Last year, my good friend Christoffer and I decided to start a scholarship. I first wrote about it here.

Now, just over a year after we originally had the idea, we have been through one round of applications — and — also handed out the Scholarship for this year to an impressive girl, Rikke Krause. Read much more about her and her application essay over at the Scholarship website.

I was amazed by the applicants for the Scholarship. As part of their application they had to write a 700-800 word essay on something they were passionate about, and I enjoyed reading every word. Rikke’s essay, which is the one you can read on the Scholarship website, is a great example, which is a fun and serious tour de force on Heinz Tomato Ketchup.

Somehow it makes me feel very reassured that we have such a group of people, with desires they fight for and an impressive “pay it forward”-mentality. I wish all the applicants the best — but I am sure they will not need it. Their positive spirit and helping mentality will serve them well, without a doubt.

I am also very happy with the positive response this project has received from friends, family, and strangers alike. Christoffer and I will, as intended from the very beginning, carry on next year. In the mean time, pay it forward is much more than just this. It is every day from the very small things to the very big things and all in between. If you have feedback or great ideas that I should know of, I would love to know.

I’m slowly settling down into vacation mode, spending time at the water side with jazz & rock and books. This spring, unfortunately, has been way below average on the books side. So I hope to make up for it during vacation, although I’m sure I’ll get to prioritising at some point.

It’s a mixed bunch of novels, poetry, and business/factual books — and some of them are re-reads. Re-reads go for Atlas Shrugged, The Great Gatsby, The Pyramid Principle, and the Fifth Discipline.

Some of you may notice that there are some key classics in the reading pile as well. Embarrassing, but at least I will get around to them this summer. If anyone thinks I’m making a huge mistake in reading any of the books in the picture — or — have recommendations for great reading in the summer, do let me know.

Soundtrack for this summer is, beyond the jazz age we are now in (Copenhagen and Montreux!), Alphabeat, the Broken Beats, Gnarls Barkley, Hot Chip, John Legend, John Mayer, Neil Young, Portishead, Rasmus Nøhr, and the Stones. I love vacation.

See you on the other side — take it to the max (P.Y.T).

New interpretation of the classic M1. BMW — please serial produce this. More here.

I’m listening to soft jazz, while I read Weekendavisen, a weekly, Danish newspaper (the best), which deep dives on domestic and foreign affairs, liberal arts, natural science and more. I nearly skipped one article, Fear only your own fear (Frygt kun din egen frygt) by Louise Windfeld-Høeberg, but I’m glad I didn’t.

Incredibly well-written with the occasional dry humour, Louise tells us the story of a conversation with Fabien, a Rwandan priest, on a long-haul flight from Nairobi to Amsterdam. Louise, sceptical at the beginning of their conversation, ends up unveiling some of herself while shedding some light on two very important topics: embracing life and taking risks. These themes are potentially stating the obvious to most people, but the same people neglect to live by them. And iteration has never hurt anybody.

Embracing life

Life is only as positive as you make it. Although we all have valleys of life, we should embrace the opportunity to make of it what we can. If you feel your morning sucks, then the rest of the day is an uphill battle. And a large part of the effort is changing the mind, rather than wishing the world around you is different. Fabien, from Louise’s flight conversation, comes from Rwanda. Try to search for Rwanda on Google and see what you find (hint: not all positives), but the first thing Fabien says when he describes his home country is much different:

“Rwanda is the most beautiful and fertile country in the world. It is like paradise. Everything can grow there. Everything. Sweet potatoes, corn, yes, all fruits and vegetables — and, not the least, the most delightful bananas,” he says proudly.

I’m not advertising for obliviousness, but I do advertise for a positive mind and an embracing mind towards the world around us and to life.

And Fabien is extremely persistent in this regard, and maybe hinting towards being a little too pervasive. At the end of their flight, Fabien realises that he does not know why Louise is flying back to Denmark:

“What are doing in Denmark?” Fabien asks.

“I’m actually burying my grandmother,” I say

“My condolences.”

“Thank you.”

“How old was she?”

“Almost 90.”

“How fantastic! What an age!”

“I will miss her.”

“You should rather say: ‘Thank you grandmother, for staying with us for so long!’ And be happy for her long life.”

