The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Author: Alexander

  • Book review: Cryptonomicon

    Okay, here’s a novel in which the central themes are cryptology (making and breaking codes), nerds and world war II. Sounds boring, huh? But Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson is an amazing work and it’s 900 pages do not contain a single boring passage.

    The story is amazingly complex and has as many as five parallel tales set either during world war ii or today. Nerds, marines, scientists and one very strange priest from a mysterious order, all involved in plots and counter-plots that span more than 50 years.
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  • Book review: Open Space Technology

    If you want to read about open Space Technology, this book is the only place to start. Harrison Owen who came up with the concept, explains the practicalities and the history of Open Space meetings in his usual clear, engaging and entertaining way.

    Open Space meetings are characterized by their ability to consistently create the right background for incredible achievements. They are amazingly efficient and they also create enthusiasm, stimulate the open exchange of ideas and avert most conflicts. To me, Open Space is the meeting form that most acknowledges us as independent, self-reliant humans capable of taking responsility for ourselves and others.
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  • Struggle

    Yep!

  • Book review: Smart mobs

    Stuff’s changing all around us. New technologies are changing the way we work, interact and even how we conduct our courtship rituals. From I-mode services in Japan to the hitech millieu of Scandinavia to president-toppling demonstrations in Manilla to cyborgs in the US who want to merge body and machine. And much of this change goes unnoticed or is rapidly integrated in our lives and taken for granted.

    Imagine a group of people united in some cause. The cause can be anything from celebrity spotting in New York to anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle. Now imagine the same group of people always connected to the net, to each other, always able to monitor opponents and competitors. That’s a smart mob. And trying to predict how people will act and interact when wireless networks, constant internet access, camera video phones etc. become widespread is the aim of this book, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold.
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  • Guest blogger: Liselotte Str?yberg

    I will be on vacation for most of august, and while I’m gone Liselotte Str?yberg has agreed to guest blog. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Liselotte on the happiness at work project for a while now, and her contribution has been invaluable.

    Liselotte has an extensive background in HR and organisational theory, and (to my continuing envy) has studied in the US under David Cooperrider, the guy who came op with Appreciative Inquiry. I’ve given Liselotte free reins on the site while I’m gone, the only condition being, of course, that all posts be positive. Thanks to Liselotte for keeping the site going while I’m away, I know it will be excellent!

    I will be taking a nice long vacation. My girlfriend Patricia and I have rented an extra motorcycle from a friend, and we’ll be touring Germany, Holland and Belgium. We have no fixed plan except to drive where our fancy takes us, but we will be going here, here and here at some point.

  • In the media

    My main project (happiness at work) has come to the attention of the media. It’s actually a little too soon for my taste, I’d have liked to have more results before we “go public” but hey, it’s nice that people are interested.

    Yesterday we were mentioned in Denmarks largest newspaper, in an article about how best to start work after a vacation. This is what I wrote about in an earlier post.

    And today I was live on national TV (on Good morning Denmark), being interviewed by Michael Meyerheim. I’ll try to convert it to a digital format and post it on the site.
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  • Kufunda, the learning village

    Yesterday Carsten Ohm invited people over for a friendly gathering and to meet Marianne Knuth who was back from Zimbabwe for a short while. Marianne has created Kufunda which is “a learning initiative in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, aimed at the creation of locally rooted solutions to community self-reliance challenges, through the use of people’s own imagination, collaboration and resources.”

    I was amazed and inspired by the vision and personal commitment of these people (particularly Marianne) to carry out a project like this in such an unstable region of the world. I invite you to check out their website and to consider how you might contribute!

    And as I wrote about in an earlier post, this is the way to help people: Passing on skills and tools, without creating a dependency on the helper.

  • Meditation at work

    Businessweek have an article on medation in the workplace. Vice president Dave Jakubowski of Internet service provider United Online recently turned to a mat and 60 minutes of silence a day, and says
    “I’m in business, and I need results. It’s amazing. I’m able to sort through work challenges in this state of calm much faster than trying to fight through it. And I make fewer mistakes.”

    Via slashdot.

  • Tips for returning from a vacation

    The summer holidays are ending and as you or your colleagues return to work, it’s worth taking a moment to think about the best way to ease back into your job. Sometimes it seems as if all the energy you’ve gained on your vacation disappears very quickly, so here’s some tips on how to keep that good mood a little longer.

    There are tips both for people who are returning from vacations and for their co-workers.
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  • Most read posts in june

    These are the mosts popular posts in june:

    Psychological test
    Selling fish in Seattle – and having fun
    Possibly the best music video ever
    Generosity in action
    Book review: The fifth discipline
    How Denmark won the 1992 european soccer championship
    Hosting
    Book review: Getting to yes
    100 things about me
    Cool name wanted

    Note that these are all long posts, ie. posts that have a “more…” link and their own page. Short posts are usually read straight from the front page and therefore do not appear in the server statistics.