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My Articles

These are articles written by me, Jimi Wikman. These articles are written on a wide range of topics. The main focus is of course on Atlassian, but as I am also very much interested in other areas that I have worked, or are just interested in you will also find other categories here. Under Ways of Working you will find articles relates to the build process management, design, requirements, development, test, operations and support. Under Interesting I write about security, e-commerce and Invision Community. Under professional, I write about work as a consultant, work related health issues, business related news and other topics related to professional work.

Great companies have great attitude!

As soon as you step into the office of a company you can sense what kind of company it is. It's in the decoration, in the way people dress, the body language and in the eyes of everyone working there. That is because great companies have great attitude that go beyond just doing great work. It's a passion and a love for what they do that no amount of skill or hard work can match.
I am sure you have felt it many times stepping into an office regardless of what business you are visiting: The stale and boring office where work is the only thing that matters where silent people stare at their computer screens with faces of stone that indicate a high performance company with little to no love for their employees. The bright and a little messy office where people talk and laugh, walking around with that enthusiastic light in the corner of the eye indicating a passionate company who cares about their employees.
It's a vibration in the air, a smell of freshness and a soft light that seem to be around everyone that works there. It is as if everyone is just full of life and creativity. It is in companies that can maintain that passion that you will find the best value because everyone will go out of their way to make sure their clients not only get what they think they want, but also that they get what they need.
It is also in these companies where change is always welcome and even encouraged. New ideas are born spontaneous without fear of rejection, no matter how silly or strange and everyone are open about their opinions on how things can be improved. This is where the employees come early and leave late and it's in companies like this where not all work is being charged because the people will work on it even when they are no longer at work. Not because they have to, but because they want to.
I have had the great fortune of working for several companies having this great attitude. I also work with clients that have this same great attitude and the thing that they all have in common is that its easy to make changes and people are passionate and willing to make things better. These are the companies that grow and become successful, not because of the products or services they sell, but because people will go above and beyond to make success happen.
I have also worked for companies that are the opposite. Stale and almost impossible to make changes happen, even if it's obvious to everyone that change is a necessity. Companies that treat people like numbers in a spreadsheet that use protocol and rules as ways to make others feel bad because they themselves are unhappy at work. The employees in these companies will never go the extra mile because they have learned that no one cares if they do and their passion have all but died inside them.
So the next time you consider doing business with another company think about what you want from that business arrangement. Do you want someone that will just give you want you ask of them even if it may not be the best solution, or do you want someone that will be passionate about giving you the best possible solution, even if it's not exactly what you ask for?
Do you want a silent grey production machine or someone that will work with you to get the best possible solution for your business?
Greatness is just around the corner, you just need to have the courage to go for it.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Ways of working ·

