Career Change

Thinking a bit about what I want to do in the future and what I want to learn at the moment I weighed my options. Naturally I had to think about it visually.
Before that I should note my experience so far in CPI.
First of all Having worked in the field for short time and during that time having been in charge o one of the more complex and daunting projects I have learned a lot. Starting off from my tests they estimated I was on the level of a professional with five years in the industry. I´m not sure I agree with those assessments but I have developed a lot during this time. Although I still have plenty and then some to learn, I feel I could do this job for any company at this point.

To decide where to go I had to decide what I wanted. I started by identifying my primarily values at a workplace. Then I continued by approximation what each company and career or careers within that company could bring in terms of those values.
I did this estimation over a time span of 15 months.

The values I decided to list where:


Development Potential
How much I can still develop within this field at this point
Economic Conditions
Pay and other economical benefits
Flexible Working hours
How and when I have to work.
International Opportunities
The possibility or obligation to work abroad
Networking
The possibility to improve my professional network
Rate of Learning
How much I will learn per time unit
Skills Development
How many and what skills I may develop
Training
How much time the company will spend training me
Vacation
Vacation time and vacation benefits
Work Environment
Administration, management, co-workers and other soft values


Lets start with the value division of each company for me.

Moving on to Specific values over time we find this:

By summarizing the total of these values and displaying them over time we can clearly see what company that can provide me with better long term situation.

Graphics don't lie :p
I start in September.

Midsummer

Swedes have for a long time been sea farers. I guess the vast costal area of the Atlantic coast and the Baltic Sea would do that to a culture. It´s something that´s been an essential means of communication and trade and today, spending time on the sea is a much treasured pass time. I was lucky enough to be dragged out on one of these trips. It was not my first one by all means. In fact growing up I have a brief stint as a sea scout. Something I was actually kicked out of. I was not always a little rule following, well-mannered little boy, as one might have guessed :p . This trip would hovever prove to be a little bit different and the ship would be just a little bit different too.  It turned out to be a mideval long ship, a square rigged boat much to my liking. You can read more about her at helgahom.se

Taking her out in the archipelago has been more fun that my other time spent on the ocean and it gives a feeling closer to nature and also closer to what man must have felt a long long time ago exploring and ruling this part of the ocean. Maybe it´s in my blood. After all my roots are from two great arcipellagos, one freezing cold and one searing hot.

Midsummer or the summer solstice celebrations goes back a long, long time and is one the more treasured holidays in Sweden. It´s the day when the most babies are made, the most alcohol is consumed and the most heden frog dances are danced around a giant fallos symbol. Yes you read that right. Celebrating midsummer on one of the many island in is probably as Swedish as one can get. Feeling I should go one step further in my quest to re-explore Stockholm and Sweden I decided to do it with the Helga Holm crew and a few good friends of mine on the Viking to Medieval remnants of the city of Birka. Birka is a lost city that has been found on Björkö in Mälaren. It was most likely whipped out in a great battle according to the theories. It has however become a place of excavation and some attempts to recreate old housing and the feeling of living in those days. If you have the time, take a day and check out some Viking history.

Needless to say I enjoyed another good midsummer, stuffing my face full of food and drink. 

Where Life Takes You

Not too long ago I won a design challenge for designing user interfaces and user experiences for mobile applications. It all started with a buddy of mine recommending me to come. It was a get together organized by an IT solutions and management company (which will be left un-named for now) in the style I myself usually would organize back when I walked the corridors of academia more determined to study.

I was happy with my prize of a new cell phone and the chance to get some programming help to realize our application. An application I fare might dissipate to non-completion as it needs a weekend more of development and we don´t have the programming resources at this moment. You can still check out our idea at getmeetapp.com if you are interested.

Or get in touch if you would like to get together and create. It was a fun weekend and I did not expect what I received next, a phone call from the company wanting to talk to me. Although I had a few offers on the table by now, CPI is where my focus lies at the moment. After all I´d like to become good at it before I take on something else. But hey let’s check out what they do and what they can offer.

Spending some time with my friend working for this company I met some more of his colleagues and friends. It genuinely seemed as a nice working environment and they did have some very interesting areas I think I´d love to develop my skills in. We´ll see what happens.

It is all very interesting how much time it took getting that first job, after coming back from my travels. Somehow things always got postponed or ran out into nothingness as the business changed or their strategic goals changed. Among other things I went to two interviews and not getting the job, something which has never happened before. That is usually when I do well. In retrospect the first one I was quite rusty and had a feeling I would not get it as I left the interview. The second one I did too well and overqualified myself for the position.  It´s interesting how the right balance is important for things in life.

Corporate Culture

Team building can be done in many ways. Personally I like the idea of creating good bonds between people. Friends tend to not want to let each other down. Then again they might not take things too seriously if the environment is too relaxed and friendly. This should however not really be a problem in a professional environment. I find it interesting to see how team building and social activities are managed at different companies and different sites. Although I think I missed a few at my current position I had the pleasure of attending some. So far they have mostly centered around two things and been performed in two ways.

One is the company “fika ” on Thursdays, a afternoon coffee and tea time where time is taken to eat some pastries and drink a cup of something together. This is an extremely common occurrence in Swedish working life. It´s also an important bonding ritual that cannot be neglected of one want to maintain good relations. Usually people take turn to bring fika or bake something. I´ll try to get back to the nuances of fika another time as it´s much too complicated and stretches into social dynamics way out of this specific context. 

The other one are shared activities with some sort of food and drinks involved. These tend to be either management organized with the company paying and planning it or “employee organized” where people chip in and contribute to doing something together. For the second alternative has mainly been “knytisar” of different sorts. A knytis is literally a potluck and can range from very organized to just bring something and let’s see what we get.