I a moment I am leaving for the States on a business trip. I am going to the overly warm Orlando/Florida. The update frequency here might go up or it might go down. Obviously depending on my mood and other things to take care of when I am “over there”. If you are reading this and feeling sorry for me when sweating in 35 degrees heat in Florida then you can send me an SMS via email to peppar@dof.se. Just so I don’t feel all alone in the world! I will be back home in Sweden on the afternoon of May 25 and hopefully back in action on the 26:th. I will read email from time to time and I will try to make all my peppy readers satisfied. By the way, why don’t you comment and leave a message about which type of postings you would like to see more of on this blog (like I would care anyhow, muuhahahaha, well seriously, please post comments just to show that you care about me).

What is actually important in life?
Money? We have a society (west world anyhow) that is based on consumption. We work very hard to earn more money so we either can buy more stuff or just save it in the bank for a rainy day. Is this REALLY important?
Status? Many persons, me included, want some kind of status. We want to be recognized and not be marginalized.”Do not forget me!” Or at least this is something I wanted very badly until very recently. Is this REALLY important?
Legacy? I guess many persons want to create something. To be able to look back when we are getting old and to see that I made a difference. I contributed to something. I was an important building block in society. Is this REALLY important?
Friends? To have somebody to really be able to talk with. Somebody that you can share anything with. Somebody that you can share your most inner secrets with. When you find such people, keep them. Whatever you do, do not let them slip away. Especially if you have a hard time finding them in the first place. Is this REALLY important?
Family? Being alone is never fun. A family is a must, or is it? Can one live alone and still be happy? I have my whole life had someone to life with. When I left my child home I shared an apartment with two other guys for about 5 months before I moved into my own apartment. That only lasted about 2-3 months before I moved in with my wife. So I must admit that I have never really tried out how it is to live by myself. I guess I must see myself as lucky and hope that I never get the chance to try it out. Is this REALLY important?
Children? I have one child, my soon 3 year old daughter Tovah. Getting a child really changed my life. You really feel that somebody is dependent on you and you have to be there. The other day she told me “dad, you write to much.” I.e. her notion of me working too much. I have to admit one thing, when she was born I didn’t feel like this at all and it took a couple of weeks before the dime fell down. Is this REALLY important?
Love? To have someone to love. To get a fuzzy feeling in the stomach when you see the person. Many great songs and poems have been written about love. Is this REALLY important?
My synthesis is that all boils down to getting a number of base stones for creating a fulfilling life. I guess we get some loop here as it then leads to “what is is important in a fulfilling life?”. A good start is to feel like a whole person. Being able to get good contact with other human beings and being able to share your thoughts and feelings. The reader can perhaps get a feeling of me putting a requirement on myself here (the top-dog vs. under-dog discussion again) where I HAVE to do something or the other but the really important thing is to be in the present and not look ahead all the time. It also means being able to get in contact with your anger, sorrow, sexuality and joy. There has to be a balance between these for a person to be able to feel like a whole person.
It is time for a reflection on the process here. A couple of months ago I would not been able to write this or even sort this out in my head. I guess I am improving as a human being and getting closer to becoming a whole person.
Many of the points listed above are really important, of course some of them are not important at all. Everybody has to decide for themselves what is important and what is not…

För länge sen när jag fyllde fyra år fick jag en gåva av min far. En fin present när jag fyllde fyra år som jag sen så länge hade kvar.
Teddybjörnen Fredriksson ja, så hette han. En gång var han bara min och vi älskade varann. Teddybjörnen Fredriksson hans nos den var av garn. Ja, han var min bästa vän när jag var ett litet barn.
och varje kväll var han så go och mjuk, då värmde han min säng så varm. Han var så snäll en gång när jag blev sjuk så fick jag sova på hans arm.
Teddybjörnen Fredriksson ja, så hette han. En gång var han bara min och vi älskade varann. Teddybjörnen Fredriksson hans nos den var av garn. Ja, han var min bästa vän när jag var ett litet barn.
Men åren gick, jag glömde bort min vän. Nu är jag gift och har ett barn. Och så igår när hon fyllde fyra år fick hon en teddybjörn av sin far.
Teddybjörnen Fredriksson ja, så hette han. En gång var han bara min och vi älskade varann. Teddybjörnen Fredriksson hans nos den var av garn. Ja, han var min bästa vän när jag var ett litet barn.
Text av Lars Berghagen

Wonderful Swedish song…. One of those that just makes me ponder about what is actually important in life.

