Blog
In 2007, I started this website so I could share my MSc thesis easily. I started blogging random thoughts that were on my mind, mostly related to theology, culture, and humour. I moved part of this to Tumblr, and a dedicated culture review site in 2010 (it no longer exists), but when I joined Automattic in 2015, I revamped my blog. These days, it’s mostly a space where I share photography and thoughts on leadership and tech. The latter is what you’ll find on this page.
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1–2 minutes
Bono & Eugene Peterson: The Psalms
The Psalms Fuller Theological Seminary, with several famous theologians on staff–including Richard J. Foster, Miroslav Volf, and Joel B. Green–has documented a meeting between Bono and Eugene Peterson. Bono has never hidden his Christian background; he reached out to Peterson when The Message translation of the Bible was released to say thanks and invite him…
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1–2 minutes
Field Notes: CMS Africa Summit 2016
My colleague Marjorie wrote a great recap of our trip to Uganda two weeks ago.
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6–9 minutes
Haters Gonna Hate: From Brussels with Love?
When Taylor Swift is singing her “Shake It Off” song, she’s not focusing on very deep aspects of life. Granted, while the message to not care too much about what other people say is valid, she is still only singing about dating and dance moves. There are deeper sides to life. Worse haters that…
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1–2 minutes
Mischa – Two
We have some pretty talented friends. One of those friends is Mischa. Her angelic voice takes you out of this world. Read my full review of one of her previous show here. Go check out her Soundcloud profile or visit her Facebook page.
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1–2 minutes
Scaling Support by Educating Customers
At ScaleConf 2016 in Cape Town, I was invited to speak in front of a large audience of developers. I focused on one of the biggest passions of most developers (not): support. However, while devs might not get excited about support, they all understand the importance of it. With having WooCommerce active on 1+ million…
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3–5 minutes
Why I (now) use Polymail for work
Note: Polymail was discontinued a while ago, but I found similar features in Spark. Half a year ago, I wrote a post in which I recommended the Mailbox App made by the Dropbox team. Unfortunately, Mailbox was discontinued earlier this year. So I started yet another search for a mail client that had the same…
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2–4 minutes
Studying Scripture: Lectio Divina
One of the dangers of studying Scripture is that the focus can be too much on the cognitive side. While this is an important aspect of being human, it is only one aspect. Applying different methods for studying the Bible can help avoid these pitfalls. An approach that has helped me a lot in catering to various…
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1–2 minutes
Bruce Lunnis: The Age of the Digital Superhero
My favourite talk at WordCamp Cape Town 2015 was Bruce Lunnis‘. He shared some of the stories of the do_action-hackathons in Cape Town. On those events, WordPress professionals gather to make websites, set up eCommerce and design branding for NGOs from the Cape Town region. Bruce highlighted a few of the success stories of how…
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1–2 minutes
Purpose-Driven Website: What on Earth Is Your Website Here for?
Follow along with the workshop I gave at WordCamp Cape Town last September.
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4–6 minutes
“So How Long Will You Stay in South Africa?” On Answering the Underlying Question
Even though I have definitely picked up some South African lingo, most locals still hear straight away that I’m not a national (yet). Once that is clear and they understand that I’m not Dutch or German, but Belgian, they ask me how long I’ve been in South Africa (since August 2013). The follow-up question to that…
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6–10 minutes
Lent: How on Earth?
In my previous post I spoke about the reasons for partaking in Lent. In this post I’ll make a few suggestions on how to do that. Self-Denial It’s quite simple to find a few things to deny yourself during Lent. Ask yourself the question: What is important in my life? What do I spent time/energy/money…
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4–6 minutes
Lent: Why on Earth?
On Wednesday (10 Feb 2016) most traditional Churches start a six and an half weeks of fasting called ‘Lent’. Though this is a lot less popular in Evangelical contexts, I’ve been part of a group of friends who has been partaking for several years now. So what is Lent and why on earth would anyone…
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1–2 minutes
Mischa
It’s been a while since I’d seen a show in Cape Town. Here’s one from last Sunday.
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4–6 minutes
Working with Friends
In 3 of the 4 jobs I’ve held in the last five years, I’ve worked together with people who were already friends before I took the job. Here are a few of my advices based on that experience. #1 Communicate Openly and Regularly When you start working together, something in the relationship changes. Not necessarily…
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1–2 minutes
Omnichannel at WooCommerce
Last week I spoke at Webwinkel Vakdagen in Utrecht (NL), one of the biggest eCommerce conferences in Europe (with 11,000+ visitors). My talk was about how WooCommerce extensions in almost 99% of the cases are purchased on desktop, and that this is normal since webshop development is still mostly done sitting behind the computer. That…