of setting an agenda for every meeting you have (regardless of how small it is). What’s more, when agendas are published in advance, attendees can decide whether the meeting is truly relevant for them – skipping the ones they don’t need to go to and winning back some precious time.

Cut the devices

Mobiles and tablets may be important to use in your business on a daily basis, but they can also be an unwelcome distraction when it comes to meetings. So if you often find that phones get as much attention as speakers during a meeting, why not consider banning mobiles altogether? Removing distractions can help you focus your meetings, which should help reduce the overall time you spend in them.

Set time parameters

It’s incredibly easy to lose track of time in meetings unless you have a structure in place to keep you and your attendees focused. This blog explains how many successful companies set specific time limits for their meetings and incorporate non-negotiable break times at regular, defined intervals to maintain productivity. Check out these tips from Entrepreneur for keeping your meeting time short, and consider designating a timekeeper at every meeting to make sure all attendees work towards your time deadline.

Try virtual meetings

Some people still view teleconferences and virtual meetings with trepidation, possibly due to previous bad experiences with technology. But if you’re spending hours travelling to meet clients face-to-face, using a tool like Appear.in or GoToMeeting to hold a virtual meeting could help dramatically cut that wasted time. This blog gives tips on how to host an online meeting and ensure you and your attendees get the most out of it.

“Stand-ups” rather than meetings

If you find that your meetings go on for too long or don’t have a lot of energy, why not try to mix things up by standing up? This blog post explains how software company ThoughtWorks uses stand-up meetings – rather than traditional sit-down discussions – and explains how they find them so effective for maintaining productivity. Alternatively, check out this list from Management Today for some other ideas on how to make your meetings more exciting.

Want more small business tips and inspiration? Check out the FreeAgent small business guides.

The post Tired of unproductive meetings? Try these 5 steps appeared first on Seats2meet.

Technological trends for 2019 (analytics). Part 1.

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever thought about how many different technologies recently affect our daily life? We can simplify so many tasks with latest ones. Are you lazy to clean the floor? No worries, robot can do that instead of you. Would you like to know what your customers love most of all? It’s easy! No need to make annoying surveys and dig for the emails to share it with them. Machine learning technologies will collect all data for you and enable to suggest exactly what customer could need at some certain moment. And there’s countless number of examples how recent technologies help us. However, we can classify some major technological trends shaping habits of consumers and business organizing tendencies for coming years. There are 6 major categories in these trends, which are Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Artificial Intellect, Robotics, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) and Cloud Services. Let’s look at first three of these categories together.

1. IoT

Interesting fact: by year 2018 we have roughly 7.7 billion inhabitants on the planet and 23.14 billion of connected devices (Internet of Things) according to Statista. Several theories suggest that by year 2025 world population should reach around 8 billion inhabitants and at the same time number of connected devices should reach 75.44 billion. Impressive, isn’t it? To imagine it better, you can check out the chart below:

Yes, you saw that correct: number of IoT connected devices is predicted to increase three times in 6-7 years period. No doubts that part of solutions will be applied for such structures like Smart home, Smart cities, healthcare, energy, manufacturing, etc. To be honest there are no boundaries as it can be used in practically any field. Not even mentioning the increasing revenue they are generating annually. 

2. Machine learning (ML)

Although ML is only one subcategory of artificial intellect, it is widely applied and for all the merits up till this day and I bet you would agree that it can be analyzed as separate field. 

Would like to support your customers online? Or maybe annoyed with traffic jams in local area and thinking of how to avoid them? Machine learning based solution can become the answer to your case. It can even contribute to reducing the crime (let’s say by applying facial recognition function to identify socially inappropriate behavior). 

But sometimes it can lead to rather drastic measures. Probably interesting example of that would be China’s goal to develop controversially assessed “Social credit system” program, which is expected to be completely functioning by 2020. The aim of this program is to recognize socially inappropriate behavior and eliminate it by applying some certain punishment. There are also applied rewards for being exemplary citizen. Bought too much alcohol, smoked in non-smoke area or are late to pay taxes? You can forget about purchasing domestic flight or can even get banned from getting management job position in state-owned company. You walk your dog without a leash? You risk that your beloved pet will be confiscated after few warnings. However, if you pay taxes on time, stop on crossroads giving way for pedestrians or do any other socially good things, most likely you will get discounts on energy bills or bike rent without deposit. There’s a list of punishments and rewards for each relevant action. And machine learning is one of the foundation stones in developing all this huge system. 

