The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Author: Alexander

  • Seven Lotus Sevens

    Saturday I was riding my motorcycle to Svendborg. At the toll plaza for the Great Belt bridge, I noticed a Lotus Seven in front of me. And another one. And two more in the next lane! They got through before me, so I floored it across the bridge to try and catch them to get a closer look. (Fortunately for me the speed trap was on the other side of the road.)

    I passed them a little later, and there were seven of them in all. Read, blue, green, yellow and silver ones, from different scandinavian countries. It was a beautiful sight. Anyway, I turned off the bridge towards Svendborg – and they followed, so that for the next 20 km or so, I was leading a convoy of Lotus Sevens. That felt pretty good.

  • The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online

    I took a spin on the net looking for material on hosting, which was made kinda difficult by the fact that in an internet context, hosting most often means the technical hosting of an application or a site on a server somewhere. Anyway, one interesting link I did find was an article by Howard Rheingold called The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online.

    This fits extremely well with the ideas on hosting that I’m trying to develop, and almost all the points made apply to both online and offline hosting. Excellent stuff!

  • Go Reboot

    If you’re interested in the borderland between technology and society, the Reboot 6.0 conference is definitely the place to be on June 20. The speaker lineup this year is unbelievable, and they ‘ll continue and improve on the interactive conference format they introduced last year.

    “What interactive format is that, Alexander?” I hear you ask… Why, it’s Open Space Technology of course. So hurry up and sign up, there are only a very limited number of seats available this year.

  • Book review: Freedom and accountability at work

    Can the business world learn anything from existential philosophy? Do concepts such as freedom, good and evil, accountability and anxiety have any meaning in a corporate setting?

    After reading this book by Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block, I have no doubt whatsoever that the answer is a resounding yes. The subtitle “Applying philosophical insight to the real world” is beautifully realized throughout the book.
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  • Happy birthday to me

    Today’s my birthday, and the flags are up all over town – not just for me though, it also happens to be the birthday of the crown prince. Anyway, I think that todays Over The Hedge strip was especially fitting. And in case you’re wondering: The crown prince and I turn 35 today.

  • Interpersonal relations at work

    If you think that all these modern, “soft” management theories of organizational democracy, including people in the decisions and being open comes from a few addle-headed idealists, you should read this article.

    Among other subjects, it talks about W.E. Deming, who “was a hard-headed scientist who arrived at a position that focused on the importance of respect for everyone in the organization and of good communication among them all.” The point being of course, that he was was a theoretician not known for his warmth or gentleness, and he arrived at his conclusions using hard-core scientific and statistical methods. So there!

  • Hosting

    Having just spent three days in Slovenia exploring the art of hosting, I thought I’d write a little about what hosting means to me.

    Basically, every time you invite somebody to be a part of something, you’re assuming the role of host. Whether it’s a meeting, a conference, a project, a party, a lecture or a night out with the boys: Any time you gather people, you assume the role of host. So what makes the concept of hosting so interesting?
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  • Back from Slovenia

    Wednesday I returned from 4 days in Slovenia, attending a conference/course/seminar on “The art of hosting”. Hosting is any activity, where you invite people to participate in a project, process, meeting, conversation etc. Being a host has some common characteristics, regardless of the type of activity or the people attending, and we explored the techniques, principles and values of good hosting.

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  • And the winner is…

    Last week I asked for suggestions for naming my company. I just filled out the papers, and the company’s official name is “Gaudium”. Thanks to Martin Mouritzen for suggesting it. Gaudium is latin for happiness (I did in fact check it in a latin dictionary, just to make sure that it wasn’t a cruel prank, and that Gaudium was really latin for something really dirty).

    I chose the name Gaudium because it’s short, it works internationally and I think it has a nice sound. Thank you Martin.

  • Street musicians giving away money

    I saw something really cool today: A choir of 10 or 12 middle-aged swedish men were singing in one of the squares in central Copenhagen (they were really good, btw). On the ground in front of them, they’d placed a cap, and people of course put in money. And here’s the twist: One of the men then started giving the money away. He took the cap and gave money to a kid standing there with his mother and to a homeless guy sitting on the ground.

    Then they went around to other people collecting more money (I gave what change I had). I saw them again further down the street, giving away some of that money to a guy collecting for Africa. So they weren’t really collecting, they were redistributing. Nifty. Actually I think it might have been a bachelor party, but a remarkably well behaved and generous one, in that case.