I am sitting on the porch in the sun. It is not really warm (about 12 degrees) but it is spring so who who cares how warm it is. It is just so nice to be able to sit outside. The birds are chirping (or actually it is the neighbours antenna array twisting slowly in the wind).
I have for many many years put up a brick wall between myself and the rest of the world. Not allowing anybody to join me on the inside before I am convinced that they don’t want to hurt me. This obviously makes it very hard to get good contact with anybody as few persons can see over the wall to find the real person behind it. Contact…. real contact is what leadership is all about. How to get good and deep contact with your colleagues and actually letting them find out for themselves what they want to do. The latter is actually the concept of coaching. “Do not present the solution but help the person in focus find it herself.”
Back to the wall, a friend told me that the first impression I made was Hugh Grant. Totally glossy and shallow. Yes, I know that you asked me not to dwell on the Hugh Grant statement but I actually think it is very true. I have to work on lowering the wall and one obvious way of doing that is to trust people more. Instead of thinking that people are out there to hurt you, instead think of the great reward one can get from getting to really know people and from getting a really deep contact.
Being here and now… is also very important. Don’t plan everything or think 20 steps ahead. Just be here and be here now. I really have to work on that. I know it comes from being forced by your own internal top-dog to achieve and constantly building and creating new things. This creates a rather good feeling initially but after a while it just becomes a bad loop spinning downwards where you just HAVE to create more, work more, and loosing the here and now part. This also moves you towards another wall, the fixed wall more and more people walk into and get really ill. Been there, done that.
Daring to take contact… when you have a knot in your stomach or chest it usually means that you have some unresolved business with somebody. When you get that feeling you have two choices, push down the feeling deep down inside or go talk to the person in question. Which do you think is the best? The second in my opinion is the best. So why do I and most other individuals on this planet the first thing?
Where does everything one pushes down inside go? Well, I have learned that it doesn’t just disappear. It ends up far far far down in a well inside you with a big and heavy lid. The more you put into the well the heavier it becomes to carry it with you and the only way to make it lighter is to open the lid and resolve each single issue. Resolve here can mean many different things, but in essence it boils down to daring to think about it and the most important, daring to talk about it. I know it is scary to lift the lid but it can be very rewarding. Just make sure you have somebody to talk about the items inside first, or it can easily lead to that you yourself fall into the well instead, drowning you.
Ahh, the sun. So warm and nice!

Today I got back from the second week of my management education and I really feel like I have reached another level in my personal maturity and personal development. It is wonderful that one can get such a good contact with everybody else in the course group (18 in total and 4 course leaders), but also the more extreme close contact one get with some particular individuals in the group. You know who you are!!
One of the major tools I got with me home from this week is coaching, i.e. how to help others find out themselves what they really need and want (and not giving them the solution).
It is in total an education spread out over 18 months with about 25 course days. So far the main goal has been to learn more about yourself and be part of a larger group, and how to apply your experiences in your daily management. We have done a number of exercises and by the end of this week it was tremendous to see how good the group worked by itself (there was just some tiny help from the course leaders but much much less than earlier in the process).

It feels like being a small bird learning to fly, and spreading your wings on your own for the first time.

I cannot really say anything about the exercises themselves as that would destroy for them for others. You have to do them yourself without knowing what they are all about otherwise you take the risk of preparing (intentionally or unintentionally) and that would be like cheating.
Thanks to all in the group and the course leaders, Sören, Freddie, Barbro and John from PMI. Isn’t it wonderful that a university can spend so much resources on its leaders and not just the top management, and so far 90 persons have gone through the program or are in it right now.

