I would think that, too

If I were you, I'd think that this blog didn't exist anymore, that it was abandoned and left behind in some digital heap of leftovers and unwanted peripherals. But no, it's still here, still serving your humble host as a way to express himself. But wait, if that is true, where is it? Where's this expressions you speak of?

Fair question. And the answer is a bit complex, but since my Indian adventure ended I've had a really shitty time finding proper income, especially given that I live in a region that is chemically free of IT jobs. It's pretty here, and life is nice and slow, but my family can't live off pretty and nice and slow (or so my wife and kids tell me). I've done a smidgen of contract work, but laughable as it stands, and it has in general been quite difficult for me to focus on much else. Of course I could vent here every day about my struggles, especially the vile and evil ways of the recruiter (and a lot of blame has to fall on those morons who hire them; shame on you) but I've been sparing you, good reader, from a repetitious stream of vile and frustrations.

Sure, some interesting things have happened, and a lot of it will be revealed in due time. But right now things are slowly falling into place (although not all is as good as it could be), normality returns, and I'm having a cup of tea before bed, and wanted to pop this message out there that things are looking up, if only for a brief moment.

One thing that has happened which I'm somewhat excited about is that I've decided to write a book, and I'm already 50 pages of edited and (re-)written materials. the title and contents will come a bit later, but I'm thinking of a self-publishing model in eBook form, but I'll take any advice at the moment. (It's a book for technology developers, managers and entrepreneurs - very broad in scope! - on the more philosophical side of things)

Anyway, I'll let you in on the details of work later. I'm in Australia for now, but there's a Norwegian adventure possibly a bit later on, but as with all things in my life, the details are light and fluffy.

Need my brain?

Recall how I have been neglecting my blogging due to just too much work these days? Well, the day when the crazy busy stops is today. After working non-stop with some pretty lofty crazy funky Topic Maps stuff, getting some traction on the potential and seeing some light at the end of a very busy tunnel, it's a bit odd for me to announce ;

My project has been canned for strategic reasons, and I'm out of a job.

Well, now, things move quick around here; the one moment I'm crazy busy doing crazy stuff, next I'm crazily trying to figure out what to do next. If anybody need a brain for hire, this is your chance!

The stupid thing is that I live in the Illawarra / Wollongong area, an area renowned for lack of jobs and being chemically free of IT and innovation (the local government tried to fix that by calling Wollongong 'the city of innovation' and build a huge innovation center that's too expensive for any upstarts to get into). I guess this is a good time to link to my LinkedIn profile, no?

However, I'm not bound by that we must be living here. I'll go anywhere, especially interesting places, interesting countries. I've got three little kids to worry about so I can't jump too quick, but I certainly can hop around New South Wales and possibly Canberra, and sort out where to live after that. Or I can telecommute, or fully work from home. I'm not fussy at this point.

I guess this is where I tell you what I can do; through my 20+ years career I've chewed over and gained specialist expertize in just slightly too abstract things, like Topic Maps (a fantastic technology that doesn't exist in Australia, but obviously should and you should hire me to teach you how to kick arse!), XSLT (a fantastic technology far too few use and truly understand, but you should and you should hire me to teach you how to solve complexity with simplicity!), AI (a crazy notion only researchers use, and I'm not a qualified researcher, but you should hire me just because you value solutions over credentials!), library technology and science (a dying cluster of concepts, but you should hire me to get you up to speed and make you thrive and survive!), epistemology (don't even know where to begin with this one, but you should hire me because I'm telling you!), and training / speaking / coaching on a mixture of the above (been on the conference speaking circle a bit, and held tons of training sessions and seminars). I guess more conventional stuff I can do out of the box is complex PHP (lots of that the last few years) and front-end stuff (HTML, CSS, JS/JQuery, the usual suspects) and middle-tier stuff (JSP, JSF, XSLT, a bit of Ruby, a pinch of Python, Perl if I'm crazy, ASP / .Net to some degree) ... heck, I used to be a proficient C developer in my early days, and there's really no language I can't meddle in. Oh, I know; I'm big on architecture with SOA concepts and REST technologies, although I'm not one of those who think the UDDI is great and promote ESB or any somesuch bundle of WS-* wherever I go, even though I can do that, sure (but I'd recomend a RESTful approach for a simpler and richer infra-structure). I've created CMSes of various kinds, frameworks (event-driven, load-balancing, etc.) and APIs, query engines, Topic Maps engines and KM platforms all from scratch, so it feels a bit silly to explain what I can and can't do. There's probably nothing I can't do as such.