3 fun ways to improve team spirit

As a leader, no matter if you are a business manager, project manager or team lead your job is to improve the team spirit of those that you lead. This can be done in many ways, but I have 3 quite fun ideas that I use in my projects to lift the spirit of my team.
When working in a project you go through many phases with your team and as you grow in to your role as a leader you will start to see the signs when your team is in need of a little energy boost or just need a soft break to smile more. This is when you can do small things that takes only a few minutes, but have great impact on the team.
The three things described here are designed to get the team to smile because smiles release tension and release a lot of positive things in your body. They are designed to not disrupt the work to much, while at the same time engage the whole team in one way or the other. They are also quite fun for you to do as well, which makes it a win-win for everyone.
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Number one - The Post-it.
The post-it is a super easy way to provide a short appreciation for the team. Simply write a post-it for every team member with a few words of appreciation and then walk over to each and every one and paste it on their screen. I usually do this in complete silence to let the post-it do all the talking and place a hand on the shoulder or do a fist bump to make the words connect on a more personal level.
A short message like "You are awesome!" or "You Rock!" are all it takes as long as you show that you really mean it as well. In most projects these post-its stay on the screen or get moved to the wall next to the person you gave it to, making it a constant reminder that you appreciate their hard work.
Number two - Let there be cake!
Nothing says I appreciate your hard work like cake. I try to always buy cake for my team when a new sprint is about to start. It's a great way to show that you appreciate the teams work from last period, regardless of what happened and combined with some well chosen words you can solidify the feeling that you as a leader really appreciate and trust your team.
It also lift the spirit right there and then and I usually have a sprint startup where we go through the work for the coming sprint. With a bit of cake the team become more active (not just because of the sugar) and discussions improve a lot as people feel secure to lift problems and come up with solutions.
Cake can be substituted with pretty much anything that the team like and I almost always pay for it myself to show that this comes from me personally. Sometimes the cake can come from the client or from the company if it is necessary to improve connection with them instead of within the team.
Number three - The water game
This is probably the silliest and most challenging thing of the tree things in this list as it require preparation or fast and creative thinking. What you do is that you get water and something to drink out of for each of the team members. I started this as I wanted the team to drink more water, but to make it a bit more fun and to make the water feel a bit more special I started to make up a story for each member.
So instead of just getting water they got frozen tears from a Tibetan Yeti that had been transported by blind monks to the far east where they got melted in a golden bowl at the top of the pyramids during an eclipse before it was bottled up in sacred flasks and shipped to the team.
The result of this game if you get it right is that people will not just stop working for a few minutes to listen to your stories, but they will drink the water with a smile and ask for more. Its a fun and challenging way to keep your team hydrated and make people smile and laugh for a few minutes.
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If you can get your team to smile and laugh for just a few minutes every day with you that will lift the spirit of your team and you as a leader will get closer to the people you lead. It is one of many ways to get people to follow you instead of just doing what you say because it show them that you care about them.
These tree suggestions only work if you do it with genuine care for the people you lead, but as a leader that should not be a problem. Once the team feel that you care about them, any fun thing you do will be appreciated, but if you have not made that connection yet then focus on that first.
I hope you will find these suggestions useful and fun and if you have suggestions yourself, please share so we can become better leaders with happier and more productive teams that love to come to work with us!
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Ways of working ·

The perfect moment of being a Project Manager

In most projects there is that one perfect moment when you look up from your screen and observe the team you are leading only to realize that they no longer need you. It is both terrifying and absolutely the best moment you can have.
As a project manager I have my own style that comes from many aspects of my life. From my brief time in the military I bring my sense of protection of the people I lead and from my childhood upbringing I bring a desire to encourage and treat others with respect. On top of that I add a touch of my need to understand the things around me and a curiosity to learn new things.
These things make me be the first one to start the workday and the last one to close my laptop at night. It is also the reason I gladly spend hours upon hours to make sure everything is prepared before my team start their work. Not because I want to control their work, but because I deeply feel that my single purpose as project manager is to make their life easier.
In order to do that I will put my heart and soul into solving as many problems as possible before my team ever need to know that they exist. This so they can focus on the work at hand and on becoming more than just a group of people working together so they can become a team.
I do not control my team, because I trust them completely and because I know that they work better if I give them the tools to manage themselves. In the beginning I steer the the team towards a work process I have used before and then I encourage the team to make changes together so we fine tune the process based on the need of the team.
By focusing on their need and by making sure everyone feel that their voice is heard and respected the team grow towards a sense of unity. I give responsibilities and make sure everyone in the team is pushed a little bit beyond their abilities or comfort zone. Not to punish, but to help them grow as I am there to support and assist every step of the way should they feel insecure or have doubt.
Then somewhere along the course of the project that perfect moment will happen. Usually when sitting at my desk on the outskirt of the team as I try to make sure the team sit closely together with me on the outside. In that moment it is like the sound of the room will change and become almost inaudible and as you look around you see the team engaged in work, helping each other or discussing solutions together.
Instantly you feel that the team no longer need your guidance and you no longer need to help them find their place within the team. They are a team now and all the heard work to build that up is now over. There is a positive energy over the team and you will see them smile and laugh together and then returning to their work with an amazing focus and efficiency.
In that moment there is a pride in your heart that threaten to bring you to tears. Not because of your accomplishments, but for theirs. As a proud parent you will see the growth of each of the team members and you will see how they take on responsibilities because they want to, not because they have to. They respect and protect each other as a team.
It is in that moment you have accomplished the most important aspect of leading a group and that is that you have managed to make them all feel safe. Safe to speak their mind and safe to take on any task knowing that it is ok to fail and try again. Safe because everyone share the same vision and motivation and safe because that they all know that no matter what happen you will always be there for them and have their back should they need it.
While you are no longer needed to guide them and to help them become a team, they still need you to be there to support them. Your role will change from that point on and you will spend less time managing and more time leading. Your team will look to you for decisions and clarifications, but other than that they are from that point on more than capable of managing their work on their own without you.
It is truly one of the best feelings in the world.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Ways of working ·