Thank you Ingegerd Palmer (the president) for making this come true!

By the way, coaching is very hard to do with a 3 year old girl that doesn’t want to sleep 🙂
On the same subject, one of my graduate students wrote the following about the Supervisor course part 1 (“handledarkurs”). The Monday reference is to a division meeting.

Short review follows below since I just got back from it and still have
everything fresh in mind.. I’ll give a short summary on Monday as well,
but I wanted to write down some details about it in advance..
It has been a really, really, great course! That pretty much sums it up.
Seriously, it’s been an excellent stay and I have really learned a lot
from it. The main focus was to get to know yourself, and in doing so you
ended up getting to know all the other participants as well. This was
because we did everything in a group and more or less exposed ourselves on
a mental level in front of all the others. That can be an interesting and
sometimes scary, yet extremely rewarding experience.
So I must thank you Peppar for your recommendation to take this course!
We were 12 participants (5 graduate students, 7 PhD:s) plus 2 organizers.
We stayed at Jopikgården out on Hindersön and our hosts were extremely
service minded. I’ve never met such nice people hosting a “hotel” before.
The days were filled with different exercises interleaved with lunches and
dinner. It was only two days and one night, but it feels like I’ve been
away for about a week or so. You got to meet people you would probably
never have met otherwise. And even more important, you got to know them
as well, and that in a much faster and efficient way than what is normally
possible or likely to happen. It felt like some sort of, hmm, bonding or
how I should try to explain it..
I think I will NOT mention any details about what exercises we did, except
that we really did get to play with clay and paint. The reason for this is
that if you decide to take this course, I think it is better for you NOT
to have heard anything about it at first. If you hear about the exercises,
you can prepare yourself in advance, and in doing so you only risk fooling
yourself. Sort of like cheating – you won’t gain anything. Just go in with
an open mind and see what you can learn from the experience.
I recommend you all to take the course if you can. I cannot guarantee that
it will be as nice as this has been. So try not to have any expectations,
high or low, as it’s all very personal I think. Either you get something
out of it or you see it as a waste of time. It depends on so much – the
participants in your group, your mindset, what you think you know about
yourself in advance and what you realize afterwards, how open you can
allow yourself to be in front of others, how open others are, if you
think you will gain anything by attending the course, and so on..
I expected to get something out of it, and I think I got even more than
that, at least that is how I feel right now – it’s been very rewarding.
And as said, I’ll talk more about it on monday’s meeting. At least
now you know enough to ask me all those tricky questions of yours. 😉

It was such a nice coincidence that he and I got back from our different courses on the same day and to all at LTU that haven’t been given the privilege to take part in the leadership education program, take the opportunity to attend the the “Handledarkurs steg 1”.

“Det skapande universitet”, the Creative University is a term that was created a couple of years ago. It was created by a group of people
within the Luleå University of Technology and many attempts have been
undertaken to try to create a common view around the subject. A lot of
people became saved (“frälsta”), some got scared away but still the majority of employees and students just don’t care today. How can we make progress on this issue?

Let us first talk about, what it is NOT about. It is not a question about if research should belong to arenas or not. It is not a question
about if we should have arenas, programs or both. It is not a question about being saved or not. It is not a question about strange names,
definitions or terms. The latter is very common in the academic culture where everything have to be analyzed into its smallest
components, and have to be redefined over and over again. This is very good for research, but unfortunately it is not very good for the
development of an organization and this analyzing skill is the very essence of the university culture. Sometimes, this leads to an
aggressive attitude (not intentional I am sure), which in turn can lead to a withdrawal where people get very afraid of saying or doing
anything. To make progress, we have to think about when we apply our great analyzing skills, and I want to urge all of you to try to be
more open minded and trust the people around you. Give us all some slack, we are all doing the best we can! If you don’t agree with what
somebody is saying or doing, tell that person that as soon as possible. Remember that it is never too late do it. Don’t keep it to yourself or go around and tell everybody else behind the persons back!

