2009-02-16

Photo challenge

This blog is not yet fully dead - although I am starting to despair that I will ever have the time to write in it again. I do like to blog, but last months I haven't found the time for it really. Perhaps this changes when/i I get an assignment in Stockholm with less travelling...

Anyway, I got challenged by Mikael today - for a photo challenge. Here is my answer to the challenge:

The challenge was the following - in Swedish:
Gå in i mappen Mina bilder. Gå till den sjätte mappen och välj sedan den sjätte bilden i den aktuella mappen. Släng upp bilden på bloggen och skriv något om den. Utmana sex andra personer och länka till dem, samt tala om att de är utmanade....

Since I am currently in Düsseldorf with only my work-computer I had to take the 6th picture of my 6th folder at PicasaWeb instead, but I guess it's all the same.

The people I challenge is ... hmm ... my dad, my sister and Mårten. Those are the only ones I can think of who are still blogging and that are not already challenged. I know I am cheating, but it's better than noone. :)

So, the photo was taken before summer at my last assignment when a truck caught fire outside our office. Since the firemen got lost it burned down totally before they arrived and put the last of the fire out. Ironically the truck was on it's way to get repaired and only had ~50 meters left to go. Bad luck...

Let's hope it's less than two months until I find the time to write another entry here! :)

2008-11-24

Travelling

This really is turning into a once-a-month blog. But perhaps that's enough? Or perhaps I will eventually start writing more than I do right now. Or it might just die out or more likely move to a new media whenever such a media arrises. I haven't tried micro-blogging à la Twitter that much - but I think this form suits me more actually. But let's not turn this into a meta-blog - let's continue with what I intended to write about...

This travelling thing. I like travelling. I like travelling alone, exploring new countries by myself. I liek travelling with my dad, this enjoyable companionship travelling where we see and experience a lot of the world together. I also like travelling with friends, partying, seeing new cities and meeting new people. And I of course think I would like to travel with my girlfriend, which we will over New Year's when we're going to Bratislava and Vienna. And I even like travelling with work, although this is a completely different type of travel with hotels, offices, airports and not so much countries, exploring and cultures.

Lately it has been a bit too much of the good things though. My personal goal for this year was to visit 12 countries in one year and it seems I will not succeed (although not being far away). But if I count every time I went to another country as a new country, I would get a lot more than 12 countries in this year. Or if I count being at the airports of a country perhaps - that'd work too.

I was thinking about this yesterday when I was sitting on Vienna airport, waiting on my delayed flight home to Arlanda and starting to realize that I wouldn't be in bed until one o'clock in the night and that I would need to get up at five just to get back to Arlanda to get a new flight for work. But that's life when you've said yes to working part time in Linköping (although I take the train there), part time Germany and then also have your girlfriend in Croatia.

This is my toplist of airports in Europe (that I've been at this year):
- Schipol, Amsterdam - absolutely huge, but contains a cinema, nice shopping and a Rembrandt museum which is free
- Copenhague airport - also very big, with extremely upmarket shopping (Versace, D&G, Gucci, you name it), but also nice small shops and cozy Christmas music in early November.
- Arlanda airport - nothing special at all, but things works smoothly most of the time
- Zagreb airport - small, not so efficient, just one café after security, but very nice to arrive at (and less nice to leave of course)
- Dortmund airport - Smallest non-Swedish airport I ever saw, but very nice personell who were extremely happy about a Swede with a real Swedish last name.
- Düsseldorf airport - quick and mostly efficient in a German way, but also a complete lack of charm
- Vienna airport - ugly, smoking all over the place, but it has free wireless internet and a Starbucks
- Bonn/Köln airport - Very much like Düsseldorf airport, big, grey and unfortunately not even efficient.
- Any Ryanair airport (Skavsta, Scotland, Italy, London)

Most visited countries this year:
Croatia - 5 times (so far)
Germany - 4 times (or a few more if we want to count transfers)
Austria - 1-5 times - depending if you count (twice in a week +1) (one hour of driving +1) (transfer +1) (going at New Year +1)
Slovakia - 1-2 times - depending if you count New Year's in Bratislava which is planned and booked
Italy - 1-2 times - depending if you count start and end of vacation (3 days each time)
Slovenia - 1-2 times - depending if you count going through in both directions (2 days each time)
Hungary - 1 time (or perhaps 2 if we get off the train along the way)
Scotland - 1 time (or a few more if you count every whisky I had in Sweden)
Denmark - 0-2 times depending if you count transfers
Netherlands - 0-2 times depending if you count transfers
Switzerland- 0-1 times depending if you count transfers

