“Needs to be outgoing and positive”. This is a phrase most job ads contain in our industry. At first glance one wouldn’t think anything special about it. Why wouldn’t you want positive and outgoing people? The past couple of days I have been painting our apartment. While doing so I tend to be accompanied by the BBC World Service. The other day there was a mention of a study by Joe Forgas which shows that “Being grumpy is good for you”

I’ve come to realize, however, that while technology may make it more convenient to communicate, it doesn’t improve our ability to get a point across This is a quote from John Maeda’s book Redesigning Leadership. I think it captures the essence of the problem we have today with communication. We have all these amazing tools which enables just about anyone to potentially communicate with millions of people around the globe.

Watching a documentary from the Ferrari factory who makes the body for the FF model I notice something interesting. When they craft the aluminum parts for the body the narrator says: “each part is welded together by craftsmen”. That quote implies that repetitive tasks performed day in and day out are indeed something that requires a genuine craftsman. Now compare that to how the software industry tends to portray a craftsman coder.

Back in 2009 I held my first ever talk at a conference. My only motivation was to get in for free at the Smidig conference. I worked for a startup which meant little cash for conferences. Since then ove talked at numerous conferences and enjoyed every minute of it. The adrenaline rush of doing something that scares the shit out of you is just addictive. This year I’ve held no talks.

I’ve been wanting to create stuff on a computer ever since my dad got us our first PC back in the late eighties. Every year spent in school was one year keeping me from what I really wanted to do, program all the time. When I landed my first job at Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK) I was on top of the world, programming shit for a living! I am not a very intelligent person and I’m an average coder.