In September 2009 I had the opportunity to give the keynote speech for the opening of the Academic Year at my Alma Mater Maastricht University. At the beginning of this speech I talk about the fact that I still remembered the keynote during the opening of the Academic Year 18 years earlier when I started my studies (given by prime minister Ruud Lubbers), but the the text was not available anywhere online. I then said that I expected that if someone would try to find the text of my speech 18 years later, they would probably find it online. Well, until a few days ago that was not the case, but I just saw that Maastricht University uploaded part of their archive onto YouTube, including my talk.

Although the speech is a bit dated, I was surprised to see how many of the points that I mentioned are still the same today. The topic is New Leadership, where I put a lot of emphasis on using social media as a leader. Even the services that I mentioned 2 years ago are still the main ones that I think a (business) leader should use today: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I had never seen this footage, so it’s nice to find it back online.

If the embedded video above should not work or if you want to watch it in a larger window, here is the link to the original on YouTube.

The Opening of the Academic Year is a very traditional event, if you have never seen it is also nice to watch the arrival of the cortege (all the professors in traditional robes) before the official Opening here on YouTube (this one is from 2011).