Education and Experience – Here are some thoughts: I have been reading about Einstein lately – and came to terms with one of his major expressions: Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

Basically this expression provides so much insight to daily life, that it could not be much better said. Basically, it not so much what you have learned and tried before, that makes you successful – but the fact that using this previous experience to something, that in future will become valuable.

Why is the Candle Hot?? – Not because I said so, but because I burned my hand last time I touched it. It may be unnecessary to learn certain things the hard way, but as said in other words, you learn by your mistakes (and doing) and that is not necessarily something bad.

What did you learn the hard way?

Been through a lot of actions at my work recently – some of it has been a challenge that I would have been best without, some of it has been a learning experience – errors have been made, but also right decisions have been taken
(and possibly overruled by others) But then again – is that not all about life?

I have come to term with the following sentence: “The freedom to move forward to new opportunities and to produce results – comes from living in the present and not the past”

Basically, we all believe that we can achieve greatness – but sometimes are too afraid to challenge the known path (of how to do things) and proceed forward in a new and interesting approach.

Sometime, you have to challenge the authorities and tell people that your path IS the right way, and that is because you say so. Sometime you have to take a stand for your opinion, and not let anyone else overrule your decisions.

So this post – should serve as inspiration to others; it’s sometimes worth fighting for a cause – even if it seems lost at the beginning. The final result could be great.

Have you ever thought you were totally clear in your communication with others – and yet somehow they still managed to misunderstand, get the wrong message or completely miss your point?
Or have you ever gone out of your way to do something nice for someone but they just didn’t seem that appreciative or thankful?

The likely cause? You’re just not speaking the same language!

What languages am I talking about? Gary Chapman calls them the “Five Languages of Love“, and while these are indeed important to your personal relationship, these languages

Simply put, the five different languages are:

1. Quality Time
2. Words of Affirmation
3. Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

• When your language is Quality Time: A friend or relative may not be able to stop by and see you because they say they’re too busy, upsets you and makes you question whether they really do care for you.
• When your language is Words of Affirmation: All you need to feel more appreciated at work are a few words of praise, encouragement or motivation from your boss; it’s not like you’re looking for a raise or anything (although that would be nice).
• When your language is Gifts: You believe it’s important to send a gift to show your thanks for attending a function; and when others don’t reciprocate having attended one of yours, you feel it’s a little rude.
• When your language is Acts of Service: You wish your partner would help out a little more – even by just making you a cup of tea every now and then, because it just means they care. It’s not like you’re asking them to clean the whole house or anything.
• When your language is Physical Touch: You give big hugs, frequently touch people on the arm and knee to show your support but wonder if maybe they don’t care for you as much as you do for them, if their hug isn’t as tight as yours.

How you can apply this to become a better communicator and connect more deeply with those around you…

1. Identify your preferred language – and if it’s really important to you that the key people in your life understand you better, tell them about it.
2. Identify the languages of those around you at home, work and socially – and in the future when you want to communicate more effectively with people, try identifying and then communicating with them in their language.

We all communicate our love, support and appreciation in different ways; sometimes the signals can get a little mixed and the wires a little crossed. At least now, you can ensure you’re all speaking the same language!

I have now been with Agnitio for more than a month, and people ask me what i am doing for them, so i better take the time to explain – what we are doing, our roles and our objectives.

CLM (Closed loop Marketing) is a procedure of which organizations (our customers) does perform a controlled sales process. We provide them with software to design, run and present their products in a controlled manner, which at the end makes sure that we would know, what the client have seen and when he did that.

Our software provides the client with the opportunity of having a library of avaliable presentations on his/her computer and run these for their targets (potential and existing customers). Once a presentation is completed, our system will feedback certain information – relevant for the client (What did you see, how long were you exposed to the message, and which slides of the presentation took how long time to show.

Our solution are used (today) by medical companies, who wish to monitor if the message strategy (their product information and values) are being brought into the market; but as i see it – this software have a more wider appeal, finance, insurance and pensions funds – as well as legal advisors and other organizations, who wish to verify that the (potential) client have seen the message and have understood the content.

We also have services avaliable to support E-Learning like functionality (Online Academy) which can run our presentations – and verify who has seen what (just as we can do with the tablet computers and the human sales clients.

My job is to support Architecture (Both Agnitio and our clients) wish to get Enterprise Ready software – stability and security – as well as the opportunity to scale to large operations.

Its quite an interesting job, i can (day by day) see opportunities within this market, and have found that the learning curve (although very tough) is very pleasing to me.

Have now been twice in Kiev here in April and it has been quite a pleasure to see the colleagues there. My company have a joint development center in Ukraine, since we are not able to find qualified staff in Denmark/Sweden – we have to fish a little bit deeper to get the knowledge we need.

Our application is based on a software called Flex/Air (Flash alike) from Adobe and there has not been a lot with this background – to make a future foundations for our services.

The Adobe framework is a completely new software category (RIA = Rich Internet Applications) where we wish to have a web based software solution work like a standard desktop solution, in a simple manner, without loosing the features which are presents in the desktop applications.

Agnitio have decided to setup operations (Development) center in Kiev, and i have had the pleasure to be there working with the guys (and girls) down there. It is very fun to see the difference between working in Denmark (development team) and in Kiev.

There are very highly qualified consultants in Kiev, and i can feel that they are very capable of their jobs, but the one thing that are obvious is the team work spirit, that has to be improved and secured. Somehow i feel that we (in Denmark) are much better team players, whereas the Kiev (Russians/Ukrainians) are still there to prove their own personal value.

This is something we have to work on in future.

Have just spent the 14-16 April in Paris – attending the Oracle Life Science Seminar (Work, yes i know) which have been quite interesting.

Not only did it provide me with a lot of input, to which direction Oracle are aiming, but also some hints to what we could do in our business to get a “piggy back ride” with them, and harvest from their setup and functionality.

The most important thing to take away from here, is how much investment going on these days to support SaaS – Software as a Service. Oracle want to supply everything as a service, and you pay as pr. subscription.

This will generate a constant cash flow (of small bills) to support daily life (for a company their size) but also secured that their software are not considered as expensive as bying the solution.

My employer (Agnitio) is also interested in this game, nd we hope that this will launch a whole bunch of potential customer cases in the upcoming years, so we can achieve our idea of World Domination.

I spent the 15′ April walking down through Paris, shopping and to visit Notre Dame, which i needed to see, since i have to tell Max about the fact, that i have been to Quasimodoes home. 

The time for spring is here, and i can inform you all, that i have made som changes in my life life, for once i have decided to drop of the extra’s (kg) and try and live a more healthy lifestyle. This way cant continue and will not in future be a part of me.

At the same time I can inform you all, that I will be leaving my job at the Danish Nurses Organisation by end of February 2008 – to start a new job with a company called Agnitio.

I hope soon, to find time and inspiration to update my blog more often, than have been the case for the last few months.  See you online.