Building a new beginning

Building this new site feels amazing, yet very confined at times. Simple things that I have been used to are simply not part of the infrastructure. Other things are just different and things I wished I had a long time ago. Overall this is just the beginning of building a new beginning for my website.
As with my old site I am still a bit all over the place when it comes to what I want the site to be about. I have already started to add my project portfolio and of course this blog, but beyond that I still play around with different things. Downloads are always nice and I have some thoughts on what I would like to do with that. The Gallery is just a dumping ground for images at the moment, pretty much like Facebook used to be. We'll see how much effort I want to put there later, but for now it will just be the way it is.
The forum is a hub for conversation. I have added the "Ask Jimi" function I have been pondering on for a while. I also add sections for community discussions even if I don't know if that will ever pick up. Clubs are there of course as mini-communities. I have them mostly for the Atlassian Usergroup that I am leader for, but we'll see what else we can use it for. Calendar can be used for events, but I am not going to put that much effort into it right now. In the future it can be extended to different types of events to make it more useful.
I do have the commerce part added to this site as well. It can be used for a great deal of things like donations or actually selling physical and digital things. As my book comes along, maybe I'll add it here and maybe it can be used to sell things like art or designs in the future? We'll see what can be done and I have some ideas that are connected to the downloads section. I tossed in a videos section because I love the simplicity and the fact that I can keep track of my own best videos in an easy way.
Pages are the big part of this new site. It's a powerful application that you can use to build pretty much anything you want. The problem is that documentation is very poor and the community is not really active or helpful always. Despite this I find it very satisfying to try to figure out how to get the data I need to build the things I want. This blog is built on Pages, even though I have the blog functionality as an application as well. The reason is that I like the function to add a blog function to the clubs, but I find it lacking for my own blog.
I also use it to build the database for project portfolio. Later I will build some new databases as well such as a code snippets database and a profiles database where I present and promote different people. For now I focus on the basics, but later on I will start looking at database relationship functionality to bring data from other databases into records. This is useful for example to bring in profiles into a project database or reviews into a blogpost.
Over all I need to think about what I want to see here and why. Until I figure that out I will just continue having a good time posting blogposts, uploading videos and making status updates. It's such a nice feeling to have so many functions to play around with!
...but first I will go for a walk in the scorching summer heat and clear my head 🙂
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Personal ·

Building again and changing hosting company

Every summer, almost, it is time for reflection and build something new. This year is no exception, but it is a little bigger change that I look at. At the same time, I have changed the web host because I had some worries at Oderland that I try to figure out.
By a small coincidence when I still switched web hosting, I stopped in the Invision Community again. I tried it a year ago on my .com site, but felt that it didn't really get as I wanted. When I looked at it, it felt really good, maybe because I didn't try as much as I did last time. It was also the reason why I decreased the ambition here on the site after I pulled away a little.
Now there is a lot left to do, but so far it feels good. The functions are quite ok already directly out of the box, although it should be configured a bit. I have built a beginning of a project portfolio and a new blog. It is very basic so far, but I think it is good.

The biggest challenge now is to think about whether I want to drive in English or Swedish in the future. I made a choice long ago to drive in Swedish, but in an increasingly international situation, I am thinking of returning to my previous English concept. In such a transition, this blog will be a little outside, but I can live with that.
We'll see where I end up with my decision, but I miss the Invision Community and it's a lot that I can do with IC that I feel that WordPress lacks ...
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Personal ·

Darkness is all around us and still we value money more than life.

