Ferdinand Harmsen

Summary
In his work Ferdinand builds on his extensive experience as a project and product manager in publishing at both profit and non-profit organizations and as a trainer/consultant in the Netherlands and India.
Ferdinand beliefs that not far from now information will be no longer curbed by the media that are used to gather it from its creators, nor by the media that make it accessible to its users. Information will be “free” in the broadest sense of the word. Those who will be able to manage its continuous flow between creators and users will be the next generation of successful publishers.
He is a certified Service Manager and certified Corporate Communication Advisor.

Specialties
stakeholder management, product development and product management, project management, training and coaching, copy writing (pay-off's)

Employer:	RE-phrase
Position:	CEO
Time period:	December 2008 - Present
Description:	RE-phrase introduces a new form of digital communication on the web and on mobile devices: dia-logging. It is a combination of logging and pre-designing dialogues for automated, but truly interactive communication with users, students, customers and other groups.

Employer:	WritingTravellers
Position:	Founder/chairman
Time period:	April 2005 - Present
Description:	WritingTravellers is an Internet platform where people collaborate on writing guidebooks in the same way people collaborate on Wikipedia. The platform will be funded by paid services based on the content generated by the community, starting with up-to-date and tailor-made guidebooks printed on demand of the same physical and content quality as Lonely Planet or even better.

Employer:	RE-phrase
Position:	Manager Business Development
Time period:	August 2008 - December 2008
Description:	RE-phrase improves communication between two or more people or agents by facilitating pre-structured semi-automatic dialogues.

Employer:	Quint Wellington Redwood India
Position:	Senior Consultant/Trainer
Time period:	August 2005 - October 2006
Description:	In this position Ferdinand trained hundreds of Indian managers and professionals of IT-service providers and IT departments in the use of the quality framework of ITIL Service Management.

Employer:	ICTU
Position:	Senior Project leader
Time period:	April 2002 - March 2005
Description:	2004 – 2005: Project Manager Joined Government Services Catalogues Managed the development of an open standard for on-line exchange of information between service catalogues. Government bodies can now serve citizens and companies according to a “no-wrong-door” principal. Biggest challenge: making all stakeholders, including competing solution providers, cooperate. 2002 - 2004: Project Manager Government Services Catalogues Had an ASP-service developed for national and regional governments to manage and publish their services catalogues. They now share one CMS and methodology, but publish in their own style and image. 2002 – 2003: Project Leader Upgrade Dutch Government Portal Website Had a search engine developed for the portal website of the Dutch Government that searches in more than 1,000 sites. He also had a new open source CMS developed and coordinated the migration of all content. He hired and led an editorial team to improve the quality of this content.

Employer:	Wolters Kluwer
Position:	Product Manager Internet
Time period:	January 1998 - December 2002
Description:	2001 - 2002: Product Manager Internet Ferdinand led the development of a web tool that helped general practitioners to compose their own websites for communication with their patients. He also had a search engine developed for medical professionals covering only qualified medical online sources. He was responsible for turnover and costs, product development and partnerships (sponsoring, content and traffic) of the portal MedNet (www.mednet.nl). 2000: Junior Publisher Business Development Ferdinand helped several publishers to perform a business analysis and to make an internet business plan for their market groups. He negotiated with potential partners for these plans. 1998 - 2000: Junior Publisher Forms Among other things, Ferdinand performed a business analysis and made a business plan on the issue of how the company could start offering digital documentation and information systems. The management team followed his advice not to offer these systems.

Employer:	Twice IT Training BV
Position:	Trainer/Consultant
Time period:	November 1996 - April 1998
Description:	This company offers training courses on system and network maintenance, software development and office automation since 1992. Its training courses are officially acknowledged by Microsoft, Citrix and other software suppliers Ferdinand trained and advised employees of many different companies on the use of office applications. He gave about one hundred courses on Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access etc. These courses ranged from very basic to expert level and from in-company training to evening sessions at Twice Training.

University:	Utrecht University
Time period:	1994 - 1996
Degree:	Certificate, Philosophy

University:	University of Twente
Time period:	1989 - 1993
Degree:	(Bio)Medical Mechanical Engineering, MSc

Hobbies:	Bringing people the information they need, at the moment they need it, in the format they want it, via the channels they prefer.
Awards:	Best trainer within Quint Wellington Redwood for IT Service Management in India (March 2006)