Anyway. Travelling is a bit tiring when you get too much of it. Or when you cannot do it on your own terms. But it still keeps it's charm and drawing power of me. First time you come to a new place you first see the similiarities - oh, they also have H&M, McD or any given international super brand . Shortly after you start seeing the sights - the museums, the cathedrals, the architecture, the whatever they might be famous for. Then you start getting a first feel of the people, the food, the language and perhaps the culture. Then you start seeing the differences even more clearly - the differences in society, history, politics, income, ethnical diversity and how those things all influence the people and the country. And when you've spent long enough in a country or got close enough to people you stop seeing the differences and once again you notice how alike peoeple really are. That in the end all the small things matters, that people are more or less the same - they care about love, friends, family, work, food, life and all those small daily things that in the end turn out to be the real things of real importance.

2008-10-28

Digital trends 2009?

My friend Cris Caanen just posted a question on LinkedIn regarding his thoughts on digital trends in 2009. I thought his analysis was very interesting and insightful so I thought I would post it here for everyone to read together with my own answer to his thoughts. If you have any ideas or answers to his questions - please post them at LinkedIn but also here as comments.

---------------------------------------------------------
Hello everybody.

After doing online research I summed up the digital trends for 2009. I'm wondering if anyone in my Linkedin network can assist me in completing and verifying this list. I wrote about this list in my blog too, and I will try to see if there are common grounds between the results. Please assist me in completing the list from your personal and professional perspective. If you think a mentioned trend is not going to be a trend please substantiate your claim.


*mobile internet
*crowdsourcing
*personal branding
*online games/ advergaming
*google chrome
*video job applications and vacancies
*new commerce (changes in the value chain. physical shops will serve as advise and test centres and online *shops will facilitate the purchasing of goods)
*further GPS integration in our lives
*Identity 2.0 protection (People will start trying to protect their online identity even more)

Please feel free to comment on my observations and moreover, feel free to complete or adjust the list.

In addition, feel free to explain more in detail what each of these trends means. I'm looking forward to read some clear elaborations and/or examples on these subjects.

Thanks for your assistance!

Greets,

Cris Caanen
www.igearinternet.nl

---------------------------------------------------------

Cris,

This was a really interesting summary of 2008 movements and I think a good prediction of what we will see more of in coming years. Some of them are more obvious than others I think.

Mobile internet is inevitable and with phones like iPhone, Android and others we will probably see an explosion of services available for customer - everywhere and all the time.

Some of them - like crowdsourcing and online games / advergamng - we've already seen a lot of, but I think there's still much more to see.

The GPS is interesting. I myself have thought of at least a couple services the last year which I would like to have and when GPSs get more common and built into our mobiles we will see the use of them increase even more I think. I'm looking forward to this trend!

I also agree with "new commerce" - I have a friend of mine whose company are now starting up a new shop in central Stockholm. They don't expect to sell that much in this store - but they think it's great advertisement for their webpage where they expect to increase in instead.

I am not so sure about the "Identity 2.0 Protection" though. I think you are right in that the use of Identity 2.0 will increase during the next coming years, but I am not sure that protection of them will be a main focus. I think the focus will be on services surrounding Id 2.0 and what can be done with this - and protection and security might become bi-products of this.

New trends you haven't mentioned? Hard to say. I think you've got most of them. What about viruses for mobiles - this is not something we have seen so far, but I am sure it will come with the new generation of smart phones. I also think the trend with new forms of interaction with the computer will increase - both in serious applications like speech recognition, multi-touch screens and in more playful applications like Wii remote, movement sensors in controls/cameras/mobiles and other "new" forms of interaction with technology. I also think we will see a major increase in online applications - office programs moving online (like Google Doc) and perhaps start to be equals of programs running on your own computer - online OS like icloud - or online backup and storage.

