What is you position at Appium?My title is SVP Business Development, which means that I am responsible for Appium´s long- and short-term product offers. My task is to build up a Product Marketing operation at Appium, supporting an agile process model and acting as a customer to the development department.For how long have you had a leading position with budget responsibility?
I have held management positions for about 10 years, of which the last five years have been at Appium. There I have held the responsibility for Strategic Partners, Products (R&D and Product Management), and recently Business Development. Besides management positions at Appium, I have worked within Sales at Hewlett-Packard and moveAround.com. Furthermore, I was the Product Manager for cardiology products at Siemens-Elema and I have had a business unit manager position at Bluelabs (a unit within Frontec at the time). I have experience from different market levels, technical areas and management postitions. What is your feeling of the importance of the Öresund region for people out in Europe ?
The Öresund region is well known to people within the telecom line of business, since many telecom companies have their head quarters or large development departments located here. Within a very small area, companies such as Ericsson Mobile Platforms, SonyEricsson, Telelogic, TDC, Sonofon, TAT, Appium, etc, are represented and they attract a lot of competent people. In addition to that, there are a large number of start-up companies in the region that contribute to a great extent to the attention to Copenhagen , Malmö and Lund. We have initiated Øredev Extended, a conference for decision makers within IS/IT Management, in the Öresund region. Is attending conferences like this a good way of getting new experiences?
I consider these kinds of conferences to be the best way to efficiently get new ideas that could improve my way of working. I participate in events like this because it is the only way of efficiently gaining this sort of information. You cannot find it as compact as this anywhere else, not on the Internet, nor in books or periodicals. The fact that competent people in the same line of business work at competing companies makes it difficult to acquire valuable tips and ideas. Depending on the work climate and the size of the company you work at, information of this sort can also be difficult to gain within the company. Also, the organisation structure might be an obstacle for sharing information. For small firms, as for instance one-person companies, this kind of inspiration might be very hard to get elsewhere. Here is a golden opportunity to get new ideas and thoughts and catch up on new trends and approaches. You meet a mix of competent people, which is usually very productive.
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You have had a look at the programme for Øredev Extended. What are you looking forward to the most?I think it will be difficult to choose, I would like to see all the seminars, as the programme is filled with exiting subjects and interesting persons.We have a set-up, which mixes seminars with round table discussions, what possibilities do you see in that?
My experience of round table discussions is very good, and usually, they work out very well. They are good ways of getting dialogs and discussions started, in an unstrained way. After a conference, whatever you remember, you will definitely remember the sitting down with others and discussing an interesting subject, and - discussions like these are often points of departure for taking ideas and vagaries to the next level. Another thing that could be perceived as an advantage with round table discussions is not having to speak before a big audience, as sometimes you cannot be brief in your question or statement, as you would like to give some background to it. And sometimes you are not comfortable doing it in English. We will have the same subjects on the Øredev Extended programme as for Øredev, to give managers and developers new experiences within the same areas, but from different perspectives. How can a company benefit from that?
At a development company like ours, it gives us a joint view on things and visualises the connections between technology and management - and that gives a synergy between the development department and the management. It betters the understanding between these two groups to meet on common grounds. What are your expectations on Øredev Extended and what do you hope to take with you from the conference?
My experience is that from a conference like this, you take two, three concrete ideas with you, that you want to continue working with. This requires a mix between “high and low" in the programme, it can´t be too narrow, as it is all about “freeing your mind". But of course, what you are listening for, depends on what kind of situation you are in at the moment. Maybe you are facing a change process at your job, in that case you are of course seeking relevant information on change management, the forming of new strategies and routines, etc. But as touched on before, my benchmark for how good a conference is, is how many concrete ideas I take with me. So, I will attend Øredev Extended, get the feel for the composition of the programme and hopefully take some golden nuggets of information with me. Furthermore, I think it is of great importance that the conference takes place in the Öresund region, as this means you will meet people who work and live here, who you can continue networking with in a proper, well-working way. Therefore, I think Øredev Extended is a brilliant initiative. |
