Week 3: ????????

Before taking a short week off and going to Hamburg with my husband, child, and my mother, I had a proper workday Monday ??

MON

Got up early, around 7 am, and worked all through 9, when the house got up. I got ready and headed out the door to meet Nestors Kuliks and Zdeněk Pa?ek . Nestors have been working on some needed job cards for our job board. By my request, he only worked with what was already there and not adding any new things. That being said we have been collecting a bunch of data our UX'ers have never seen so some of those things are coming into play ?? Zdeněk is our developer and we did a walkthrough of the new card. Then we moved on to the internal job uploader app we use. Hacked together over many new editions to the data, it was a true startup-mutant-monster-baby ?? We walk through it, I explained the logic, he asked questions, we came up with improvements, generated new future ideas for the job board, and overall had a great session. The synergy effect of working with UX'ers and developers is so beautiful ?? I really missed that.

Zdeněk stuck around to work on the code, and we grabbed lunch together. Usually, I eat at home or in the office with the good Kvalifik people. But it was really awesome to spend time with my team. Not that we talked that much about work, but getting to know each other better. Improving our relation which directly impacts how well we collaborate. Getting to know him better is such a privilege, also because he is a really awesome human being ?? *shout out to Martin Windsor for pushing him in our direction ??

While he worked on the code, I got ready for my 2nd 'Job seeker work session.' This one was themed "The 4 mindsets of UX design" but more commonly referred to as the RCAT Model. It's a model I developed to better communicate UX profiles, both as professionals also for companies looking to hire a UX'er.

Quite the turnout this time around with Paula Pātrunjel , Bonnie Lee Bogers , and Stela Valentinova joining online, and Erzsébet Bálint , Sander Andreas Schwartz , Julia Costa , Bailey Doolittle , Michael Vogelius , Flore Nové-Josserand , Beril Kurtulus and Martin V. joining physically ??

After my lightning talk, everyone diverted into groups to discuss portfolio in one and CV in another one. This might have been the starting point, but people covered a lot of different topics. I had hoped people would take out their computers and actually work on their material, but these sessions are still developing. Hopefully next time I can make this happen, however, it was cool to see some actually stay after the session and continue working. People also assured me that they gained a lot from the session, so I'm happy ??

After the session, Zdeněk showed me he had finished the job card and was working on putting the backend/job uploading app up. Biking home, I was thinking about how awesome it was. Because the design scope was so clear and well done, my talented developer could get it up and running in no time.

I went straight home to Olivia and Lars and we started packing our things. We took public transportation to my stepdad in Kolding where we spend the night, after catching up over toasts and a 'vacation' glass of wine.

TUE

We met my mother at the train station and boarded what we thought was a direct train to Hamburg. The decision to go by train to Hamburg was to make it easier on ourselves on our first vacation with baby Olivia, who is almost 7 months old.

Some power cords had fallen down due to the windy weather the day before so we had to take 3 different trains and a bus just to get to Hamburg. Then an additional bus to get to our apartment ???? We were supposed to arrive at 12 and we arrived at 16 ?? The apartment we found through Airbnb was really nice with a lot of thoughtful touches. We walked around in the neighborhood, eat at an Italian restaurant, and went home to bed at Olivia's request.

WED

We walked partly around the lake, aiming for the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg , we went up the longest escalator in Europe (quite underwhelming ??) and enjoyed a beautiful view of a clear sky. We met up with an old acquaintance/friend of my mom's, and it was really cool to hear him tell stories about the city and show us some landmarks. That day was way too long and Olivia was so overwhelmed she cried herself to sleep after 4 hours ?? We were very surprised by this and made plans to avoid this being repeated.

THU

I was feeling a bit sick so we stayed home and just charged. My mom took Olivia out for a stroll but that was basically it. Lars and I started playing the old 'The curse of Monkey Island' which we both played as kids.

FRI

We had a slow start on the day at home, eating breakfast there. We wanted to visit Miniatur Wunderland , but there weren't any tickets that suited Olivia's internal schedule that day. So we bought tickets for the next day. Lars walked the sleeping Olivia around in her pram, while my mom and I visited the Spice Museum. Mixed experience, but I did learn something about how some of our spices grow which I found interesting. Like cloves are parts of a flower, while vanilla grows like beans.

Back in 2019 (I think) I went to Web Summit with Line Cecilie Barfod and Christina Bruun who introduced me to Primark . Now I can't travel anywhere without looking up if there is one nearby. So obviously we had to go there. We got so much cute baby clothing for Olivia ??

SAT

Olivia gave Lars a rough night. She did in theory sleep fine, but she needed close contact, sleeping on his chest and was moving around almost all night. So that morning, my mom and I took her and Lars slept in by himself. We walked to the other side of the lake and did some window shopping. We texted Lars when we started looking for a place to eat lunch, and he joined us. Then we finally went to Miniatur Wunderland.

I have been to Miniatur Wunderland before, but it truly is an experience. It's the world′s largest model railway, with custom-made everything. We came at around 16:30 and left around 20 ?? Time just flies when you immerse yourself in the stories playing out. In a perfect world, we would have stayed longer, but the little girl was getting tired. She was nonetheless very engaged and enjoying it. We ordered dinner through Wolt for the 3rd evening in a row.

SUN

We got up packed, had breakfast, and walked towards centrum. We had a coffee break on the way where Olivia had some more food, had a steak lunch, bought and send off the last postcard, and boarded our direct train. In Kolding, we said goodbye to my mom, grabbed a slice (it's not called slice town for nothing), and jumped on our next direct train for Copenhagen.

UPCOMING WEEK

Monday I'm really excited for Anne Cathrine Wind Fallesen to do an amazing talk; "The Human aspect of IT Development" + she has planned a workshop for us. If someone wants to participate, I have a free ticket to spare ??

https://cphux-1.ticketbutler.io/en/e/the-human-aspect-of-it-development-workshop-ux-book-passion-talk-physical/