Camiel Schoonens

Product and Technology enthusiast

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Ready for 2024

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My tiny sabbatical ‘in between jobs’ is almost over. I’m finishing this unique period with a short family holiday break on the island of Lanzarote.

Per 2024, I will start with a US-based Product and Tech company and look forward to the journey ahead. My role will be based in the Netherlands, and similar to my previous role, it involves quite some travel due to working with an international team.

For the next step in my career, I wished to experience what working for a British or US-based company would be about, and I’m happy that it worked out like that. I believe I will benefit from my previous experience working with teams in EMEA, APAC, and LATAM, and I look forward to putting what I have learned into practice in this new environment.

It was an absolute joy to have some time off from work. It gave me time to reflect and to be a good friend, husband, father, and son. I’ve enjoyed the ‘me’ time by visiting some brilliant museums, reading lots of books, running 4-5 times a week, working with my hands, and planning to return to work.

I’m ready for 2024 and feel happy and fortunate to have good mental and physical health. I wish you the same. 🍀

Default Apps

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Following many others, this is my list of default apps in 2023. The categorization comes from the Hemispheric Views Podcast and should be equal to all others submitting their default apps.

  • 📨 Mail Client: Outlook
  • 📮 Mail Server: Office365
  • 📝 Notes: Agenda and Tot
  • ✅ To-Do: Things
  • 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera
  • 🟦 Photo Management: Adobe Lightroom Classic for editing and Photos for organization
  • 📆 Calendar: Fantastical Calendar
  • 📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive
  • 📖 RSS: Reeder with FreshRSS
  • 🙍🏻 ♂️ Contacts: Apple Contacts on iOS and CardHop on MacOS
  • 🌐 Browser: Safari
  • 💬 Chat: Messages and WhatsApp
  • 🔖 Bookmarks: Linkding
  • 📑 Read It Later: none
  • 📜 Word Processing: Word
  • 📈 Spreadsheets: Excel
  • 📊 Presentations: PowerPoint
  • 🛒 Shopping Lists: Things
  • 🍴 Meal Planning: Paper and pen
  • 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Banktivity
  • 📰 News: NRC, NOS and Tweakers.net
  • 🎵 Music: Apple Music
  • 🎤 Podcasts: Pocket Casts
  • 🔐 Password Management: 1Password

Some additional categories:

Updates:

2023/12/25: 290 people submitted their default apps. All submissions are listed here.
2023/11/27: Updated the list with the emojis per category provided by Gabz.

Strategic ambiguity

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I heard a good reflection on the ambiguity that employees experience regarding the company’s direction/strategy.

As a manager, you are often confronted with employees who say they do not understand the business strategy. Your manager’s default reaction is to clarify the strategy again through a 1:1 explanation or by creating the next version of your strategic PowerPoint, which you then put on the agenda in a team meeting.

Usually, the problem is much simpler.

The employee understands the company’s long-term direction but does not know how they can contribute to it today.

Don’t forget, as a manager, it is often better to focus on the following action(s) for the employee (and yourself) instead of returning to work on the next version of your strategic plan.

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”