“Hmm.”

Although it may border to being too pervasive, as mentioned, nevertheless it is often this perspective that is needed in the valleys of our lives. And in any case, Fabien’s freshness and naturalness is really compelling.

Taking risks

Part of embracing life is also to take chances. Louise tells Fabien about the school that her children go to — a school that really puts an extra effort into teaching the children to take chances — or risks. To become risk takers.

“The bravest even get an acknowledgement for their efforts. They are called up at the monthly morning gathering in front of hundreds of students, parents, and teachers, awarded a risk taker diploma, and applauded all the way back to their seats.”

We should also do this in our schools and in our society at large. It seems as if risk-taking is actively discouraged in the way we interact with each other. Being cautious of not becoming reckless, we should actively encourage risk-taking and make people believe. One of my favourite quotes these days is from Disney and illustrates this very well:

If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.

Potentially the word risk is a problem in itself. It sounds negative to begin with. Louise notes this very well in an anecdote that will stay with me for a long time:

“We sit and are quiet together. And then, I remember that in Nyanja, the language that most people talk home in Lusaka and in the Eastern part of Zambia where Fabien was a refugee, is only one, common word for risk and chance - it is mwayi.”

Let taking risks and taking chances be synonymous, equally compelling and actively encouraged.

—ooOoo—

And so, while writing this, my jazz playlist ended. I resorted to one of my favourite bands these days, Munck//Johnson — if you don’t know them, give them a listen

All quotes are from the article and freely translated by me (except the Disney quote).

Some time ago I started donating blood — if I remember correctly it was yet another one of those extra things you just had to do instead of sitting yourself down and writing your thesis. When I found that my blood type was AB RhD negative, the most seldom type, I felt that I was being especially helpful. Right until, of course, that I also found out, that then less people demand AB RhD negative blood :-). It seems, that the O RhD negative blood type is actually the most helpful, because everyone can receive it — at least according to Wikipedia.

But regardless of your blood type, the people working at the blood bank makes you feel special. Just this morning, I went to donate blood yet again, and, now having been to two different banks (four visits in total, so I don’t have that many data points yet :-)), I must say, every company should be a blood bank. At the very least, they can learn from them:

• Blood banks are good at donor retention
  When enough time has passed so that I’m allowed to donate again, I get an e-mail. If I don’t respond I get a call, and they are flexible, yet persistent, in getting an appointment agreed on the spot. Companies should be good at customer retention as well — it is much cheaper to get a customer to return, than to get a new one.
• Blood banks are good at word of mouth
  They have merchandise, they have stickers, and they have a “feel-good-product” that people love to talk about. The Danish organisation even has a rather popular Facebook group. Companies should make you proud that you’re using their product as well.
• Blood banks are good at understanding donor needs
  They are open early, so you can go there before work. They are also open late, so you can go there after work. You can book time via e-mail, you have easy-access parking — there is no end to the madness of customer friendliness. And the front-line staff and nurses are right up there too: When you lie down with blood running out of you, you for sure don’t want a grumpy nurse, but I nice person to interact with.
• Blood banks realize that if they have no donors, they have no blood bank
  No blood, no bank. No money, no bank (does your bank think this way?). In fact, no customers, no company. Blood banks can lecture on this.

Blood banks do it well, in my experience, and the best companies do too. Every company should be a blood bank.

And you can be a donor :-):

• Wikipedia: Blood donation
• GivBlod (Danish website — click here to find out how to donate blood here in Denmark)

At some point in the beginning of my university studies, I started tracking my time, because I was not entirely sure of where all these hours went. How much time did I spend in school? At work? Watching TV or surfing the Internet? Something completely different? Or absolutely nothing?

I can remember, one of the categories I had for registering my time was helping others. Setting time aside and helping others in one shape or form or another. This became a focus area for me — long after I stopped registering my time (I think I stopped again after three months or so). I wanted to increase my time spent helping others — and I still want to. (So now is the time to provide me with proper feedback on how you think I can do better and improve — all input is highly welcome.)