Few years back technologies weren’t able understand human talk, and now they are advanced enough to answer our questions, recognize faces, help making diagnosis in medical cases and assist with many other daily tasks. Thinking of ML development tendencies in the future, we are probably all wondering “ So, what’s next?”.

3. Artificial Intellect (AI)

For some it sounds scary and draws cruel futuristic picture how machines overtake solution-making and dominate the world. At the same time others disagree and stand for AI as way to improve life quality and reduce risks in many fields. 

Internet is full of insights and predictions, but let’s look through some fact-based statistics to get general impression about demand of AI based solutions in the nearest future. Giselle Abramovich perfectly reveals it in CMO.com’s .

Networking is a great way to grow your small business: tips on how to start

This post is a guest post by FreeAgent, the award-winning UK accountancy software for freelancers, small businesses and their accountants. 

When you’re working on your own, it’s easy to forget about networking and building relationships with other people in your industry. Maybe you think networking is just too much effort, or doesn’t feel like “real” work.

In fact, building these relationships can be a great way to get support for your business or even generate more work. Here are a few opportunities that can arise from interacting with businesses and professional bodies in your marketplace – including those you may have traditionally regarded as competitors.

Take advantage of industry bodies

Some people are skeptical about industry bodies as many still operate solely as “membership organizations” that feel old-fashioned with few benefits. But the good news is that many of the more forward-thinking industry bodies are now providing support, sharing resources and helping members network with each other. For example, the Federation of Small Businesses runs regular networking tips sessions throughout the year and across the country exclusively for its members.

It’s worth trying to get to know the people who work for these bodies as they are normally well-informed of changes in legislation or industry initiatives that are in the pipeline. As a member, you may gain a competitive advantage by getting a heads-up about changes coming through – and may also discover new opportunities to provide consulting expertise into the organization.

Find complementary businesses and refer business to each other

Every business will usually be able to find a range of other “complementary” industries whose services or products could tie in with them. A professional hairdresser, for example, can build up a network of photographers, makeup artists and caterers who could recommend clients to each other.

If you run your own business, start to identify some complementary service or product providers in your industry sector that you can strike up partnerships with. Think about how you could team up to offer a combined service or referral scheme that would benefit your customers.

For an example of how this works, take a look at how we work with partners here at FreeAgent. Our Partners page lists all the professional organizations and companies that we’ve forged close links with, and we encourage our customers to check them out and see how their businesses can benefit from these services.

Work with your competitors (yes, really!)

You may think that a competitor is the last person you’d want to partner with, but there are many potential gains to be had by working with them.

In some industries, the phrase “a rising tide lifts all boats” can apply – if you and a competitor have a different enough product or service within an industry, you may find that joining forces to raise awareness about your business could bring more customers to both of you.

Similarly, if you ever have to turn away work because you’re already booked up, you and a competitor that you respect could agree to point clients in each other’s direction.

Finally, for a great example of competitors and complementary businesses working together, check out the Wedding Collective – a handpicked group of companies who respect and collaborate with each other.

For more helpful articles to help you run your business and demystify the UK accounting landscape, visit the FreeAgent guides section. 

The post Networking is a great way to grow your small business: tips on how to start appeared first on Seats2meet.

Mom Cycle on screen voor Seats2Meet #Video 1

Mom Cycle is hét netwerk voor ZZP Mama’s in Nederland, waarbij jij als ZZP Mama andere ZZP Mama’s kan ontmoeten in jouw regio.

Rebecca Slotboom van Mom Cycle neemt jullie de komende 6 weken mee in haar leven als directeur van Mom Cycle, een community voor ZZP Mama’s. In deze video haar ideeën en tips over ondernemerschap.”

The post Mom Cycle on screen voor Seats2Meet #Video 1 appeared first on Seats2meet.

