Spotted at Absolut Atelier at Drottninggatan. I want!!!111!

1920s party at Amanda & Alexis’. Great fun! And, Adri looking great as usual. Somehow, the cigar-hat-suspenders combination really makes something click for me.

To follow up on an interesting article about self-branding over on Lifehacker, I just want to let everyone know that you can find me at my LinkedIn profile here: Björn Dufwenberg. The article discusses how to make yourself more visible to people looking for you on the internet. Some of the things include:

• Signing up your own domain, like yourname.com, with associated email addresses. Preferrably firstname@lastname.com, but anything else than free hosts is good. (Done! Right here: Dufwenberg.com, although the frontpage is currently nothing but a fresh WordPress installation)
• Put up a “nameplate” page with your full name in the heading. (Almost done, I realize I need to feature my name a bit more in the page and its templates. Changes are coming.)
• Finally, make sure to get your name linked to your site. This can be done through aggregation sites such as 43names.com or others, or simply by commenting on frequently-crawled sites with your full, real name. (Need some work here too.)

Anyway, I’m already doing pretty well, since my LinkedIn profile comes up on top in a google search for my name. But, I have a fairly well-known relative (publishing academic articles in the field of game theory) whose name I won’t mention (since that will move his name up the rankings ;-), who shows up first on a search for my pretty uncommon last name. So, like I said, some more work is needed.

Just read some interesting comments over at Wired (re. death threats from a Christian fundamentalist against the biology department of Colorado University in the States). Check out this one – it is something I can agree with to one hundred percent.

There is something about japanese suburbs (if you can call them that) that looks very wrong in my eyes. Houses can be almost zen-inspired (although it’s not very common), people have incredibly well-tended mini-gardens in front of their houses – often on the street – and kids playing happily with their unicycles in the street. Noone seems to notice what you can see in the first of the pictures below, that the street is getting choked in cables hanging from the ubiqitous concrete poles.
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Compounding the problem is that these poles are treated as some kind of do-whatever-you-want-and-hope-it-doesn’t-fall-down tree. The following picture is the view from my window on the second floor, not very exciting to wake up to a couple of big transformers and fat power cables rolled up in a bunch of teensy optical fibers every morning. Pay special attention to all the metal clamps used on the pole to hold up all the cables.

Apparently the reason for all this is twofold. First, the concrete industry is extremely strong in Japan. In other words, lobbying. They have managed to convince their fellow politicians (by means of a combination of amakudari and pure money handouts, I would guess, rather than through the strength of reason), that cables hanging from concrete poles is safer than cables dug into the ground (!) since Japan has so many earthquakes. Second, there is a law regarding digging cables into the ground that require them to be put into tubes that would withstand a nuclear blast, because the japanese soil is “uniquely moist” and would corrode cables otherwise. Another one of the “Japan is different” arguments. Read “Dogs and Demons” by Alex Kerr for some more discussion around this, regardless of if you agree with his arguments or not. I’m all with him though.
This stuff just tends to get me fired up. I think partly because it aesthetically destroys something that could be really nice – the uniquely japanese design language that is so revered in Sweden feels like it is only present in the shinto shrines nowadays, and the same aesthetical destruction happens in many different guises all across Japan. And, it is maybe even more upsetting because the Japanese themselves have gotten so used to it that they barely register the ugliness that surrounds them.

Ignorance is bliss.

Finally it is done. I have decided.

After a long process of doing interviews, failing some and nailing others, last week I had two job offers left to decide on. A couple of days ago I decided for one, after lots of decision angst. The two offers were very similar in many ways. They are in the same industry (management consulting), they will pay pretty much the same level of salary, and both offer similar development opportunities. Only in two areas do the two offers really differ in any significant way. One has a stronger brand, no question about it, and plenty of my friends working there. The other has arguably more interesting projects (of course very subjective). Working on interesting projects felt more important to me, so I chose the one that offered that. The company I did choose is Capgemini, and the one I didn’t choose is Accenture. Right or wrong? Let me know what you think in the comments. I am convinced I made the right choice, and I’m very happy to be starting work in Stockholm on the first of October.