In the summer of 2007 on a vacation to New York City, my friend Christoffer Husted and I, came up with an idea to hand out a scholarship. After some maturation, we are now live with the Husted Rasmussen & Clauber Ruwald Scholarship — perhaps the not the most inspirational name. But the idea counts much more than the name. And the idea is so much more than a scholarship, but you have to start somewhere, and everything counts.

The journey does not stop here. I want to increase my time spent helping others — and, again, your feedback on how I can do better is very welcome.

I’m experimenting a little with micro-blogging, or tumblelogging as some has called it — check it out on ruwald.tumblr.com. The purpose is not to replace my blog, but to also have a space to share small bites of information, links, pictures, etc. I’m still experimenting, so I don’t know whether I’ll continue to use it. However, it has some very apparent advatages:

• All of my shared items from Google Reader (blog posts I read and want to share) and del.icio.us (my bookmarks) will be consolidated into my tumblog
• My blog posts will also show up in my tumblog
• My blog is kept clean for “normal” posts, as you have known it until now
• Easy access on your mobile (ruwald.tumblr.com/mobile)

See it as a complement to my blog, not as a replacement :-). I am using tumblr to run it so far, but I would like to find out how to include under my own domain. (If you have any input on that, let me know — constraint: No use of subdomains)

In other news today, from the strange and weird fact file, my web site received a small face-lift over the weekend:

• More pictures on the front page (click refresh, and you will receive a random photo from the pool)
• Sandbox (previously I experimented in the dark, but I decided I might as well get your input)
• Slight design revision

Let me know what you think. And if you have/create a tumblelog, please let me know :-)

From left to right: Kenneth, Danny, Johanne, Louise, Peter, Morten, Sara, Jakob, Mathilde, Uffe, Lars, Esben, Nete, Søren, Jens, Mads T, Anne, Marthe, Henrik, Thomas Bo, Thomas, Marie, Charlotte (my sister!), and me. (Mari and Mads B could not make it to the photo session).

Merry Christmas from me to all of my family, friends, colleagues and school mates! This is the CBS Case Competition Christmas Card, and I look the look and feel to it very much–maybe because I like the people in it and spend so much (too much?) of my time with them :-).

Hopefully, I’ll have the time for another Merry Christmas post before we actually get to Christmas.

Today, my wonderful little sister, Charlotte has her 21st birthday. Happy Birthday Charlotte!

(The picture is a test shot from when we had to shoot the photo for the CBS Case Competition Christmas card — but I think this one turned out quite fine, I think. And for those of you who did not know, it is Charlotte in the photo.)

Those who know me, know that I’m fond of cars, very fond of BMW, and particularly fond of the BMW M5. Well, I can’t but share this video my brother pointed to me on YouTube.

This weekend we had the annual (well, as annual as it gets, when it is the second time we do it) CBS Case Competition Kick Off Weekend. What a blast. To my surprise and liking, we went to the southern part of Jutland — Sønderjylland — which is the part of the country that I come from, if it had slipped anyone’s attention :-).

This is a picture from our walk in the Åtte Mountains (mountains in Denmark are non-existent… we have hills, and the Åtte Mountains, which they are actually called, don’t go above 60-70 metres). The two in the foreground are Thomas (Big T) and I — we write this year’s case. On the far right in the picture is Thomas Bo, my business partner.

Yesterday (September 16) around midday, my sister Bettina delivered a baby boy (4,035 g, 52 cm), which makes her a proud mother, Jens (my brother-in-law) a proud father, and — of course — me a proud uncle.

Life is so beautiful.

One of my latest blog roll additions is a blog called indexed, which is actually a pretty new blog (the archive goes back to the beginning of August this year) — and it is both hilariously funny, relevant and intelligent. The content generated consists of small posts with pictures of index cards, making a point using a nice hand-drawn illustration. Below, an index card called “Keepin’ it real“, posted yesterday.

The 2007 Triumph Bonneville - wow, it’s so hot! I’ve put it down on my wishlist for Christmas (who am I kidding?) — well, at least it is on my shopping list for this spring.

In the beginning of the year, I signed up as a user on last.fm, one of these many social, web 2.0 web sites going around—this one about music. Last.fm has a little feature that tells you who your “musical neighbours” are. Naturally, I had to explore who was on my neighbour list, and I bumped into a wonderful blog called The Girl in the Café maintained by a Dutch girl called Ingrid, who lived in Aarhus, Denmark, at the time (and now lives in London).