Nieuwe ingang en route Meeting Plaza Utrecht per december 2018

Het nieuwe Meeting Plaza Utrecht is al in een vergevorderd stadium! Vanaf maandag 3 december is dan ook de ingang en receptie op een nieuwe plek te vinden. Kantoreningang Janssoenborch is vanaf maandag 3 december onze definitieve ingang.

Er is dan ook weer een nieuwe versie van de routebeschrijving vanaf Utrecht Centraal die hierbij is bijgevoegd.

U vindt de nieuwe ingang rechts naast de Action en tegenover de AKO. Vanaf januari 2019 zullen wij volledig gerenoveerd zijn! in november en december is er dus sprake van een overgangsperiode.

Let op: de vleugel waar eerst de receptie en het restaurant zich bevond is dan niet meer in gebruik.

The post Nieuwe ingang en route Meeting Plaza Utrecht per december 2018 appeared first on Seats2meet.

Digitale Brochure S2M030

Zoals velen van jullie al wel weten vormen Connect, Collaborate and Grow samen de kernwaarden van Seats2meet.com Utrecht CS (S2M030). Onze locatie midden op Hoog Catharijne staat volledig in het teken van jouw ontmoeting. S2M030 heeft meer dan alleen meetingspaces om te vergaderen en workspaces om te werken: S2M biedt ontmoetingsplekken waarbij mensen kunnen groeien in kennis en kwaliteit. Wij faciliteren kennisdeling en willen mensen voeden met inspiratie.

Verhalen vertellen, daar zijn wij goed in. Storytelling helpt om betekenis de wereld in te brengen en legt uit waarom we doen wat we doen. De locatie S2M030 kent vele verhalen, zo hebben de meetingspaces ieder een eigen thema. Die verhalen en nog veel meer zijn vanaf heden in deze Online Brochure S2M030 te vinden.

Lees, deel en kom naar onze locatie voor de realtime experience bij S2M030.

Kan ik jou binnenkort ook ontmoeten?

 

Met een verbindende groet,

Nynke (locatiemanager S2M030)

The post Digitale Brochure S2M030 appeared first on Seats2meet.

The New Seats2Meet Marketing Team Shares Insights from Their Journey

They say, if you don’t have a Facebook/LinkedIn or Instagram account – do you even exist?

These days social media platforms are everything for businesses and personal interactions. And our new Marketing and Communications team know it better than everyone. Masha, Maria and Kamila are the co-founders of Time Space – a startup within Seats2Meet network that has been existing for over a year. Time Space utilizes the abundance of coworkings and offices to create study spots for students. They use Seats2Meet passport as well as offline facilitation to let younger generations network with entrepreneurs and freelancers and build professional networks.

Originally from Russia, the girls have been living in the Netherlands for over 5 years, throughout this time they have experienced first-hands how it is to integrate in the Dutch culture as foreigners, how to elevator-pitch a Dutch investor, bootstrap while leading a startup, and, of course, how to use the social media and digital marketing to promote a new business and expand the network. 

Accumulatively girls have lived in more than 12 countries, have organized more than 56 events, have spent tons of sleepless night brainstorming on the startup development and how to make the budget for the months. They have graduated from programs in Business and Economics in Utrecht and Amsterdam, and got “Master’s Degree” in Life Sciences with extended specialty in living on the edge surviving as startupers while using all the resources and creativity.

More than a year ago, when Time Space was just a concept, which was ready to become a reality, the girls serendipitously met the founder of Seats2Meet – Ronald van den Hoff at one of the conferences about the Sharing Economy, and elevator pitch the idea. Since then, they have been working on developing their business following the Lean Startup principles under the mentorship of Ronald, and using the Seats2Meet Matching Principles to cover the new target group.

While following this exciting startup journey, they have learned ins and outs of S2M, Social Media Marketing and the fundamentals of Society 3.0. Now they would be happy to share these great things with you! Putting names to the team leading the key S2M channels, we would like to give each and one of you the stage to share your story.

Feel free to shoot them a message at stories@seats2meet.com to share an idea for an article or send a collaboration proposal!

If you want to learn more about their journey, check out their anniversary campaign in the video below, and have a look at their website. 

https://magazine.seats2meet.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Time-Space-Anniversary-Campaign.mp4

The post The New Seats2Meet Marketing Team Shares Insights from Their Journey appeared first on Seats2meet.