Again and again we see the darkness around us as yet another bright soul leave this earth all to soon. We see the anger and the frustration grow around the globe. We see the silent bright lights get crushed by the ever growing coldness fed by greed and envy. Still we do nothing.
In this time and age where information flow and we should be more enlightened than any generation before we still value greed over humanity. I watch in despair as the younger generations struggle to find their place in a world where the cold cynical reality clashes with their idealistic desire to make the world a better place.
I see the silent and introvert get crushed by the extrovert corporate machines who cares little about anything but the profit margin in the latest quarterly reports. I see the sparkling creativity that tingle in the eyes of our artists fade and get replaced by the sickening glow of the almighty dollar as they compromise their art for survival.
I see people still go to a workplace that they hate. To spend the majority of their day in mind numbing labor they hate. Only to put food on the table for a family they barely know due to long working hours and even longer commute.
I see children screaming out their pain over an existence that they do not understand or want to be a part of. I see men and women choosing to end it all because the world around make no sense. I see darkness, death and misery broadcasted on every channel until I feel like I am drowning in it.
I am strong. I have been dancing in darkness my whole life. I have been bullied, I have been poor and not known if I would be able to pay my bills or put food on the table. I have tested the limits of my body and broken down on the edge of what my body can handle. I have been mentally exhausted and felt the pain of barely function as a human being.
I have done all that and it have made me strong. I am confident in my abilities and limitations. I do not fear what I do not understand and I do not shy away from doing what I must to keep my energy from fading. When darkness comes my way it does not come as a surprise and it rarely stay for long.
Despite this inner strength I still find myself in despair. Not for myself, but for those that do not have the strength to endure the cold and cynical world we live in where money matters more than life. Those that stumble and fall, often to never get up again.
People I care about that are treated like objects and not the amazing human beings that they are. People that once had eyes sparkling with love and an inner blaze of creative fire. People that now sit silently at their desk with dark and empty eyes doing things that they hate.
People are suffering and dying because we consider saving them being to costly. In the wealthiest countries in the world we can not afford mental healthcare to save peoples lives. In the wealthiest cities in the world we can not afford to help those that fall through the cracks and end up on the street.
A voice in my head tell me that I can do nothing about this as I am just one voice. I disagree because as long as I have a voice I would waste it if I did not use it. So I will not be silent.
Every day I will do my best to lift up those around me. I will see them for who they are and what they can become. I will encourage them to become better and to see how great they really are. I will give to those that are in need without judgement when I can. I will offer my own time and energy to help others when I can without asking for anything in return.
I will strive to learn everyday to know new cultures so I better can understand the people and the world around me. I will offer a shoulder to lean on when the day is feeling heavy. I will listen when those around me need to lighten their burden.
Most importantly I will never be silent.
I will share my own experiences and tell others that it's ok to say no when you risk lowering your energy levels to much. I will show others that being introvert is not something to be ashamed of as almost all people on this earth have some introvert inside them. I will talk about my darkest moments like when my younger brother died or loosing my grandmother to cancer.
I will talk about being bullied and the feeling of shame when you leave the party early because you are exhausted mentally. I will talk about the sense of feeling completely worthless when you need to beg for money to pay your rent and put food on your table. I will talk about this and much more because there are people out there that think that they are alone in these feelings.
You are not alone as darkness comes to us all. If you look at me today I am successful. I have a great job that I love. I am confident, easy to talk to and some people see me as a leader. This was not always the case and my journey has been long and bumpy.
In your darkest moment when you feel like you just want to the pain of living to fade away I want to say to you that I know what you are feeling. I also know that no matter how bad things are everyone can live a happy life. It might seem impossible for you, but the first step is to talk about it. Find someone to talk to because your life matters. It matters to me.
Darkness is all around us in this cold and cynical world based on greed and selfishness. Each of us still can shine however and if you have read this very long article all the way here you are either one of those shining lights or you are trapped in darkness.
Regardless of what is true for you, please don't be silent.
The world need your voice.
And your light.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Personal ·

Moving forward and looking to the future

In the last weeks I have been occupied with the final preparations for leaving my old company. It has been a bit sad and difficult at times, but now as the final date have been set and the practical things been put into place I feel pretty good.
It is strange how such a small thing as a date for my last working day in one company can be so important, while at the same time the first working day on another feel so distant. How my mind is unable to process one until the other has been clarified and decided.
Now that it is settled I can enjoy the last weeks with my co-workers and friends and look forward to the new and exciting times ahead. 
The summer is slowly leaving room for autumn as the wheel of time continue to move. One thing must end for another to begin. 
I lift my cup of coffee and smile as another leaf fall from the tree outside. 
I am ready for another cycle.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Personal ·

Will 2017 be the year when we get serious about UX and CRO?

