70 CEOs and top level managers came to hear me speak for 3 hours about felicidad en el trabajo para la rentabilidad organizacional. There’s an article about the event here (in Spanish).

I want to thank everyone who came for their enthusiasm and all the great questions. People seemed really inspired and from what I can tell the people of The Dominican Republic have a great capacity for happiness in life and a massive potential for translating that into their workplaces.

And I especially want to thank Zoraima, Salvador and everyone else at Proaccion for taking such good care of us. They made sure we had a wonderful time, met many great people and even found a suit for me, so I could attend the private tour of the government palace, since the palace is a no-jeans-zone.

So here – for the first time in years – is yours truly in a suit and tie:

My next international gig is in December in Greenland… so a slightly different culture and climate :o) Should still be very interesting.

Update: 106 sign-ups already – that’s fantastic. The venue holds 130 people, so if you want to be there, make your move :o)

Do you ever feel like work has stopped being fun and become just a chore? When you wake up on a Monday morning, do you feel energized and excited about the work week ahead of you – or do you feel tired and dispirited?

What would it mean to you if you LOVED your job? What would it do for your business success, for your work days and for your spouse, partner, friends, family or children?

Come hear some of the world’s leading experts on happiness at work when Danish company Woohoo Inc. comes to San Francisco.

We’ll be talking about these topics and more:

• Why you should be happy at work and the cost of hating you job.
• The business value of happiness.
• What makes us happy or unhappy at work.
• What you can do right now, to start enjoying work more.
• What some of the world’s happiest workplaces do.

The presentation is aimed both at people who would like to become happier at work themselves and at HR people and managers who want to make their employees happy.

You will get:

• A deeper knowledge about happiness at work
• Specific tools that you can apply on the job right away
• A boost of energy to get you started on improving your work life

Here are the details:
Time: Thursday August 4 7PM-9PM
Place: The Hub, 925 Mission St, San Francisco
Price: $0 – yep, it’s free!

Sign up here to attend.

Please help us out by spreading the word about this event any way you can (twitter, facebook, Google+, etc…)

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at 5 very different events:

• For 200 bankers on Tuesday
• For 300 IT people at the Umbraco CodeGarden conference on Wednesday
• For 60 IT people from Saab in Karlskoga, Sweden
• For 120 people from the Danish Building Association on Friday
• For 320 people from Estée Lauder at their Nordic Product Kick Off on Saturday in Copenhagn

And to my great pride, 4 out of these 5 events ended with a standing ovation. That is not really any serious measure of success, but lemme tell ya – it feels great :o)

Douglas Robar from Percipient Studios just sent me some great pics that he took from the Umbraco event, where I went a little out of my comfort zone and spoke not about happiness at work (I gave that speech at the same conference last year) but about how to create a great conference and a happy community. My awesome co-worker Arlette also came on stage and did a little dancing with the crowd. Yes, she made 300 IT people dance. She’s THAT good :o)

Check these pictures out:

The first one is WorldBlu Live Copenhagen, a local follow-up to last month’s Excellent WorldBlu Live conference in San Francisco.

The theme is democratic workplaces. Research shows that engaged employees are more productive, more profitable and more customer-focused. In the best organisations, spreading freedom at work is more than a human resources initiative – it is a strategic foundation for the way they do business.

WorldBlu LIVE Copenhagen showcases democratic innovation and radical thinking which will leave you inspired, full of fresh ideas, and connected with a world-class community of leaders!

The WorldBlu LIVE Copenhagen experience will enable you to:

• Connect with cutting edge speakers who are industry leaders and rule-breakers, rewriting the way we do business.
• Learn about leading technologies and tools that help implement and reinforce democracy and full engagement in the workplace.
• Engage in truly meaningful conversations in an intimate setting with some of the most remarkable and enlightened people from all over the world.
• Leave with inspiration to “next” practices and tangible steps that you can immediately apply in your workplace.
• Get inspired and energised by learning about how freedom and democracy can propel your organisation forward, attract top talent, and boost your bottomline.

Even though it is a Copenhagen event, we’re having the whole day in Danish and bringing in some great international speakers, including:

• Will McInness, the co-founder and Managing Director of NixonMcInnes, a leading social media consultancy in the UK.
• Mark Dowds, the co-founder and CEO of Brainpark in San Francisco.
• Traci Fenton, the Founder and CEO of WorldBlu, Inc.

And of course yours truly :o)

Read all about it and sign up here.

The other conference I want to mention is 360 Entrepreneurship, a conference in Malmö, Sweden for female entrepreneurs. From the web site:

Don’t miss this European conference for women entrepreneurs and business owners and make the most of your potential in business!

You will have access to a Mastermind group of internationally renown, inspiring keynote and workshop presenters delivering leading edge strategies, tools and resources to strengthen your business results! Get the answers to your questions and walk away with the strategies and the tool kit you need to accelerate your business. Take advantage of the opportunities to build valuable international connections and promote your business in the 360 Business Expo.

