The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • What’s in a name

    One of the true pleasures of being a Kjerulf (or a Kierulff, a Kjerulff or a Kjærulf) is to know that I’m part of a huge family of over 11.000 other Kjerulf’s. I know this beacuse of one guy, Cap Kierulff, who has collected the entire family tree going back 600 years to our common ancestor, Anders Kjaerulf. I looked myself up in the family tree, and seeing my own name in that context gave me a real sense of having roots – of being connected to history. But it doesn’t stop there: Every four years there’s a Kiermeet, an international Convention of Kierulff’s. I’m thinking of going to the next one, which is in 2006 in the Philippines.

    I invited Cap to visit my website and he did. His nice comments on it can be seen here.

    Interesting fact about Cap K: He was not only a witness to, but a key participant in, the birth of the “Hi-Fi” phenomenon. Read all about it.

  • Putting a face to Iraq

    To many people in the west, the only face we can put to Iraq is Saddam Hussein’s. There are no Nobel prize winners, movie directors or pop stars that we know of, and the “ordinary” people of Iraq are equally unknown to us. George Capaccio has travelled in Iraq repeatedly since 1997, and in this article he tells us about the people he knows there, and about their hospitality, generosity, openness and kindness.

    An example: Or the time I whipped up a real Italian dinner for Suha and her family. During the meal, she and her husband, who had never eaten spaghetti before, began playfully sucking on separate ends of the same strand until their lips touched and they gave each other a brief kiss. Their young sons were so embarrassed they didn’t know whether to cover their faces or leave the room.

  • Quote

    , ,

    We currently act as if people are not inherently motivated, rather that they go to work each day and wait for someone else to light their fire. This belief is common among managers and employees alike…
    It is right and human for managers to care about the motivation and morale of their people, it is just that they are not the cause of it. Managers should ask for feedback from employees about hot they could improve as managers, but they ask this out of their own interest and desire to learn, not for the sake of the employee. If we decide to view employees as free and accountable, then we stop fixing them.
    – Peter Koestenbaum in Freedom and accountability at work.

  • Short story

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    This winter I took a class in creative writing. I’ve never written any fiction or poetry before, so I thought it would be a good challenge. It was, and one of the results was a short story called “the mechanic” about a regular guy called Benny, who discovers a mysterious and unsettling talent. Here’s the entire story, let me know what you think. It’s in danish, though.
    (more…)

  • Good job experiences from Slashdot

    I submitted a posting to Slashdot (News for Nerds) in the “Ask Slashdot” category. It basically asked readers to submit stories of positive job experiences. You can see the posting and the replies here.

    There are some wonderful stories there but much of it is tinged with a sense that the good is the exception and not the norm. I’m working to change just that.

  • Book review: Turning to one another

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    Margaret Wheatley has written another beautiful book, and this time the topic is conversation. Meg (as she’s known) believes strongly in the power of conversation and dialogue to bring people together and to promote individual and shared development.

    She starts the book by explaining her reasons for writing it, and by explaining her view on conversation.
    (more…)

  • Tom Lehrer interview

    To my great surprise, Tom Lehrer is still alive – he just hasn’t made any records for 35 years. For those not in the know, Tom Lehrer is a mathematician who became a very popular satirist and singer in the 60’s. His humour was sharp and dry, and his tunes were catchy. His academic background often showed, for instance in his elements song, which is simply all the elements set to music.

    After making a few records he returned to academia, as you can read in this interview (via bound.dk). Random Tom Lehrer quote:

    I do have a cause though: Obscenity. (pause) I’m for it.

  • Interesting Google categories

    For anyone interested in improving work, here’s a few relevant categories from the Google directory:
    Coworker relations
    Job burnout
    Rethinking work
    Workplace spirituality

  • Quote

    I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity,
    but I would give my life for for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
    – Oliver Wendell Holmes

  • 100 things about me

    Hans Henrik H?jberg is asking people to write 100 things about themselves, and submit it to him. So I did, and here it is, in danish.
    (more…)

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