The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Good Work Project

    Okay, here is a little guest blogger entry.

    I saw Alexander this weekend at the countryside and he looked extremely well, tanned and happy – even without work ;-) Especially in volleyball and inventing games with the kids his karma shone.

    Ok, I am the friend that Alexander has mentioned in other entries and I am proud to write on his site.

    The sharing I would like to do here is to share a website about “The Good Work Project”. The guys behind this are no less than Howard Gardner (inventor of the Multiple Intelligences), Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (inventor of the concept of “Flow” and William Damon (probably inventor of something cool as well).

    Through its various studies, The Good Work project, researches how leading professionals carry out work that is of high quality and socially responsible. Exciting….

    If you want to know more about this, then go to: www.goodworkproject.org

    Cheers out there!

    Carsten Ohm

    www.flowgame.net

    www.pioneersofchange.net

  • 50 (count’em) book reviews

    I’m now up to 50 (count’em) book reviews on the site. I promised myself I’d make it before my holiday and I have. I even saved my favourite book (Cryptonomicon) for review number 50. See ya in september!

  • 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.
    (more…)

  • Book review: Open Space Technology

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    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.
    (more…)

  • 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.
    (more…)

  • 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.
    (more…)

  • 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.

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