Currently on my mind

What do you get when you mix competence, creativity and business sense together with a big portion of deep engagement and people who really cares? You get Edge Academy, an intimate yearly IT festival during a week happening in all Netlight offices all over Europe. By us consultants, for us consultants. Sounds interesting, one must really say, but what’s the agenda or theme? Of course whatever is currently relevant, or Edge as we call it within Netlight. That is whatever makes challenges or opportunities to our clients and our clients as being leaders and drivers of the digital future. What this may be in detail, all of our consultants know together (that’s why the agenda can’t be set by anyone else) so let’s have a peak into the schedule of what is currently Edge to us. Also this is as good answer as any to the question - what does Netlight actually do currently?  What we do in six months or in a year? Nobody knows, and that's the excitement, ask us then and we'l...

At last it's the week of Edge Academy* again.  On my mind after first night of Netlight Edge Academy 2016 in Stockholm is – “The Evolution of Malware” presented by Hannes Sandahl @Netlight with the following agenda and discussion… “ It’s been about 30 years since the first PC virus, Brain A, hit the net. What was once an annoyance has become an advanced tool for crime and espionage. We will talk about how malware has evolved and the future of it. ” Ohhh, another awakening smack in the face. The evolution of Internet of things will besides creating a very interesting digital future really open up the malicious crime business widely. You can't easily hide behind your firewall anymore. Some of the main worries I see here are typically The drivers or producers of Internet Of Things often comes from a non-IT background, leaving IT security left behind. The typical consumer, you and me, know a computer can be affected of malicious intrusion, but don’t see the smar...

Gamification is a word I hear all around currently, and I like it. For me personally taking everything far too serious gamification is a great tool to stay in balance with my stress. Hopefully it will help me last a few more years :-). In services I use I also like gamification, who doesn't want a fun user experience showing there is some thinking and depth behind. Fun doesn't mean non-professional as it used to when I was a kid - meeting greyish robot-like-people at the bank or watching the news. But what about your own company, could it gain from introducing a little more gamification? Will it make people more engaged and involved? Currently I hear about several companies introducing loyalty programs for their employees. As an employee you will earn loyalty points based on your actions and your result (I assume it's based on your team/group result so it doesn't make a nursery for individualism on behalf of creating together). I guess it will be used both as...

      We all start there, with the famous Monolith Architecture. Why? Because it’s easy, it’s fast, it suits our needs just fine. Remember the first rule when distributing your systems – “Do NOT distribute your systems”, until you need it, then “Do NOT distribute your systems”, unless you really really really need it. So the Monolith is the perfect start for any start-up and can suit your need for a very long time, potentially forever.   So why bother understanding what Microservices is all about? There might come a day, when you feel you grow out of your Monolith. The size of your organization has grown quite a lot, your dev department is getting bigger, perhaps dev centers separated geographically. All you know is that growth is the only thing that will stay stable for the near future. Sooner or later I think you will start to see the typical signs of you outgrowing your Monolith (if not – congratulations, please tell me and the world how you did it); You s...

From my welcome opening speech of Netlight Edge Conference 2015 in wonderful Alte Kongresshalle in Munich. I’m Mandus Engman, I’m Partner at Netlight, I’m a Genuine Consultant, I’m entrepreneur,  I’m a father and I’m a believer. I meet many different companies in different situations, different challenges, different opportunities. I meet the people I’m a believer in that I believe together we can make a difference. We can achieve something together. I love this day because it gives me perspective and time to reflect. Where am I; where am I heading; why am I doing what I do. We tend to ask ourselves and talk about “what” and “how” but so many times we’re missing the “why” – and without the “why” we’re missing the essence, the depth – what is meaningful for real. So why are we all here? I know why I am here, but why are you here today? I know by fact that we are all here by free will. It's Sunday and no one gets paid any extra to be here. So we’re not here ...

What do I bring from Netlight Edge Conference 2015? What a fantastic conference - by consultants for consultants - Alte Kongresshalle with the very cool typical 50-ties interior in combination with the Netlight boid decoration made such a great setting. On top of that put the energy, the engagement, the knowledge, the experience and professionalism of over 500 Netlight consultants and clients.   Below please find my takes from the day, based on the presentations and tracks I happened to choose. As you see below I was in the Big Data mood when making my choice of presentations. For full schedule see my previous post. Netlight Edge Conference 2015 - What is currently Edge? Welcome Speech Of course there was a spectacular welcome speech by Edge Evangelist Mandus Engman (me ;-) And if you don’t know, Edge is the Netlight word for knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing that is one fundamental cornerstone in creating together as Genuine Consultants). I spoke abou...