Great weekend up north

The family spent the weekend up north at Hvammstangi, a peculiar place in Northwest Iceland.

The driving conditions driving north were not that good, icy roads and a mild blizard, but this only ads to the adventure. On Saturday night it started snowing and the wind blowing so we had a cosy cabin style evening, closed in by the storm. Sunday morning when we woke up it was all white; The winter has arrived!

Thanks, Steini, Þórdís, Ásta and Björgvin for a nice weekend!

Airline Industry

Southwest Airlines is loosing money for the first time since 1991, not on operating basis where they are still making money, but due to sharp decline in Jet Fuel prizes!!
"Southwest has benefited for years from fuel hedging that shielded it somewhat from rising jet fuel prices, while most competitors lacked hedges, had hedges at much higher prices or hadn't invested enough to make much difference on their costs". 1
Note, that at the same time the Icelandic flag carrier ,Icelandair, has reported a record turnover an increase of 68% from the same time last year.2

Social-economy

We‘ve been working a lot on social media lately. Figuring out who and how people are using it, looking for marketing opportunities. We’ve been advertising on Facebook, MySpace and Google; we’ve created fan pages, event invitations and groups. We’ve been twittering, blogging, using Flickr and YouTube etc.
We’ve been doing quite well on these sites, it’s hard work but it gathers leads and dialogues and puts our brands closer to the consumer. Still measuring ROI or some kind of a Conversion Rate has been really difficult.
With declining economies and tight budgets, companies will be looking more into low cost, alternative vehicles. My guess is that these vehicles that cost little money but are work intensive will be favored over costly outsourced mediums (Print, TV, Radio, banners). So old school selling with one-on-one dialogs, house visits and phone calls (Not the robotic telemarketing practiced in the US) might come back with web 2.0 solutions. Trying to create a dialog with your customers, a buzz about your brand and hard selling! Just like the marketing books taught us.
Just read a great article on Zappos by Bill Taylor at Harvard Business Publishing, does not prove my case but still makes a gesture in that direction.

Natural Yoga at Hvanneyri

During weekends we often retreat to Hvanneyri where I grew up. It‘s a small village on the west coast some 70 km north of Reykjavík and only 10 km from Borgarnes where Agnes grew up.

It‘s a unique place with amazing scenery and relaxed atmosphere.

Spring and fall are special to me, at that time we often keep some of our horses in the backyard and in the fields around the village thousands of The Greenland White fronted Geese gather and gain strength for their migration between Scotland and the west coast of Greenland. It’s believed ¼ of the entire population gathers at Hvanneyri. It’s a spectacular sight and what’s even more spectacular is the sound. At sunrise and sunset they move from their night time location on the riverbank to their daytime location on the fields around Hvanneyri, during this transition they “sing”. For me this singing is like yoga or meditation. When waking up and going to sleep it’s amazing to listen to hundreds upon hundreds of these friendly guests sing and communicate with each other.

Work in progress

Spending the weekends at Bifröst University to work on my MSc thesis. Whole lot of work to do...
I'm researching the innovation process of Icelandic Service firms and comparing it to tried and tested models of innovation in production companies. I'm excited about the work ahead but a bit worried how the Icelandic service sector will react to my questions.
Well no time to blog!

Normal

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
- Ellen Goodman

The handy man

Alexander is always fixing and repairing things, just like his dad!!

Biking to work in Iceland

As Icelandic readers of my Eco-blog have noticed I sold our second car last year and started to bike to work. It can be tough in the Icelandic winter but none the less it gives me great pleasure.
From October till April we use studded winter tires, Ive been trying to delay to change tires but after a glorious fall yesterday it's not avoidable anymore. I'll bee riding studded tires and mounting the winter lights tomorrow morning.

Financial crisis on a Blackboard!

CDO's made simple!

Cold weather commuting

Today was the first day of cold weather commuting. I’m commuting a new route these days through the Laugardalur park, it’s a nice ride but far to short to be considered as training or some kind of a workout. So I just chill and try to enjoy these few minutes of solitary. No way I’m buying a second car again!

My brother just wrote a nice blog on his bike blog about our last trip this summer. Those days in the mountains with my brother are some of the best I’ve ever had.