My strong side is being creative, though, to see possibilities, opportunities and plan for that in mind. I'm one of those who embrace somewhat agile methods without being an agile-head (coaching is, in fact, a satisfying way of getting things done), and have a special interest and knack for project management. If you need a project manager with a coaching style in areas of knowledge management and using Topic Maps, well, you know who to call. :)

Anyway, in the off-chance that you think I'm the guy to help you out, you can reach me all the time at alexander.johannesen@gmail.com. And if you've got pointers, point me there, or point your pointers here. It's a tricky situation when it happens this abruptly, but I took a risk going into this project, so I knew this was an option. Let's just hope it pans out alright. And thanks for any help you can provide in this crazy time. :)

So long, and thanks for all the smelly fish

It's time to reveal what's going on in my life on a big scale, hinted to in my last dozen or so posts.

Yes, I'm leaving the library world. Yes, I'm leaving Canberra and the National Library of Australia. In fact, I'm leaving Australia altogether. I'm leaving process-oriented committee-driven work (surrounded by the hum of millions upon millions of flies, one of the seriously exciting features about Canberra). I'm leaving good friends and colleges which I'll miss, and a cute house that's been a safe home and haven for the last four years. I'm leaving an extended family who - despite their better knowledge - have accepted me as one of them, with friendships that will bring us back to Australia in a few years, I'm sure. I'm even leaving behind our wonderful dog Oscar (in good hands, I might add ; he's going back to his original owners) which the whole family will miss dearly.

I'm going back to Norway, to work for Bekk Consulting again, and I start at the beginning of February 2008. I'll write more about my role there later, but needless to say these guys know what they're doing, they do it fast and really well, no mucking about. They do not meddle in the semantics of FRBR for 15 years before taking baby-steps to prototype it. Either it's the right thing to do, or it is not. And if it's not, these guys don't do it. And I can't wait to get back into the habit of not doing things we shouldn't do.

We've got a house lined up (in Oslo) centrally and near my beloved woods, and a car. We're scared and excited at the same time, and hope that our Australian friends will forgive us and cheer us on in our adventure, and our Norwegian friends welcome us home and invite us for dinner, if not only for a period.

There's many things I want to talk about, from the state of the library world, to the evils of recruiting companies, to Australian business ethics, the value of friendship, and how to plan your future (which is a short piece about how you can try but will fail), but all in due time.

Right now it's time to pack, reflect, and wrap up my Australian adventure in the most positive way I can. Watch this roof, and wish us good luck in our latest big adventure.

What friggin' IT people shortage?!

Hot in the news today is how Canberra are looking for outside help in getting skilled workers to the city:

The ACT Government has begun linking Canberra employers with job seekers in the United Kingdom and Ireland to ease the city's skills shortage. The move is part of the Live in Canberra campaign.

What friggin' skills shortage? I've been urgently looking for a job for over a month, and I've got absolutely nothing in this city so far. Zilch. Nada. And no, it's not that I haven't got skills (in fact, I've got two job offers from overseas [one of them finalised; we're currently working out figures to see if we can afford it], and a couple of prospects in Sydney), it's that I'm not one of those who's sold their soul to J2EE, best-practices, and PRINCE2 which plague the government sector, nor am I an Australian citizen which seems to be a prequisite there, although I'm pressed to understand how workers imported from UK and Ireland would go better in that regard.

Notice that this is part of the "Live in Canberra" campaign which I'm pretty sure doesn't include information about them closing 39 schools this and next year, so if you've got kids, living in Canberra is a bit of a challenge these days, to put it mildly. The ACT local government is really poorly run, nobody here likes them. heck, people are even looking to liberal government, because, if Labour can only measure things in dollars and cents, we might as well go with those who's got a good track record in that departement to do it. (In the past, Labour actually had values, but Jon Stanhopeless' government is prioritizing a 8 million dollar dragway and a 6 million dollar arboretum in a friggin' drought area over keeping local schools and communities. Go figure.)

Can you tell I'm upset?