From what I gather from her blog, Ingrid loves a movie called, also, The Girl in the Café so much that she had the wonderful idea of starting a dvd tour, which everyone can sign up for. I was so inspired by Ingrid’s blog, what she wrote, and her idea, that I simply had to sign up to see what this movie was all about. In order to participate, you have to write a review of the movie, and post it to your blog, so here goes:

Movie Review: The Girl in the Café

The movie takes place in England, where we meet Lawrence, a researcher for the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is dull, lacks both self-esteem and self-confidence, and has nothing in his life but his job. One day, at a café, he bumps into a girl, Gina, who seems very shy at first. After this, they meet a couple of times, subsequent to which Lawrence invites her to a G8 summit in Iceland.

Once in Iceland, the movie takes a turn. Gina’s character is suddenly not so shy and she embarrasses Lawrence at several occasions in front of some very important people (presidents, ministers and their like). She ends up being escorted away and home, and he ends up losing his job.

That is the setting—and it is about as exciting as I have written it here. The only interesting thing is how two lost people can find love and happiness in a world like ours, but the movie is abused and turned into a political plot, where, according to the movie, everything is black and white—compromise seems like a notion the movie doesn’t embrace (or want to embrace). The political agenda steals the attention, and that’s a shame, because the story of the two people would have been much more interesting.

All in all, the movie is very monotonous, with an average cast (except Bill Nighy), which is not worth much more than 2 stars (of 6).

Read about The Girl in the Café at IMDb.

That said, I think the project is a wonderful idea, and I urge you to go to Ingrid’s website, follow her blog (which is very good) and sign up for the tour, so you can see and judge the movie for yourself.

For those abroad, those not living in Copenhagen, or those who might have had their head in a bush the last four days: The Copenhagen Jazz Festival is right here, right now, and it is rocking swinging.

Being a jazz enthusiast myself (I play the saxophone–and I simply love Jazz), this is one of the best times to be in Copenhagen. I have not had as free a schedule as I would have liked these two weeks, but I get to see a little. And–Jamie Cullum is playing in Tivoli on Friday!

The Montreux Jazz Festival is also running right now. I wish I had the time to go, but Montreux will have to be next year . I promise. (I hope….) — (I was in Montreux in the fall–what a wonderful trip…)

It has been a while, since I’ve posted something. The main reason is that my beloved ThinkPad (of all computers) has decided that it wanted to break its own motherboard. Whaaaat! I need to copy my hard drive, before I send it in for repair, so there might go some weeks, before I’m fit for fight again.

On a positive note, this little crash made me look at Apple’s website (which I do quite often anyway), and I fell in love with the new MacBooks, so that might be my next computer. Go have a look at them; you’ll fall in love too :-).

In the latest issue of Times, Bono and Bill and Melinda Gates are elected as Time’s Persons of the Year. I particularly like the introductory bit to the article (reproduced below).

“For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME’s Persons of the Year.”

Read the entire Times article at their website.

The last couple of weeks, some of my colleagues and I have been going crazy with riddles, brain teasers, and tests. It started because we needed to hire another one for our team, and then BANG we were giving each other brain teasers all the time. It’’s like being back in elementary school (or at any i-bank/consultancy interview, for that matter).

It made me think back of my 7th grade physics teacher. He was young, cool, and loved to tease us. We loved to tease him back, of course. He gave me a riddle, which I spent nearly a month trying to figure out.

This is a house, or a box, or whatever you might call it. It has 16 walls, which I numbered arbitrarily. Now, in one continuous line, starting either inside or outside the house, cross all of the walls, but never cross any wall more than once. Can you do that?

I never figured it out during the month, and I think I found out that it has no solution. At least that’’s what I maintain to this day to keep some of my 7th grade self-confidence. You’’re welcome to second-guess me, of course; let me know.

Go to BrainBashers for a collection of riddles, teasers and a lot more. Let me know if you have any good links.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) writes in his book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news,
which obeys its own special laws.”

You had better remember this.