Personalization, omnichannel, SEO and SEM. These are the things you hear people spend tons of money on in 2016, but only recently have you started to hear more about UX. Unfortunately the term UX is used as some form of collective phrase for all things related to design and conversion optimization, which it is not.
When discussing UX you will almost always have conversation drifting into topics of visual design, Interaction Design (IxD) and of course Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). Now this is fine because UX certainly are closely connected to these fields, but the problem is that no one seem to explain that they are just that: connected. Instead everything is just "UX", which leads to problem with expectation and actual result.
Lets start by breaking down what UX is and is not by defining the different aspects of a design:
Visual Design
There are many types of visual design and the most common for enterprise companies is the creative visual designer. This is because enterprise companies use creative agencies, even if there is no creative aspect of the visual design to begin with. A creative visual designer is an artist. The creations are all master pieces to be admired and praised and the format of advertisement and commercials are where the creative artist truly will shine.
E-commerce for example have very little creative freedom because it is limited in function and expectations from the users. To put a creative artist on the task of designing an E-commerce site is like asking Michelangelo to select the color palette for window frames and door dressings for 15.000 apartments in Los Angeles instead of doing the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It's a waste of time for the artiste and the result will be to complex for the purpose.
Instead you use a GUI designer with an expertise in the system you are designing for. Unlike the creative visual designer that will spend endless discussions on what font to use with what pantone so the kerning will amplify the shades of the fall collection the GUI designer will focus on usable design, best suited for the platform and purpose of the site.
The GUI designer will live in the borderline between visual design and the front end developer and they have a decent understanding of IxD and UX based on previous experience. There are no visual masterpieces created by GUI designers, but they are the true masters of making usable design that generate sales and clients love to browse their balanced and well constructed designs.
Interaction Design
The interaction designer is all about the interaction between the system and the user. The sole purpose of the work done by the IxD is to ensure the interaction is the best possible for the user so that person can get to where they want to go as fast and as easy as possible. In order to do this the IxD is armed to the teeth with tools to structure information and data, how to optimize search and navigation structures, if the target group prefer popups, slide ins or any other type of front end behavior to present information.
Unlike the visual designer colors, fonts and other visual aspects, are not an important aspect of the interaction process. So wireframes are the tools of the trade for an IxD, even if that is slowly making way for prototypes these days as it has many benefits beyond mere IxD.
User Experience
The UX designer is all about feelings, but not just any feelings: the users feelings. This is when the visual design come together with the interaction design in a way that is most appealing to the users. The UX process is all about finding out what the users want, what they need (that they might not even know they want) and then to adjust the visual and interaction to best fit that need.
The UX designer spend lots of time identifying and understanding the users so they can form that emotional bond that make it possible to make the best possible experience for them. The tools for the UX designer are all about communication and psychology so interviews, think aloud testing, eye tracking and analytics are all part of the UX designers arsenal as well as a sound understanding of color psychology and the ways the human brain interact with the digital world.
Conversion Rate Optimization
The Conversion Rate Optimizer is all about psychology. The CRO expert build on top of the IxD and UX designers work and they dig deeply into the more advanced areas of visual design and of course the greatest tool of all CRO masters: the communication between the user and the site called tonality.
Things like the reciprocity, directional cues and copywriting are heavily mixed with psychology such as color psychology and the Gestalt Laws. Behavior patterns and content management become target for optimization where each funnel is examined and dissected to find the optimal flow with the optimal design and optimal tonality.
Conversion rate optimization in itself have many, many different flavors. Some CRO are experts in getting forms to convert, others are experts in structure and trust while others are experts in SEO/SEM returns or Email campaigns.
Get the right designer for 2017
So what kind of designer do you need for 2017, really? It all depend on where you are in your design cycle. Most sites already have a design, flawed as it might be, but instead of spending millions on a redesign, which will most likely just cost you money unless you do it right, I suggest you consider the three steps building blocks of a great design.
Interaction Design - Ensures that the site CAN be used. User Experience Design - Ensures that that people WANT to use the site. Conversion Rate Optimization - Ensures that people WILL use the site. I would say that 75% of all E-commerce are in dire need of an IxD. That is because so many sites still struggle with site structure and interaction. To many have fallen for the lure of using a creative designer and are stuck with a design that the user do not understand how to use or that is not actually usable at all.
20% of all E-commerce sites have a structure that the users can use, but the design lack pleasure and clarity and for that reason a UX designer is needed. This is where magic happens almost daily and it's a wonderful time for a site user to bond with the users to truly begin to understand them.
Only 5% are in the state where they have the structural stability and easy usage focused on the right user group and it's these 5% that are in the exciting phase of Conversion Rate Optimization. This is when a site truly enter a golden area and exceptionally few sites ever reach this state.
Regardless of where you are in your design you should seriously look at your site today and ask yourself this:
Do you know who you are building your site for and have you confirmed this with actual data so you know that is actually true? Are your content such as images, texts and visuals communicating with those people in the way that is appropriate for that target group and have you verified that with data as well? Will your site win awards for ease of use if your visitors would vote for your site honestly every time they visited your site and have you confirmed that with the users? Is there anything about your site you are not 100% satisfied with and is it safe to say that your users will feel the same as you? Do you want to make more money and have happier clients in 2017 by taking care of questions 1-4 as well of hundreds others that affect your sales and customer satisfaction? If the answer for #5 is yes, then I suggest you take a long look into your budget and consider not wasting money on SEO/SEM or redesign efforts before you have a serious look at your UX and CRO, because if you read all of this I assume you are dedicated enough to already have done your IxD work...
...am I correct?
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Ways of working ·

