Press release

Floor Schmeitz will join the board of Atma Mumbai starting from April 2007. She will be responsible for PR and communication strategies.

"In the last months I mainly worked on fundraising by selling products for Atma Mumbai. I very much wanted to have a direct impact on the organisation and support the projects with funding. When Adrienne asked me to join the board however I could not refuse. I think many opportunities lay ahead for Atma Mumbai and I am very enthusiastic about contributing to them. This will be a new challenge for me and I am very much looking forward to it ", says Floor.

Floor is currently working at a PR-firm, where she specializes in Investor Relations. She holds a master degree in communication sciences and is currently finishing her master in business administration.

**** end of press release******

Book List for enterpreneurs

A Dutch magazine for enterpreneurs published a list of books-every-enterpreneur-even-the-ones-who-never-take-time-to-read-must-read. Here is the top 10:


1) Small Giants-Bo Burlingham
Why? Be great by staying small shares many stories on how to build a sound business.
2) Mastering the Rockefeller Habits- Verne Harnish
Why? Based on a small set of simple rules all enterpreneurs should remember.
3)Ze zullen weten wie ze voor zich hebben (Dutch)- Marcel Metze
Why? The story of Philips, an icon in Dutch history
4) The long tail-Chris Anderson
Why? Go and do business on the Internet says Anderson.
5) Purple cow-Seth Godin
Why? Marketing guru Seth Godin tells how to stand out in a competitive market place.
6) The Google story-David Vise
Why? Google is a legendary company already, read the story.
7)Pour your heart into it- Howard Schultz
Why? A story how Starbucks became great
8) Losing my virginity-Richard Branson
Why? Well,it is Branson...
9) Good to great-Jim Collins
Why? Book on how to excell
10) A stake in the otucome-Jack Stack
Why? How to build a culture of ownership within a company: motivating your staff

15 million coaches

In Dutch we have a saying that says the country consists of 15 million coaches when our national soccer team plays. We all have opinions on players and strategy and we are not afraid to express them. Since I am very passionate about soccer myself, ofcourse I am one of them.

Today the Dutch team played Romania (0-0) and they played terrible. Most interesting aspect of this match: the players who were not playing.
To name a couple: Kuyt (Liverpool), Seedorf (AC Milan), Van Nistelrooij (Real Madrid) and Van Bommel (Bayern Munchen).

Excellent players who prove their worth for Europe's top teams every week but apparently lack quality for this dreadful national team. Our coach Marco van Basten might be a soccer legend who led our country to the European championship in 1988 but he is not a great coach.

If you leave top players like the ones mentioned above on the bench or do not select them at all, you have to make very sure the others players are very very very good. This is defenitely not the case. Therefore my plea is as follows: PUT SOME DECENT PLAYERS IN!!!

Mm, 15 million and me??

In a previous post, I asked bloggers to support the creating-awareness-for-climate-change-by-dutch-radio.Good news, the radio station made the quota and they are leaving for the North Pole soon! If you want to see webcam images or read the stories,check the website http://www.noordpool.fm

For anyone with ideas/experience/suggestions, please check out my post on my PR-blog. Am working on PR plan for Atma Mumbai and all ideas are welcome. This is supposed to lead to out-of-the-box-thinking, so participation would be hugely appreciated!

Check out the post here

doing nothing equals nervousness

When I do not have any plans for the weekend I can get a bit jumpy. The pure thought of days doing nothing, makes me nervous. This was such a weekend.

Saturday morning I woke up with the sunshine on my face. The gloominess was replaced by excitement. I had a good lunch at one my favourite bagel places with a friend. After I watched a decent movie. Today I went to the gym and sauna and cleaned my room. Now I am watching all the soccer matches on tv and my empty is almost over.

My empty weekend passed by before he knew it. I should remember that for next time.

International Womens Day

Girls and women everywhere, pay attention, this is the day that belongs to us!!! Dutch newspapers were covering some interesting topics in the last couple of days.

-Women are in the current situation better educated than men.
- Women require different type of leaders than men. They appreciate leaders who display rational behavior and have a good job-related knowledge and background. Men however want leaders to have good interpersonal skills.
- A consultancy agency therefore argues that different management development programs should be developed with two different tracks.
-The percentage of women in top position in The Netherlands is growing
- However the Netherlands is still underperforming when compared to other developed economies.
-Worldwide 40% of the companies do NOT have women in top management positions.

Well girls, what are we going to do about this??

golden oldies

On saturday night before going out, I was going trough my old pictures and got into a sentimental mood. Here are some golden oldies, just to feel good!!

First day at the job

Yesterday I went to my new job for the first time. I absolutely loved it!!

My boss is a financial journalist with extensive experience in writing but also in the financial world. He wants the company to grow and my job is to assist him in doing this. We are only working in a team of maximum 5 people. Next week I will already meet clients or new prospects and my boss shares much of his expertise with me, how cool is that??

A good understanding of the financial world is crucial in this line of work and this is going to be my focus in the next few weeks. I have to read financial sections of newspapers every day and keep up to date with current affairs. Besides this, I have to read as many articles and books about relevant topics. Yesterday my desk was filled with piles of files that I had to read trough to increase my understanding of clients and finance.

I hope you can read how enthusiastic I am. When it was time to go home, I felt sorry since I did not feel like leaving yet. Cannot wait to go back!