There are a number facts in our surroundings that force us to take action. Changes in the society makes fewer students apply to the
university and the classical programs and subjects. Changes within research funding agencies pushes research towards more fundamental
research and huge projects, increasing the competition. The world is becoming more and more international and in Sweden we have e.g. been very slow in adopting netbased learning on a larger scale. Image what will happen when the large international universities really start to attract students from the whole world and not only specific geographic areas.

So, what is this really about then? It is about the Future of Luleå University of Technology! It is about getting more students. It is
about getting more money. It is about getting more visibility in the world.

How can YOU contribute?
1: Convince yourself that this is important (because it is).
2: Go talk to others, convince them as well.
3: Get involved in different activities to make the University more forceful, both within Sweden and in rest of the World.
Make yourself heard and don’t just sit there and wait for others to take the initiative. Don’t be put off by “strange” attitudes from
others. Remember that we are all different, and nobody within the University is here to destroy you or your work. Please, do not get
stuck of definitions or terms.

At the keyboard, Dr. Peter Parnes, peppar@sm.luth.se.
Proud member of the LTU community since 1990.

Today I had the first part of a 3 day seminar meeting with 90 of the Universities leaders with the overall goal of defining how the Universities new organization (“Det skapande universitetet”) should be implemented. Or at least that was what I thought the goal was before coming there. The Meeting started at 13.00 with lunch and went on until 22.00. It started with some general remarks from the consultants and the president of the University, Ingegerd Palmer. After that we were divided into groups of 5 with one from each leadership course group (I am in group 5) and we discussed for an hour. After that we had 1.5 hours of general assembly of what they called Speakers Corner where everybody that wanted got a chance to say what they wanted about the implementation process and other things. It all felt so washed out. Haven’t we already discussed all this? Like 5 times over the last years? Feel like the exact same issues discussed on the very first meeting we had in the 50-group 4-5 years ago. At dinner time, 18.15 I just got tired of it all and left. I was so tired and it felt like such a waste of time, both mine and the others that were there. We were about 90 persons there. Tomorrow we are supposed to start at 0800 and go on until 20.30 when a dinner starts which means that one has to stay until at least 22.00. Friday starts at the “normal” 08.00 and goes on until 15.30. I spent the evening riding my bike instead and that felt much more productive as I got the time to sort out a number of thoughts that were crawling around in my head.
We’ll see if I have the energy to join the process tomorrow or if I’ll spend it on things that I feel are more valuable.
On a side note, tomorrow it is 3 weeks since I asked Jerker what he thought about me becoming Associate Professor and I still haven’t received any answer (yes I have reminded him several times). Feels rather strange.
I guess I am falling back to just giving the finger to it all. Perhaps, I should join the great team at Nestle and become a pea counter? Or on a more serious note, perhaps it is time to move on and look for another job?
I am so tired, so tired of it all. What is the point. Oh well, perhaps I feel better tomorrow. :-/

What a wonderful weekend! The real pre-summer is here. We have been eating outside on the porch and I have cycled 25 Km (10 yesterday and 15 today).
Yesterday evening we had to change a roof tile which had broken and almost fallen down from the roof, leaving a big hole. Johanna had to stand on a high ladder standing on the roof of the front porch.
I also finally solved my problems of transcoding Divx3 to Divx5 using Virtual Dub. Previously, most of the movies had failed to transcode due to errors in the frames leaving VirtualDub with an uncompleted transcoding. Yesterday I found a new setting though where it first checked the whole movie for errors and then did the transcoding. Why it doesn’t do this during the transcoding I don’t understand though.
Yesterday, I we saw Ice Age for the second time this week. It is so funny!!!
Today we also took a walk to Björsbyn and looked at the horses. For dinner we had tons of sushi. My favorite 🙂