How could Skandia improve their communication to make the customers feel good about a doctors appointment?

In my previous post I wrote about the anger I felt about Skandia calling me fat and asking me to do a health check based on the completely useless measurement BMI. Now lets see how could Skandia turn this feeling of rage to something positive with some easy UX magic shall we?
So, Skandia did not do so well with their pretty straight forward request that I should get a doctor to sign off that I am in decent shape and do not pose a risk of dying anytime soon. Looking at others response this is not unique to me, so it is an issue for Skandia that I'll try to give some ideas on how to fix by just changing the copy.
The quote is not exact, but as you can see some effort have been made to be as polite as possible, but still the wording pretty much say "we use a tool that inaccurately attempt to measure how fat you are and based on that we thing you are obese and need a doctor to tell us you will not die instantly costing us money".
That is a pretty bad message because if you do not consider yourself fat you will get insulted, if you are overweight you get angry because you do not want to have that thrown in your face and finally if you like me really, really are against the abuse of BMI as any form of measurement tools you will really get under their skin.
So, regardless if you use BMI or not your aim is to make the potential customer feel like this is for her benefit and just routine. You do not want to bring attention to whatever their weight situation is or tell them they got specially selected as being fat. So lets see if we can bring this same message, but turning it to a positive message instead:
 
Maybe it's not the best text, but you get the idea. Instead of calling attention to a potential health issue Skandia ask us to make the check to make sure no hidden health issues exist. It turn the issue from being about Skandia wanting to be sure I am not a potential cost to be about then caring about my health and offer to pay to make sure it's ok. That's a pretty big change of tonality.
The assurance that they pay for the visit trigger a mild reciprocity effect and the offer to be there to answer questions enhance the tonality of caring. No indication if this is specifically for you or a general request exist which makes it less intrusive, so this works if it's sent out to all potential clients or just the potential obese ones.
It's a very simple change of wording that I pretty much just wrote on the fly, but with some proper copy anyone can turn any text and make it into a conversion machine instead of a conversion killer. It's all about how you talk to people, not what you actually ask them to do....
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Personal ·

BMI as a measurement of my health? Skandia you /almost/ lost me as a customer with that.

