Marc Schillaci - Oxatis Founder and CEO

Performance Logistics: The Mystery of Late Delivery Revealed!

Ok, so now we finally know why certain packages don't make it to their destination on time...warehouse employees would rather film the never-ending acrobats of a cardboard box than send it on down the line :-)

New Addition to the Schillaci Family!

In the wee hours Sunday morning, a beautiful little girl came into the world to join our family. We named her Tassia.

The name comes from somewhere between Greece (Taïssia, goddess of the sea) and Slavic (Tassiana, Anastassia …) origins.

Just like her mother, I'm on cloud nine. Her big brothers are happy and even relieved, convinced that she won't come and steal their "boy" toys :-)

A little secret to share with you today, a ways away from the usual tone of my blog. Sometimes you need to know when to make an exception…

Stand by Me (Musical Interlude)

On this blog, where all we do is talk about e-commerce :) , I've decided to provide you with entertaining or musical breaks now and again......nothing like a little downtime to regain focus.

For starters, I'd like to share a piece of music that really inspired me. I've saved the URL and listen to it from time to time...

The “Playing For Change” movement seeks to change the world through music - an attempt at bringing a bit of peace to mankind, whether it be by providing musicians with the tools they need to practice their art, or by opening up schools across the globe.

They had the good idea of making a documentary about what they were doing, and an even better idea of having groups around the world play pieces of music, each one adding their own style and personal touch along the way.

For their first opus, they've sublimely revived "Stand By Me" - stretching out from California to the Congo, passing by New Orleans, Amsterdam, South Africa, Toulouse, Rio, Moscow, Caracas, Pisa and Barcelona.

Stand By Me from concordmusicgroup on Yahoo! Video.

Retrospective foresight...

I had a wonderful time last night, in the company of several Oxatis pillars: Our new manager in charge of the Italian market and our Canadian manager. After a long day's work, we found ourselves at a little restaurant by the sea on the Marseille coastline (around "les Goudes" for those who know). And, what do you know, after a few minutes we started talking about the history of the Internet and, especially, about its future.

Even though they were very (very) often wrong, we were all really impressed by certain predictions that were (if not completely, but in large part) right-on. There was one in particular that caught my attention and that I wanted to share with you.  It is currently 2009. This flash film (sorry, there was no YouTube at the time) dates back to 2004 and sweeps through the progression of 10 years of news on the net, finishing in 2014. Predicting what's going to happen during 10 years on the web is like trying to guess what you will be doing 40 years from now… 5 years have gone by (or 20 years of normal life, if you will), and even though there are several significant miscalculations, you have to admit that the vision is pretty accurate.

For better or for worse, check out EPIC… by clicking on the following link: http://www.broom.org/epic/ols-master.html (8 minutes)

Till next time,
Marc

Edit - 2 May 2009 - Here's the video

And for the total fanatics, the EPIC 2015 version, less... optimistic!

.

7 Random Things About Me

After many requests, and many hot potatoes thrown my way, I surrender! As usual, I felt  that 7 things was a lot, but in the end, I had a hard time narrowing things down, so...here I go. 

1) I love Diet Coke! Ok, I don't smoke, I hardly drink at all (except for a good bottle of wine). No coffee either. I had to do at least one stupid thing every day, so, I chose Diet Coke. Everyone tells me over and over again that it's crap..., nice and cold please, with lots of ice and no lemon, it's the best!

2) I don't like to sleep! I don't have anything against sleeping in, but I need to exert a whole lot of energy the day before to be able to get in more than 5 hours. So, seeing that I like math (see number 3), I feel better about it when I think that sleeping  3 hours less a day gives you 1100 hours of "other things to do" a year. That way, I can still  devote some time to my family and to water skiing (see number 7)!

3) I like mental arithmetic. As soon as I hear numbers on the radio, I start dividing or multiplying to try to understand what they mean. The last time I did this kind of math in my head, I heard that we spent 27 billion Euros to reduce unemployment by 500,000 people. It's great that unemployment is down by 500,000, but when it costs 54,000 Euros a person  (3 times the yearly income of an average Frenchman), there's a (big) glitch somewhere and it's not coming from the unemployed (who are certainly not earning that kind of money)!

4) I tend to over simplify things. In a previous company, my nickname was "It's Easy". Since then, I've tried, with difficulty, to make some progress by  paying much closer attention to the complexity of what I ask others to do.

5) I love to cook. I hate eating "garbage". So, when I'm lucky enough to be at home, I cook. Given my Sicilian roots, I've been known to make a mean risotto or pasta dish, but I can easily branch out  to French food.

 6) I like theoretical physics. I would have loved to have lived between 1900 and 1920 when relativity, quantum physics, causality, and tons of other fascinating concepts were born.  I would have liked to have been there to see Niels Bohr argue with Albert Einstein about the reality of quantum physics.  Einstein, infuriated,  hurled "God does not play dice!" at Niels Bohr, who replied "Who are you to tell God what to do!" Incredible!
I still read lots of books and journals in this domain. Pretty often, I have a hard time understanding certain concepts, and an even harder time explaining them to others. When I do understand, I settle for sharing my state of euphoria with myself :-).

7) I have an unhealthily addiction to water skiing. It's a drug. As soon as I see a large body of water, I start to ask myself how I can cross it at high speed! Where can I find a boat? Where can I find a driver? Is a bloody barge going to pass through and ruin my run? When I'm lucky enough to have the body of water, the boat, and the driver, I'll make all kinds of excuses to spend the day doing nothing but skiing.

Why do I like it so much? I could post a whole note explaining why, but, if I had to choose just one thing? Because, to be a good skier, some people say that you can only have one active neuron: the ski neuron. And, like happiness, when only one neuron is in complete concentration mode (in my case, ski mode), you forget all of life's troubles and you live 100% in the moment.  So, I often find myself thinking that it's sad a run only lasts 16.25 seconds :-)...


Have a good one :-)

Marc