Whether you already run a successful company or just started out, give yourself and your business the boost you deserve. Join the 360Entrepreneurship Summit in Sweden as we celebrate the potential and success of women entrepreneurs!

Read all about it and sign up here.

Here’s a 3-minute video with some highlights from the day:

Part of the video is in Danish, part of it in English.

You can also find materials, slides and photos from the conference here.

The day was absolutely fantastic and participant feedback has been phenomenal. The average rating for the day is 4,8 out of 5 – that is almost unheard of :o)

I want to say a great big Thank You and a High Five You Rock to the conference arrangers and all who attended my keynote at Talks 2.0 in Oporto on May 7. Thanks for a fantastic time – I really enjoyed it. You guys were great and the entire day was fun and inspiring.

The background for the event was serious, namely the financial crisis in Portugal, which is affecting every aspect of work life in the country.

In my keynote, I presented my view, which is that a serious crisis only makes it MORE necessary to focus on and create happy workplaces. If we don’t the resulting stress, frustration, hopelessness and cynicism ruins peoples’ work lives and private lives, it makes us less productive and creative, and it means that economic recovery takes longer.

It was my first time in Portugal, but I got a great impression of the country and especially of the people. With this much energy, creativity, passion, humor and happiness, there is nothing you guys can’t do!

Here are some materials from the day including, slides, videos, articles and more.

Slides

Click here to get my slides

Feedback

I’d love to know what you thought of my speech – please write a comment on this blog post and give me your honest feedback. Thanks!

My e-book in Portuguese – for free

As mentioned I decided to release the Portuguese translation of my book as a free e-book.

Click here to get the free download.

And let me make this perfectly clear: It’s free and you may copy and send this pdf to as many people as you like. Send it to everyone you know who doesn’t love their job or who could use a little more happiness at work.

Did I mention that it’s free?

Videos

Celebrate your victories:

Valerie’s Happy Restroom:

Now what?

• Download our manifesto for happiness at work – it’s free.
• Read our blog.
• See more videos at Happiness TV.
• Contact me: alexander@kjerulf.com – +45 70 26 26 47.

Newsletter

Over 1.500 people already get our newsletter with tips, ideas, links, articles and more about happiness at work. sign up here:

I’ve had to keep it secret for a while, but now it’s been announced that I’m the closing keynote speaker at the Talks 2.0 conference in Portugal on May 7.

The conference is about happiness and creativity in your work life and the program looks absolutely amazing.

Read all about it and sign up here.

I’ll be speaking at the WorldBlu Live conference on May 19 and 20 in San Francisco, an event that promises to be absolutely amazing and inspiring.

The theme for the event is democracy at work, ie. how do you create workplaces that are based on freedom rather than on command and fear. There are two reasons why this interests me: First of all, my company is run democratically. I can truly imagine no other way to do it. Secondly, democratic workplaces are happier workplaces. When you grant employees trust, autonomy and freedom to make decisions, there is a much bigger chance that they will be happy at work.

Traci Fenton, the founder and CEO of WorldBlu, spoke at our conference in Copenhagen in 2009 and you can watch her presentation here:

Read all about the WorldBlu conference and sign up for it here.

Three weeks ago I was in India to speak at the World HRD Congress in Mumbai and my speech was very well received – here’s some sample feedback:

“Your presentation was the best I’ve seen in 20 years in HR.”

“It was really great listening to your talk. I have implemented a lot of it in my life and I can already feel a huge difference.”

“Alexander Kjerulf was the rock star in the World HRD congress this year. He mesmerized participants from 79 countries with a simple yet powerful approach to create a happy work place.”

And India absolutely needs more happiness at work. Not that workplaces there are particularly bad, it’s just that the war for talent is still going strong. While the financial crisis has given many western workplaces an excuse to stop focusing on happiness at work, Indian workplaces are facing some stark realities:

• Employee turnover among specialists and middle managers is around 20-30%.
• Annual average pay rises are 12-13%.
• There is a huge fight to attract newly educated Gen Y employees.

In short, Indian workplaces are doing their best to attract the best people, keep them in the workplace and help them perform optimally. The problem is that they’re doing all the wrong things, ie. things like wellness initiatives, bonuses, pay raises, promotions, etc. While there’s nothing wring with any of this, it simply isn’t what makes employees happy at work – at most it makes them satisfied.

In my speech, I tried to focus on what really does make people happy at work – and therefore more likely to stay in the workplace, more likely to do their best work and more likely to try to convince acquaintances, friends and family to also work there. And it seemed to really ring a bell.

So thanks to everyone who attended my presentation and a great big thank you to all the cool inspiring people I met at

Here are some pics from my speech

I have some free time in Mumbai on Feb. 9 and Feb. 12, so if you’d like to meet and discuss happiness at work, maybe we can arrange something. Contact me, and we’ll see what’s possible.