I signed up for health insurance with Skandia a week or so ago and was briefed that it most likely would include a health checkup which I was more than fine with. When I got the letter for the health checkout however they referred to my BMI and it made me very angry.
I have absolutely no issue with doing a physical checkup, in fact I welcome it and consider it to be a natural thing if you want to get an insurance for your health. I would consider it stupid and unprofessional NOT to ask for one when signing up new people for insurance even.
What I take great offense over is the fact that Skandia use one of the worst tools of measurement ever to support this request: Body Mass Index, or BMI for short. This offends me greatly because it takes no consideration to what body mass you actually have.
Now I am not a thin person and with my bodyweight ending up somewhere around 113-115kg I end up with a BMI at around 34.1-34.7. This is according to BMI the same as being Obese. The recommendation for my height is 62-82kg, which is fun since my body weight was 75 when I had so little sub dermal fat that you could actually see the veins in my face. On this picture I am around 80kg and that was 20 years ago...
Considering that BMI is such a terrible measuring tool I strongly consider changing insurance company just for this simple letter telling me that because of a BMI above 30 I am requested to do a health checkup. Had they just skipped that and asked me to do it I would have happily done so.
Now I am not sure if I feel that a company that even consider using BMI for health indicators and that apparently does not require people with no muscles to do a health check? In a country where many are quite tall and where fitness is a trend it makes zero sense to use a measuring tool that clearly misrepresent tall people as fat and short people as "healthy".
Skandia, you really did not do your homework on this one and considering the bad reputation BMI have and the fact that you basically just told me, and others in the same situation, that because you are fat you need to do a health check you should seriously consider how you address this issue with your potential clients.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Personal ·

Fjord Stockholm - one of the greatest workplaces in the world.

I have been meaning to write this for a while now and as my energy start to come back I feel it's time to express my admiration for the amazing Fjord Stockholm office and the people working there.
I have had the pleasure of working not just with Fjord, but also sit with them in their Stockholm office for close to a year. In that time I have observed and learned a lot from how Fjord build their culture within the office and how it affect their work.
A workplace can be many things and how it is structured and decorated have a great impact on how the people working there feel. Not just about themselves and the workplace, but also how the company itself are perceived. So if you want to know what kind of company you are dealing with you can just take a stroll through their office.
As you probably know Fjord is a part of Accenture and for me that made things very interesting because Accenture is very strict as a company. A strict environment almost never fit a creative mind and Fjord is a melting pot of creativity, so how does that work for Fjord?
Well, Fjord have solved this by taking the best parts of Accentures high standards for security and their values and built it as a core of their work. This core is then surrounded by a setting for creativity that is just amazing! Every where you go you will find places to sit or interact with.
It can be a swing next to a window, a huge teddy bear that you can actually curl up in its lap. A VR set in the coffee area and kitchens that make for perfect work areas or places to chat for a while. Everything is carefully selected to be stylish and playful, but also as ways to trigger your minds creative processes even more.
There are always things to look at with an odd shape, creations made from strange materials and you can find places to sit and work all over the place and not just around the working areas. In short it is amazing!
On top of this very creative scenery you have people. People that are friendly, curious and oh so full of creativity and talent from all over the world. These people combined with the decoration of the office create an atmosphere that is very difficult to describe, but if you are a creative designer you probably just call it heaven.
I will miss the Fjord Stockholm office, but I will do my best to make sure the Claremont office I am just starting to get to know will be equally great, if not even more so! It is a challenge, but one well worth to take on because the work place is where most of us spend a majority of our time throughout life, so it should be amazing!
The Fjord Stockholm office have managed to create just such a working environment that truly make it one of the best working places in the world for creative creationists.
Well done Fjord Stockholm!
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Personal ·

When your new co-workers completely rock your socks.

Last Thursday I had my first meeting with the Claremont UX group that I am now a part of and it was one of those meetings where you just sit and go "wow" because your co-workers are just the greatest people you have ever met!
While the UX part of Claremont is fairly new the people are sharp and experienced wizards for sure. The exchange of knowledge was through the roof and the level of discussion was at the highest level! It's been a while since I was not the sharpest UX mind in the room so sitting with these great minds was just amazing.
I look forward to be a part of this group who truly is passionate about making the world a better place by making it as user friendly as possible. I see no limit to the amazing things that we can do together and my heart is just glowing with inspiration and passion right now. I can't wait to get to work on Monday!
...
My new co-workers completely rocked my socks and it was epic!
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Personal ·

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