It’s going to be very weird to leave Japan – I really like it here. At the same time, the feeling I have after probing lots of companies and connections is that it is pretty tough to start working here. Fine if you get sent out as an expat, or work in the finance sector (like Micke), but otherwise it’s hard.

One of the things I will miss the most is the amazing food – I don’t think you can get better food anywhere in the world. For example, last night me and Adri went to Shinobu-tei in Ebisu for a nice dinner, catching up after a week of basically not seeing each other more than for breakfast. This place is an excellent example of how fantastic japanese food can be, from the kanpachi sashimi, via the slightly weird and soupy (but one of Adri’s favorites) 伊達鶏と茄子の卸し煮 to the 合鴨と千寿葱のロースト.
Also, for lunch yesterday, me and some colleagues went to the even more fantastic Roku Roku sushiyasan at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, for the best sushi I ever had. It was the farewell lunch for one of our colleagues who is moving on to a new jobs, lunch courtesy of our gourmet boss. Sushi in Stockholm is unfortunately not quite the same culinary experience.

So, what can we do about this lack of japanese-style culinary development in Sweden? Me and Adri have started doing our part, by attempting to (and almost succeding in) convince our local okonomiyaki guys at Non to move to Sweden and start a branch of their restaurant there. The next step would be to introduce japanese service levels in Sweden. Let’s see if something comes from it :-)

The japanese service culture is amazing. Me and just about everyone I have talked to agree that the service in Japan is amazing. Actually, you notice it even more if you speak some Japanese, since many japanese are shy around foreigners since because of the language barrier that exists in approximately 96.5% of all foreigner-meets-japanese-person-cases. Those who have travelled back to Europe after having lived in Japan for some time are also very much in agreement that service back in Europe sucks bigtime.

An example: I was recently in London, and going into just about any shop or restaurant would get me a sullen “Whaddayawanthere?” look from someone working there. Not because I looked like a homeless person (I didn’t), but rather because (and this is my own humble opinion) me being there would lead to them having to work.

Let’s fly ourselves back to Japan, and we will have cheerful service everywhere, even in the sloppiest fast-food places (say Yoshinoya, Matsuya and Sukiya). At McDonalds, a large portion of the staff greets you as you walk into the place (unless there’s too much people). They smile at you, speak in a clear voice (though in Japanese, of course) and give you a fresh and hot (!) burger, without fail. In most other countries, this only happens if it’s your lucky day.

Another example, and this is one that I would love to see back in Sweden. At a clothes store in Shibuya, today, as I was paying for what I had bought, the sales clerk asked me (translated from Japanese):

“Excuse me for being rude, but would the honored customer like me to put all his things in one bag?”

This, coupled with, in many stores, the person handling your sale will often carry the bag for you and hand it over at the door of the store, while bowing deeply. See if you can beat that, everyone in Europe!

It somehow makes a beautiful, simple sort of sense…

I decided to go along with Adri down to Kobe over the weekend (last week), since it’s never nice to arrive home to an empty, cold house by yourself, especially after having been away for two months. I took the chance to pay her back for all the times that she’s stayed in bed while I’ve had to go to work. As she was getting ready to go to work in Osaka on Saturday morning, I could stay, half-asleep, in the warm, cozy bed, and just stick my tongue out at her while she was complaining of how unfair the situation was. Very satisfying :-)

Since we don’t have so much time left in Japan – three to four months for me, and just under a year for Adri – we have decided to fill in some of our sightseeing map. Check out this experiment over at Google Maps. Will be extended as I have time. We decided to spend out Sunday in Kyoto. I have never been to Kyomizudera, a world heritage site, and one of the most famous temples in Kyoto. Adri, after having seen Johan & Ingelas pictures, was sure she hadn’t been there either (although, as we would see, she had actually been there three times…). Beautiful weather made it a great day. Some pictures below.