Regards
- Anders Ivarsson

2008-09-05

Re-activating blog

I've been thinking for a while that I should start blogging again. I had a period when there was a lot going on - private life, work and everything, but nothing was of the kind I would like to share on the blog. So instead I skipped writing in the blog for a while. And as you all know - once you stop doing something for a while, it's hard getting started again.


So, anyway. Since March 31st loads of things has happened. Short version is I now work and live in Stockholm. Yey!

Slightly longer version is that I am now working in Stockholm with establishing our Stockholm office. I will also work as a consultant with regular assignments at the same time as doing this, but during summer it has been mostly startup work. I also live in Stockholm now - in a small, tiny apartment close to Stadsbiblioteket and Handels. The apartment is really tiny without a real kitchen (but with fridge, micro and toaster - everything i need) and since i got my stuff there this weekend it actually feels like home!

This will have to be enough for now - but more will hopefully follow now that I picked up blogging again. ;)


2008-03-31

Social Web

Just received the latest Google Friends newsletter and as always it's interesting to read what's happening at the most influentuous Internet company. This is one of their articles and I agree strongly with their thoughts about the social web. Will be interesting to see what this new cooperation could lead to.

From Google Friends newsletter:
"The web is better when it's social." This idea has taken root all across the web of late -- the more you can share, update, comment, and contribute in all sorts of creative ways to the steady stream of news, views, and entertainment, the more dynamic and compelling the Internet becomes. For developers, the web is more interesting when they can build applications that easily interact with everyone. But the challenge for those creating software widgets, gadgets and "containers" for content has been to pick the right tools and, until recently, bet on the right platform for building their creations. This is one reason we've banded together with Yahoo! and MySpace: to encourage open software development for as many of the communities and sites as possible. Collectively, we plan to create a private non-profit foundation that can support open development of common toolsets. We think this openness helps everyone.
http://www.opensocial.org

2008-03-28

Vem klarar egentligen av att vara avkopplad när man blir nerkopplad från sin uppkoppling?

2008-03-27

EQ

As most of you already know I am very fond of doing IQ-tests, quizzes and puzzles of different sorts. I am a member of Mensa just because I felt like taking the test and then two years later ended up deciding I could join the society as well since I did pass the test. There are many great things about Mensa that I like - for example we had a meeting/seminar/get-together the other day regarding being a consultant, starting your own business, etc. Very interesting, especially to meet some of the member that have just been names so far. Another thing I like about Mensa is their mailing lists - especially the one where anything goes. On this mail any kind of subject could be discussed for a long time. It is very interesting to read some of those discussions when you have the time for it.

One of the current discussions is about IQ vs. EQ. EQ is for those of you that haven't heard about it Emotional Quote - something rather like IQ, but instead of measuring logical-analytical skills it measures social skills. I haven't read that much about EQ before and I did not know there were any tests for it. However there seems to be a few tests out there and they had some interesting results that seem to be at least to some point valid. People that have been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome got low scores, most people got around 100 points and some got quite high scores - 120 and above would be high I guess.

Seeing as I see myself and is seen by others as a very social and outgoing person I wanted to the tests myself. And so I did. And perhaps there is a reason that friends have said things like "You could melt into any group of people and just talk to them in a natural way", "You are a social chameleont", "You are a social freak" or "You are mano-social!".

The tests I did you can find on the following two links. They are kinda lengthy with 70 questions in the first and 106 questions in the second, but it doesn't take more than 30 minutes or so each to finish them. The first one was interesting, but I always felt that "this will be the answer that gives you the highest EQ" and then I tried to pick the one that felt most true to me. The second one was harder and more interesting - often I didn't have a clue what would be "the correct answers", but just answered them as truthfully as I could. The second test had pictures where you were going to determine the feelings of the participants in the picture, or scenarios where you'd pick the feelings most likely felt by those in the scenarios. As I said - second one was harder to guess what would be seen as the "best"answers - so you ended up picking the answers you felt were right from your point of view instead which I guess is very good for those kinds of tests.

http://www.psychtests.com/tests/iq/emotional_iq_r2_access.html
www.queendom.com/tests/take_test.php?idRegTest=1121

My test scores?
On the first test I got 126 points - which is well above average, probably within something like the highest 2% of the population.
On the second test I got 146 points - which is extremely high and would place me higher than 99.91% of the population.

Mano-social was it? :)